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During the Hellenistic era, Cyrene, the first Greek colony in Libya, gave birth to prestigious scientists and poets, who contributed to the Greek cultural influence at the time. In this article, we will discover Callimachus, a Cyrenean poet who became famous at the Ptolemaic court of Egypt.
Callimachus was born around 310 BCE, in Cyrene, in an influential family: he was descended from the Battiad dynasty, and his grandfather, whose name was also Callimachus, was a Cyrenean general.
In his youth, he studied in Alexandria, the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt and the most influential Greek city at this time. After working for a while as a teacher, he came under the patronage of King Ptolemy II, who wished to promote arts and culture in his Kingdom. He started working at the library of Alexandria, and later became its librarian. He died around 240. His successor at the head of the library of Alexandri was Eratosthenes, who was also from Cyrene.
Callimachus wrote over 800 works, in verse and in prose; most of them are lost. His most famous work is the Aetia, a poem in four books, that explores the origins of various human customs. His poetry favors simple, everyday, or even obscure themes instead of larger themes, and shorter, more sophisticated texts instead of longer works. For this reason, he refused to write epic poems, the most popular literary genre at the time. His poetical approach is a fundamental break with the older Greek poets.
As the librarian of the library of Alexandria, he also wrote the Pinakes, a bibliographical work, containing a short summary of all the manuscripts in the library. The Pinakes can be considered as the first library catalog in history.
