Archilochus, Greek poet from the island of Paros, who lived probably around the mid-seventh century BC and wrote short poems in a variety of metres, elegiac, iambic, and trochaic. Little is known of his life; he took part in the colonization of Thasos and fought there, and was reputedly killed in a battle between Paros and Naxos. His poetry survives only in the quotations of later writers and some papyrus fragments. Ancient tradition says that he fell in love with Neobulē, daughter of Lycambes, but her father forbade the marriage, and Archilochus avenged himself with such biting satires that father and daughter hanged themselves. Some lines of his verse seem to confirm the existence of Neobulē; one poem recovered from a papyrus vividly recounts the poet's seduction of her younger sister. Other fragments confirm his ancient reputation for being an innovator in metre, language, and subject matter. His iambic poems in particular show a great variety of tone—mockery, enthusiasm, melancholy, and a mordant wit. The poems are remarkable for their strongly personal note. His self-consciously anti-heroic epigram on the shield he left behind in battle had a considerable literary following (see ALCAEUS (I) and HORACE; a fragment suggests that even Anacreon had a similar experience).

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