Alcaeus

For more information on Alcaeus, visit Britannica.com.

1. Greek lyric poet (b. before 620 BC) from Mytilene, chief city of Lesbos. Until recent years his poetry survived only in quotations made by later authors, but since the decipherment in the twentieth century of certain Egyptian papyri (see PAPYROLOGY) much more of his poetry has come to light, though the tattered fragments have yielded very few complete poems. Many of the poems concern the politics of the time, in which Alcaeus was closely involved. After the overthrow of the ruling family, the Penthelidae, Mytilene was governed by a series of tyrants, Melanchrus (612–609), Myrsilus, and Pittacus (590–580), all of whom were generally opposed by Alcaeus' family or party. There was a closing of ranks when the Lesbians, Alcaeus among them, fought under Pittacus against the Athenians, c.606 BC, for the possession of Sigeum, a key stronghold on the Hellespont. Athens held Sigeum and Alcaeus describes himself as abandoning his shield in the retreat, as the poet Archilochus did before him. At some stage when Pittacus was ruling, Alcaeus went away to Egypt and his brother Antimenidas became a mercenary of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. He was eventually reconciled with Pittacus before the latter laid down the tyranny in 580, and returned home. The date of his death is unknown.

His poetry consists of lyrical songs, mostly monodies (see LYRIC POETRY) in two- or four-lined stanzas, in a great variety of metres. Many of these were later adapted to Latin poetry by Horace (see METRE, LATIN 3 (iii)), who imitated and wrote variations upon Alcaic themes throughout the Odes. As well as writing of politics and personalities with passion and gusto, Alcaeus composed love-songs (not always in his own person), now almost totally lost, drinking-songs, and hymns to the gods, all with simple directness, economy, and little imagery. (In some of his political poems he writes allegorically, using the image of the ship of state tossed by storm to describe political strife.) His language was the Aeolic vernacular spoken in Lesbos at that time, with a few Homeric forms (see DIALECTS, GREEK 2).

2. Greek comic poet, writer of Old Comedy, known to be active at the beginning of the fourth century BC.

3. An epigrammatist of the third to second century BC who has some fifteen epigrams in the Greek Anthology.

4. In Greek myth, a son of Perseus and father of Amphitryon; see also ALCIDES.

Alcaeus may refer to several ancient Greek figures, notably:

• Alcaeus (mythology), the son of Perseus and the father of Amphitryon
• Alcaeus of Mytilene, a lyric poet of the archaic period
• Alcaeus of Messene, a Greek epigrammatist of the late 3rd/early 2nd century BC
• Alcaeus, an Epicurean philosopher who was expelled from Rome by a decree of the senate about 173 or 154 BC.^[1][2][3]
• Alcaeus, incidentally spoken of by Polybius as habitually ridiculing the grammarian Isocrates.^[4] It is possible that this and the above, of whom nothing further is known, may have been identical with each other, and with the Alcaeus of Messene.
• Alcaeus (comic poet), a writer of ten plays of the Old Comedy.

References

1. ^ Perizon. ad Aelian. V. H. ix. 22
2. ^ Athen. xii. p. 547, a.
3. ^ Suda s. v. Ἐπίκουρος
4. ^ Polybius, xxxii. 6, 160 BC

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)