Works and Influence. Apollonius became one of the foremost Homeric scholars during his day and wrote the period’s first monograph on Homer. His only extant work, Argonautica, has traditionally been viewed as indicative of his attempt to imitate Homeric epic poetry. Modern scholarship, however, regards the work as characteristically un-Homeric and a great innovation of Hellenistic poetry, while at the same time evocative of a Homeric epic (Kohnken, “Apolonius’ Argonautica; Schroeder, “Homeric Formularity,” 296–97). Argonautica rehashes the myth of Jason and princess Medea, who together seek to obtain the Golden Fleece. Apollonius’ telling of the story focuses on the two characters’ romance and not on the valor and heroic actions taken in war so characteristic of the Homeric epic. However, the work remains influential; the Roman poets Virgil (70–19 bc) and Gaius Valerius Flaccus used the poem to structure their own artistic texts.

Apollonius’ other poems exist only in fragments. Such works include the Ktiseis (“foundations”), which focuses on the beginnings, or foundations, of cities. It is possible the Ktiseis refers to the cities of Alexandria, Naucratis, Cnidus, Lesbos, and Rhodes.