ARCHILOCHUS

born 675?, BC, Paros died 635?, BC poet and soldier, the earliest Greek writer of elegiac and personal lyric poetry whose works have survived to any considerable extent. Archilochus was the illegitimate son of a noble father. This would probably have made little difference to his social status had he not been spurned as a suitor by a woman named Neobule. Perhaps as a result of this rebuff Archilochus went to live in Thasos, where he seems to have become a soldier of fortune, later serving in Thrace and other places and composing his poetry as he served. It is noteworthy that, unlike the writers who came before him, Archilochus saw no glory in war. In one poem he speaks of his inglorious action in abandoning his shield in order to save his life: No matter, he says, I can always find another. There is a tradition that Archilochus died in a battle between the Thasians and the men of Naxos. Archilochus was the first extant Greek poet who employed the elegiac couplet and the various iambic and trochaic metres (from the dimeter to the tetrameter). The surviving fragments of his work show that he was among the most skillful handlers of the Greek language and a metrical innovator of the highest ability and importance. He was also the first European writer to make his personal experiences and feelings the main subject of his poems. The controlled yet personal voice in his verse marks a distinct departure from other surviving ancient Greek poetry, which is characteristically more formulaic and heroic. He was particularly famous for the sharp satire and ferocious invective with which he attacked Neobule and her father, not to mention other eminent Thasians and Parians. Archilochus was much admired by later poets, particularly Horace.