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CALLIMACHUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 57 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CALLIMACHUS , See also:

Greek poet and grammarian, a native of See also:Cyrene and a descendant of the illustrious See also:house of the Battiadae, flourished about 250 B.C. He opened a school in the suburbs of See also:Alexandria, and some of the most distinguished grammarians and poets were his pupils. He was subsequently appointed by See also:Ptolemy Philadelphus See also:chief librarian of the Alexandrian library, which See also:office he held till his See also:death (about 240). His Pinakes (tablets), in 120 books, a See also:critical and chronologically arranged See also:catalogue of the library, laid the See also:foundation of a See also:history of Greek literature. According to Suidas, he wrote about Boo See also:works, in See also:verse and See also:prose; of these only six See also: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 See also:Kenyon in Classical See also:Review, See also:November 1893). His See also:Coma Berenices is only known from the celebrated See also:imitation of See also: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 See also:Quintilian (Instit. x. 1. 58) he was the chief of the elegiac poets; his elegies were highly esteemed by the See also:Romans, and imitated by See also:Ovid, Catullus and especially See also:Propertius. The extant hymns are extremely learned, and written in a laboured and artificial See also:style. The epigrams, some of the best specimens of their See also:kind, have been incorporated in the Greek See also:Anthology.

See also:

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

End of Article: CALLIMACHUS

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