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Apollonius Dyscolus

2nd-century Greek grammarian

Field	Value
name	Apollonius Dyscolus
image	Апалоній Дыскол.jpg
birth_date	2nd century
birth_place	Alexandria
death_date	2nd century
occupation	Grammarian
parents	Mnesitheus of Alexandria (father)

Apollonius Dyscolus (; reached his maturity sometime around 130 CE) is considered one of the greatest of the Greek grammarians.

Life

Little is known of Apollonius Dyscolus, other than that he was born at Alexandria, son of Mnesitheus. The precise dates for his life are not known. His son Aelius Herodianus, who wrote on phonology, appears to have moved to Rome at the time of Marcus Aurelius. From this it is inferred that his father must have been a contemporary of Hadrian, and may have spent a short period in Rome during the reign of Antoninus Pius. One tradition holds that he was so poor that he could not afford papyri to write on, and was constrained to avail himself of potsherds to write down his thoughts. His monicker ho dúskolos signifying "the difficult" or "crabby/grouchy" may reflect the sour temper of someone reduced to eking out a living in extreme indigence. Various interpretations have been advanced arguing the nickname was expressive of his highly compressed, difficult style, or as illustrating his cantankerously disputatious manner, or as alluding to his habit of citing arcane words in contests with other grammarians, in order to perplex them. He died in poverty in what was formerly the royal quarter of the city of Alexandria.

Works

He was the founder of scientific syntax, and is styled by Priscian maximus auctor artis grammaticae ('the greatest authority on the science of grammar'), and grammaticorum princeps ('prince of grammarians'). He wrote extensively on the parts of speech. Of the twenty books named in the Suda, four are extant: on syntax, and three smaller treatises: on adverbs, on conjunctions, and on pronouns. One characteristic which was to influence later generations was Apollonius' deployment of philosophical concepts in grammatical analysis. The earlier Alexandrine grammatical tradition was familiar with distinctions such as that between genos and eidos, but these were not used in refining distinctions between the parts of speech. Apollonius drew on Stoic ontology to analyse the noun and the verb.

Like his son, Aelius Herodianus, he had an enormous influence on all later grammarians.

Notes

Citations

Sources

{{Cite book| title = The Syntax of Apollonius Dyscolus
{{Cite book
{{Cite book| title = Apollonius Dyscole: De la construction: Introduction, texte et traduction
{{Cite book| title = Apollonius Dyscole: De la construction: Notes et index
{{Cite book| title = Grammar and Philosophy in Late Antiquity: A Study of Priscian's Sources
{{Cite book| title = The Verb in the Greek Non-literary Papyri
{{Cite book| title = The Byzantine Grammarians: Their Place in History | author-link = R. H. Robins
{{Cite book| title = A History of Classical Scholarship: From the End of the Sixth Century B.C. to the End of the Middle Ages | author-link = John Sandys (classicist)
{{Cite book| title = Apollonii Scripta minora

References

[http://www.stoa.org/sol-entries/alpha/3422 Suda α 3422]

Info: Wikipedia Source

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2nd-century-greek-writers ancient-greek-grammarians roman-era-alexandrians year-of-birth-unknown year-of-death-unknown

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