The New International Encyclopædia/Alcæus

ALCÆ′US (Gk. Ἀλκαῖος, Alkaios). One of the first lyric poets of Greece, and contemporary with Sappho. He was a native of Mitylene, and flourished at the end of the seventh and the beginning of the sixth century B.C. Alcæus was of aristocratic birth, and became a leader against the tyrants of his native city, Myrsilus and Melanchrus. Being banished from home, he traveled during his exile, it is said, as far as Egypt. While he was absent, a former comrade in arms, Pittacus, was called to the head of the State by the people, whereupon Alcæus took up arms against him as a tyrant; but in attempting to force his way back he was captured by Pittacus, who, however, generously granted him his life and freedom. Alcæus's odes in the Æolic dialect—arranged in ten books by the Alexandrians—contained political songs bearing on the struggles against the tyrants, hymns, and drinking and love songs. Only fragments remain. Alcæus was the inventor of the form of stanza which is named after him, the Alcaic; this Horace, the most successful of his imitators, transplanted into the Latin language. The fragments were collected in Bergk's Poetæ Lyrici Græci, iii: fourth edition, pp. 147ff (Leipzig, 1882). Consult Smyth, Greek Melic Poets (New York, 1900).