When living in Alexandria he was commissioned by Ptolemy Philadelphus to arrange the tragedies and satyric dramas in the library; some ten years later he took up his residence at the court of Antigonus Gonatas, king of Macedonia.
His reputation as a tragic poet was so high that he was allotted a place in the Alexandrian tragic Pleiad; we only know the title of one play (Astragalistae.) He also wrote short epics, epigrams and elegies, the considerable fragments of which show learning and eloquence.
Meineke, Analecta Alexandrina (1853); Bergk, Poetae Lyrici Graeci; Couat, La Poésie alexandrine (1882).