Aristophanes of Byzantium (Ancient Greek: Ἀριστοφάνης ὁ Βυζάντιος Aristophánēs ho Buzántios; Byzantium c. 257 – Alexandria c. 185–180 BC) was a Hellenistic Greek scholar, critic and grammarian, particularly renowned for his work in Homeric scholarship, but also for work on other classical authors such as Pindar and Hesiod.
This was also a period when Greek, in the wake of Alexander's conquests, was beginning to act as a lingua franca for the Eastern Mediterranean (replacing various Semitic languages).
), similar to a modern colon or semicolon, and for very long pauses (periodos), a stigmḕ teleía point near the top of the line of text (·).
He also edited Hesiod, the chief lyric, tragic and comic poets, arranged Plato's dialogues in trilogies, and abridged Aristotle's Nature of Animals.
[9] All that has survived of Aristophanes of Byzantium's voluminous writings are a few fragments preserved through quotation in the literary commentaries, or scholia, of later writers, several argumenta to works of Greek drama, and part of a glossary.