Dear Andrew Dalby,

b priestley would like to know if you have “written anywhere in detail about the editing of Homer by Zenodotus.” If you haven’t he’d like to know if you would tell him “where to find the latest scholarship on this.”

Meanwhile, he mentions how he enjoyed your book Empire of Pleasures, pictured below.

Yes, a luscious read, though it is this book (below) that we are all currently keen on:

Note to self:

Ζηνόδοτος

Greek grammarian, first superintendent of the Library of Alexandria, Homeric scholar.

According to Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology:

The corrections which Zenodotus applied to the text of Homer were of three kinds.

1. He expunged verses.

2. He marked them as spurious, but left them in his copy.

3. He introduced new readings or trans­posed or altered verses.

And according to the Britannica:

After comparing different manuscripts of Homer, he deleted doubtful lines, transposed others, made emendations, and divided the Iliad and the Odyssey into 24 books each.

Zenodotus’ edition—knowledge of which is derived almost entirely from later scholia on Homer—was severely attacked for its subjectivity by later scholars, notably one of his successors at the library, Aristarchus of Samothrace (c. 217–c. 145 BC) who modified Zenodotus’ work.