- Antimachus
Antimachus, of
Colophon orClaros , Greekpoet andgrammar ian, flourished about 400 BC.Scarcely anything is known of his life. His poetical efforts were not generally appreciated, although he received encouragement from his younger contemporary
Plato (Plutarch , "Lysander", 18).His chief works were: an epic "Thebais", an account of the expedition of the Seven against Thebes and the war of the
Epigoni ; and an elegiac poem "Lyde", so called from the poet's mistress, for whose death he endeavoured to find consolation telling stories frommythology of heroic disasters (Plutarch, "Consul, ad Apoll." 9;Athenaeus xiii. 597).Antimachus was the founder of "learned"
epic poetry , and the forerunner of the Alexandrian school, whose critics allotted him the next place toHomer . He also prepared a critical recension of the Homeric poems.He is to be distinguished from
Antimachus of Teos , a much earlier poet to whom the lost Cyclic epic "Epigoni " was apparently ascribed (though the attribution may result from confusion).Fragments, ed. Stoll (1845); Bergk, "Poetae Lyrici Gracci" (1882); Kinkel, "Fragmenta epicorum Graecorum" (1877).
20th century ed: V.J. Matthews, "Antimachus of Colophon, text and commentary" (Leiden : Brill, 1996) ISBN 90-04-10468-2
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.