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Callimachus
Callimachus (; ; ) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar, and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works, most of which do not survive, in a wide variety of genres. He espoused an aesthetic philosophy, known as Callimacheanism, which exerted a strong influence on the poets of the Roman Empire and, through them, on all subsequent Western canon, Western literature. Born into a prominent family in the Greek city of Cyrene, Libya, Cyrene in modern-day Libya, he was educated in Alexandria, the capital of the Ptolemaic dynasty, Ptolemaic kings of Egypt. After working as a schoolteacher in the city, he came under the patronage of King Ptolemy II Philadelphus and was employed at the Library of Alexandria where he compiled the ''Pinakes'', a comprehensive catalogue of all Greek literature. He is believed to have lived into the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes. Altho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aetia (Callimachus)
The ''Aetia'' () is an ancient Greek poem by the Alexandrian poet Callimachus. As an aetiological poem, it presents a large collection of origin myths in four books of elegiac couplets. Although the poem cannot be precisely dated, scholars estimate it was probably composed between 270 and 240 BC. Emerging from a tradition of writing going back to the poems of Homer, the ''Aetia'' provides the earliest source for almost every myth it relates. The stories of Books 1 and 2 have a dialectic structure, wherein characters engage in a discussion or debate. Books 3 and 4 offer a diverse range of linked dramatic settings. Two poems dedicated to Berenice II of Egypt—''Victory of Berenice'' and ''Lock of Berenice''—bookend the poem's second half. Widely read in antiquity, the poem elicited responses from several Roman poets. A translation of the ''Lock of Berenice'' by Catullus inspired Alexander Pope's '' The Rape of the Lock'' (1712). During the High Middle Ages, the ''Aetia'' di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinakes
The ''Pinakes'' ( 'tables', plural of ''pinax'') is a lost bibliographic work composed by Callimachus (310/305–240 BCE) that is popularly considered to be the first library catalog in the West; its contents were based upon the holdings of the Library of Alexandria during Callimachus's tenure there during the third century BCE. History The Library of Alexandria had been founded by Ptolemy I Soter about 306 BCE. The first recorded librarian was Zenodotus of Ephesus. During Zenodotus' tenure, Callimachus, who was never the head librarian, compiled many catalogues/lists, each called ''Pinakes''. His most famous one listed authors and their works; thus he became the first known bibliographer and the scholar who organized the library by authors and subjects about 245 BCE. His work was 120 volumes long. Apollonius of Rhodes was the successor to Zenodotus. Eratosthenes of Cyrene succeeded Apollonius in 235 BCE and compiled his ''tetagmenos epi teis megaleis bibliothekeis'', the 's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hecale (poem)
The "Hecale" (, ''Hekalē'') is a fragmentary Greek epyllion written by Callimachus during the third century BC. The eponymous heroine of the poem was an impoverished Attic widow with whom Theseus stayed on his way to subdue the Marathonian Bull. On his return from accomplishing this feat, Theseus found that his hostess had died, and, in return for her humble hospitality, the hero founded a deme named for her and established there a sanctuary of Zeus Hecaleus in her honor. Although poorly preserved by papyrus fragments and quotations in ancient authors, the broad outline of the ''Hecale'' is relatively certain, and the text stands as an important witness to the poorly understood genre of the Hellenistic epyllion. It was also extremely influential and was alluded to by later Hellenistic poets and, later, Roman writers such as Lucretius, Horace, Ovid and Apuleius Apuleius ( ), also called Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (c. 124 – after 170), was a Numidians, Numidian Latin-language ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Greek Literature
Ancient Greek literature is literature written in the Ancient Greek language from the earliest texts until the time of the Byzantine Empire. The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic period, are the two epic poems the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', set in an idealized archaic past today identified as having some relation to the Mycenaean era. These two epics, along with the '' Homeric Hymns'' and the two poems of Hesiod, the ''Theogony'' and '' Works and Days'', constituted the major foundations of the Greek literary tradition that would continue into the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. The lyric poets Sappho, Alcaeus, and Pindar were highly influential during the early development of the Greek poetic tradition. Aeschylus is the earliest Greek tragic playwright for whom any plays have survived complete. Sophocles is famous for his tragedies about Oedipus, particularly '' Oedipus the King'' and '' Antigone''. Eu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Library Of Alexandria
The Great Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. The library was part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion, which was dedicated to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts.Murray, S. A., (2009). The library: An illustrated history. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, p. 17 The idea of a universal library in Alexandria may have been proposed by Demetrius of Phalerum, an exiled Athenian statesman living in Alexandria, to Ptolemy I Soter, who may have established plans for the Library, but the Library itself was probably not built until the reign of his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The Library quickly acquired many papyrus scrolls, owing largely to the Ptolemaic kings' aggressive and well-funded policies for procuring texts. It is unknown precisely how many scrolls were housed at any given time, but estimates range from 40,000 to 400,000 at its height. Alexandria came to be regarded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hellenistic Period
In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the Roman conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt the following year, which eliminated the last major Hellenistic kingdom. Its name stems from the Ancient Greek word ''Hellas'' (, ''Hellás''), which was gradually recognized as the name for Greece, from which the modern historiographical term ''Hellenistic'' was derived. The term "Hellenistic" is to be distinguished from "Hellenic" in that the latter refers to Greece itself, while the former encompasses all the ancient territories of the period that had come under significant Greek influence, particularly the Hellenized Middle East, after the conquests of Alexander the Great. After the Macedonian conquest of the Achaemenid Empire in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iambus (genre)
Iambus or iambic poetry was a genre of Greek lyric, ancient Greek poetry that included but was not restricted to the Iamb (foot), iambic meter and whose origins modern scholars have traced to the cults of Demeter and Dionysus. The genre featured insulting and obscene language and sometimes it is referred to as "blame poetry". For Alexandrian period, Alexandrian editors, however, iambus signified any poetry of an informal kind that was intended to entertain, and it seems to have been performed on similar occasions as elegy even though lacking elegy's decorum. The Archaic Greece, Archaic Greek poets Archilochus, Semonides and Hipponax were among the most famous of its early exponents. The Alexandrian period, Alexandrian poet Callimachus composed "iambic" poems against contemporary scholars, which were collected in an edition of about a thousand lines, of which fragments of thirteen poems survive. He in turn influenced Roman poets such as Catullus, who composed satirical epigrams that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epyllion
A sleeping Theseus.html" ;"title="Ariadne's abandonment by Theseus">Ariadne's abandonment by Theseus is the topic of an elaborate ecphrasis in Catullus 64, the most famous extant epyllion. (Roman copy of a 2nd-century BCE Greek original; :it:Villa Corsini a Mezzomonte, Villa Corsini.) In classics, classical studies the term epyllion (Ancient Greek: , plural: , ) refers to a comparatively short narrative poem (or discrete episode within a longer work) that shows formal affinities with epic poetry, epic, but betrays a preoccupation with themes and poetic techniques that are not generally or, at least, primarily characteristic of epic proper. Etymology and modern usage Ancient Greek (''epyllion'') is the diminutive of (''epos'') in that word's senses of "verse" or "epic poem"; Liddell and Scott's '' Greek–English Lexicon'' thus defines as a "versicle, scrap of poetry" or "short epic poem", citing for the latter definition Athenaeus, ''Deipnosophistae'' 2.68 (65a–b): ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ptolemaic Kingdom
The Ptolemaic Kingdom (; , ) or Ptolemaic Empire was an ancient Greek polity based in Ancient Egypt, Egypt during the Hellenistic period. It was founded in 305 BC by the Ancient Macedonians, Macedonian Greek general Ptolemy I Soter, a Diadochi, companion of Alexander the Great, and ruled by the Ptolemaic dynasty until the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC. Reigning for nearly three centuries, the Ptolemies were the longest and final Dynasties of ancient Egypt, dynasty of ancient Egypt, heralding a distinct era of Hellenistic religion, religious and cultural syncretism between Greek and Egyptian culture. Alexander the Great conquered Thirty-first Dynasty of Egypt, Persian-controlled Egypt in 332 BC during Wars of Alexander the Great, his campaigns against the Achaemenid Empire. Death of Alexander the Great, Alexander's death in 323 BC was followed by the Empire of Alexander the Great, rapid unraveling of the Macedonian Empire amid competing claims by the ''diadochi'', his closest fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Librarian
A librarian is a person who professionally works managing information. Librarians' common activities include providing access to information, conducting research, creating and managing information systems, creating, leading, and evaluating educational programs, and providing instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed over time, with the past century in particular bringing many new media and technologies into play. From the earliest libraries in the ancient world to the modern information hub, there have been keepers and disseminators of the information held in data stores. Roles and responsibilities vary widely depending on the type of library, the specialty of the librarian, and the functions needed to maintain collections and make them available to its users. Education for librarianship has changed over time to reflect changing roles. History The ancient world The Sumerians were the first to train clerks to keep records of accounts. '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ptolemy II Philadelphus
Ptolemy II Philadelphus (, ''Ptolemaîos Philádelphos'', "Ptolemy, sibling-lover"; 309 – 28 January 246 BC) was the pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt from 284 to 246 BC. He was the son of Ptolemy I, the Macedonian Greek general of Alexander the Great who founded the Ptolemaic Kingdom after the death of Alexander, and Queen Berenice I, originally from Macedon. During Ptolemy II's reign, the material and literary splendour of the Alexandrian court was at its height. He promoted the Museum and Library of Alexandria. In addition to Egypt, Ptolemy's empire encompassed much of the Aegean and Levant. He pursued an aggressive and expansionist foreign policy with mixed success. From 275 to 271 BC, he led the Ptolemaic Kingdom against the rival Seleucid Empire in the First Syrian War and extended Ptolemaic power into Cilicia and Caria, but lost control of Cyrenaica after the defection of his half-brother Magas. In the Chremonidean War (–261 BC), Ptolemy confronted Antigonid Maced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn'' derives from Greek language, Greek (''hymnos''), which means "a song of praise". A writer of hymns is known as a hymnist. The singing or composition of hymns is called hymnody. Collections of hymns are known as hymnals or hymn books. Hymns may or may not include instrumental accompaniment. Polyhymnia is the Greco/Roman goddess of hymns. Although most familiar to speakers of English in the context of Christianity, hymns are also a fixture of other major religious groups, world religions, especially on the Indian subcontinent (''stotras''). Hymns also survive from antiquity, especially from Egyptian and Greek cultures. Some of the oldest surviving examples of notated music are hymns with Greek texts. Origins Ancient Eastern hymns include th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
