Alcaeus, a Greek lyric poet and warrior, a native of Mitylene in the island of Lesbos, flourished toward the close of the 7th century B. C. He served in the war which took place in 606 between the Athenians and Mitylenians for the possession of Sigeum, on the coast of Troas. He was a partisan of the nobles in their feuds with the people of Mitylene, and shared the exile of his faction, after a futile attempt to reestablish himself in his country by force of arms. His poems, originally consisting of ten books, are said to have exhibited the Aeolian lyric in its highest perfection, but only fragments have come down to us. Some were warlike or patriotic; some bacchanalian or erotic songs; while others were hymns, or epigrams, or poems addressed to individual friends. He is considered the inventor of the Alcaic metres. Horace admired and imitated him. The best collection of the extant fragments of Alcaeus will be found in Bergk's Poetae Lyrici Graeci (Leipsic, 2d edition, 1853.) - There were two other Greek poets of the same name, of Athens and Messene, and of the 3d and 4th centuries B. C, of whose writings some fragments also remain; but they are of little importance.