Zoilus
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Zoilus (Greek: Ζωίλος, c. 400 BC-320 BC) was a Greek grammarian, Cynic philosopher, and literary critic from Amphipolis in Macedon.
According to Vitruvius (vii., preface) he lived during the age of Ptolemy Philadelphus, by whom he was crucified as the punishment of his criticisms on the king; but this account should probably be rejected as a fiction based on Zoilus' reputation. Zoilus appears to have been at one time a follower of Isocrates, but subsequently a pupil of Polycrates, whom he heard at Athens, where he was a teacher of rhetoric.
Zoilus is especially notable for his role in the beginnings of Homeric scholarship. His monograph Homeric questions seems to have analysed continuity errors in Homer, but also criticised the impropriety of Homer's depiction of gods indulging in allegedly inappropriate behaviour. This monograph is widely regarded as the beginning of classical scholarship.[citation needed] Zoilus also wrote responses to works by Isocrates and Plato, who had attacked the style of Lysias of which he approved.
However, the Homeric questions led to his becoming a byword for harsh and malignant criticism: in antiquity he gained the name Homeromastix, "scourge of Homer"; and in the modern period, Cervantes calls Zoilus a "slanderer"in the preface to Don Quixote, and there is a (now disused) proverb, "Every poet has his Zoilus." Since his writings do not survive, it is impossible to know whether this caricature is justified.
[edit] References
- U. Friedländer, De Zoilo aliisque Homeri Obtrectatoribus (Konigsberg, 1895)
- J.E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship (2nd ed. 1906)
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
