Callinus


Callinus

(kəlī`nəs), fl. 7th cent. B.C., Greek poet. He is the earliest of the known elegiac poets. An excerpt from a patriotic exhortation to his fellow Ephesians is the longest of the few fragments of his poetry that survive.

Callinus

 

Dates of birth and death unknown. Greek poet; flourished in the first of the seventh century B.C.

Callinus, who was born in the city of Ephesus, invented the elegy. His elegies were predominantly political in nature. Only four fragments of Callinus’s elegies have been preserved; the longest has 21 verses. Callinus also wrote a hymn to Zeus and several verses on themes from the folk legends of the Trojan mythological cycle.

EDITIONS

Diehl, E. Anthologia lyrica graeca, vol. 1. Leipzig, 1954.
In Russian translation:
In Khrestomatiiapo antichnoi literature, vol. 1. Edited by N. F. Deratani. Moscow, 1958.

REFERENCE

Istoriia grecheskoi literatury, vol. 1. Moscow-Leningrad, 1946. Page 191.