Aristonicus of Alexandria was a Greek grammarian and scholar who lived and worked during the late Hellenistic and early Roman Imperial periods, roughly in the 1st century BCE to the 1st century CE. He was part of the tradition of Alexandrian scholarship, which focused on editing and explaining classical Greek texts. He is known to have been active in Rome and was a contemporary of other scholars like the geographer Strabo.

His most important work was a collection titled On the Signs of the Iliad and Odyssey. This book explained the system of critical marks—such as obeloi and asterisks—that earlier Alexandrian editors like Aristarchus had placed in the margins of Homer’s poems. Aristonicus’s work itself does not survive intact but is preserved in fragments within the ancient commentaries found in medieval manuscripts of Homer. According to modern scholars, he may have written other grammatical works, but these are lost and their exact titles are uncertain.

Aristonicus’s historical importance lies in his role as a preserver of earlier scholarly traditions. His explanations of the critical signs provide a vital link to the methods of Hellenistic textual criticism. Although his own writings are fragmentary, they are frequently cited in the margins of Homeric manuscripts, making his work an essential source for understanding how ancient scholars studied and edited Homer’s poetry.