Callimachus
3rd-century BC Greek poet, scholar and librarian · Writers · Died 240 BC
He catalogued all of Greek literature at the Library of Alexandria, then wrote 800 works of his own - most now lost. His aesthetic creed: small-scale poems on obscure topics beat epic bloat. Roman poets treated him as scripture.
Callimachus is read about 195 times a day, in 52 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 9 November 2026
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About this person
Born around 310 BC into a prominent family in Cyrene, he trained in Alexandria and worked as a schoolteacher until Ptolemy II Philadelphus brought him into royal patronage. At the Library of Alexandria he compiled the Pinakes, a comprehensive catalogue of all Greek literature. He wrote prolifically across genres - the four-book Aetia, six hymns, sixty epigrams, satirical iambs, the narrative Hecale - and championed a poetics of the recondite and compact, refusing the longwinded epic that dominated his era. He likely lived into the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes around 240 BC. Catullus, Horace, Vergil, Propertius, Ovid: all made him a principal model, and through them his Callimacheanism shaped the entire Western tradition.
