Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/114

96 and he appears to have written poems in which his adventures by sea were described. (Hor. Carm. 2.13. 28.) Antimenidas entered the service of the king of Babylon, and performed an exploit which was celebrated by Alcaeus. (Strab. xiii. p.617, Fr. 33, p. 433, Blomf.) Nothing is known of the life of Alcaeus after this period; but from the political state of Mytilene it is most probable that he died in exile.

Among the nine principal lyric poets of Greece some ancient writers assign the first place, others the second, to Alcaeus. His writings present to us the Aeolian lyric at its highest point. But their circulation in Greece seems to have been limited by the strangeness of the Aeolic dialect, and perhaps their loss to us may be partly attributed to the same cause. Two recensions of the works of Alcaeus were made by the grammarians Aristarchus and Aristophanes. Some fragments of his poems which remain, and the excellent imitations of Horace, enable us to understand something of their character.

His poems, which consisted of at least ten books (Athen. 11.481), were called in general Odes, Hymns, or Songs (ᾁσματα). Those which have received the highest praise are his warlike or patriotic odes referring to the factions of his state στασιωτικὰ or διχοστασιαστικὰ, the " Alcaei minaces Camoenae" of Horace. (Carm. 2.13. 27; Quint. Inst. 10.1.63; Dionys. de Vet. Script. Ecus. 2.8, p. 73, Sylb.) Among the fragments of these are the commencement of a song of exultation over the death of Myrsilus (Fr. 4, Blomf.), and part of a comparison of his ruined party to a disabled ship (Fr. 2, Blomf.), both of which are finely imitated by Horace. (Carm. 1.37, 1.14.) Many fragments are preserved, especially by Athenaeus (x. pp. 429, 430), in which the poet sings the praises of wine. (Fr. 1, 3, 16, 18, 20, Blomf.; comp. Hor. Carm. 1.9.18.) Müller remarks, that "it may be doubted whether Alcaeus composed a separate class of drinking songs (συμποτικὰ) ;... it is more probable that he connected every exhortation to drink with some reflection, either upon the particular circumstances of the time, or upon man's destiny in general." Of his erotic poems we have but few remains. Among them were some addressed to Sappho; one of which, with Sappho's reply, is preserved by Aristotle (Aristot. Rh. 1.9; Fr. 38, Blomf.; Sappho, fr. 30), and others to beautiful youths. (Hor. Carm. 1.32. 10; Cic. de Nat. Deor. 1.28, Tusc. Quaest. 4.33.) Most of his remaining poems are religious hymns and epigrams. Many of his poems are addressed to his friends individually.

The poetry of Alcaeus is always impassioned. Not only with him, but with the Aeolic school in general, poetry was not a mere art, but the plain and warm outpouring of the writer's inmost feelings. The metres of Alcaeus were generally lively, and his poems seem to have been constructed in short single strophes, in all of which the corresponding lines were of the same metre, as in the odes of Horace. He is said to have invented the well-known Alcaic strophe.

His likeness is preserved, together with that of Pittacus, on a brass coin of Mytilene in the Roval Museum at Paris, which is engraved by Visconti. (Icon. Pl. iii. No. 3.)

The fragments of Alcaeus were first collected by Mich. Neander in his " Aristologia Pindarica," Basil. 1556, 8vo., then by Henry Stephens in his collection of the fragments of the nine chief lyric poets of Greece (1557), of which there are several editions, and by Fulvius Ursinus, 1568, 8vo. The more modern collections are those by Jani, Halae San. 1780-1782, 4to.; by Strange, Halle, 1810, 8vo.; by Blomfield, in the "Museum Criticum," vol. i. p. 421, &c., Camb. 1826, reprinted in Gaisford's " Poetae Graeci Minores ;" and the most complete edition is that of Matthiae, " Alcaei Mytilenaei reliquiae," Lips. 1827. Additional fragments have been printed in the Rhenish Museum for 1829, 1833, and 1835; in Jahn's "Jahrbüch. für Philolog." for 1830; and in Cramer's "Anecdota Graeca," vol. i. Oxf. 1835. (Bode, Geschichte der Lyrischen Dichtkunst der Hellenen, ii. p. 378, &c.)

 ALCAEUS, the son of Miccus, was a native of , according to Suidas, who may, however, have confounded him in this point with the lyric poet. He is found exhibiting at Athens as a poet of the old comedy, or rather of that mixed comedy, which formed the transition between the old and the middle. In B. C. 388, he brought forward a play entitled, in the same contest in which Aristophanes exhibited his second Plutus, but, if the meaning of Suidas is rightly understood, he obtained only the fifth place. He left ten plays, of which some fragments remain, and the following titles are known,, , , , , ,.

Alcaeus, a tragic poet, mentioned by Fabricius (Biblioth. Graec, ii. p. 282), does not appear to be a different person from Alcaeus the comedian. The mistake of calling him a tragic poet arose simply from an erroneous reading of the title of his "Comoedo-tragoedia."

(The Greek Argument to the Plutus; Suidas, s. v. ; Pollux, x. 1; Casaubon on Athen. iii. p. 206; Meineke, Fragm. Comic. Graec, i. p. 244, ii. p. 824; Bode, Geschichte der Dramatischen Dichtkunst der Hellenen, ii. p. 386.)

 ALCA′MENES, king of Sparta, 10th of the Agids, son of Teleclus, commanded, according to Pausanias, in the night-expedition against Ampheia, which commenced the first Messenian war, but died before its 4th year. This would fix the 38 years assigned him by Apollodorus, about 779 to 742 B. C. In his reign Helos was taken, a place near the mouth of the Eurotas, the last independent hold most likely of the old Achaean population, and the supposed origin of the term Helot. (Paus. 3.2.7, 4.4.3, 5.3 ; Hdt. 7.204; Plut. Apophth. Lac.)

 ALCA′MENES, the son of Sthenelaides, whom Agis appointed as harmost of the Lesbians, when they wished to revolt from the Athenians in B. C. 412. When Alcamenes put to sea with twenty-one ships to sail to Chios, he was pursued by the Athenian fleet off the Isthmus of Corinth, and driven on shore. The Athenians attacked the ships when on shore, and Alcamenes was killed in the engagement. (Thuc. 8.5, 10.)

 ALCA′MENES, a distinguished statuary and sculptor, a native of Athens. (Plin. Nat. 36.5. s. 4.) Suidas (s. v.) calls him a Lemnian (if by Alcamenes he means the artist). This K. O. Muller (Arch. der Kunst. p. 96) interprets to mean that he was a cleruchus, or holder of one of the κλῆροι in Lemnos. Voss, who is followed by Thiersch (Epochen der bild. Künst, p. 130), conjectured that the true reading is Λίμνιος