Bacchylides
- a Greek lyric poet of Ceos, a nephew of Simonides, who lived about 470 B.C., Amm.25, 4, 3.
- —Hence, Bacchylĭdĭus, a, um, adj., of Bacchylides: metrum, Serv. Centim. 2, 5, p. 1819 P.
(Βακχυλίδης).
1. One of the great lyric poets of Greece, was a native of Iulis in the island of Ceos, and the nephew as well as fellow-townsman of Simonides. (Strab. x. p.426; Steph. Byz. s. v. Ἰουλίς.) His father is variously called Medon (Suidas, s. v. Βακχυλίδης), Meilon (Epigr. in novem Lyr. apud Böckh, Schol. Pind. p. 8), or Meidylus (Etym. M. p. 582. 20): his paternal grandfather was the athlete Bacchylides. We know nothing of his life, except that he lived at the court of Hiero in Syracuse, together with Simonides and Pindar. (Aelian, Ael. VH 4.15.) Eusebius makes him flourish in B. C. 450; but as Hiero died B. C. 467, and Bacchylides obtained great fame at his court, his poetical reputation must have been established as early as B. C. 470. The Scholiast on Pindar frequently states (ad Ol. 2.154, 155, ad Pyth. 2.131, 161, 166, 167, 171) that Bacchylides and Pindar were jealous of and opposed to one another; but whether this was the fact, or the story is to be attributed to the love of scandal which distinguishes the later Greek grammarians, it is impossible to determine. Works Lyric Poems
The poems of Bacchylides were numerous and of various kinds. They consisted of Epinici (songs, like Pindar's, in honour of the victors in the public games), Hymns, Paeans, Dithyrambs, Prosodia, Hyporchemata, Erotica, and Paroenia or Drinking-songs : but all of these have perished with the exception of a few fragments. Assessment
It is, therefore, difficult to form an independent opinion of their poetical value; but as far as we can judge from what has come down to us, Bacchylides was distinguished, like Simonides, for the elegance and finish of his compositions. He was inferior to Pindar in strength and energy, as Longinus remarks (100.33); and in his lamentations over the inexorable character of fate, and the necessity of submitting to death, he reminds one of the Ionic elegy. Like his predecessors in Lyric poetry, he wrote in the Doric dialect, but frequently introduces Attic forms, so that the dialect of his poems very much resembles that of the choruses in the Attic tragedies. Epigrams
Besides his lyrical poems there are two epigrams in the Greek Anthology attributed to Bacchylides, one in the Doric and the other in the Ionic dialect, and there seems no reason to doubt their genuineness. Editions
The fragments of Bacchylides have been published by Neue, " Bacchylidis Cei Fragmenta," Berol. 1823, and by Bergk, " Poetae Lyrici Graeci," p. 820, &c.
2. Of Opus, a poet, whom Plato, the comic poet (about B. C. 400), attacked in his play entitled the Sophists. (Suidas, s. v. Σοφιστής.)
(Βακχυλίδης). A Greek lyric poet who flourished in the middle of the fifth century B.C. He was a native of Iulis in the island of Ceos, the nephew and pupil of Simonides, and a contemporary of Pindar. For a long time he lived with his uncle at the court of Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse. He also resided for a considerable time at Athens, where he won many victories in the dithyrambic contests. Later on his home was in the Peloponnesus. It would appear that he attempted to rival the many-sided talent of his uncle, but was inferior to him in sublimity and force. He attempted a great variety of styles: hymns, paeans, dithyrambs, drinking-songs, love-songs, and epigrams. Only fragments were known to exist until 1897, when the British Museum announced the discovery on an Egyptian papyrus of some 15 to 20 lyrics varying in length from 14 to 200 lines, but with serious lacunae.
Greek lyric poet, nephew of the poet Simonides, born on the island of Ceos near the end of the sixth century BC and lived at least until the middle of the fifth century. Like his contemporary Pindar, Bacchylides wrote in a variety of lyric genres (e.g. hymns, paeans, encomia), but the bulk of his surviving works consists of epinician odes for victors in the Panhellenic games. A papyrus discovered in Egypt in 1896 preserves fifteen victory odes and six poems which have been classed as dithyrambs. Like Simonides and Pindar, Bacchylides received commissions from all over the Greek world, composing songs for Ceans, Aeginetans, Athenians, Thessalians, and others, as well as such powerful men as Hieron of Syracuse (Odes 3, 4, and 5) and Alexander of Macedon (Fr. 20B).
life and CareerBacchylides was born in Iulis on the island of Ceos. His birth is usually dated between 518 and 506 BC. His uncle was Simonides (Strabo 10.5.6), who is said to have invented the epinician ode and to have been the first poet to work for pay (Suda s.v. σιμωνίδης; schol. Ar. Pax697b). Bacchylides was probably the son of Simonides’ sister. Bacchylides’ father's name was Meidylos (Et. Mag.582.20), and his paternal grandfather was Bacchylides “the athlete” (Suda s.v. βακχυλίδης).
We have no secure evidence for dating most of Bacchylides’ poems. Ode 13 (Bacchyl. 13) for Pytheas of Aigina was written for the same victory as Pindar's Nemean 5 (Pind. N. 5), perhaps in the Nemean games of 485.
Bacchylides’ three odes for the tyrant Hieron of Syracuse can be dated with relative certainty. Ode 5 (Bacchyl. 5) commemorates Hieron's Olympic single-horse victory of 476, also the occasion of Pindar's Olympian 1 (Pind. O. 1). The brief Ode 4, apparently performed on the spot at Delphi (Bacchyl. 4.4-5), celebrates the tyrant's 470 Pythian chariot victory, for which Pindar composed Pythian 1, performed in Sicily (Pind. P. 1.30). In 468 Hieron won his most illustrious victory, in the Olympic chariot race, and it is likely that on this occasion he again commissioned odes from both Bacchylides and Pindar. Bacchylides’ Ode 3 (Bacchyl. 3) certainly belongs to this victory; the dating of Pindar's Pythian 2 (Pind. P. 2) to the same occasion remains controversial, but is strongly argued for by D. C. Young, “Pindar Pythians 2 and 3: Inscriptional ποτέand the ‘Poetic Epistle’,” HSCP87 (1983) 31-48. (Contra, H. Maehler, “Bemerkungen zu Pindar,” sec. 2, “Die zweite Pythie und die olympische Siegerliste,” Hermes113 (1985) 396-97.)
Bacchylides’ last datable works are his Odes 6 and 7 for Lachon of Ceos, whose stadionvictory is dated by the Olympic Victor List (P. Oxy.II 222) to 452. Plutarch (de Exil. 14, 605C) mentions in passing that Bacchylides was exiled to the Peloponnese, but it is uncertain when or for how long this exile occurred.
Importance & influenceBacchylides was successful during his own lifetime-the commission from Hieron in 468 was the greatest plum available to a poet - and he was counted by the Alexandrians as one of the nine canonical lyric poets. Horace admired Bacchylides, imitating Fr. 20B in Carmen 3.21, and, according to Porphyrion, following Bacchylides in Carmen 1.15. The author of On the Sublimewrote that Bacchylides was to Pindar as Ion of Chios was to Sophocles: Bacchylides and Ion were flawless masters of the polished (γλαφυρός) style, but lacked the fiery brilliance of Pindar and Sophocles ([Longinus] de Subl.33). Bacchylides’ works were lost at some time after the fifth century AD; Stobaeus is the last author of antiquity to show familiarity with him. In the modern era, Bacchylides was little more than a name until the papyrus discovery of 1896 and Kenyon's εδιτιο πρινξεπςof 1897, which increased our Bacchylidean corpus from about a hundred lines of mostly unconnected fragments to over a thousand lines of readable verse. Many early readers of the rediscovered poet were disappointed and compared him unfavorably to Pindar, but in more recent years Bacchylides has not lacked admirers. Bacchylides is a brilliant storyteller, and in structure and language his odes are complex and sophisticated without being obscure. He often builds his narratives around moments of intense emotion or striking action: Meleager's recollection of the moment of his death, and Heracles’ reaction, in Ode 5 (Bacchyl. 5); Croesus’ cry of despair and miraculous rescue from the pyre in Ode 3 (Bacchyl. 3); the confrontation between Minos and Theseus, and Theseus’ dive into the sea, in Ode 17 (Dithyramb 3) (Bacchyl. 17) (Dithyramb 3); the approach of the powerful stranger in Ode 18 (Dithyramb 4) (Bacchyl. 18). The form of this last poem is unique in extant Greek lyric, and was probably influenced by Athenian tragedy; it is a dramatic dialogue between Aegeus and a chorus of Athenians.
On the life of Bacchylides, see Severyns and Podlecki.
Burnett, A. P. The Art of Bacchylides. Martin Classical Lectures 29 (Cambridge, MA 1985). Calder, W. M. III and J. Stern, edd. Pindaros und Bakchylides (Darmstadt 1970). Campbell, D. A., ed. and comm. Greek Lyric Poetry: A Selection (London 1967). Carne-Ross, D. S. “The Gaiety of Language,” Arionfirst series 1.3 (1962) 65-88. Carson, A. “The Burners: A Reading of Bacchylides’ Third Epinician Ode,” Phoenix38 (1984) 111-19. Fagles, R., trans., and A. Parry, comm. Bacchylides: Complete Poems (New Haven 1961). Gerber, D. E. Lexicon in Bacchylidem (Hildesheim 1984). Jebb, R. C. Bacchylides: The Poems and Fragments (Cambridge 1905). Kenyon, F. G. The Poems of Bacchylides (London 1897). Maehler, H. Die Lieder des Bakchylides, Mnemosyne Supplement 62 (Leiden 1982). 2 vols. Molyneux, J. H. Simonides: A Historical Study (Wauconda, IL 1992). Podlecki, A. J. The Early Greek Poets and Their Times (Vancouver 1984) 243-66. Schmidt, D. A. “The Performance of Bacchylides Ode 5,” CQ37 (1987) 20-23. Severyns, A. Bacchylide: essai biographique, bibliotheque de la faculte de philosophie et lettres de l’universite de Liege, fasc. 56 (Liege 1933). Snell, B., and H. Maehler, edd. Bacchylidis Carmina cum Fragmentis (10). Bibliotheca Teubneriana (Leipzig 1992). Diane Arnson Svarlien Bacchylides(2), Boeotarch- Paus. 9.13.7