SOURCE: “The Date of Archilochus,” in Greek Poetry and Life: Essays Presented to Gilbert Murray, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1936, pp. 34-55.

In the following excerpt, Blakeway argues that certain conclusions about the chronology of Archilochus are erroneous because they are based on the solar eclipse of 648 b.c. rather than the solar eclipse of 711 b.c.

I. the Astronomical Evidence

The external literary evidence for the chronology of Archilochus is as follows:

Cicero places him in the lifetime of Romulus. (Traditionally 753-716 b.c.)

Clement, arguing from the foundation date of Thasos, dates his fame from c. 700 b.c.

Eusebius, in the Praeparatio Evangelica, Tatian, Cyril place his floruit about the Twenty-third Olympiad, 688-685 b.c.

Nepos places his fame in the reign of Tullus Hostilius. (Traditionally 671-640 b.c.)

Eusebius, in Jerome's version of the Chronici Canones, notices him against the first year of the Twenty-ninth...