The innovative Greek poet Archilochus, born on…

The innovative Greek poet Archilochus, born on the island of Paros around 680, flourishes during this era.

A mercenary soldier who travels extensively around the Aegean, Archilochus experiments with various metrical combinations as well as with the use of colloquial language in his sensual satiric verse.

He joins the Parian colony on Thasos and battles the indigenous Saians, a Thracian tribe, expressing himself in his poems as a cynical, hard-bitten soldier fighting for a country he doesn't love ("Thasos, thrice miserable city") on behalf of a people he scorns ("The woes [dregs] of all the Greeks have come together in Thasos"), yet he values his closest comrades and his stalwart, if unattractive commander.

The Greeks extend their power to the mainland, where they own gold mines even more valuable than those on the island.

From these sources the Thasians draw great wealth, their annual revenues amounting to two hundred or even three hundred talents.

Herodotus, who visited Thasos, says that the best mines on the island were those opened by the Phoenicians on the east side of the island facing Samothrace.