ALCEUS, a famous ancient lyric poet, born at Mitylene, in the island of Lesbos. Horace seems to think him the inventor of this kind of poetry.

Now the Roman muse inspire, And warm the song with Grecian fire. FRANCIS.

He flourished in the 44th Olympiad, at the same time with Sappho, who was likewise of Mitylene. Alceus was a great enemy to tyrants, but not a very brave soldier. He was present at an engagement wherein the Athenians gained a victory over the Lesbians; and here, as he himself is said to have confessed in one of his pieces, he threw down his arms, and saved himself by flight. Horace, who of all the Latin poets most resembled Alceus, has made the like confession:

With thee I saw Philippi's plain, Its fatal rout, a fearful scene! And dropp'd, alas! th' inglorious shield, Where valour's self was forc'd to yield; Where sold in dust the vanquish'd lay, And breath'd th' indignant soul away. FRANCIS.

The poetical abilities of Alceus are indisputable; and though his writings were chiefly in the lyric strain, yet his muse was capable of treating the sublimest subjects with a suitable dignity. Hence Horace says,

Alceus strikes the golden strings, And seas, and war, and exile, sings. Thus while they strike the various lyre, The ghosts the sacred sounds admire; But when Alceus lifts the strain To deeds of war and tyrants slain, In thicker crowds the shadowy throng Drink deeper down the martial song. FRANCIS.

ALCEUS, an Athenian tragic poet, and, as some think, the first composer of tragedies. He renounced his native country Mitylene, and passed for an Athenian. He left 10 pieces, one of which was Pasiphaë, that which he produced when he disputed with Aristophanes, in the 4th year of the 97th Olympiad.

There is another Alceus mentioned in Plutarch, perhaps the same whom Porphyrius mentions as a composer of satirical iambics and epigrams, and who wrote a poem concerning the plagiarism of Euphorus the historian. He lived in the 145th Olympiad.

We are told likewise of one Alceus, a Messenian, who lived in the reign of Vespasian and Titus. We know not which of these it was who suffered for his lewdness a very singular kind of death, which gave occasion to the following epitaph:

Αλκευς ταφης ανεσ, &c.

This is Alceus's tomb, who died by a radish, The daughter of the earth, and punisher of adulterers.

This punishment, inflicted on adulterers, was thrusting one of the largest radishes up the anus of the adulterer; or, for want of radishes, they made use of a fish with a very large head, which Juvenal alludes to:

Quaedam machos et mugilis intrat. Sat. x. The mullet enters some behind.

Hence we may understand the menace of Catullus:

Ah! tum te miserum, malefic futh, Quem attraxit peditus, patente porta, Percurrent raphanique, mugilique. Epig. xv. Ah! wretched thou, and born to luckless fate, Who art discover'd by the unshut gate! If once, alas! the jealous husband come, The radish or the sea-fish is thy doom.