Kallinos

Kallinos from Ephesus (ancient Greek: Καλλῖνος) was a Greek poet of the archaic period. He lived around the middle of the 7th century BC. Chr. And is called the "founder" of the elegy .

Kallinos lived at a time when the Greeks of Asia Minor were often harassed by the Hittite successor states . Only a few fragments of his work have survived. In the longest of them (21 verses) he calls a group of young men to fight the enemy. For this he uses the language of the Homeric epic .

Social position

The social position of Kallino can only be inferred indirectly, as no biographical data have survived. The sovereign use of the epic language of Homer and the use of elegiac distiches (a meter that was used in ancient Greece at symposia ) suggest a higher level of education. The elegy preserved in the longest fragment seems to belong in the context of a symposium. The fact that symposia were reserved exclusively for male aristocrats makes it probable that Kallinos was also a so-called "Aristos". Furthermore, he seems to have been an experienced or established member of the community, in complete contrast to the young men he addressed.

literature

• Andreas Bagordo : Kallinos . In: Bernhard Zimmermann (Hrsg.): Handbook of Greek literature in antiquity. Volume 1: The literature of the archaic and classical times. Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-57673-7 , pp. 158-160.
• Tilman Krischer : The Elegy of Kallinos. In: Hermes . Volume 107, 1979, pp. 385-389.

Web links

• Literature by and about Kallinos in the catalog of the German National Library
• Fragments of the Kallinos

Remarks

1. ↑ Bruno Snell : Tyrtaios and the language of the epic. Goettingen 1969.
2. ↑ Franz Stössl: Life and writing in Sparta of the 7th century. In: Eumusia. Commemoration for Ernst Howard. Zurich 1947, pp. 92-114.
3. ^ Zoltan Franyó u. a .: Early Greek poets. Part one: the early elegists. Berlin 1971: 1 call for defense. Verse 2.