The Shelves · Lyric (melic) poetry

The Lock of Berenice

Βερενίκης πλόκαμος

Known · Attestedin Alexandria?Conjecturedvery likely class

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I · The entry, in his form

In the table of Lyric (melic) poetry: “elegy (end of Aetia 4)”

Conjecturedvery likely class

Callimachus of Cyrene

c. 305–240 BCE. The great poet of the Ptolemaic court (Aitia, Hymns, Hecale, Iambi, epigrams) and the compiler of the Pinakes, a 120-book bio-bibliography of Greek literature. The papyrus list of heads does not name him, and he was probably never head; the Latin Scholium Plautinum calls him royal librarian.

The Lock of Berenice

Βερενίκης πλόκαμος

Opening words not preserved.

Length: not counted

Above, his entry form, filled from what we know. Below, ours.

II · Does it survive? Where to read it

Survives in fragments

Greek fragments on papyrus; known as a whole through Catullus's Latin version (poem 66).

Was it in Alexandria?

Known · Attested

Written in Alexandria.

In the cupboard: written at Alexandria by a scholar or court writer a source places there.

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III · In the show

The show has not yet spoken of this work.

IV · Sources and the living entry

Ancient references (3)
  • Callimachus, Aetia fr. 110 Pfeiffer
  • Catullus 66
  • Hyginus, De astronomia 2.24
Modern scholarship
  • A. Harder, Callimachus: Aetia, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

Entry checked 31 Oct 2026 · no corrections · Suggest a correction ›

ΒΕΡΕΝΙΚΗΣ ΠΛΟΚΑΜΟΣ

Beside it in the cupboard