Thomas Magistros

(monastic name, Theodulus). Born circa 1270 in Solun (Salonika); died 1325. Byzantine philologist.

Thomas Magistros was a counselor to Emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus (1282–1328). His principal work was A Compilation of Attic Nouns and Verbs, an alphabetic dictionary of words and expressions, with examples of usage taken from classical writers. For the dictionary, Thomas used old lexicons and the works of such authors as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Synesius. He was the author of letters and orations, notably “On the Power of Kings” and “On the State,” as well as scholia to the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Synesius.