Aetia. Iambi. Lyric Poems

Callimachus (ca. 303–ca. 235 BC), a proud and well-born native of Cyrene in Libya, arrived as a young man at the court of the Ptolemies in Alexandria. Here, he composed poetry for the royal family, helped establish the Library and Museum as a world centre of literature, science, and scholarship, and wrote an estimated 800 volumes of poetry and prose on an astounding variety of subjects. Among his works was the Pinakes, a descriptive bibliography of the Library's holdings in 120 volumes. Callimachus' vast learning richly informs his poetry, which ranges broadly and innovatively reworks the language and generic properties of his predecessors in refined and expressive ways.

The "Callimachean" style, which combines learning, elegance, and innovation and prizes brevity, clarity, lightness, and charm, served as an important model for later poets, including Roman poets such as Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and the elegists.

This edition, which replaces the earlier Loeb editions by A. W. Mair (1921) and C. A. Trypanis (1954, 1958), presents all that currently survives of and about Callimachus and his works, including the ancient commentaries (Diegeseis) and scholia. Volume I contains Aetia, Iambi, and lyric poems; Volume II contains Hecale, Hymns, and Epigrams; and Volume III includes miscellaneous epics and elegies, other fragments, and testimonia, together with concordances and a general index. The Greek text is based mainly on Pfeiffer's edition but is enriched by subsequently published papyri and the judgement of later editors. Its notes and annotation are fully informed by current scholarship.