SOURCE: "The Quarrel between Callimachus and Apollonius," in Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Rudolf Habelt Verlag GMBH, 1980, pp. 1-19.

In the following essay, Lefkowitz examines the contradictory evidence concerning the famous quarrel between Apollonius and Callimachus and explains the positions held by each of the two poets.

I. the Evidence

Before I ever read a line of Apollonius I learned from my First Year Greek text that he was the target of Callimachus' quip: "a big book is a big evil" (F 465). Every assessment of Apollonius' work takes account of his alleged differences with Callimachus,¹ although no surviving text by either poet refers directly to a quarrel. The evidence derives from interpretation of Callimachus' statements about poetry and from ancient biographies. Callimachus is said in the Suda to have written "a poem distinguished for its obscurity and abuse … against a certain Ibis who was an enemy of Callimachus...