Extract

Greek iambic and elegiac poet, from *Paros. He mentioned *Gyges, who died c.652 bce (fr. 19), and a total solar eclipse which was almost certainly that of 6 April 648 (fr. 122); a memorial to his friend Glaucus, son of Leptines (fr. 131), in late 7th-cent. lettering, has been found on *Thasos, where Archilochus spent part of his life (SEG 14. 565). His poetry was concerned with his personal affairs and with contemporary public events—politics, shipwrecks, war, etc. Its tone varied widely, from grave to gay, from pleasantly bantering to bitter. Archilochus was famous throughout antiquity for the stinging wit with which he lashed his enemies and sometimes his friends, and for what appeared to be carefree admissions of outrageous conduct such as fleeing from battle and abandoning his shield (fr. 5), or compromising young ladies. He repeatedly attacked one Lycambes, who had (or so the ancients understood) betrothed his daughter Neobule to Archilochus but later revoked the agreement. The vengeful poet then produced a series of poems in which he recounted in the most explicit detail the sexual experiences that he and others had enjoyed with both Neobule and her sister. This (so the legend goes) induced Lycambes and his daughters to hang themselves for shame. We have several fragments from sexual narratives (e.g. frs. 30–48). However, in the ‘Cologne Epode’ discovered in 1974 (fr.