I have a number of people to thank for their help in the production of this book. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisors, Herwig Maehler, Richard Janko and Alan Griffiths, for their help, guidance and advice throughout my time at UCL. In particular I would like to thank Alan, who was my principal supervisor for three years, for his patient and helpful criticism of my ideas about Hellenistic poetry, and his sage advice. I would also like to thank Angus Bowie, who first taught me about Greek poetry (and much else besides), and Paul Fentem, who first set me on the happy road which led to Pindar and Callimachus.

I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Board of the British Academy for providing me with a Postgraduate Studentship which enabled me to carry out the thesis which eventually gave rise to this book, and to all my colleagues in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Manchester for giving me the chance to teach and finish first my thesis and now this book in such a friendly and stimulating environment.

From my time in London there are various people to whom I am very grateful for a variety of things – five (then) fellow UCL Ph.D. students, Andrew Bevan, Leighton Pugh, Marielle Sutherland, Will Broadhead and Yumna Khan, as well as Matthew Entwistle, Anna Pearce and, of course, Eric Blaum.