Callinus
Ancient Greek poet
- Lived
- 680 BC–700 BC
- Country
- Ephesus
Updated September 2026
About Callinus
Callinus was an ancient Greek elegiac poet who lived in the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor in the mid-7th century BC. His poetry is representative of the genre of martial exhortation elegy in which Tyrtaeus also specialized and which both Archilochus and Mimnermus appear to have composed. Along with these poets, all his near contemporaries, Callinus was considered the inventor of the elegiac couplet by some ancient critics.
Biography from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources: book lists and dates from Wikidata and Open Library, ratings from Open Library readers. Last updated September 2026.