poem, recited it with great applause, and hence called himself a Rhodian. The second "life" adds: "Some say that he returned to Alexandria and again recited his poem with the utmost success, so that he was honoured with the libraries of the Museum[1] and was buricd with Callimachus." The last sentence may be interpreted by the notice of Suidas, who informs us that Apollonius was a contemporary of Fratosthenes, Fuphorion and Timarchus, in the time of Ptolemy Euergetes, and that he succeeded Fratosthenes in the headship of the Alexandrian Library. Suidas also informs us elsewhere that Aristophanes at the age of sixty-two succeeded Apollonius in this office. Many modern scholars deny the "bibliothecariate" of Apollonius for chronological reasons, and there is considerable diffculty about it. The date of Callimachus' Hymn to Apollo, which closes with some lines (105-113) that are admittedly an allusion to Apollonius, may be put with much probability at 248 or 247 B.C. Apollonius must at that date have been at least twenty years old. Eratosthenes died 196-193 B.C. This would make Apollonius seventy-two to seventy-five when he succeeded Eratosthenes. This is not impossible, it is true, but it is difficult. But the difficulty is
- ↑ ώς καὶ τῶν βιβλιοθῶν τοῦ μονσείον ἀξιωθῆναι αὐτόν.
