Aristarchus of Samothrace

Aristarchus of Samothrace (also Aristarchus of Samothrace, Greek Ἀρίσταρχος; * to 216 BC; † 144 BC) was a famous Greek scholar and director of the Library of Alexandria.

Aristarchus was a student of the philologist Aristophanes of Byzantium, his successor as head of the Library of Alexandria he was. The Egyptian king Ptolemy VI. ( 180-145 BC), he served as tutor to the princes, from whose brother Ptolemy VIII he fled 145/144 BC to Cyprus.

Aristarchus preoccupation was the grammar and especially the literary and textual criticism. He led the directives of his textual criticism from the texts of Homer ago, the oldest surviving texts of Greek literature, which could be considered as the only secure critique guidelines in his view.

The work of Aristarchus become the highlight of the ancient philology. Among his most famous pupils included Apollodorus and Dionysius Thrax, whose grammar was based largely on the results of his teacher.

After Aristarchus of Samothrace, is a " severe critic " called " Aristarchus " (Cicero ad Atticum 1, 14, 3; Jerome Epistle 57, 12, and others),