Apollonius Rhodius

c. 295–215 BCE

Apollonius, called the Rhodian, was head of the Library of Alexandria in the third century BCE. His Argonautica, the one epic that survives between Homer and Virgil, tells in four books the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to Colchis for the Golden Fleece, the love of Medea, and the long return; Virgil modelled Dido on his Medea.