Orus/Oros: the Manuscripts of his works

Orus was a scholar resident in Constantinople, ca. 450.  He wrote a long work on orthography, a topic which became an increasingly tiresome necessity to the Byzantines as the gradual changes in the pronunciation of Greek made spelling harder.  A small section of it survives (Messina, University Library: Codex Messinensis Graecus 118).  It lists words written with the iota which today is called 'subscript' but which was often not written at all by ancient scribes, as the papyri show; or if written was written normally on the line.  He justifies his rules by quotations from a wide range of authors, some now lost, although he may not have known these writers at first hand.  

Two other works exist in quotations.  The first is a list of words with more than one meaning.  The other a list of geographical names and etymologies.

A long list of other works appears in the Suda, all lost.  Recent work has been on one of his main works, a lexicon of Attic diction designed to controvert the doctrine embedded in Phrynichus' work on the same subject.

Bibliography

N. G. WILSON, Scholars of Byzantium, London: Duckworth (1983). p.51-2. Checked.  WILSON gives a few additional details.
R. REITZENSTEIN, Geschichte der griechischen Etymologika, Lepizig (1897). pp.316-48 deal with Oros.  Not checked - reference from WILSON.
K. ALPERS, Das attizistische Lexikon des Oros, Berlin (1981), especially pp.87-101. Not checked - reference from WILSON. 

Constructive feedback is welcomed to Roger Pearse.

This page has been online since 11th August 2002

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