SOURCE: “The Fate of the Lycambids,” in Archilochus of Paros, Noyes Press, 1977, pp. 47-56.

In the following essay, Rankin investigates the merits of the tradition that the Lycambid family members were driven to suicide over attacks on them in verse by Archilochus.

There is a tradition, widespread in the first few centuries of our era, that Archilochus killed Lycambes and his daughters by means of his satires. The motive attributed to him was revenge for his rejection as a suitor of Neoboule. Various versions agree that his words drove the family to suicide, and that their method of self-destruction was hanging. Horace is our earliest authority for this catastrophic event, and he mentions Archilochus' revenge four times,¹ referring obliquely but surely to the means whereby Neoboule made away with herself,² and he speaks of Archilochus' words ‘hunting’ or ‘driving’ Lycambes.³ Scholiasts fill out Horace's allusions with detail which...