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ARCHILOCHUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 368 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ARCHILOCHUS , See also:

Greek lyric poet and writer of lampoons, was See also:born at See also:Paros, one of the See also:Cyclades islands. The date of his See also:birth is uncertain, but he probably flourished about 65o B.C.; according to some, about See also:forty years earlier but certainly not before the reign of See also:Gyges (687–652), whom he mentions in a well-known fragment. His See also:father, Telesicles, who was of See also:noble See also:family, had conducted a See also:colony to See also:Thasos, in obedience to the command of the Delphic See also:oracle. To this See also:island Archilochus himself, hard pressed by poverty, afterwards removed. Another See also:reason for leaving his native See also:place was See also:personal disappointment and indignation at the treatment he had received from Lycambes, a See also:citizen of Paros, who had promised him his daughter Neobule in See also:marriage, but had afterwards withdrawn his consent. Archilochus, taking See also:advantage of the See also:licence allowed at the feasts of See also:Demeter, poured out his wounded feelings in unmerciful See also:satire. He accused Lycambes of See also:perjury, and his daughters of leading the most abandoned lives. Such was the effect produced by his verses, that Lycambes and his daughters are said to have hanged themselves. At Thasos the poet passed some unhappy years; his hopes of See also:wealth were disappointed; according to him, Thasos was the See also:meeting-place of the calamities of all Hellas. The inhabitants were frequently involved in quarrels with their neighbours, and in a See also:war against the Saians—a Thracian tribe—he threw away his See also:shield and fled from the See also:field of See also:battle. He does not seem to have See also:felt the disgrace very keenly, for, like See also:Alcaeus and See also:Horace, he commemorates the event in a fragment in which he congratulates himself on having saved his See also:life, and says he can easily procure another shield. After leaving Thasos, he is said to have visited See also:Sparta, but to have been at once banished from that See also:city on See also:account of his cowardice and the licentious See also:character of his See also:works (See also:Valerius See also:Maximus vi.

3, externa r). He next visited Siris, in See also:

lower See also:Italy, a city of which he speaks very favourably. He then returned to his native place, and was slain in a battle against the Naxians by one Calondas or Corm, who was cursed by the oracle for having slain a servant of the See also:Muses. The writings of Archilochus consisted of elegies, hymns—one of which used to be sung by the victors in the Olympic See also:games (See also:Pindar, See also:Olympia, ix. 1)—and of poems in the See also:iambic and See also:trochaic See also:measures. To him certainly we owe the invention of iambic See also:poetry and its application to the purposes of satire. The only previous measures in Greek poetry had been the epic See also:hexameter, and its offshoot the elegiac See also:metre; but the slow measured structure of hexameter See also:verse was utterly unsuited to See also:express the See also:quick, See also:light motions of satire. Archilochus made use of the iambus and the trochee, and organized them into the two forms of metre known as the iambic trimeter and the trochaic tetra-See also:meter. The trochaic metre he generally used for subjects of a serious nature; the iambic for satires. He was also the first to make use of the arrangement of verses called the See also:epode. Horace in his metres to a See also:great extent follows Archilochus (Epistles, i. 19.

23-35). All See also:

ancient authorities unite in praising the poems of Archilochus, in terms which appear exaggerated (See also:Longinus xiii. 3; Dio See also:Chrysostom, Orationes, xxxiii.; See also:Quintilian x. i. 6o; See also:Cicero, Orator, i.). His verses seem certainly to have possessed strength, flexibility, See also:nervous vigour, and, beyond everything else, impetuous vehemence and See also:energy. Horace (Ars Poetica, 79) speaks of the " rage " of Archilochus, and See also:Hadrian calls his verses "raging iambics." By his countrymen he was reverenced as the equal of See also:Homer, and statues of these two poets were dedicated on the same See also:day. His poems were written in the old Ionic See also:dialect. Fragments in See also:Bergk, Poetae Lyrici Graeci; Liebel, Archilochi Reliquiae (1818); A. Hauvette-Besnault, Archiloque, sa See also:vie et ses poesies (19o5).

End of Article: ARCHILOCHUS

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