It was an age when literary men were more inclined to comment on writings of the past than to produce original work.

Literature was engaged in taking stock of itself.

Homer was, of course, professedly admired by all, but more admired than imitated.

Epic poetry was out of fashion and we find many epigrams of this period--some by Callimachus--directed against the "cyclic" poets, by whom were meant at that time those who were always dragging in conventional and commonplace epithets and phrases peculiar to epic poetry.

Callimachus was in accordance with the spirit of 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.