A satirical poet of great renown, whose acrid pen spared neither friend nor foe. A writer also of licentious verse. Fragments only of his compositions have come down to us. To him is attributed the invention of the Iambic measure, and he shares with Thaletas and Terpander the honour of establishing lyric poetry in Greece. The victors in the Olympic games were accustomed to sing one of his hymns in their triumphal procession. The countenance of his statue denotes impudent boldness.
[The two early poets united: a mode of portraiture adopted by the Greek artists when two celebrated men were of the same country, and of kindred pursuits, as Herodotus and Thucydides, parallel historians; Metrodorus and Epicurus, philosophers of the same sect (see [No. 20]). This double terminal or Janus was found at Rome on the Celian Hill: it is now in the Vatican. The ends of the noses are modern, as are some other parts in the Homer. That portraits of Archilochus existed so long after his death is proved by the existence of an inscription in the Analecta of Thucydides written for his portrait.]
2A. Homer. Great Epic Poet of Greece.
[For life see [No. 1].]
3. Æsop. Writer of Fables.
[Born in Phrygia, about B.C. 620. Died about B.C. 560.]
The reputed author of the fables to which his name has been for centuries attached. According to the general account, he was originally a slave, and gained much notice for his wit, and especially for his talent of communicating useful maxims in the form of apologues. His talent procured him favour at the court of Crœsus. He is said to have been thrown from the top of a rock and killed, by the priests of Delphi. His fables, at first preserved by tradition, were at a later period converted into Greek and Latin verse by Babrias and Phædrus. We have them in Greek prose, told naturally and in the utmost simplicity. In stature Æsop is described as small and hump-backed, with a prominent stomach and pointed head, yet the intellectual expression of his countenance is not that usually given to dwarfs.
[From the very remarkable half-figure in marble in the Villa Albani, at Rome; the whole of which is of great antiquity. It has been maintained that Æsop was not deformed, inasmuch as the circumstance is not mentioned by writers, before the time of the Greek monk, Planudes Maximus. There are, however, traditions affirming his deformity, and Plutarch, in his Feast of the Sages, makes him sit upon a low stool at the feet of Solon. The countenance has a thoughtful and elevated expression. Lysippus sculptured the portrait of Æsop to be placed amongst the sages of Greece at Athens. Phædrus refers to this work, and the celebrity of the man is fixed by the fact that the court sculptor of Alexander employed himself upon his statue.]
4. Homer. Great Epic Poet of Greece.
[From the marble. Once in the Capitoline Museum; now in the Louvre.]