SOURCE: "Callimachus and the Generation of his Pupils," in History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginning to the End of the Hellenistic Age, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1968, pp. 123-51.

One of the most-cited Callimachus scholars, Pfeiffer presents an in-depth study of ancient Greek scholarship in his History of Classical Scholarship: From the Beginning to the End of the Hellenistic Age. The chapter excerpted below looks at Callimachus as a primary contributor to the scholarship, especially in his role as cataloguer for the Alexandrian royal library. Pfeiffer also offers a detailed view of the Pinakes, or bibliographies, Callimachus prepared for the library, and considers their impact on Callimachus's poetry.

There was no distinguished textual critic in the generation after Zenodotus; only Aristophanes of Byzantium at the end of the third century was his equal if not his superior in this field. The outstanding representatives of scholarship between Zenodotus...