THE UNRULY TONGUE: PHILITAS OF COS AS SCHOLAR AND POET.

Scholars; Scholarly method; Poets; Literature; Librarians; Libraries

Philitas of Cos stands as a gray eminence at the start of Alexandrian scholarship and literature. Described as "simultaneously a poet and a critic" he was picked by Ptolemy I Soter to be tutor to his son Philadelphus and is said to have taught Zenodotus of Ephesus, first librarian of the Alexandrian Library. His comments on epic vocabulary in his pioneering lexical study. As all this suggests, Philitas' activity and impact loom large-in the work of others. Regrettably, he says very little to us in his own voice, since his oeuvre has mostly vanished, surviving only in brief citations and fragments.