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The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how the travels of mind and the continuing change of places throughout the Greek world - from the North to the South and from the East to the West - in a selected corpus of poems in Callimachus’ Aitia, the Hymns and the epigrams create the picture of a poetry which mirrored the concerns and interests of the Ptolemaic dynasty in the first half of the 3nd century BC. More specifically, the examination of the geographical references in the poems which have been selected and analyzed in the present paper, indicates that Callimachus’ poetry promoted in a discreet way the political aspirations of the Ptolemies on three different levels. In the first chapter of this paper, a number of poems have been presented in which the relocation of gods, people or objects from the northern parts of the Greek world to the South likely signifies the transition of power from the old Greek world to Ptolemaic Egypt. In this context, it has also been examined how Callimachus constructed in his poetry the topography of Cyrene and Alexandria, the political and cultural center of the new powerful Hellenistic kingdom in the Southern Mediterranean. In the subsequent chapter, the focus shifts to poems where the imaginary, continuous transportation of the reader to places which were part of the Greek cultural memory assisted the Ptolemies to cultivate the idea of Panhellenism among the imported Greek community in Egypt in order to unite them under a shared identity. In this way, Callimachus’ poetry supported the Ptolemies’ goal to present themselves as legitimate rulers of all the Greeks in Egypt as well as to help the Greek community feel less alienated in this foreign environment they were brought to inhabit. In this context, it has also been investigated how the Callimachean poetry - which was intended for the Greek people who were in the process of coming to an accommodation with the traditions and the culture of the native Egyptian population - functioned as a tool for the Ptolemaic kings to bridge these two cultures. The last chapter focuses on a small group of poems which included places outside Egypt which were at the center of the Ptolemies’ intentions, thus presenting the political aspirations of the Ptolemaic kings outside their territory.

This dissertation locates three moments in the history of the ancient reception of the Greek astronomical poem, the Phaenomena, written by Aratus of Soloe in the third century BC. I argue that Aratus achieves his appeal and authority by reinforcing the precision of his scientific material with the stylistic precision of his poetry. Several intellectual communities engage at length with his poem, which enjoyed a wide, learned readership on account of its polyvalent appeal to scientific, literary, and philosophical communities. In the first chapter I introduce the dissertation by demonstrating that Aratus' fusion of prosaic science and archaic poetry is marked in the poem itself, and that Aratus invites his readers to meditate on the merit of poetics in scientific discourse. In the second chapter I argue that the Phaenomena's reputation for poetic precision and vividness among his third century audience lends him authority as a technical, scientific writer. In the third chapter I argue that the second century BC astronomer and commentator Hipparchus of Nicaea responds to a tradition of scientific commentary that assents to Aratus as an authoritative source. Hipparchus criticizes the readership of Aratus by seeking precise means to read, interpret, and then check the astronomical claims of the Phaenomena. In the fourth chapter I argue that the Latin translations of Cicero and Germanicus Caesar from the first centuries BC and AD continue the Hellenistic Greek reception of the Phaenomena. Cicero promotes the vividness of Aratus' poetic style, while Germanicus accommodates the scientific corrections of Hipparchus all while insisting on the Phaenomena's poetic form. The dissertation concludes that Aratus' reputation for vividness and precision as a poet secured him a prominent place in astronomical literature for centuries to come.

This dissertation is an examination of the Gigantomachy as a metaliterary marker, a way of discussing poetic style and a poet's place in literary history. The term Gigantomachy is used here to stand for a complex of myths in which a giant figure battles the Olympians; it therefore includes not only the battle of the gods and Giants, but also that of the gods and Titans, Typhon, and Otos and Ephialtes. Long understood as a political metaphor expressing the triumph of order over chaos, I contend that the Gigantomachy also stands for the epic tradition and writing in the grand style (genus grande). The enormity of the subject matter lends itself to a heavy, even bombastic style of writing; as a result, Gigantomachy is a frequent subject of epic parody. I put forth a new understanding of how parody functions, arguing that it operates not as a means of ridiculing a particular author or genre, but rather as a tool for manipulating a predecessor text from within. Through parody, a poet is able to gain mastery over his literary pedigree and change the reception of his own text as a late or dependent work. This dialogue with epic is closely tied to Callimacheanism, the preference for writing small scale, carefully crafted, highly learned poetry rather than lengthy epic. Through analysis of allusions to Gigantomachy, I demonstrate how the tropes and techniques of Callimacheanism begin long before Callimachus, with Hesiod, and continue to shift and change through the poetry of Pindar, Callimachus himself, Propertius, and Ovid.

This dissertation was submitted for the Ph.D. in the Department of Classical Studies of the University of Michigan. It is the first major study to describe the relationship between Callimachus and Pindar, although the importance of this topic has long been recognized. This dissertation considers Pindaric allusions in the context of an overall reading of the hymns to Apollo and Artemis; it examines the influence of myth, narrative structure, verbal reminiscences, and literary-critical terminology in the development of Callimachus' own poetic voice. Special attention is paid to structural features common to the two poets. The work also discusses the relationship between the two poets in connection with broader issues of Callimachean scholarship, including the ideology of kingship, the role of epic, and the response of Callimachus to different versions of the same myth in Pindar and other authors, especially Homer, the Homeric Hymns, and Hesiod. It is of interest to persons studying archaic Greek lyric, papyrology, and Hellenistic literature, and utilizes both philological methods and modern critical theory. The introduction addresses the meaning of literary allusion for both Pindar and Callimachus and gives examples from the Victoria Berenices as an explication of methodology. Chapter Two discusses the development of the Cyrene myth in Callimachus' Hymn to Apollo in relation to Pindar's Pythians IV, V, and IX. Chapter Three deals with the influence of the structure of Pindar's epinician odes on the Hymn to Apollo, with special emphasis on each poet's use of temporal and logical relationships in the narration of myth. Chapter Four examines the concepts of $\Phi\Theta$o$\nu$o$\zeta$, water, and honey as literary-critical concepts within the context of their structural positions in works of both authors. The fifth chapter applies the results of the preceding chapters to Callimachus' Hymn to Artemis. There is a short conclusion.