Short answers, pulled from the story.
Greek lyric is the body of lyric poetry written in dialects of Ancient Greek, primarily associated with the early 7th to the early 5th centuries BC. This span is sometimes called the "Lyric Age of Greece," though the tradition continued into the Hellenistic and Imperial periods.
In the 3rd century BC, scholars at Alexandria established a canon of nine melic poets: Alcaeus, Alcman, Anacreon, Bacchylides, Ibycus, Pindar, Sappho, Simonides, and Stesichorus. This list became the standard reference for the melic tradition.
Only one of Sappho's poems survives intact. Her works were said to have filled nine papyrus rolls in the Library of Alexandria, with the first book alone containing more than 1,300 lines of verse; the surviving fragments would scarcely fill a chapbook.
Melic poetry refers specifically to verse sung with instrumental accompaniment, either a string instrument such as the lyre or kithara or a wind instrument such as the aulos. Elegy and iambus were not considered melic by the Greeks themselves because they used different meters and different instruments.
Archilochus is identified as the earliest known Greek lyric poet. He was especially celebrated for his skill at invective, a poetic form aimed at insulting or shaming a personal enemy.
Greek lyric poems were composed for a wide range of occasions, including athletic victories (epinikia), funerary commemoration, religious devotion through hymns and dithyrambs, and performance at symposia (drinking parties) and festivals. Choruses of maidens performed a form called partheneia at festivals.