Iambic Poetry

But it was on his satiric iambic poetry that the fame of Archilochus was founded. The first place in this style of poetry was awarded to him by the consent of the ancient writers, who did not hesitate to compare him with Sophocles, Pindar, and even Homer,--meaning, doubtless, that as they stood at the head of tragic, lyric, and epic poetry, so was Archilochus the first of iambic satirical writers; while some place him, next to Homer, above all other poets. (Dion Chrysost. l.c. ; Longin. 13.3; Velleius, 1.5; Cicero, Orat. 2; Heracleitus, apud Diog. Laert. 9.1.) The statues of Archilochus and of Homer were dedicated on the same day (Antip. Thessal. Epigr. 45), and two faces, which are thought to be their likenesses, are found placed together in a Janus-like bust. (Visconti, Icon. Gree. i. p. 62.) The emperor Hadrian judged that the Muses had shown a special mark of favour to Homer in leading Archilochus into a different department of poetry. (Epig. 5.) Other testimonies are collected by Liebel (p. 43).

The Iambics of Archilochus expressed the strongest feelings in the most unmeasured language. The licence of Ionian democracy and the bitterness of a disappointed man were united with the highest degree of poetical power to give them force and point. In countries and ages unfamiliar with the political and religious licence which at once incited and protected the poet, his satire was blamed for its severity (Liebel, p. 41); and the emetion accounted most conspicuous in his verses was "rage," as we see in the line of Horace (A. P. 79) : Archilochum proproi rabies armavit iambo, and in the expression of Hadrian (l.c.), λυσσῶντας ἰάμβους; and his bitterness passed into a proverb. Ἀρχιλόχου πατεῖς. But there must have been something more than mere sarcastic power, there must have been truth and delicate wit, in the sarcasms of the poet whom Plato does not hesitate to call "the very wise," (τοῦ σοφωτάτου, Repub. ii. p. 365.) Quintilian (10.1.60) ascribes to him the greatest power of expression, displayed in sentences sometimes strong, sometimes brief, with rapid changes (quum validae, tum breves vibrantesque sententiae), the greatest life and nervousness (plurimum sanguinis atque nervorum), and considers that whatever blame his works deserve is the fault of his subjects and not of his genius. In the latter opinion the Greek critics seem to have joined. (Plut. de Aud. 13, p. 45a.) Of modern writers, Archilochus has been perhaps best understood by Müller, who says, "The ostensible object of Archilochus' Iambics, like that of the later comedy, was to give reality to caricatures, every hideous feature of which was made more striking by being magnified. But that tllese pictures, like caricatures from the hand of a master, had a striking truth, may be inferred from the impression which Archilochus' iambics produced, both upon contemporaries and posterity. Mere calumnies could never have driven the daughters of Lycambes to hang themselves,--if, indeed, this story is to be believed, and is not a gross exaggeration. But we have no need of it; the universal admiration which was awarded to Archilochus' iambics proves the existence of a foundation of truth; for when had a satire, which was not based on truth, universal reputation for excellence? When Plato produced his first dialogues against the sophists, Gorgias is said to have exclaimed "Athens has given birth to a new Archilochus !" This comparison, made by a man not unacquainted with art, shows at all events that Archilochus must have possessed somewhat of the keen and delicate satire which in Plato was most severe where a dull listener would be least sensible of it." (History of the Literature of Greece, i. p. 135.)

The satire of preceding writers, as displayed for example in the was less pointed, because its objects were chosen out of the remote world which furnished all the personages of epic poetry ; while the iambics of Archilochus were aimed at those along whom he lived. Hence their personal bitterness and sarcastic power. This kind of satire had already been employed in extemporaneous effusions of wit, especially at the festivals of Demeter and Cora, and Dionysus. This raillery, a specimen of which is preserved in some of the songs of the chorus in Aristophanes' Frogs, was called iambus ; and the same name was applied to the verse which Archilochus invented when he introduced a new style of poetry in the place of these irregular effusions. For the measured movement of the heroic hexameter, with its arsis and thesis of equal lengths, he substituted a movement in which the arsis was twice as long as the thesis, the light tripping character of which was admirably adapted to express the lively play of wit. According as the arsis followed or preceded the thesis, the verse gained, in the former case, strength, in the latter, speed and lightness, which. are the characteristics respectively of the iambus and of the trochee. These short feet he formed into continued systems, by uniting every two of them into a pair (a metre or dipodia), in which one arsis was more strongly accentuated than the other, and one of the two theses was left doubtful as to quantity, so that, considered with reference to musical rhythm, each dipod formed a bar. * These two remarks apply to the first arsis and the first thesis of the iambic metre, and to the second arsis and the second thesis of the trochaic :

Hence arose the great kindred dramatic metres, the iambic trimeter and the trochaic tetrameter, as well as the shorter forms of iambic and trochaic verse. Archilochus was the inventor also of the epode, which was formed by subjoining to one or more verses a shorter one. One form of the epode, in which it consists of three trochees, was called the ithyphallic verse (ἰθύφαλλοσ̓. He used also a kind of verse compounded of two different metrical structures, which was called asynartete. Some writers ascribe to him the invention of the Saturnian verse. (Bentley's Dissertation on Phalaris.) Archilochus introduced several improvements in music, which began about his time to be applied to the public recitations of poetry.

The best opportunity we have of judging of the structure of Archilochus' poetry, though not of its satiric character, is furnished by the Epodes of Horace, as we learn from that poet himself (Epist. 1.19. 23) : Parios ego primum iambosOstendi Latio, numeros animosque secutusArchilochi, non res et agentia verba Lycamben.

Some manifest translations of Archilochus may be traced in the Epodes.