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She was contemporary with Alcaeus, and in her verses to him we plainly discern the feeling of unimpeached honor proper to a free-born and well-educated maiden. Alcaeus testifies that the attractions and loveliness of Sappho did not derogate from her moral worth when he calls her "violet-crowned, pure, sweetly smiling Sappho."

Among the lyric poets of Greece some writers assign the very first place to Alcaeus, a native of Lesbos, who flourished about 610 B.C., and who has been styled the ardent friend and defender of liberty, more because he talked so well of patriotism than because of his deeds in its behalf.

He was content to be an imitator of Alcaeus and Sappho, who had attuned to the lyre their own hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows of their own chequered life. But in imitating their form he has altogether changed their spirit. Where they indulged feeling, he has controlled it; what they effect by intensity of colour, he attains by studied propriety of language.

While Horace's thefts from Alcaeus or Pindar are palpable, even from the care which he takes to Latinise them, Milton cannot help transfusing his own nature into the words he adopts. But this is far from all.

The treaty begins from the ephoralty of Pleistolas in Lacedaemon, on the 27th day of the month of Artemisium, and from the archonship, of Alcaeus at Athens, on the 25th day of the month of Elaphebolion.

This was a choral song and dance in honour of the god Dionysus, and is of great interest in the history of poetry, since it was the germ from which sprung at a later time the magnificent productions of the tragic Muse at Athens. ALCAEUS and SAPPHO were both natives of Mytilene in the island of Lesbos, and flourished about B.C. 610-580.

Nothing but fragments remains of the Phrynichus who rivalled AEschylus; of the Agathon who perhaps excelled Euripides; of the Alcaeus, in whom Horace acknowledged a master and a model; their renown is not in their works, it is but in their names. And, after all, the names of singers and actors last perhaps as long.

The agreeable is no doubt an addition, if it is present; so is beauty to an athlete; but a Nicostratus, who is a fine fellow and proves himself a better man than either of his opponents, gets his recognition as a Heracles, however ugly his face may be; and if one opponent is the handsome Alcaeus himself handsome enough to make Nicostratus in love with him, says the story , that does not affect the issue.

The landlady departed, much touched and flattered; Orion took up his lute, and while the ladies refreshed themselves he did the maiden's bidding and sang the song by Alcaeus which she asked for, in a rich though subdued voice to the lute, playing it like a master. The young girl's eyes were fixed on his lips, and again, he seemed to be making music for her alone.

Horace's part in the battle of Philippi had long since become to him a laughable episode of youth. He had even made a merry verse about it, casting the unashamed story of his flight in the words of Archilochus and Alcaeus, as if the chief result for him had been a bit of literary experiment.