ALCAEUS (Ar earos)  , Greek lyric poet, an older contemporary of Sappho, was a native of Mytilene in Lesbos and flourished about 600 B.C . His life was greatly mixed up with the political disputes and internal feuds of his native city . He belonged to one of the noble families, and sided with his class against the " tyrants " who at that time set themselves up in Mytilene . He was in consequence obliged to leave his native country, and spent a considerable time in exile . He is said to have become reconciled to Pittacus, the ruler set up by the popular party, and to have returned to Lesbos . The date of his death is unknown . The subjects of his poems, which were composed in the Aeolic dialect, were of various kinds: some were hymns to the gods; others were of a martial or political character; others breathed an ardent love of liberty and hatred of tyrants; lastly, some were love-songs . Alcaeus was allotted the second place among the nine lyric poets in the Alexandrian canon . The considerable number of fragments extant, and the well-known imitations of Horace, who regarded Alcaeus as his great model, enable us to form a fair idea of the character of his poems . A new fragment has' recently been discovered, together with some fragments of Sappho (Classical Review, May 1902) . See Bergk, Poetae Lyrici Graeci (1882) ; also The Songs of Alcaeus,' by J . Easby-Smith (Washington, 1901); Plehn, Lesbiacorum Liber (1826) ; Flach, Gescbichte der griechischen Lyrik (1883–1884) ; Farriell, Greek Lyric Poets (1891) .