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Callimachus (c.305-c.240 BC) |
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Ancient Greek poet, librarian, and scholar, famous representative of the sophisticated Alexandrian school
of poetry. Callimachus' most famous prose work is the Pinakes
(Lists), a bibliographical survey of authors of the works held in the
Library of Alexandria. It is said to have comprised 120 books. A
non-conformist, Callimachus had a radical influence on the course of
Greek and Roman poetry. His output purportedly exceeded 800 volumes,
but all that is left is six hymns and a collection of fragments and
epigrams. I am the work of the Samian who once in his house Little is known of Callimachus' life. He was said to have produced more that 800 works altogether, but only few of them have survived, or are known in fragmentary form. He was born in Cyrene, North Africa, into a prominent family. Callimachus called himself Battiades, "son of Battos," who was the mythical founder of Cyrene. "You're walking by the tomb of Battiades, / Who knew well how to write poetry, and enjoy / Laughter at the right moment, over the wine." ('On Himself', in The Greek Anthology, 1973, tr. Peter Jay) Callimachus also tells that his grandfather was a general. After possibly being educated in Athens, he migrated to Alexandria. A number of sources say that he taught at an elementary school in Eleusis, a village outside the town, but according to Alan Cameron, this is not likely: to call somebody an elementary teacher was actually an insult in both Roman and Greek times. (Callimachus and His Critics, 1995) A member of an influential Cyrenean family, Callimachus was presented to King Ptolemy II Philadelphus (282-246 BC). He became a "court youth" and later joined the Museum. It was a kind of institution of arts and sciences, founded by Ptolemy I (305-282 BC), called the Soter, "the Saviour". Ptolemy was a friend of Alexander the Great, and a historian. He wrote an account of Alexander's campaign of conquest. The Library of Alexandria, the most important in the whole Hellenistic culture, contained the greatest collection of texts. It is believed that the institution held hundreds of thousands of scrolls at one time, beginning from the authorative manuscripts of the Iliad. Its first director, Zenodotos, began an inventory of the scrolls acquired by the Ptolemies for the Museum. Agents were sent to different parts of the Greek world to buy books – everything was good enough for the collections, even a book called Everything Thucydides Left Unsaid, written by the scholar Cratippus. Whenever a ship unloaded at Alexandria, its books were copied, and the originals went to the library (or sometimes back to the owner). Among the treasures was Aristotle's collection of books. Some ancient sources claim that it was the seed from which the library grew. Strabo, the great Greek geographer, tells that Aristotle's books had been buried in Athens in a hole for a period, away from the fingers of the Attalid kings. The library consisted of two separate sections. The greater, part of the royal palace, was said to house nearly half a million scrolls. The lesser, attached to the Temple of Serapis, stored about forty thousand. The dimensions of a scroll were small, Homer alone took up at least 24 scrolls for the Iliad and the Odyssey. Callimachus separated the longer works by having them copied into several shorter sections. It has been suggested that Callimachus was in charge of the library after Zenodotus, although Eratosthenes (234-195 BC) is more often mentioned as his successor – Eratosthenes, a mathematician, geographer, and poet, measured the north-south circumference of the Earth with great accuracy. There, at the Museum, Callimachus' major achievement was Pinakes ton en pase paideia dialampsanton kai hon synegrapsan (List of those who distinguished themselves in all branches of learning, and their writings). Facing the task of classifying the scrolls, Callimachus sighed: "Mega biblion, mega kakon" (many writings equals many worries). Pinakes is catalogue of Greek authors and their works, along with biographical and literary information. It has not been preserved and most likely Callimachus did not complete his gigantic work – cataloging, once it started in the ancient times, has never ended in libraries. The first biobibliography to appear in print dates much later – it was Johannes Trithemius's Liber de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis (1494). Callimachus' longest poem is the Aitia (Origins or Causes), a narrative elegy in four books, probably composed in 270 BC. This learned work mixed anecdotes, curiosities, and little-known legends. Its avant-garde style offered a model for poets rebelling against the tradition. One of the poems, 'The Lock of Berenice', was later freely adapted into Latin by Catullus (c.84.-c.54 BC). Berenike, the daughter of King Magas of Cyrene, married Ptolomeny III. According to a story she dedicated her beautiful hair to Venus so that her husband might return safely from war. Catullus' work served as the model for Alexander Pope's 'Rape of the Lock'. Iambi was a collection of 13 short poems. The themes varied, but in several poetic contexts Callimachus used fable and Aesop. In the first Iambus Hipponax comes from Hades to a temple near Alexandria and meets the scholars of the Museum. Iambus 2 closes with the figure of Aesop. In the Ibis Callimachus attacked on his former pupil Apollonius of Rhodes, who may have become the library director. Despite his name, he is thought to have born in Alexandria. Apollonius was the writer of Argonautica. Among Callimachus' other scholarly pupils were Eratosthenes of Cyrene and Aristophanes of Byzantium. Callimachus dismissed the long poems bluntly: "Big book, big bore." He criticized writers who produced epics in the ancient manner; Callimaches preferred the short form and his poems were admired for their polished refinement. Apollonius opposed this in Argonautica: "What a pitiful seer is this, that has not the wit to conceive even what children know, how that no maiden will say a word of sweetness or love to a youth when strangers be near. Bygone, sorry prophet, witless one; on thee neither Cypris not the gentle Loves breathe in their kindness." At the end of 'Hymn to Apollo' Callimachus referred casually to this literary debate, when Envy whispers into the ear of Apollo, "I do not honor the singer who does not sing so great as is the sea." Apollo kicks Envy with his foot. However, some modern scholars have argued, that the quarrel between Callimachus and Apollonius is a myth. It was not the length of the poem, but its composition and quality that mattered for Callimachus. In Aitia he wrote: "The Telchines, who knew nothing / of poetry and hate the Muses, often / snipe at me, because it's not a monotonous / uninterrupted poem featuring kings / and heroes in thousands of verses / that I've produced, driving my song instead / for little stretches, like a child, / though the tale of my years / is not brief." (in The Poems of Callimachus) In Callimachus' Hymns, five of them were composed in hexameters. Callimachus did not hide his learning, and often he helped his audience to understand details of the work, as in 'Hymn to Zeus': "When the nymph, carrying thee, O Father Zeus, toward Cnosus, was leaving Thenae – for Thenae was night to Cnosus – even then, O God, thy navel fell away: hence that plain the Cydonians call the Plain of the Navel." Hecale was a small-scale epic (epyllion), about a thousand lines length written in hexameter. Although Theseus is the hero, who fights the bull of Marathon, a peasant-woman comes in the forefront. Hecale, the old woman, is honored by travelers "for her graciousness: she kept her house unlocked". During a storm, she gives shelter to Theseus on his way to Marathon. Hecale also offers him a meal – bread, "a generous helping of loaves", and ripe and unripe olives" – everything she has. Later he returns with the legendary bull and asks, "Whose tomb have you raised here?" It is Hecale's tomb. Callimachus spent in Alexandria the larger part of his life. The Suidas, a Byzantine lexicon from the tenth century AD,
records that he married a woman from Syracuse and that his nephew wrote
hexameter poetry. Callimachus was a prolific author, who also
wrote tragedies, comedies, and studies on different fields of
knowledge, such as a study of the writings and language of Democritus
of Abdera. Some 60 pieces have survived from Callimachus' Epigrams. Ovid translated a poem called The Ibis, but the original Greek is lost. Apparently Callimachus was never appointed director of the library, one of the most prestigious offices in Alexandria. However, in his poems, Callimachus did not forget to express his respect to his royal patron Ptolemy Philadelphus. In 'Hymn to Zeus' he said: "He accomplishes by dusk what he thinks of at dawn – / the monumental by dusk, the minor in a trice – / while the projects of others drag on for years, / their programs curtailed by your executive order." (in Callimachus: Hymns, Epigrams, Select Fragments, 1988) Callimachus died c.240 BC. Some say that Apollonius was buried next to him. For generations of later scholars, Pinakes was one the major source of the lives and works of authors of the archaic, classical and early Hellenistic periods. Callimachus divided Greek writers into tables (pinakoi), arranged in several classes – rhetoric, law, epic, tragedy, comedy, lyric poetry, history, medicine, mathematics, natural science and miscellanea. The names were arranged in alphabetical order, a cataloguing device that gradually became commonplace. After a biographical sketch the entry offered a list of the author's works in alphabetical order. Callimachus quoted openings and at least for the dramas he gave plot summaries. For further reading: Callimachus II by Annette Harder, Remco F. Regtuit, G. C. Wakker (2004); Polyeideia: The Iambi of Callimachus and the Archaic Iambic Tradition by Benjamin Acosta-Hughes (2002); Libraries in the Ancient World by Lionel Casson (2001); Callimachus' Book of Iambi by Arnd Kerkhecker (1999); Callimachus and His Critics by Alan Cameron (1995); Callimachus, ed. Annette Harder, Remco F. Regtuit, Gerry C. Wakker (1993); Kallimachos: The Alexandrian Library and the Origins of Bibliography by Rudolf Blum (1991); Callimachus by John Ferguson (1980); Kallimachos und die Literaturverzeichung bei den Griechen by R. Blum (1977); Da Mimnermo a Callimacho by B. Lavagnini (1976); Kallimachos, ed. A.D. Skiadas (1972); Callimaco by G. Capovilla (1967); The Iambi of Callimachus by C.M. Dawson (1950); Theokrit und Kallimachos by G. Schlatter (1941); Alexandrian Poetry Under the First Three Ptolemies by Auguste H. Couat (1931); Callimaque et son oeuvre poétique by E. Cahen (1929); Kallimachos und Homer by H. Herter (1929); Hellenistic Poetry by Alfred Körte (1929) Editions:
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