Apollonius of Rhodes

William Race (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Ed. by Vaios Liapis, Open University of Cyprus
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.1: Greek Writing and Culture: Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic and Imperial, -800--100.
Vol. editors: Eleni Bozia (University of Florida), Jonathan Burgess (University of Toronto), Anca Dan (École Practique de Hautes Études PSL), Martine Diepenbroek (University of Johannesburg), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Victoria Fendel (University of Oxford), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Vaios Liapis (Open University of Cyprus), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Mali Skotheim (Ashoka University), Laura Swift (The Open University), Guendalina Daniela Maria Taietti (University of Liverpool)

Dates

Born c. -295
Died c. -230
Activity c. -270-c. -230

Places

Born in Ancient Rome (Republic & Empire)
Active in Ancient Greece

Activities

Primary

Librarian
Poet
Scholar

Resources

Surprisingly little is known about Apollonius Rhodius, the author of Argonautica, the third greatest epic poem from ancient Greece. We have no firm dates for his birth or death. What little information we have about his life comes almost exclusively from four sources: a second-century CE papyrus fragment (Oxyrhynchus Papyri 1241) containing a list of librarians at the Ptolemaic library; two brief “lives” preserved in manuscripts of the Argonautica; and a brief entry in the Suda, a tenth-century CE Byzantine lexicon. From these meager and often contradictory accounts, we can establish with some probability that Apollonius was originally from Alexandria, that he spent some time in Rhodes, that he was a pupil of Callimachus, and that he was head librarian at the royal library in Alexandria. If the papyrus correctly places his librarianship before that...

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2250 words

Citation: Race, William. "Apollonius of Rhodes". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 March 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=130, accessed 09 June 2026.]