Sappho remains one of the most revered Greek poets of antiquity with a range of poems regarding love, longing, or both when enraptured with another person (though most often, this person was a woman). Despite her renown, most of her poems were originally private journal entries and letters to familiar correspondents. “To an army wife, in Sardis” is no different, as it serves as a private form of communication between Sappho and her subject, an army wife named Anactoria whom she loves and cannot be with for reasons vaguely undeclared. Sappho is speaking directly to Anactoria through this poem as a confession of internal turmoil regarding their relationship’s inability to continue in their present situation, while simultaneously defending their time spent together as indicative of love’s great hold on the threshold of the human will. Sappho’s relationship with Anactoria reflects a complex association with love and war as contemporaries of one another, ultimately revealing that the pursuit of a love most beautiful can motivate a person to do anything to preserve their relationship, no matter the consequences.
Though the nature of Sappho and Anactoria’s relationship is romantic, Sappho qualifies the pure positives of romance with the negatives of warfare in sole reference to their love for one another as means to explore the complexity of emotions that love may evoke. She admits that some may consider a “cavalry corps” or “some infantry” the most beautiful sight to possibly behold, only to recant by declaring that “whatever one loves, is,” implying that Anactoria is the most beautiful sight she may behold; even when pitted against the likes of corps or infantries, which also happen to fall within the world of Anactoria’s husband, as she is an “army wife.” According to Sappho, love and war must be equals if they are both capable of producing superlative sights of beauty, whether the sights are the militaristic marvels suited for Anactoria’s husband or Anactoria herself, whom Sappho declares is suited for her perception of beauty. However, to set love and war beside each other in metaphor, such as saying that “being far away forget us, the dear sound of your footstep… would move me more than glitter of Lydian horse or armored tread of mainland infantry,” serves to not only imply that love and war are equals in the powerful emotions they are both capable of provoking but to also show that Sappho’s position as the yearning lover mirrors that of a soldier at war writing to his lover. Sappho believes that to love Anactoria is to be at war as long as they are apart, as a longing lover such as Sappho is loyal to that intangible “light glancing in [Anactoria’s] eyes” above the allure of armor and infantry; or, just as a soldier subjects his fidelity to an intangible idea of his nation’s values, or to the protection of a far-off land that he can only dream of when sleeping restless nights in the makeshift barracks of a battlefield. Sappho finds herself unable to express her longing for Anactoria without including mentions of warfare because Anactoria’s husband halts her reverence and infatuation with Anactoria and therefore reveals the internal genesis of Sappho’s tempestuous love: Sappho wants someone she cannot have and yet she still declares her undying fidelity to Anactoria like a soldier wheezing her last breaths in a war lost to her lover’s soldier husband. This onslaught of warful love causes Sappho’s references to love to bleed into mentions of war because of their similarly potent and volatile effects on the emotions of those they affect.
Furthermore, Sappho builds upon her complex relationship with Anactoria to reveal that because love and war are similarly provocative, the pursuit of love can often morph into a war to do whatever is necessary to preserve a relationship. To justify her tension-charged infatuation with Anactoria, Sappho likens her love to that of Helen of Troy and her lover Paris of the ancient Iliad myth: “Did not Helen; she who had scanned the flower of the world’s manhood; choose as first among men one who laid Troy’s honor in ruin?” Sappho’s allusion to Helen’s selection of Paris that started the 11-year-long Trojan War communicates that Sappho finds her troublesome pursuit of Anactoria a cause worth fighting for, no matter the consequences: may Trojan empires fall so long as Sappho is with Anactoria. This infatuation marries both love and war as Sappho explains that a nontraditional love places its constituents on a battlefield that only exists because they chose to be together until love is indeed both “the dear sound of your footsteps” and an “armored tread of mainland infantry.” Though their love could cause conflict, Sappho believes that, if necessary, war can be the foundation of love if outsiders threaten to end the relationship. War is not the opposite of love, but according to Sappho, it can be a consequence of the fear that a loving relationship may end: after all, Helen could have never seen Paris again and stayed with Menelaus to avoid conflict, but she chose to be in love with Paris for the rest of their days together for fear that she and Paris may never be with each other again. Sappho arms herself with allusions to the Iliad and metaphors of militaries as she becomes a soldier within her letter to Anactoria, preparing for battle and declaring the honor of their love; a love that she believes is worth fighting for. Spurred by love and unafraid of war, Sappho’s complex relationship with Anactoria reveals that because love and war are so emotionally turbulent, the throes of love’s influence can often fuel a person to ignore the possibly warlike consequences of their actions to preserve their relationship.
Both Helen and Sappho’s pursuit of love fostered possible conflict; however, one entered her feelings onto a page for four eyes only while the other snuck on board of a ship and caused a war of mythological proportions. Considering the poem was between the two women, the poem was likely a commiseration or a resignation rather than a call to arms; after all, Sappho and Anactoria’s husband were in a war of their own and Sappho knew when to surrender, but not when to stay silent. War was often considered a man’s affair while matters of the heart were reserved for women, but for a woman at war with herself as a result of her love for an army wife in Sardis, she was forever reserved to contemplate both war and love.