A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

Smith, William

A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. William Smith, LLD, ed. 1890

(Ἀριστώνυμος), a comic poet and contemporary of Aristophanes and Ameipsias. (Anonym. in Vit. Aristoph.; Schol. ad Platon. p. 331, Bekker.) We know the titles of only two of his comedies, viz. Theseus (Athen. 3.87), and Ἥλιος ʽριγῶν (Athen. vii. pp. 284, 287), of which only a few fragments are extant. Schweighäuser and Fabricius place this poet in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, an error into which both were led by Suidas (s. v. (Ἀριστώνυμος), who, if the reading is correct, evidently confounds the poet with some grammarian. If there had ever existed a grammarian of this name, and if he had written the works attributed to him by Suidas, he would assuredly have been mentioned by other writers also. This is not the case; and as we know that Aristophanes of Byzantium was the successor of Apollonius as chief librarian at Alexandria (which Suidas says of Aristonymus), Meineke conjectures with great probability, that the name of Aristophanes has dropped out in our text of Suidas. (Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Gr. p. 196, &c.)

An Athenian, of the name of Aristonymus, who was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, but not a grammarian, is mentioned by Athenaeus. (x. p. 452, xii. p. 538.) There were also two writers of this name, but neither of them appears to have been a grammarian. (Plut. de Flum. p. 1165; Stobaeus, passim.)

[L.S]