Callimachus

Poet

Born: c. 305 b. c.e.; Gyrene, Cyrenaica (now in Libya) Died: c. 240 b. c.e.; Alexandria, Egypt Category: Poetry; literature

Life Very little is known about the life of Callimachus (kuh-LIHM-uh-kuhs). He was born about 305 b. c.e. in the Greek colony of Cyrene, in modern Libya. He came from a prominent family, and his works suggest that he was frankly homosexual. His literary output seems to have been extensive, for ancient literary sources refer to many works by him in both prose and poetry; however, only a few poetic works—some of them fragmentary— exist today. Many of his other works seem to have been scholarly efforts: a catalog of books in the great library at Alexandria, various encyclopedias, and a life of Democritus. He is remembered for championing the shorter literary genres, such as the epyllion, an abbreviated epic treating a single episode in detail. He excelled at composing epigrams on many subjects, and he wrote numerous elegies on topics derived from Greek myths. Probably as a result of his influence, the best extant poems from Alexandria exploit these modes.

Callimachus’s literary career developed not in Cyrene but in Alexandria during the period of that city’s dominance of the Mediterranean world’s intellectual life. Exactly when Callimachus arrived in Alexandria is impossible to say, but he apparently went there in his youth and studied under an Aristotelian philosopher named Praxiphanes. Alexandria enjoyed an extraordinary cultural blossoming in the thirty years or so following the rise to power in 323 b. c.e. of the Egyptian general Ptolemy, who annexed Cyrene to his kingdom and became an enthusiastic patron of art and learning. The bustling city had a Jewish quarter, the Greeks had their section, and the Egyptians maintained their original holdings.

The famous museum (the Shrine of the Muses) at Alexandria, begun in 294, expanded into a dominating university resplendent with botanical and zoological gardens and an observatory. The university’s many accomplishments in mathematics, astronomy, engineering, and medicine included both Euclid’s Elements (c. 300 b. c.e.) and Apollonius of Perga’s theory of conic sections.

When Callimachus, the young provincial from Cyrene, came upon this scene, he apparently settled there immediately. Some scanty evidence suggests that he may have begun his career as a schoolteacher, but before long he was one of the scholars diligently taking advantage of the Royal Library that flourished under the patronage of Ptolemy II. It was at this congenial institution that Callimachus wrote his poems, carried on his scholarship, and earned his reputation as an outspoken critic.

Two important themes emerge in Callimachus’s work. He is often quoted as saying, broadly, that a big book is a bad book. What he meant by this—if he indeed actually said it—may have been nothing more than an understandable complaint by a librarian about the cumbersome nature of large scrolls. However, the remark probably reflects his well-known contempt for the epic; in one epigram he spits out, “I hate epic poetry.” It is not surprising that Callimachus preferred Hesiod to Homer.

One tradition in scholarship identifies Callimachus as an antagonist (as far as literary theory goes) of his contemporary Apollonius Rhodius, a supporter of the Homeric style in poetry. Better evidence of his views emerges from his attack in Aitifn (Aetia, 1958), or “the sources of the myths,” on the Telchines. The Telchines were mythological people supposedly from Crete and Rhodes and associated with the origins of metal-smithing. Callimachus used their reputation for sorcery to identify them with three of his literary enemies: the Alexandrian poets Asclepiades and Posidippus and the phi-

Principal Works of Callimachus

Aitifn (Aetia, 1958)

Epigrammata (Epigrams, 1793)

Ekale (Hecale, 1958)

Hymni (Hymns, 1755) lamboi (Iambi, 1958)

Lock of Berenice, 1755 Pinakes

Losopher Praxiphanes of Mitylene. They are the ignorant ones who, he says, “grumble at my poetry, because I did not accomplish one continuous poem of many thousands of lines.” Poems, he concludes, “are far shorter for being sweet.” Another persistent theme, in Aetia and elsewhere, is Callimachus’s rebelliousness—his fierce determination to go his own way and “tread a path which carriages do not trample.” Such a course will be narrow, but it will be fresh and it will be one’s own.

Influence Among other poets flourishing in the last two centuries b. c.e., the little-known Cyrenian poet Philostephanus, who wrote of landscapes, and Euphorion, who continued Callimachus’s devotion to the short poem, may be called followers of Callimachus. The prominent Latin poets Moschus and Parthenius both composed epyllia, and Vergil’s early pastorals may also owe something to Callimachus. The Augustan poets Ovid and Propertius were major disciples: Propertius was even known as “the Roman Callimachus,” while Ovid’s Metamorphoses (c. 8 c. e.; English translation, 1567) are epyllia that are often judged Callimachean in spirit.

Despite their disagreements over Homer’s merits, the Alexandrian poets of Callimachus’s era were generally traditionalists, and the museum and its library enabled them to master much of the ancient world’s learning. They were keen craftsmen, intent on technique, who nevertheless usually followed the old forms. In all these aspects of his time, Callimachus was a consummate Alexandrian.

Further Reading

Acosta-Hughes, Benjamin. Polyeideia: The Iambi of Callimachus and the Archaic Iambic Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press,

2002.

Calame, Claude. “Legendary Narratives and Poetic Procedure in Callimachus’s ‘Hymn to Apollo.’” In Hellenistica Gronigana: Proceedings of the Groningen Workshops on Hellenistic Poetry, edited by Annette Harder. Groningen, Germany: Egbert Forster, 1993.

Cameron, Alan. Callimachus and His Critics. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Ferguson, John. Callimachus. Boston: Twayne, 1980.

Gutzwiller, Kathryn. Poetic Garlands: Hellenistic Epigrams in Context. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

Hollis, A. S. Introduction to Callimachus’ “Hecale.” Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1990.

Thomas, Richard F. “Callimachus Back in Rome.” In Hellenistica Gro-nigana: Proceedings of the Groningen Workshops on Hellenistic Poetry, edited by Annette Harder. Groningen, Germany: Egbert Forster,

1993.

Tress, Heather van. Poetic Memory: Allusion in the Poetry of Callimachus and the “Metamorphoses” of Ovid. Boston: Brill, 2004.

Williams, Frederick. “Callimachus and the Supranormal.” In Hellenistica Gronigana: Proceedings of the Groningen Workshops on Hellenistic Poetry, edited by Annette Harder. Groningen, Germany: Egbert Forster,

1993.

Frank Day

See also: Alexandrian Library; Apollonius Rhodius; Elegiac Poetry; Hellenistic Greece; Literature; Ptolemaic Egypt.