(
1. Of CLAROS, a son of Hipparchus, was a Greek epic and elegiac
poet. (ad Plat.
Tim. i. p.28.) Plutarch relates that at the Lysandria--for thus the Samians called their
great festival of the Heraea, to honour Lysander--Antimachus entered upon a poetical contest
with one Niceratus of Heracleia. The latter obtained the prize from Lysander himself, and
Antimachus, disheartened by his failure, destroyed his own poem. Plato, then a young man,
happened to be present, and consoled the unsuccessful poet by saying, that ignorance, like
blindness, was a misfortune to those who laboured under it. The meeting between Antimachus and
Plato is related differently by Cicero (l.c.), who also places it
manifestly at a different time and probably also at a different place; for, according to him,
Antimachus once read to a numerous audience his voluminous poem (Thebais), and his hearers
were so wearied with it, that all gradually left the place with the exception of Plato,
whereupon the poet said, " I shall nevertheless continue to read, for one Plato is worth more
than all the thousands of other hearers." Now an anecdote similar to the one related by Cicero
is recorded of Antagoras the Rhodian [ANTAGORAS], and this
repetition of the same occurrence, together with other improbabilities, have led Welcker (Der Epische Cyclus, p. 105, &c.) to reject the two anecdotes altogether
as inventions, made either to show the uninteresting character of those epics, or to insinuate
that, although they did not suit the taste of the multitude, they were duly appreciated by men
of learning and intelligence.
The only other circumstance of the life of Antimachus that we know is, his love for Lyde,
who was either his mistress or his wife. He followed her to Lydia; but she appears to have
died soon after, and the poet returned to Colophon and sought consolation in the composition
of an elegy called Lyde, which was very celebrated in antiquity. (Analect. i. p. 219.) This elegy, which was very
long, consisted of accounts of the misfortunes of all the mythical heroes who, like the poet,
had become unfortunate through the early death of their beloved. (Plut. Consol. ad Apollon. p. 106b.) It thus contained vast stores of mythical and antiquarian
information, and it was chiefly for this and Bibl. p. 171,
ed. Bekker.)
The principal work of Antimachus was his epic poem called Thebais
(magnum illud volumen. Porphyrius (ad Horat. ad Pison. 146) says,
that Antimachus had spun out his poem so much, that in the 24th book (volumen) his Seven Heroes had not yet arrived at Thebes. Now as in the remaining part
of the work the poet had not only to describe the war of the Seven, but also probably treated
of the war of the Epigoni (Schol. ad Aristoph. Pax. 1268), the length of
the poem must have been immense. It was, like the elegy Lyde, full of
mythological lore, and all that had any connexion with the subject of the poem was
incorporated in it. It was, of course, difficult to control such a mass, and hence we find it
stated by Quintilian (10.1.53; comp. Dionys. De verb. Compos. 22), that
Antimachus was unsuccessful in his descriptions of passion, that his works were not graceful,
and were deficient in arrangement. His style also had not the simple and easy flow of the
Homeric poems. He borrowed expressions and phrases from the tragic writers, and frequently
introduced Doric forms. (Schol. ad Nicand. Theriac. 3.) Antimachus was
thus one of the forerunners of the poets of the Alexandrine school, who wrote more for the
learned and a select number of readers than for the public at large. The Alexandrine
grammarians assigned to him the second place among the epic poets, and the emperor Hadrian
preferred his works even to those of Homer. (Dion. Cass. 69.4; Spartian. Hadrian. 5.) There are some other works which are ascribed to Antimachus, such as a
work entitled