ARISTARCHUS, of Samothrace (c. 220-143 B.c.), Greek grammarian and critic. He settled early in Alexandria, where he studied under Aristophanes of Byzantium, whom he succeeded as librarian of the museum. On the accession of Euergetes II. he found his life in danger and withdrew to Cyprus, where he died. Aristarchus founded a school of philologists, called after him "Aristarcheans," which long flourished in Alexandria and after wards at Rome. He is said to have written Boo commentaries alone, without reckoning special treatises.
He edited Hesiod, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles and other authors; but his chief fame rests on his critical and exegetical edi tion of Homer, practically the foundation of our present text. In the time of Augustus, two Aristarcheans, Didymus and Aristo nicus, undertook the revision of his work, and the extracts from these two writers in the Venetian scholia to the Iliad give an idea of Aristarchus's Homeric labours. He arranged the Iliad and the Odyssey in 24 books as we now have them.
See Lehrs, De Aristarchi Stud. Homericis (3rd ed., 1882) ; Ludwich, Aristarchs homerische Textcritik (1884) ; and especially Sandys, Hist. of Class. Schol. (ed. 1921) , vol. i. with authorities; see also HOMER ;