Antimachus

For other uses, see Antimachus (disambiguation).

Antimachus of Colophon (Greek: Ἀντίμαχος ὁ Κολοφώνιος), or of Claros, was a Greek poet and grammarian, who flourished about 400 BC.^[1]

Herm of Antimachus from Colophon

Life

Scarcely anything is known of his life. The Suda claims that he was a pupil of the poets Panyassis and Stesimbrotus.^[2]

Work

His poetical efforts were not generally appreciated, although he received encouragement from his younger contemporary Plato (Plutarch, Lysander, 18).^[1] The emperor Hadrian, however, would later consider him superior to Homer.^[3]

His chief works were: an epic Thebaid, 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 from mythology of heroic disasters (Plutarch, Consul, ad Apoll. 9; Athenaeus xiii. 597).^[1]

Antimachus was the founder of "learned" epic poetry, and the forerunner of the Alexandrian school, whose critics allotted him the next place to Homer. He also prepared a critical recension of the Homeric poems.^[1]

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).

Bibliography

• Fragments, ed. Stoll (1845); Bergk
• Poetae Lyrici Graeci (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