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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 is the main Mediterranean port of northern Egypt and the country's second city. Founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE, it became the capital of the Ptolemies, whose Museum and Great Library made it the leading centre of Hellenistic learning. It also held one of the largest Jewish communities of antiquity, where the Greek Bible translation known as the Septuagint was produced and Philo wrote. Church tradition traces its patriarchate to Mark the Evangelist, and its catechetical school was led by Clement and Origen. Arab forces under Amr ibn al-As took the city in 641, and it remained a commercial and scholarly hub of the Islamic world; the Sufi master Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari was born there.

In Alexandria at the same time

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

Across the traditions, in Alexandria at the same time

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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)