Callimachus c.305-c.240BC
Hellenistic poet, grammarian and critic

Born in Cyrene, Libya, he became head of the Alexandrian library, and prepared a catalogue of it, in 120 volumes. He wrote several prose works and plays which have not survived, a number of Hymns and Epigrams and a long elegiac poem, the Aitia. Some sixty-four of his epigrams remain, including one to his friend Heraclitus of Halicarnassus, made familiar in the translation by William Cory ('They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead').

Bibliography: G Capovilla, Callimaco (1967)