During the first century A.D. there was a scholar at the library of Alexandria named Didymos. Didymos was a prolific writer. According to Wise Men at Dinner by Athenaios, Didymos wrote over 4,000 books. According to On the Education of the Orator by Marcus Fabius Quintillianus, Didymos wrote more treatises than any other person had ever written before. As a result of his intense stamina for writing, Didymos became known as “Χαλκέντερος,” which means “The Bronze-Gutted.”
Didymos was notorious for viciously attacking other scholars’ ideas and rejecting their opinions out of hand. On one occasion, he is reported to have rejected another scholar’s thesis as being totally absurd and ridiculous. Then the scholar brought forth one of Didymos’s own books in which Didymos himself argued for precisely the exact same thesis that he had dismissed. After this incident, Didymos became known as “Βιβλιολάθας,” which literally means “the Book-Forgetter.”
Ironically, despite Didymos having produced such voluminous writings, absolutely none of his writings have survived to the present day in any way, shape, or form, except for a few scanty fragments that provide us with little to no insight into his ideas.
SOURCES
Athenaios. Wise Men at Dinner.
Quintillianus, Marcus Fabius. On the Education of the Orator.
IMAGE CREDITS
The image at the beginning of this article is a nineteenth century lithograph depicting the Library of Alexandria. It was created by the English artist, O. Van Corven. This image was retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. This image is in the public domain in the United States of America.
