A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

1312 ZENODOTUS. ZENODOTUS.
oficina non modo ex argilla similitudznem insi#nem, delphus together with his two great contemporaries,
vetum et ex parvis admodum surculis, quod primum Alexander the Aetolian and Lycophron the Chalcioperis instaurati fuit.) But this extraordinary dian, to collect and revise all the Greek poets.
work betrayed a great defect in the technical know- Alexander, we are told, undertook the task of
ledge of the artists of that age, namely that the collecting the tragedies, Lycophron the comedies,
refinements in the art of casting bronze, which gave and Zenodotus the poems of Homer, and of the
such exquisite beauty and even varied power of other illustrious poets (Ilomeri poemnata et reliquoexpression to statues made of the Delian or Aegi- rum inlustriunz poetaraum). This important statenetan or Corinthian mixtures, had been forgotten. ment, preserved by the Scholiast on Plautus, from
Pliny's words are: —Ea status indicavit interisse the commentary of Tzetzes on the Plutus of Arifundendi aeris scientiam, cum et Nero largiri aursum stophanes, has given rise to much discussion. By
argentzumque paratus esset, et Zenodorus scientia " the other illustrious poets," Welcker supposed
fingendi caelandique nulli veteruum postponeretur. that the epic poets, and MUller that the lyric poets
His meaning cannot be that the art of casting were intended; but as it was evidently the intenbronze, in the most literal sense, had perished, for the tion of Philadelphus to make a complete collection
statue was cast in bronze, and besides, many works of the Greek poets, there is no reason why we
in bronze are mentioned, and some still exist, of should not take the words of the Scholiast in their
a period subsequent to this, in which the mere cast- plain obvious meaning, and believe that Zenodotus
ing is faultless.* Neither, as Pliny expressly says, made a collection of all the other illustrious poets
was the defect in the form of the model or in the both epic and lyric. It has been shown satisfacornamental chasing of the surface, for in these arts torily by more than one modern writer that Zeno(fingendi caelandique) Zenodorus was inferior to dotus made a collection of all the poems belonging
alone of the ancients. Nor was it in any want of to the epic cycle, and that his labours were not
suitable materials, for " Nero was prepared to confined to the Iliad and Odyssey. It was, howlavish gold and silver," if they were required to ever, to the latter poems that he devoted his chief
make the proper compound. (We have here, no attention. Hence he is called the first ALopOwE-r-s
doubt, an allusion to the fable respecting the corm- of Homer, and his recension (AidpoNlGzs) of the
position of the aes Corinthiaczum by the mixture Iliad and Odyssey obtained the greatest celebrity.
of copper or bronze with the precious metals.) It It is frequently quoted by Eustathius, the Venetian
can hardly be, supposed even that the numerical Scholia,and other grammarians under various titles,
proportions of the ancient mixtures were forgotten. such as, j ZInvo'UTeLos, X ZOBdOTOV, i ZVoaoS'Ou
There remains, we think, no doubt that the know- 3tdpOnelS, ai Z?7vob'rov, a! Zr7,obdorov LopO o-ets,
ledge, which Pliny states to have been lost, was a' Zrvno'drov, Ta ZrIvoo'Teia, &c. The corrections
that of the more refined processes of the art, such as which Zenodotus applied to the text of Homer
the proper temperature, and those other conditions were of three kinds. 1. HIe expunged verses. 2.
which no mere rules can preserve. This view is He marked them as spurious, but left them in his
confirmed, as Thiersch has shown, by the state- copy. 3. He introduced new readings or transments of Pliny respecting the processes adopted posed or altered verses. Examples of these corby the statuaries of his time. We may also refer rections are given by Clinton. (Fasti Hell. vol. iii.
the reader to Thiersch for an account of the sub- p. 491, foll.) The great attention which Zenodotus
sequent history of the colossus of Nero. (Plin. paid to the language of Homer caused a new
H. N. xxxiv. 7. s. 18; Thiersch, Epocklen, pp. 307 epoch in the grammatical study of the Greek
-313; Muller, Archiiol. d. Kunst, ~ 197. language. The results of his investigations reIn the MSS. of Pliny we have the confusion, specting the meaning and the use of words were
which is so frequently made, between the names contained in two works which he published under
Zenodorus and Zenodotus; but there is no doubt the title of a Glossary (rFoo-o-aa, Schol. ad Apoll.
that the former is the true reading. [P. S.] Rhod. ii. 1005; Schol. ad Ti/eocr. v. 2) and a DicZENO'DOTUS (Zlldeoros). 1. Of EPH.Esus, tionary of barbarous or foreign phrases (Ae'(sEs eovla celebrated grammarian, was the first superin- cai, Galen, Gloss. ITippocr. s. vv. 7r'iat and 7re'Aa).
tendent of the great library at Alexandria, in which It was probably from his glossary, as Wolf has
office he was succeeded by Callimachus. He lived remarked, that the grammarians took the few exduring the reigns of the first and second Ptolemies, planations of the passages of Homer, which they
the son of Lagus and Philadelphus, but as he was cite under the name of Zenodotus, since it is very
probably not appointed librarian till the reign of doubtful whether he wrote Commentaries (sbropuviPhiladelphus, he may be said to have flourished Meara) on Homer. Athenaeus likewise quotes two
about n. c. 280. Suidas places him under the first other works by Zenodotus, one called'Eyrt-oeal
Ptolemy, and says that he educated the children of (x. p. 412, a), and the other'Ieropra vunrouzr/z?'ara
Ptolemy; but it is more probable that these were (iii. p. 96, f), but it is doubtful whether they were
the children of Philadelphus than of the first Pto- written by this Zenodotus, or by Zenodotus the
lemy. Zenodotus was a pupil of the grammarian Alexandrine mentioned below. (Wolf, Prolegom.
Philetas, who was probably also the instructor of ad 11om.; Heffter, De Zenodoto ej'usque studiis
Philadelphus. Zenodotus was employed by Phila- Homericis, Brandenburg, 1839; DUntzer, De Zenodoti Studiis Ho7sericis, Gittingen, 1848; Grifenhan,
* Some interpreters have supposed Pliny to Gescshichte derKlassichen Philoloyie, vol. i. pp. 379,
mean that " the art of casting in bronze was lost," 430, 534, 542, vol. ii. p. 32.)
and therefore (rather a considerable conclusion to 2. Of ALEXANDRIA, a grammarian, lived after
be " understood ") the statue was made of marble. Aristarchus, whose recension of the Homeric poems
Of many arguments which disprove this view, it he attacked. He is distinguished by the epithet
may suffice to mention the decisive one, that in o e' &60TreI K1 5s0eL by Suidas, who assigns the folthis part of his work Pliny is speaking of bronze lowing works to him: 1. IIpbs Ar&,Vr''Aplo'radpXo
works only, OETO' e-vza T'oU 7rol'TOV. 2. rIpbs hIAadTCva 7reoo'