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

1. Of Nysa in Caria, was a son of Menecrates, and a pupil of the celebrated grammarian, Aristarchus. (Schol. ad Pind. Nem. 7.1; Strab. xiv. p.650.) He himself was a celebrated grammarian, and Strabo in his youth was a pupil of Aristodemus at Nysa, who was then an old man. It is not improbable that the Aristodemus whom the Scholiast on Pindar (Pind. I. 1.11) calls an Alexandrian, is the same as the Nysaean, who must have resided for some time at Alexandria.

2. Of Nysa, a relation (ἀνεψιός) of the former, He was younger than the former, distinguished himself as a grammarian and rhetorician, and is mentioned among the instructors of Pompey the Great. During the earlier period of his life he taught rhetoric at Nysa and Rhodes; in his later years he resided at Rome and instructed the sons of Pompey in grammar. (Strab. xiv. p.650.) One of these two grammarians wrote an historical work (ἱστορίαι), the first book of which is quoted by Parthenius (Erot. 8), but whether it was the work of the elder or the younger Aristodemus, and what was the subject of it, cannot be decided. (Comp. Varr. de Ling. Lat. 10.75, ed. Miller; Schol. ad Hom. Il. 9.354, 13.1.)

3. Of Elis, a Greek writer, who is referred to by Harpocration (s. v. Ἑλλανοδίκαι) as an authority respecting the number of the Hellanodicae. He is probably the same as the one mentioned by Tertullian (de An. 46) and Eusebius. (Chron. i. p. 37; comp. Syncellus, p. 370, ed. Dindorf.) An Aristodemus is mentioned by Athenaeus (xi. p. 495) as the author of a commentary on Pindar, and is often referred to in the Scholia on Pindar, but whether he is the Elean or Nysaean, cannot be decided.

4. Of Thebes (Schol. ad Theocrit. 7.103).

[L.S]