Complete Works of Callimachus by Callimachus

Press.Ī biography of Callimachus’s patron Berenice II, wife of Ptolemy III, highlighting the poet’s role in shaping her public image. Berenice II and the golden age of Ptolemaic Egypt. The Greek text and an evolving English translation are available online.Ĭlayman, Dee L. The standard Greek edition (originally published 1928–1938). A complete compilation of all the ancient testimonia for Callimachus is in Pfeiffer 1953 (pp. For a discussion of his life in English, see Pfeiffer 1968 (pp. Ancient biographers tell of a violent quarrel between Callimachus and the epic poet Apollonius of Rhodes, but modern scholars, including in Lefkowitz 2012, have raised doubts about it. On his service to Berenike II, see Clayman 2014. He wrote for the Ptolemaic court, where he associated himself with Queen Berenike II (the wife of Ptolemy III) and her predecessor, Arsinoe II (wife of Ptolemy II). It was once said that after his arrival in Alexandria he never left it, but this has been called into question by an inscription suggesting that he was in Athens in 247 BCE ( Oliver 2002).

It is said that he was a “young man of the court,” i.e., a young aristocratic invited to keep company with the royal princes, or alternatively, a school teacher in a suburb of Alexandria, before taking his place as a prominent poet and scholar. He was born to an aristocratic family in Cyrene, a Greek city on the north coast of Africa in modern Libya, and immigrated to Alexandria in his youth. The only account of Callimachus’s life to come down from antiquity is found in the Suda, K 227 (formerly called Suidas), a Byzantine encyclopedia from the 10th century, which associates him with Ptolemy (II) Philadelphus (r. 282–246 BCE) and Ptolemy (III) Euergetes (r. 246–221 BCE).

Complete Works of Callimachus by Callimachus