(b Lesbos, c620 bce; d after 580 bce). Greek lyric poet. The earlier tradition of sung poetry on Lesbos had been choral, religious, impersonal; now choral lyric faced the challenge of monody. In contrast to the impersonality of the earlier poets, Alcaeus wrote as an individual, describing in an intensely personal manner his chequered political fortunes. Many of his poems, however, were amatory or convivial, consisting of drinking-songs and after-dinner verses (skolia); the range of subjects even included monodic hymns. His favourite metre was the compact four-line stanza which bears his name, although he also used the sapphic stanza. Like his compatriot and friend Sappho, Alcaeus wrote in the distinctive Aeolic dialect of Lesbos.
References to musical instruments show considerable diversity. He seems to have composed an address to the trumpet (salpinx), poeticized as a sounding conch (Edmonds, frag.85). He once mentioned the pēktis (Diehl, frag.71), and in two lost poems he evidently used the term chelys (Edmonds, frags.1.3; 4.9). (For both terms see Sappho.) Nevertheless, the string instrument specially associated with Alcaeus, as with Sappho, was the Barbitos; a red-figure kalathoid (Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek, 2416; 5th century bce) shows both Sappho and Alcaeus holding the instrument. Alcaeus referred to it only once, using the term barmos, in the extant poetry (Edmonds, frag.70.3). The barbitos chiefly differed from the lyra proper in having longer, outcurving arms. Since it had a greater string length than either lyra or kithara, it probably sounded a lower basic pitch, thereby providing a distinctive accompaniment for Aeolic lyric.
J.M. Edmonds, ed. and trans.: Lyra graeca, i (London and Cambridge, MA, 1922, 2/1928/R)
E. Diehl, ed.: Anthologia lyrica graeca (Leipzig, 1925, rev. 3/1949–52/R by R. Beutler)
M. Treu, ed.: Alkaios (Munich, 1952, 2/1963)
E. Lobel and D.L. Page, eds.: Poetarum lesbiorum fragmenta (Oxford, 1955/R)
E.-M. Voigt: Sappho et Alcaeus: Fragmenta (Amsterdam, 1971)
D.A. Campbell, ed. and trans.: Greek Lyric, i (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1982), 206–455
C.M. Bowra: Greek Lyric Poetry from Alcman to Simonides (Oxford, 1936, 2/1961), 130–75
D.L. Page: Sappho and Alcaeus (Oxford, 1955/R)
D.L. Page, ed.: Lyrica graeca selecta (Oxford, 1968/R), 55–96
G.M. Kirkwood: Early Greek Monody: the History of a Poetic Type (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1974), 53–99
A.P. Burnett: Three Archaic Poets: Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho (London, 1983)
A. Riethmüller and F. Zaminer, eds.: Die Musik des Altertums (Laaber, 1989), 135–41
W.D. Anderson: Music and Musicians in Ancient Greece (Ithaca, NY, 1994), 72–5
For further bibliography see Greece, §I.
WARREN ANDERSON/THOMAS J. MATHIESEN