Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/156

134 134 HISTORY OP TUB Lydian king Gyges, whose wealth he mentions in a verse still extant* ; but is mainly to be regarded as the contemporary of Ardys (from Olymp. 25, 3 to 37, 4. b. c. 678 — 29). In another versef he mentions the cala- mities of Magnesia, which befel that city through the Treres, and, as we have seen, not in the earliest part of Ardys' reign}. Archilochus draws a comparison between the misery of Magnesia and the melancholy condition of Thasos, whither he was led by his family, and was dis- appointed in his hopes of finding the mountains of gold they had expected. The Thasians seem, indeed, never to have been contented with their island, though its fertility and its mines might have yielded a considerable revenue, and to have tried to get possession of the opposite coast of Thrace, abounding in gold and in wine ; an attempt which involved them in wars not only with the natives of that country — for example the Saians § — but also with the early Greek colonists. We find in fragments of Archilochus that they had, even in his time, extended their incursions so far eastward as to come into conflict with the inhabitants of Maronea for the possession of Stryme ||, which at a later period, during the Persian war, was regarded as a city of the Thasians. Dissatisfied with the posture of affairs, which the poet often represents as desperate, (in such expressions as, that the cala- mities of all Hellas were found combined in Thasos, that the stone of Tantalus was hanging over their heads, &c.,)^[ Archilochus must have quitted Thasos and returned to Paros, since we are informed by credible writers that he lost his life in a war between the Parians and the inha- bitants of the neighbouring island of Naxos. § 7. From these facts it appears, that the public life of Archi- lochus was agitated and unsettled ; but his private life was still more exposed to the conflict of contending passions. He had courted a Parian girl, Neobule, the daughter of Lycambes, and his trochaic poems expressed the violent passion with which she had inspired him**. Lycambes had actually promised him his daughterft, and we are ignorant what induced him to withdraw his consent. The ra°-e with which Archilochus assailed the family, now knew no bounds ; and he not only accused Lycambes of perjury, but Neobule and her sisters of the most abandoned lives. It is unintelligible how the Parians could suffer the exasperated poet to heap such virulent abuse on persons with whom he had shortly before so earnestly desired to connect himself, had not these iambics first appeared at a fes- tival whose solemnization gave impunity to every license ; and had it not been regarded as a privilege of this kind of poetry to exag- gerate at will the evil reports for which any ground existed, and t Comp. ch. x. § 4. § Ch. x. § 7. tf This is evident from fr. 83, "O^xov §' ho<ripl<rhs ftiyuv, a.Xx; n xal ^tkvi&L
 * Fragm. 10. f Fragm. 71. The reading ea<r/av in this fragment is conjectural.
 * See Harpocration in iV^jj. ^[ Fragm. 21,43. ' ** Fragm. 25, 26.