ARCHILOCHUS, a famous Greek poet and musician, was, according to Herodotus, con temporary with Candaules and Gyges, kings of Lydia, who flourished about the 14th Olympiad, 724 years before Christ. But he is placed much later by modern chronologists, viz. by Blair 686, and by Priestley 660 years before Christ. He was born at Paros, one of the Cyclades. His father Telesicles was of so high a rank that he was chosen by his countrymen to consult the oracle at Delphi concerning the sending of a colony to Thasos—a proof that he was of one of the most distinguished families upon the island. However, he is said to have sullied his birth by an ignoble marriage with a slave called Enipo, of which alliance our poet musician was the fruit. Though Archilochus showed an early genius and attachment to poetry and music, these arts did not prevent his becoming a soldier; but in the first engagement at which he was present the young poet lost his buckler, though he saved his life by the help of his heels. “It it much easier,” said he, “to get a new buckler than a new existence.” This pleasantry, however, did not save his reputation; nor could his poetry or prayers prevail upon Lycambes, the father of his mistress, to let him marry his daughter, though she had been long promised to him.

According to Plutarch, there was no bard of antiquity by whom the two arts of poetry and music were so much advanced as by Archilochus. To him is attributed particularly the sudden transition from one rhythm to another of a different kind, and the manner of accompanying those irregular measures upon the lyre. Heroic poetry, in hexameter verse, seems to have been solely in use among the more ancient poets and musicians; and the transition from one rhythm to another, which lyric poetry required, was unknown to them; so that if Archilochus was the first author of this mixture, he might with propriety be styled the Inventor of Lyric Poetry, which after his time became a species of versification wholly distinct from heroic. To him is likewise ascribed the invention of Epodes. One of his hymns, written in honour of Hercules, acquired him the acclamations of all Greece; for he sung it in full assembly at the Olympic games, and had the satisfaction of receiving from the judges the crown of victory consecrated to real merit. This hymn or ode was afterwards sung in honour of every victor at Olympia who had no poet to celebrate his particular exploits.
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Archilochus was slain by one Callondax Corax, of the island of Naxos; who, though he did it in fight according to the laws of war z was driven out of the temple of Delphi, by command of the oracle, for having deprived of life a ' man consecrated to the Muses.

The names of Homer and Archilochus were revered and celebrated in Greece, as the two most excellent poets which the nation had ever produced. This appears from an epigram in the Anthologia; and from Cicero, who ranks him with poets of the first class, and in his Epistles tells us that the grammarian Aristophanes, the most rigid and scrupulous critic of his time, used to say that the longest poem of Archilochus always appeared to him the most excellent. Some fragments of his poems have been preserved. These may be seen in the Collection of Greek Pocts published at Geneva in 1606, and in the Analecta of Brunck, vols. i. and iii.