APOLLONIUS, the author of the Argonautics, and sur-named the Rhodian, from the place of his residence, is supposed to have been a native of Alexandria, where he is said to have recited some portion of his poem while he was yet a youth. Finding it ill received by his countrymen, he retired to Rhodes, where he is conjectured to have polished and completed his work, supporting himself by the profession of rhetoric, and receiving from the Rhodians the freedom of their city. He at length returned with considerable honour to the place of his birth, succeeding Eratosthenes in the care of the Alexandrian library in the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes, who ascended the throne of Egypt in the year before Christ 246. That prince had been educated by the famous Aristarchus, and rivalled the preceding sovereigns of his liberal family in the munificent encouragement of learning. Apollonius was a disciple of the poet Callimachus; but their connection ended in the most violent enmity, which was probably owing to some degree of contempt expressed by Apollonius for the light compositions of his master. The learned have vainly endeavoured to discover the particulars of their quarrel. The only work of Apollonius which has descended to modern times is his poem above mentioned, in four books, on the Argonautic expedition. Both Longinus and Quintilian have assigned to this work the mortifying character of mediocrity. It was published for the first time at Florence in 1496, with the ancient Greek Scholia, in a 4to volume, now exceedingly rare. There is an excellent edition by Brunck, published in 1780, and another by Beck, published in 1797; but the best is that of Professor Schäfer, printed at Leipzig in 2 vols. 8vo, in 1810-13.