(Καλλίμαχος), one of the most celebrated Alexandrine grammarians and poets, was, according to Suidas, a son of Battus and Mesatme, and belonged to the celebrated family of the Battiadae at Cyrene, whence Ovid (1b. 53) and others call him simply Battiades. (Comp. Strab. xvii. p.837.) He was a disciple of the grammarian Hermocrates, and afterwards taught at Eleusis, a suburb of Alexandria. He was highly esteemed by Ptolemy Philadelphus, who invited him to a place in the Museum. (Suid.; Strab. xvii. p.838.) Callimachus was still alive in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes, the successor of Philadelphus. (Schol. ad Callim. Hymn. 2.26.) It was formerly believed, but is now established as an historical fact, that Callimachus was chief librarian of the famous library of Alexandria. This fact leads us to the conclusion, that he was the successor of Zenodotus, and that he held this office from about B. C. 260 until his death about B. C. 240. (Ritschl, Die Alexandrin. Biblioth. &c. pp. 19, 84, &c.) This calculation agrees with the statement of A. Gellius (17.21), that Callimachus lived shortly before the first Punic war. He was married to a daughter of Euphrates of Syracuse, and had a sister Megatime, who was married to Stasenorus, and a son Callimachus, who is distinguished from his uncle by being called the younger, and is called by Suidas the author of an epic poem Περὶ νήσων.
Callimachus was one of the most distinguished grammarians, critics, and poets of the Alexandrine period, and his celebrity surpassed that of nearly all the other Alexandrine scholars and poets. Several of the most distinguished men of that period, such as his successor Eratosthenes, Philostephanus, Aristophanes of Byzantium, Apollonius Rhodius, Ister, and Hermippus, were among his pupils.
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