the age when he proclaimed "a great book" to be "a great evil",
and sought to confine poetical activity within the narrowest
limits both of subject and space. Theocritus agreed with him,
both in principle and practice. The chief characteristics of
Alexandrianism are well summarized by Professor Robinson Ellis as
follows: "Precision in form and metre, refinement in diction, a
learning often degenerating into pedantry and obscurity, a
resolute avoidance of everything commonplace in subject,
sentiment or allusion." These traits are more prominent in
Callimachus than in Apollonius, but they are certainly to be seen
in the latter. He seems to have written the "Argonautica" out of
bravado, to show that he could write an epic poem. But the
influence of the age was too strong. Instead of the unity of an
Epic we have merely a series of episodes, and it is the great
beauty and power of one of these episodes that gives the poem its
permanent value--the episode of the love of Jason and Medea.
This occupies the greater part of the third book. The first and
second books are taken up with the history of the voyage to
Colchis, while the fourth book describes the return voyage.
These portions constitute a metrical guide book, filled no doubt
with many pleasing episodes, such as the rape of Hylas, the
boxing match between Pollux and Amyeus, the account of Cyzicus,
the account of the Amazons, the legend of Talos, but there is no
unity running through the poem beyond that of the voyage itself.

The Tale of the Argonauts had been told often before in verse and
prose, and many authors' names are given in the Scholia to
Apollonius, but their works have perished. The best known
earlier account that we have is that in Pindar's fourth Pythian
ode, from which Apollonius has taken many details. The subject