Suppose that, while reading up on this and that, we come across the claim that Dionysius Iambus wrote a treatise on Greek dialects in the third century bc. The possibility that there was a systematic treatment of the subject at this date is rather interesting – but who was Dionysius Iambus (and why ‘Iambus’?), how do we know that he lived in the third century bc and what is the evidence for his treatise on Greek dialects?

For lucid answers to all these questions, with texts to back them up, we can now turn to the excellent book under review: it presents the evidence for the eight little-known Greek grammarians mentioned in the title, all of whom can be dated with more or less certainty to the period from the fourth to the second century bc.

The third-century date for Dionysius Iambus turns out to rest on the Suda's claim that Aristophanes of Byzantium was a pupil of his – and, as D. cautiously notes, it depends on our taking this claim literally. The evidence that he wrote a work Περὶ διαλέκτων comes from Athenaeus (7.284b), who quotes from a work of his with this title. Interestingly, however, Dionysius’ Περὶ διαλέκτων may not have been what we would normally call a treatise on Greek dialects. In its earliest attestations, the word διάλεκτος means a linguistic variety associated with some group of people; their identity need not be defined in geographical terms. In the brief extract quoted by Athenaeus, Dionysius claims to have heard an Eretrian fisherman and many other fishermen use the phrase ἱερὸς ἰχθύς for the fish otherwise known as a πομπίλoς. D. (pp. 21, 30) draws attention to an idea going back to J. Wackernagel, namely that Dionysius’ interest was in language associated with social groups such as (in this instance) those involved in fishing. As for the nickname Iambus, we do not know why Dionysius was so called (a line of poetry of his survives, but it is a hexameter), but ἴαμβος rather than (say) ἰαμβοποιός is not in itself an implausible nickname. D. notes (p. 20) that several other figures were known by nicknames consisting of nouns that do not normally denote people or deities: Anaxagoras the mind, Athena Nike and others. One might compare ‘Elvis the pelvis’.

While some of the information just mentioned can also be found in other reference works, notably Brill's Lexicon of Greek Grammarians of Antiquity (with an informative article on Dionysius Iambus by G. Ucciardello), D.'s work is on a scale that allows for more detail as well as actual texts. His treatment of each grammarian begins by laying out the evidence bearing on basic biographical points, such as the grammarian's name and date, and then introduces the main considerations bearing on the character of his scholarly activity. There follows a text of each testimonium or fragment together with critical apparatus, Italian translation and commentary.

Notably, D. provides a new critical edition of each testimonium and fragment, based on a new examination of the witnesses to the source text wherever possible. Manuscripts that he has not been able to consult either in person or via reproductions are listed with an asterisk, and are few and far between. (Information on the relationships between manuscripts is not provided, but this would be a lot to ask from a work dealing with extracts only.) He includes fragments whose attribution to the relevant grammarian he considers doubtful (marked ‘dub.’) or false (marked ‘falso trib.’), with a clear account of the reasoning behind these judgements.

D. is generous in the amount of source text printed – and edited – as context for testimonia and fragments, and makes a conscious decision to err on the side of generosity in other respects too (see p. vii): he provides a fairly full rather than more selective critical apparatus, and a commentary on the whole chunk of source text provided, not only the part pertaining most directly to his grammarian. As context for Athenaeus’ quotation from Dionysius Iambus, for example, he presents Athenaeus’ entire discussion of Homer's phrase ἱερὸς ἰχθύς (Athenaeus 7.282e–284d), and the commentary provides all manner of information with no direct bearing on Dionysius Iambus. Thus, in connection with Athenaeus’ mention of the fish χρύσοφρυς, which comes up in this passage because Callimachus calls it ἱερὸς ἰχθύς, D. provides (p. 32) a series of ancient references to the χρύσοφρυς to supplement the information in D'A.W. Thompson's Glossary of Greek Fishes (1947).

A recurring example of this generosity arises on numerous occasions when one of the text passages mentions a word or usage associated with a particular place (e.g. ‘the people of Methymna call a σκύφος σκύθος’, p. 185). In his commentary D. collects all the other glosses associated with the same place that he has been able to find or (where possible) gives a cross reference to a work that already does this. So in connection with Parmenon's claim about the Methymnaean for σκύφος, D. alerts us to three Methymnaian glosses in Hesychius (p. 192). In connection with a Syracusan gloss in a fragment of Silenus, he tells us where Syracusan glosses are collected in R. Kassel and C. Austin, Poetae Comici Graeci (p. 295). In connection with a usage attributed to Aetolians in a passsage of Athenaeus that includes a different fragment of Silenus (although the mention of an Aetolian usage does not itself derive from Silenus), he gives us sixteen further Aetolian glosses, noting that, although these are not abundant, they exist; as such they support the transmitted Αἰτωλοῖς against G. Kaibel's suggestion Αἰολεῦσι (pp. 279–80). In connection with a Laconian gloss in a fragment of Parmenon D. not only refers (p. 206) us to the Laconian glosses collected in L. Weber's Quaestionum Laconicarum capita duo (1887), but also provides a substantial list of additions from Hesychius and numerous other sources (pp. 208–26). And one could go on.

More generally, the combination of generosity and erudition that has gone into this work means that much more can be found here than one might expect. All this is very welcome, but it raises the question how a reader interested in (for example) the χρύσοφρυς or in Aetolian glosses will think of turning to this volume. However, the series Supplementum Grammaticum Graecum is eventually to be an online reference work. Nine volumes are to be made available on paper in the first instance, including the volume under review, but all the entries are ultimately destined for the online resource. I hope we will see the indexes to the individual volumes folded into an index to the whole (D.'s index rerum includes entries for both ‘χρύσοφρυς’ and ‘glossografia dialettale, Aetolia’), and that the whole will also be searchable in helpful ways.

In the meantime, D.'s book should repay reading by anyone with an interest in Hellenistic grammatical or textual activity. It shines much light on the questions that constantly confront us when dealing with the fragmentary remains of Greek scholarship of this period: when and where did a particular grammarian live, and under what precise name; how many grammarians of the same name should we recognise; can any of them be identified with any other known persons of the same name; what fragments and work titles can be attributed to our grammarian with any confidence; and last but not least, what kinds of works actually lie behind these fragments and titles? The answers cannot all be known for sure, but D. does a superb job of making it possible to understand and evaluate the evidence.