Callimachus' _Hymn to Apollo,_ which closes with some lines (105-113)
that are admittedly an allusion to Apollonius, may be put with much
probability at 248 or 247 B.C. Apollonius must at that date have been at
least twenty years old. Eratosthenes died 196-193 B.C. This would make
Apollonius seventy-two to seventy-five when he succeeded Eratosthenes.
This is not impossible, it is true, but it is difficult. But the
difficulty is taken away if we assume with Ritschl that Eratosthenes
resigned his office some years before his death, which allows us to put
the birth of Apollonius at about 280, and would solve other
difficulties. For instance, if the Librarians were buried within the
precincts, it would account for the burial of Apollonius next to
Callimachus--Eratosthenes being still alive. However that may be, it is
rather arbitrary to take away the "bibliothecariate" of Apollonius,
which is clearly asserted by Suidas, on account of chronological
calculations which are themselves uncertain. Moreover, it is more
probable that the words following "some say" in the second "life" are a
remnant of the original life than a conjectural addition, because the
first "life" is evidently incomplete, nothing being said about the end
of Apollonius' career.

[Footnote 1: "Or of Naucratis," according to Aelian and Athenaeus.]

[Footnote 2: [Greek: hôs kai tôn bibliothêkôn tou mouseiou axiôthênai
auton.]]

The principal event in his life, so far as we know, was the quarrel with
his master Callimachus, which was most probably the cause of his
condemnation at Alexandria and departure to Rhodes. This quarrel appears
to have arisen from differences of literary aims and taste, but, as
literary differences often do, degenerated into the bitterest personal