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Callimachus

Callimachus

c. 310 BCE–c. 240 BCE · Alexandria

Callimachus was a Greek poet and scholar of the 3rd century BCE, originally from Cyrene, who worked at Alexandria in association with its great Library. A defining voice of Hellenistic poetry, he favored short, polished, learned compositions, and his works included the 'Aetia' (on the origins of customs and rites), hymns, and epigrams; he is also credited with the 'Pinakes,' a pioneering catalogue of Greek literature. His ideals of refined craftsmanship deeply influenced later Greek and Roman poets.

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AlexandriaEgypt

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About Alexandria

Alexandria (al-Iskandariyya) is the great Mediterranean port-city of northern Egypt, founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE and a leading centre of learning in antiquity. After the Muslim conquest of Egypt (642) it remained a major commercial and scholarly hub; the Shadhili Sufi Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari (d. 1309) took his nisba from the city, and the modernist reformer Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905) was active in Egypt's intellectual life there and in Cairo.

In Alexandria at the same time

Hecataeus of Abdera, Herophilus of Chalcedon, Lycophron, Erasistratus of Ceos, Apollonius Rhodius, Eratosthenes of Cyrene

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Callimachus’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Callimachus’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(11)