Page:A new and general biographical dictionary; containing an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent persons in every nation v1.djvu/330

 294 A R 'C H I L O C H U S. Archilochus was fo much addicted to raillery ar.a abufe, that he did not even fpare himfelf [B]. He is faid, however, to have been much in favour with Apollo : for when he had been killed in a combat, the oracle of Delphi drove the mur- derer out of the temple, and was not appeafed without a multitude of excufcs and prayers; and even after this the oracle ordered him to a certain houfe, there to pacify the ghoft of Archilochus. This poet excelled chiefly in iam- bic verfes, and was the inventor of them, as appears from the following paflage in Horace : Parios ego primus iambos Oitendi Latio, numeros animofque fccutus Archilochi. Epitt. xix. lib. i. ver. 23. To keen iambics I firft tun'd our lyre, And warm'd with great Archilochub's fire, His rapid numbers chofe. He is one of the three poets, whom Ariftarchus approved in this kind of poetry. Quintilian puts him, in fome refpe&s, below the other two. Ariftophanes the grammarian thought, that the longer his iambic poems were the finer they were, as Ep. ii. Cicero thus informs us : " The longeft of your epilHes," lays he lib. 16. to Atticus, " feem to me the beft, as the iambics of Archilo- " chus did to Ariftophanes. " The hymn which he wroteto Pindar, Hercules and lolaus was fo much efteemed, that i: ufed to be Olympic. f un g three times to the honour of thofe, who had gained the Dio^Lae t v '& or y at the Olympic games. There are few of his works in Heraclic 1 .' extant; and this, lays Mr. Bayle 3 is rather a gain than a lofs, ov UK I|t/9i^x3j5crofia a xaxiu, Plut. in Inftitut. Lacon. p. 239, Rejoice, fomeSaian, who my fhield may find, Which in fome hedge, unhurt, I left behind. Farewell, my fhield; now I tnyfelf am free, I'll buy another, full as good as thee. [B] " We fhould not have known, " and enemies; that he was extremely " had it not been for himfelf," fays Cri- " addidted to the debauching of wo- tiar, "that his mother Enipone was a " men, and very infolent j and, what " flave; that he was forced, by his mi- '' is worle than all, that, to fave his " Faros, and go from thence to Tha- " fled." ^lian. Var. Hift. lib. x, " fus; that he made liimfelf hated cap. 13. " there j that he abuied both fiiends with
 * ' ferable condition, to quit the ifle of " Hie, he threw away his fliield, and