Archilochus

For the hummingbird genus, see Archilochus (genus).

Coin from ancient Thasos showing Satyr and nymph, dated to late fifth century BC.
Archilochus was involved in the Parian colonization of Thasos about two centuries before the coin was minted. His poetry includes vivid accounts of life as a warrior, seafarer and lover.

Archilochus, or, Archilochos (Greek: Ἀρχίλοχος) (c. 680 BC – c. 645 BC) is a poet who lived on the island of Paros in the Archaic period in Greece whose innovative poetry, in various meters, was the first to focus upon personal experiences and emotions. Alexandrian scholars included him, along with Semonides and Hipponax, in their canon of iambic poets, and ancient commentators also numbered him with Tyrtaeus and Callinus as one of the possible inventors of elegy. Modern critics however generally characterize him simply as a lyric poet. Although his work only survives in fragments, he was revered by the ancient Greeks as one of their most brilliant authors, and mentioned in the same breath as Homer and Hesiod,. He was also censured by them as the archetypal poet of blame — his invective was said to have driven his former fiancee and her father to suicide. He presented himself as a man of few illusions, either in love or war, such as in the following elegy, where discretion is taken to be the better part of valour:

Ἀσπίδι μὲν Σαΐων τις ἀγάλλεται, ἥν παρὰ θάμνῳ

ἔντος ἀμώμητον κάλλιπον οὐκ ἐθέλων·

αὐτὸν δ' ἔκ μ' ἐσάωσα· τί μοι μέλει ἀσπὶς ἐκείνη;

Ἐρρέτω· ἐξαῦτις κτήσομαι οὐ κακίω.

One of the tribesmen in Thrace now delights in the shield I discarded

Unwillingly near a bush, for it was perfectly good,

But at least I got myself safely out. Why should I care for that shield?

Let it go. Some other time I'll find another no worse.

Archilochus was much imitated, by Latin as well as Greek poets, and three other distinguished poets claimed to have also thrown away their shields — Alcaeus, Anacreon and Horace.

Biography

The historical sources

Information about the life of Archilochus derives from his surviving work, the testimony of other authors, and inscriptions upon monuments. The vivid language and intimate details of the poems suggest that they are autobiographical but it is known, on the authority of Aristotle, that Archilochus sometimes role-played — and the philosopher quotes two fragments as examples of an author speaking in somebody else's voice. In one, Archilochus is said to be speaking in the voice of an unnamed father, commenting on a recent eclipse of the sun, and in the other, as a carpenter named Charon, expressing his indifference to the wealth of Gyges, the king of Lydia.. One modern scholar has suggested that imaginary characters and situations might have been a feature of the "iambus" poetic tradition within which Archilochus composed.

If we assume that Charon and the unnamed father were speaking about events that Archilochus had experienced himself, they give us some clues about the chronology of his life. Gyges reigned 687 BC — 652 BC, and the date of the eclipse must have been either 6 April 648 BC or 27 June 660 BC (another date, 14 March 711 BC, is generally considered too early to be relevant to the poet's life). The dates are consistent with other evidence of the poet's chronology and reported history, such as the discovery at Thasos of a cenotaph, dated around the end of the seventh century, dedicated to a friend who is named in several fragments: Glaucus, son of Leptines. Although the chronology for Archilochus is uncertain, modern scholars generally settle for the dates circa 680 BC — 640 BC.

Sometime in the third century BC a sanctuary to Archilochus was established on his home island of Paros, where his admirers could sacrifice to him, and Apollo, Dionysus, and the Muses. Inscriptions found on orthostats from the sanctuary include quoted verses and historical references. In one, we are told that his father Telesicles once sent Archilochus to fetch a cow from the fields, but that he chanced to meet a group of women who vanished with the animal, leaving him a lyre in its place — they were the Muses and they had selected him as a protégé. According to the same inscription, this omen was later confirmed by the oracle at Delphi. Not all the inscriptions are so fanciful. Some are records by a local historian, set out in chronological order according to custom, under the names of archons. Unfortunately, these are very fragmentary.

Snippets of biographical information are provided by the ancient authors Tatian, Proclus, Clement of Alexandria, Cicero, Aelian, Plutarch, Galen, Dio Chrysostom, Aelius Aristides and by several anonymous authors in the Palatine Anthology. See and other poets below for the testimony of some famous poets.

Scholarship and the biographical tradition

According to tradition, his grandfather (or possibly great-grandfather) Tellis helped to establish the cult of Demeter on Thasos near the end of the eighth century, a mission depicted in a celebrated painting at Delphi by the Thasian Polygnotus. The painting, as described by Pausanias, featured Tellis in Hades, sharing Charon's boat with the priestess of Demeter. The poet's father, Telesicles, founded the Parian colony in Thasos. The names 'Tellis' and 'Telesicles' have religious connotations and some infer from this that the poet was born into a priestly family devoted to Demeter. Inscriptions in the Archilocheion identify Archilochus as a key figure in the Parian cult of Dionysus. There is no evidence for reports that his mother was a slave named Enipo and that he left Paros to become a mercenary in order to to escape poverty. The slave claim probably derives from a misreading of some of his verses and archaeology indicates that life on Paros, which he associated with "figs and seafaring", was not impoverished; and although he frequently refers to the rough life of a soldier, warfare was part of being an aristocrat in the archaic period and there is no indication that he fought for pay.

"Look Glaucus! Already waves are disturbing the deep sea and a cloud stands straight round about the heights of Gyrae, a sign of storm; from the unexpected comes fear." The trochaic verse was quoted by the Homeric scholar Heraclitus, who said that Archilochus used the image to describe war with the Thracians.

The life of Archilochus was marked by conflicts. Ancient tradition identifies a Parian called Lycambes, together with his daughters, as the main target of his invective. Lycambes is said to have betrothed his daughter Neobule to Archilochus; when he reneged on the agreement, the poet retaliated with such abusive eloquence and scurrilous accusations that Lycambes, Neobule, and one or both of his other daughters, committed suicide. The story became a popular theme with later Alexandrian versifiers, who played upon its poignancy at the expense of Archilochus. Some scholars believe that Lycambes and his daughters existed only as "stock characters in a traditional entertainment". Others claim that Lycambes was as an oath-breaker and the invective was a social obligation consistent with the practice of 'iambos'.

The inscriptions in the Archilocheion imply that the poet had a role in the introduction of the cult of Dionysus to Paros — and because his songs were condemned as "too iambic" (possibly the issue was related to phallic worship) they were punished by the gods (possibly with impotence). The citizens were instructed by the oracle of Apollo to atone for their error and rid themselves of their suffering by honouring the poet. His hero cult lasted on Paros over 800 years.

Conflict found its ultimate expression in war. He joined the Parian colony on Thasos and battled the indigenous Thracians, claiming in his poetry to be a soldier fighting for a country he doesn't love ("Thasos, thrice miserable city") on behalf of a people he scorns ("The woes [dregs] of all the Greeks have come together in Thasos"),, although valuing his closest comrades and his stalwart, if unattractive, commander. Later he returned to Paros and joined the fight against the neighbouring island of Naxos. A Naxian warrior named Calondas won notoriety as the man that killed him. The fate of this Naxian interested later authors such as Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom, since he was punished by exclusion from the temple of Apollo at Delphi, where he had gone to consult the oracle and was banished with the words: "You killed the servant of the Muses; depart from the temple."

The poet's character

Archilochus is both a warrior and a poet:

Εἰμὶ δ' ἐγὼ θεράπων μὲν Ἐνυαλίοιο ἄνακτος,

καὶ Μουσέων ἐρατὸν δῶρον ἐπιστάμενος.

I am the servant of Lord Enyalios [Ares, god of war],

and skilled in the lovely gift of the Muses.

It is claimed that although Homer supplied Archilochus with a poetic model, in Homer's day it was unthinkable for a poet to be also a warrior. Archilochus seems to be deliberately breaking the traditional mould:

"Perhaps there is a special relevance to his times in the particular gestures he elects to make: the abandonment of grandly heroic attitudes in favour of a new unsentimenatal honesty, an iconoclastic and flippant tone of voice coupled with deep awareness of traditional truths."

Ancient authors and scholars sometimes react angrily to his poetry and his biographical tradition, condemning "fault-finding Archilochus" for "fattening himself on harsh words of hatred" (see Pindar's comment in and other poets below) and for his "unseemly and lewd utterances directed towards women", whereby he made "a spectacle of himself" (Plutarch de curiositate 10.520a-b), being "...a noble poet in other respects if one were to take away his foul mouth and slanderous speech and wash them away like a stain" (Suda). According to Valerius Maximus, the Spartans banished the works of Archilochus from their state for the sake of their children "...lest it harm their morals more than it benefited their talents." Yet some ancient scholars interpreted his motives more sympathetically:

"For of the two poets who for all time deserve to be compared with no other, namely Homer and Archilochus, Homer praised nearly everything...But Archilochus went to the opposite extreme, to censure, seeing, I suppose, that men are in greater need of this, and first of all he censures himself...", thus winning for himself "...the highest commendation from heaven." — Dio Chrysostom

Poetry

Archilochus's merits as a poet were famously summarized by the Quintilian:

"We find in him the greatest force of expression, sententious statements that are not only vigorous but also terse and vibrant, and a great abundance of vitality and energy, to the extent that claims about his inferiority derive from a defect of his subject matter rather than his poetic genius. — Quintilian

"A kingfisher flapped its wings on a protruding rock" — Archilochus fr. 41
The poet, "a frank celebrant of sex", found various ways to describe sexual relations, including allusions. Here the rock is a phallic symbol and the kingfisher represents a female partner.

In fact the surviving fragments of his work (which mostly come from Egyptian papyri) belie this "defect of subject matter". Ancient commentators generally focused on his lampoons, and on the virulence of his invective as in the comments below (see and other poets), yet his poetic interests were actually wide-ranging. Alexandrian scholars collected the works of the other two major iambographers, Semonides and Hipponax, in just two books each, each cited by number, but Archilochus was edited and cited not by book number but by poetic terms such as 'elegy', 'trimeters', 'tetrameters' and 'epodes'. Moreover, even those terms fail to indicate his full range:

"...not all his iambic and trochaic poetry was invective. In his elegiacs we find neat epigrams, consolatory poems and a detailed prediction of battle; his trochaics include a cry for help in war, an address to his troubled soul and lines on the ideal commander; in his iambics we find an enchanting description of a girl and Charon the carpenter's rejection of tyranny."

One convenient way to classify the poems is to divide them between elegy and iambus (ἵαμβος) — elegy aimed at some degree of decorum, since it employed the stately hexameter of epic, whereas iambus appears to have been the ancient term for any informal kind of verse designed to entertain (it may have included the iambic meter but was not confined to it). Hence the accusation that he was "too iambic" (see Biography) referred not to his choice of meter but his informal subject matter and tone. Elegy was accompanied by the aulos or pipe, whereas the performance of iambus varied, from recitation or chant in iambic trimeter and trochaic tetrameter, to singing of epodes accompanied by some musical instrument (which one isn't known) Archilochus was not included in the canonic list of nine lyric poets compiled by Hellenistic scholars — his range exceeded their narrow criteria for lyric ('lyric' meant verse accompanied by the lyre). He did compose some lyrics, but only fragments survive today. They include however one of the most famous of all lyric utterances, a hymn to Heracles with which victors were hailed at the Olympic Games, featuring a refrain Τήνελλα καλλίνικε in which the first word imitates the sound of the lyre. See comment by Theocritus below.

The earliest meter in extant Greek poetry was the epic hexameter of Homer. Homer however did not create the epic hexameter, and there is evidence that other meters also predate his work (see for example the Iliad 1.472-74; 16.182-83; 18.493). Thus, though ancient scholars credited Archilochus with the invention of elegy and iambic poetry, he probably built on a "flourishing tradition of popular song". His innovations do however seem to have turned a popular tradition into an important literary medium.

Style

Like other archaic Greek poets, Archilochus relied heavily on Homer's language, particularly when using the same meter, dactylic hexameter (as for example in elegy), but even in other meters the debt is apparent — in the verse below, for example, his address to his embattled soul or spirit, θυμέ, has Homeric connotations (Odyssey 20.18 ff, Iliad 22.98-99 and 22.122). The meter in this case is trochaic tetrameter catalectic (four pairs of trochees with the final syllable omitted), a form later favoured by Athenian dramatists because of its running character, expressing aggression and emotional intensity. The comic poet Aristophanes, for instance, employed it for the arrival on stage of an enraged chorus in The Knights, but Archilochus uses it here to communicate the need for emotional moderation. His use of the meter here isn't intentionally ironic since he didn't share the tidy functionalism of later theorists, for whom different meters and verse-forms were endowed with distinctive characters suited to different tasks — his use of meter is "neutral in respect of ethos". The following verse is also indicative of the fragmentary nature of Archilochus's extant work: lines 2 and 3 are probably corrupted and modern scholars have tried to emend them in various ways, none satisfactory, though the general meaning is clear.

θυμέ, θύμ᾽ ἀμηχάνοισι κήδεσιν κυκώμενε,

ἄνα δέ, δυσμενέων δ᾽ ἀλέξευ προσβαλὼν ἐναντίον

στέρνον, ἐν δοκοῖσιν ἐχθρῶν πλησίον κατασταθείς

ἀσφαλέως· καὶ μήτε νικῶν ἀμφαδὴν ἀγάλλεο

μηδὲ νικηθεὶς ἐν οἴκωι καταπεσὼν ὀδύρεο.

ἀλλὰ χαρτοῖσίν τε χαῖρε καὶ κακοῖσιν ἀσχάλα

μὴ λίην· γίνωσκε δ᾽ οἷος ῥυσμὸς ἀνθρώπους ἔχει.

My Soul, my Soul, all disturbed by sorrows inconsolable,

Bear up, hold out, meet front-on the many foes that rush on you

Now from this side and now that, enduring all such strife up close,

Never wavering; and should you win, don't openly exult,

Nor, defeated, throw yourself lamenting in a heap at home,

But delight in things that are delightful and, in hard times, grieve

Not too much — appreciate the rhythm that controls men's lives.

References to Archilochus by other poets

Pindar

"But I must shun the deep bite of slander. For at a far remove I have seen fault-finding Archilochus many times in his helplessness fattening himself on the harsh words of hate." — Pythian 2.52-56

Callimachus

"Archilochus drew in the dog's pungent bile and the wasp's sharp sting, and he has his mouth's venom from both" — fragment 380 Pf.

Theocritus

"Stop and look upon Archilochus, the iambic poet of old, whose vast fame has spread from the sun's rising to its setting. In truth the Muses and Delian Apollo loved him, so musical was he and skilful in composing verses and singing them to the lyre." — Epigrams

Horace

"I was the first to show Latium the iambics of Paros, following the rhythms and spirit of Archilochus, but not the subject matter and words that assailed Lycambes" — Epistles 1.19.23-25

"Beware, beware, for with the utmost ferocity I lift my ready horns against evildoers, just like the scorned son-in-law of treacherous Lycambes..." — Epodes 6.11-13

Ovid

"Afterwards, if you continue, my unrestrained iambics will launch against you shafts tinged with the blood of Lycambes" — Ibis 53-54

Martial

"What does it avail me when certain people wish to pass off as mine whatever shafts drip with the blood of Lycambes...?" — Epigrams 7.12.5-6

Recent discoveries

A small papyrus scrap first published in 1908 deriving from the same ancient manuscript of Archilochus that yielded the most recent discovery (P.Oxy. VI 854, 2nd century CE).

Thirty previously unknown lines by Archilochus, in the elegiac meter, describing events leading up to the Trojan War, in which Achaeans battled Telephus king of Mysia, have recently been identified among the Oxyrhynchus papyri and published in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Volume LXIX (Graeco-Roman Memoirs 89).

Quotes

• "Keep some measure in the joy you take in luck, and the degree you give way to sorrow.".
• "I know the art of loving him that loves me, and hating my hater".
• "The fox knows many tricks, the hedgehog only one. One good one."
• "Thasos is like the spine of a donkey, wreathed in unkempt forest"

External links

• Introduction to Archilochos and translation of A's longest fragment by Guy Davenport
• Web Resources on Archilochos
• The Poetry of Archilochos
• Archilochos fragments in Greek
• Archilochus Bilingual Anthology (in Greek and English, side by side)
• Zweisprachige Textauswahl zu den griechischen Lyrikern mit zusätzlichen Hilfen
• SORGLL: Archilochos 67; read by Stephen Daitz