| Callimachus |
Articles about Callimachus |
Information AboutCallimachus |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT CALLIMACHUS | |
| ancient greek poets | |
| ancient greek educators | |
| pederasty in ancient greece | |
| pederastic poetry | |
| 305 bc births | |
| 240 bc deaths | |
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Callimachus (ca. 305 BC - ca. 240 BC ) was a Greek Poet , a native of Cyrene and a descendant of the illustrious house of the Battiadae , whence he was sometimes called Battiades (e.g., in Catullus 65). He was also a noted scholar and grammarian, and was appointed by Ptolemy Philadelphus as chief librarian of the Alexandrian Library , which office he held till his death (about 240). His ''Pinakes'' (tablets), in 120 books, a critical and chronologically arranged catalogue of the library, laid the foundation of a history of Greek Literature . According to the '' Suda '', he wrote about 800 works, in Verse and Prose ; of these only six hymns, sixty-four Epigram s and some fragments are extant; a considerable fragment of the '' Hecale '', an idyllic Epic , has also been discovered in the '' Rainer Papyri ''. His ''Coma Berenices'' is known only from a fragmentary papyrus text and the celebrated Latin imitation of Catullus (Catullus 66). His ''Aitia'' ("Causes") was a collection of Elegiac poems in four books, dealing with the foundation of cities, religious ceremonies and other customs. According to Quintilian (10.1.58) he was the chief of the elegiac poets; his elegies were highly esteemed by the Romans (see Neoteric s), and imitated by Ovid , Catullus and especially Propertius . The extant hymns are extremely learned, and written in a style that some have criticised as labored and artificial. The epigrams, some of the best specimens of their kind, have been incorporated in the Greek Anthology . BIBLIOGRAPHY Works (texts in classical Greek)
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