CALLIMACHUS  ,

Greek poet and grammarian, a native of Cyrene and a descendant of the illustrious house of the Battiadae, flourished about 250 B.C . He opened a school in the suburbs of Alexandria, and some of the most distinguished grammarians and poets were his pupils . He was subsequently appointed by Ptolemy Philadelphus 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 Suidas, he wrote about Boo works, in verse and prose; of these only six hymns, sixty-four epigrams and some fragments are extant; a considerable fragment of the Hecale, an idyllic epic, has also been discovered in the Rainer papyri (see Kenyon in Classical Review, November 1893) . His Coma Berenices is only known from the celebrated imitation of Catullus . 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 (Instit. x . 1 . 58) he was the chief of the elegiac poets; his elegies were highly esteemed by the Romans, and imitated by Ovid, Catullus and especially Propertius . The extant hymns are extremely learned, and written in a laboured and artificial style . The epigrams, some of the best specimens of their kind, have been incorporated in the Greek Anthology .

Art and learning are his chief characteristics, unrelieved by any real poetic genius; in the words of Ovid (Amores, i .