Much has been written about the chronology of Alexandrian literature and the famous Library, founded by Ptolemy Soter, but the dates of the chief writers are still matters of conjecture. The birth of Apollonius Rhodius is placed by scholars at various times between 296 and 260 B.C., while the year of his death is equally uncertain. In fact, we have very little information on the subject. There are two "lives" of Apollonius in the Scholia, both derived from an earlier one which is lost. From these we learn that he was of Alexandria by birth,^[1] that he lived in the time of the Ptolemies, and was a pupil of Callimachus; that while still a youth he composed and recited in public his Argonautica and that the poem was condemned in consequence of which he retired to Rhodes; that there he revised his