Apollonius was a poet and grammarian of the 3rd century BC. He was born in Alexandria, where he studied under Callimachus and at some point took over the direction of the renowned Library. A philological dispute with his teacher forced him to take refuge in Rhodes, where he lived for years and became an honorary citizen. From this comes his nickname Rhodius. Erudite and prolific, he composed scientific works of which almost nothing survives. However, his entire famous epic "Argonautica" survives, in which he narrates the Argonautic Expedition. With this poem, a pinnacle epic of the Hellenistic period, a pre-Homeric mythical cycle is perpetuated, reflecting the old traditions regarding the conquest of the Black Sea by the Greeks. His work, renowned and widely read since antiquity, exerted a great influence on later Greeks and Latins and was widely used as a collection of sources for ancient mythology. [Excerpt from publisher or edition presentation text]