DIDYMUS CHALCENTERUS (c. 63 B.C.—A.D. 1o), Greek scholar and grammarian, flourished in the time of Cicero and Augustus, and taught in Alexandria and Rome. His surname, which means "brass-bowelled," came from his industry; he was said to have written more than 3,50o books. He wrote a treatise on Aristarchus' recension of Homer, of which fragments have been preserved in the Venetian Scholia. He also wrote commen taries on many other Greek poets and prose authors, and the extant scholia to Pindar, Sophocles and Aristophanes are largely due to Didymus. His work, though it showed no great critical acumen, was valuable because it collected the results reached by earlier scholars. (Ammianus Marcellinus, xxii. 16).
See M. W. Schmidt (De Didymo Chalcentero (1853) and Didymi Chalcenteri fragmenta (1854) ; also F. Susemihl, Geschichte der griech. Literatur in der Alexandrinerzeit, ii. (1891) ; J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, i. (1906).