A Greek aristocrat who turned political exile and factional feuding into a new kind of song. Alcaeus shaped a verse form tight enough to carry both wine-praise and war-cry - the Alcaic stanza - and made it stick for two and a half millennia.
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In their own words 10
Splendid burns the huge house with bronze; rich is the ample roofwith radiant helmets; overhead each helmet lets a horse-hair plumedroop, the warrior’s ornament.
Fr. 19 (tr. Gilbert Highet, 1938)
Not in hewn stones, nor in well-fashioned beams, Not in the noblest of the builder's dreams, But in courageous men of purpose great, There is the fortress, there the living State.
Fr. 29 (tr. James S. Easby-Smith, 1901)
O violet-tressed Sappho chaste, O maid with honeyed smile! I fain would tell what is in my breast, Did shame me not beguile.
Fr. 124 (tr. Walter Petersen, 1918)
Writers born in the 630s BC 2
About this person
Born around 625 BC into Mytilene's ruling class on Lesbos, Alcaeus spent much of his life tangled in the city's political disputes and aristocratic feuds. He wrote in the midst of that turbulence, and his lyric poetry - personal, direct, built on the stanza that now bears his name - earned him a place among the canonical nine lyric poets recognized by Hellenistic Alexandria. He shared the island and the era with Sappho, and the two may have exchanged poems. He died around 580 BC, leaving behind a verse form and a voice that outlasted the factions he fought for.
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