The name of Aristophanes lends special interest to this arrangement of the Platonic compositions, and enables us to understand something of the date and the place to which it belongs. The literary and critical students (Grammatici) among whom he stood eminent, could scarcely be said to exist as a class the time when Plato died. Beginning with Aristotle, Herakleides of Pontus, Theophrastus, Demetrius Phalereus, &c., at Athens, during the half century immediately succeeding Plato’s decease — these laborious and useful erudites were first called into full efficiency along with the large collection of books formed by the Ptolemies at Alexandria during a period beginning rather before 300 B.C.: which collection served both as model and as stimulus to the libraries subsequently formed by the kings at Pergamus and elsewhere. In those libraries alone could materials be found for their indefatigable application.
Aristophanes, librarian at the Alexandrine library.
Of these learned men, who spent their lives in reading, criticising, arranging, and correcting, the MSS. accumulated in a great library, Aristophanes of Byzantium was the most distinguished representative, in the eyes of men like Varro, Cicero, and Plutarch.[15] His life was passed at Alexandria, and seems to have been comprised between 260-184 B.C.; as far as can be made out. During the latter portion of it he became chief librarian — an appointment which he had earned by long previous studies in the place, as well as by attested experience in the work of criticism and arrangement. He began his studious career at Alexandria at an early age: and he received instruction, as a boy from Zenodotus, as a young man from Kallimachus — both of whom were, in succession, librarians of the Alexandrine library.[16] We must observe that Diogenes does not expressly state the distribution of the Platonic works into trilogies to have been first proposed or originated by Aristophanes (as he states that the tetralogies were afterwards proposed by the rhetor Thrasyllus, of which presently): his language is rather more consistent with the supposition, that it was first proposed by some one earlier, and adopted or sanctioned by the eminent authority of Aristophanes. But at any rate, the distribution was proposed either by Aristophanes himself, or by some one before him and known to him.
[15] Varro, De Linguâ Latinâ, v. 9, ed. Müller. “Non solum ad Aristophanis lucernam, sed etiam ad Cleanthis, lucubravi.” Cicero, De Fin. v. 19, 50; Vitruvius, Præf. Lib. vii.; Plutarch, “Non posse suaviter vivi sec. Epicurum,” p. 1095 E.
Aristophanes composed Argumenta to many of the Attic tragedies and comedies: he also arranged in a certain order the songs of Alkæus and the odes of Pindar. Boeckh (Præfat. ad Scholia Pindari, p. x. xi.) remarks upon the mistake made by Quintilian as well as by others, in supposing that Pindar arranged his own odes. Respecting the wide range of erudition embraced by Aristophanes, see F. A. Wolf, Prolegg. in Homer, pp. 218-220, and Schneidewin, De Hypothes. Traged. Græc. Aristophani vindicandis, pp. 26, 27.
[16] Suidas, vv. Ἀριστοφάνης, Καλλίμαχος. Compare Clinton, Fast. Hellen. B.C. 256-200.
Plato’s works in the Alexandrine library, before the time of Aristophanes.
This fact is of material importance, because it enables us to infer with confidence, that the Platonic works were included in the Alexandrine library, certainly during the lifetime of Aristophanes, and probably before it. It is there only that Aristophanes could have known them; his whole life having been passed in Alexandria. The first formal appointment of a librarian to the Alexandrine Museum was made by Ptolemy Philadelphus, at some time after the commencement of his reign in 285 B.C., in the person of Zenodotus; whose successors were Kallimachus, Eratosthenes, Apollonius, Aristophanes, comprising in all a period of a century.[17]
[17] See Ritschl, Die Alexandrinischen Bibliotheken, pp. 16-17, &c.; Nauck, De Aristophanis Vitâ et Scriptis, cap. i. p. 68 (Halle, 1848). “Aristophanis et Aristarchi opera, cum opibus Bibliothecæ Alexandrinæ digerendis et ad tabulas revocandis arctè conjuncta, in eo substitisse censenda est, ut scriptores, in quovis dicendi genere conspicuos, aut breviori indice comprehenderent, aut uberiore enarratione describerent,” &c.
When Zenodotus was appointed, the library had already attained considerable magnitude, so that the post and title of librarian was then conspicuous and dignified. But Demetrius Phalereus, who preceded Zenodotus, began his operations when there was no library at all, and gradually accumulated the number of books which Zenodotus found. Heyne observes justly: “Primo loco Demetrius Phalereus præfuisse dicitur, forte re verius quam nomine, tum Zenodotus Ephesius, hic quidem sub Ptolemæo Philadelpho,” &c. (Heyne, De Genio Sæculi Ptolemæorum in Opuscul. i. p. 129).