interpreted by the notice of Suidas, who informs us that
Apollonius was a contemporary of Eratosthenes, Euphorion and
Timarchus, in the time of Ptolemy Euergetes, and that he
succeeded Eratosthenes in the headship of the Alexandrian
Library. Suidas also informs us elsewhere that Aristophanes at
the age of sixty-two succeeded Apollonius in this office. Many
modern scholars deny the "bibliothecariate" of Apollonius for
chronological reasons, and there is considerable difficulty about
it. The date of 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.