History of the Greek alphabet Plutarch criticizes Herodotus for prejudice and misrepresentation. Furthermore, he argues that "Gephyraei" were Euboeans or Eretrians and he doubts the reliability of Herodotus' sources. Plutarch and other ancient Greek writers credited the legendary Palamedes of Nauplion on Euboea with the invention of the supplementary letters not found in the original Phoenician alphabet. The distinction between "Eta" and "Epsilon" and between "Omega" and "Omicron", adopted in the Ionian standard, was traditionally attributed to Simonides of Ceos (556-469). Plutarch goes further back to describe an older Greek writing system, similar as he attested to the Egyptian writing. In his “Discourse Concerning Socrates’s
Greek alphabet an additional diacritic in certain words, the so-called iota subscript, which has the shape of a small vertical stroke or a miniature below the letter. This iota represents the former offglide of what were originally long diphthongs, (i.e. ), which became monophthongized during antiquity. Another diacritic used in Greek is the diaeresis (), indicating a hiatus. This system of diacritics was first developed by the scholar Aristophanes of Byzantium ( 257 – 185/180 BC), who worked at the Musaeum in Alexandria during the third century BC. Aristophanes of Byzantium also was the first to divide poems into lines, rather than