ABSTRACT
Incorporating the Epilogue into a new edition of the Aetia would create chronological inconsistency if the Iambi were mentioned as a forthcoming work when, in fact, they had already appeared. The displacement of the original Epilogue of the Aetia to the end of the revised work was merely an easy and necessary adjustment made by Callimachus once he had decided to reissue the poem in an expanded version. As soon as one discounts the possibility that this expanded version was intended for a collected edition of all Callimachus' poetical works, the interpretation of the Epilogue to the Aetia begins to pose serious difficulties. At the conclusion of the Aetia, it appears, Callimachus announces that he has finished with aetiological poetry in elegiac couplets and will now turn to composition in a different genre, the Iambi.
