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KLAROS (Ancient sanctuary) TURKEY
Antimachus (Antimachos). A Greek poet and critic of Colophon, an elder contemporary
of Plato, about B.C. 400. By his two principal works -the long mythical epic called
Thebais ( Quint.x. 1) and a cycle of elegies named after his loved and lost Lyde,
and telling of famous lovers parted by death- he became the founder of learned
poetry, precursor and prototype of the Alexandrians, who, on account of his learning,
assigned him the next place to Homer among epic poets (See Canon Alexandrinus).
In striving to impart strength and dignity to language by avoiding all that was
common, his style became rigid and artificial, and naturally ran into bombast.
But we possess only fragments of his works. As a scholar, he is remarkable for
having set on foot a critical revision of the Homeric poems. See Homerus.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Antimachus (Antimachos). Of Claros, a son of Hipparchus, was a Greek epic and
elegiac poet (Cic. Brut. 51; Ov. Trist. i. 6. 1). He is usually called a Colophonian,
probably only because Claros belonged to the dominion of Colophon. He flourished
during the latter period of the Peloponnesian war (Diod. xiii. 108). The statement
of Suidas that he was a disciple of Panyasis would make him belong to an, earlier
date, but the fact that he is mentioned in connexion with Lysander and Plato the
philosopher sufficiently indicates the age to which he belonged (Plut. Lysand.
18; Proclus, ad Plat. Tim. i.). Plutarch relates that at the Lysandria -for thus
the Samians called their great festival of the Heraea, to honour Lysander- Antimachus
entered upon a poetical contest with one Niceratus of Heracleia. The latter obtained
the prize from Lysander himself, and Antimachus, disheartened by his failure,
destroyed his own poem. Plato, then a young man, happened to be present, and consoled
the unsuccessful poet by saying, that ignorance, like blindness, was a misfortune
to those who laboured under it. The meeting between Antimachus and Plato is related
differently by Cicero, who also places it manifestly at a different time and probably
also at a different place; for, according to him, Antimachus once read to a numerous
audience his voluminous poem (Thebais), and his hearers were so wearied with it,
that all gradually left the place with the exception of Plato, whereupon the poet
said, "I shall nevertheless continue to read, for one Plato is worth more than
all the thousands of other hearers". Now an anecdote similar to the one related
by Cicero is recorded of Antagoras the Rhodian, and this repetition of the same
occurrence, together with other improbabilities, have led Welcker to reject the
two anecdotes altogether as inventions, made either to show the uninteresting
character of those epics, or to insinuate that, although they did not suit the
taste of the multitude, they were duly appreciated by men of learning and intelligence.
The only other circumstance of the life of Antimachus that we know
is, his love for Lyde, who was either his mistress or his wife. He followed her
to Lydia; but she appears to have died soon after, and the poet returned to Colophon
and sought consolation in the composition of an elegy called Lyde, which was very
celebrated in antiquity (Athen. xiii.). This elegy, which was very long, consisted
of accounts of the misfortunes of all the mythical heroes who, like the poet,
had become unfortunate through the early death of their beloved (Plut. Consol.
ad Apollon.). It thus contained vast stores of mythical and antiquarian information,
and it was chiefly for this and not for any higher or poetical reason, that Agatharchides
made an abridgment of it.
The principal work of Antimachus was his epic poem called Thebais,
which Cicero designates as magnum illud volumen. Porphyrius (ad Horat. ad Pison.
146) says, that Antimachus had spun out his poem so much, that in the 24th book
(volumen) his Seven Heroes had not yet arrived at Thebes. Now as in the remaining
part of the work the poet had not only to describe the war of the Seven, but also
probably treated of the war of the Epigoni (Schol. ad Aristoph. Pax. 1268), the
length of the poem must have been immense. It was, like the elegy Lyde, full of
mythological lore, and all that had any connexion with the subject of the poem
was incorporated in it. It was, of course, difficult to control such a mass, and
hence we find it stated by Quintilian (x. 1.53; comp. Dionys. Hal. De verb. Compos.
22), that Antimachus was unsuccessful in his descriptions of passion, that his
works were not graceful, and were deficient in arrangement. His style also had
not the simple and easy flow of the Homeric poems. He borrowed expressions and
phrases from the tragic writers, and frequently introduced Doric forms (Schol.
ad Nicand. Theriac. 3). Antimachus was thus one of the forerunners of the poets
of the Alexandrine school, who wrote more for the learned and a select number
of readers than for the public at large. The Alexandrine grammarians assigned
to him the second place among the epic poets, and the emperor Hadrian preferred
his works even to those of Homer (Dion. Cass. lxix. 4; Spartian. Hadrian. 5).
There are some other works which are ascribed to Antimachus, such as a work entitled
Artemis (Steph. Byz. s. v. Kotulaion), a second called Delta (Athen. vii. p. 300),
a third called Iachine (Etymol. M. s. v. Aboletor), and perhaps also a Centauromachia
(Natal. Com. vii. 4); but as in all these cases Antimachus is mentioned without
any descriptive epithet, it cannot be ascertained whether he is the Clarian poet,
for there are two other poets of the same name. Suidas says that Antimachus of
Claros was also a grammarian, and there is a tradition that he made a recension
of the text of the Homeric poems. The numerous fragments of Antimachus have been
collected by C. A. G. Schellenberg, Halle, 1786. Some additional fragments are
contained in H. G. Stoll, Animadv. in Antimachi Fragm. Gotting. 1841.
This extract is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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