ALCAEUS or ALKAIOS (c. 600 B.c.), Greek poet, holds second place in the Alexandrian lyric canon. He was a contem porary of Sappho, and a member of one of the noble families of Mitylene.
In the war against the Athenians (6o6), he fled from battle with the loss of his shield. His political enemies drove him into exile, but towards the end of his life he is said to have been pardoned by Pittacus. His poems, which were written in the Aeolic dialect, in . cluded hymns; political poems (stasiOtica), in which he abused the tyrants, his political enemies; love-songs; and drinking-songs. He seems to have invented the Alcaic metre, and was regarded as a model by Horace.
See Bergk, Poetae Lyrici Graeci (1882); also The Songs of Alcaeus, by J. Easby-Smith (Washington, igoi) ; Plehn, Lesbiacorum Liber (1826); Flach, Geschichte der griechischen Lyrik (1883-84) ; Farnell, Greek Lyric Poets (1891). New fragments edited by J. M. Edmonds (19o9). See also Edgar Lobel, 'AXKalov Man, the Fragments of the Lyrical Poems of Alcaeus (Oxford, 1928).