Simonides of Ceos (; ; c. 556 – 468 BC) was a Greek lyric poet, born in Ioulis on Ceos. The scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria included him in the canonical list of the nine lyric poets esteemed by them as worthy of critical study. Included on this list were Bacchylides, his nephew, and Pindar, reputedly a bitter rival, both of whom benefited from his innovative approach to lyric poetry. Simonides, however, was more involved than either in the major events and with the personalities of their times.John H. Molyneux, Simonides: A Historical Study, Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers (1992), page 3.
Lessing, writing in the Enlightenment era, referred to him as "the Greek Voltaire". His general renown owes much to traditional accounts of his colourful life, as one of the wisest of men; as a greedy miser; as an inventor of a system of mnemonics; and the inventor of some letters of the Greek alphabet ().Campbell, David A. Greek Lyric Poetry, Bristol Classical Press (1982), pages 380–381. Such accounts include fanciful elements, yet he had a real influence on the sophistic enlightenment of the Classical era.Segal, Charles, Choral lyric in the fifth century, 'The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Greek Literature' (1985), P. E. Easterling & Bernard Knox (eds), pages 223, 226. His fame as a poet rests largely on his ability to present basic human situations with affecting simplicity. In the words of the Roman rhetorician Quintilian (35–100 AD):
He is popularly associated with epitaphs commemorating fallen warriors, as for example the Lacedaemonians at the Battle of Thermopylae:
Today only glimpses of his poetry remain, either in the form of papyrus fragments or quotations by ancient literary figures, yet new fragments continue to be unearthed by archaeologists at Oxyrhynchus, a city and archaeological site in Egypt that has yielded papyrus fragments from over a century of excavations. He is included in narratives as diverse as Mary Renault's modern historical novel The Praise Singer (where he is the narrator and main character), Plato's Protagoras (where he is a topic of conversation), and some verses in Callimachus' Aetia (where he is portrayed as a ghost complaining about the desecration of his own tomb in Acragas).Callimachus fr. 64. 1–14, cited by D. A. Campbell, Greek Lyric III, Loeb Classical Library, pages 344–6.
Biography Few clear facts about Simonides' life have come down to modern times in spite of his fame and influence. Ancient sources are uncertain even about the date of his birth. According to the Byzantine encyclopaedia, Suda: "He was born in the 56th Olympiad (556/552 BC) or according to some writers in the 62nd (532/528 BC) and he survived until the 78th (468/464 BC), having lived eighty-nine years."Suda, Simonides (1st notice), translated by D. Campbell, Greek Lyric III, Loeb Classical Library (1991), page 331. Simonides was popularly accredited with the invention of four letters of the revised alphabet and, as the author of inscriptions, he was the first major poet who composed verses to be read rather than recited.Segal, Charles, Choral lyric in the fifth century, 'The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Greek Literature' (1985), P. Easterling and B. Knox (eds), page 225. Coincidentally he also composed a dithyramb on the subject of Perseus that is now one of the largest fragments of his extant verses.Fr.543, cited by D. Campbell, Greek Lyric III, Loeb Classical Library (1991), page 437–438.
Modern scholars generally accept 556–468 BC as the span of his life in spite of some awkward consequences—for example it would make him about fifty years older than his nephew Bacchylides and still very active internationally at about 80 years of age. Other ancient sources also have awkward consequences. For example, according to an entry in the Parian Marble, Simonides died in 468/467 BC at the age of ninety yet, in another entry, it lists a victory by his grandfather in a poetry competition in Athens in 489/488 BC — this grandfather must have been over a hundred years old at that time if the birth dates for Simonides are correct. The grandfather's name, as recorded by the Parian Marble, was also Simonides, and it has been argued by some scholars that the earliest references to Simonides in ancient sources might in fact be references to this grandfather. However, the Parian Marble is known to be unreliable and possibly it was not even the grandfather but a grandson that won the aforementioned victory in Athens.Molyneux John H., Simonides: A Historical Study, Balchazy-Caducci Publishers (1992), pages 26, 67–68. According to the Suda, this grandson was yet another Simonides and he was the author of books on genealogy.Suda, Simonides (4th notice), cited by D. Campbell, Greek Lyric III, Loeb Classical Library (1991), page 335.
Early years: Ceos and Athens
Simonides was the son of Leoprepes, and the grandson or descendant of Hylichus.Herodotus, Histories 7.228; Callimachus fr. 222 Pfeiffer; Suda 439–441. He was born in Ioulis on Ceos (Ἰουλίς, Κέως), the outermost island of the Cyclades. The innermost island, Delos, was the reputed birthplace of Apollo, where the people of Ceos regularly sent choirs to perform hymns in the god's honour. Carthaea, another Cean town, included a choregeion or school where choirs were trained, and possibly Simonides worked there as a teacher in his early years.Athenaeus 10.456c-57b.
In addition to its musical culture, Ceos had a rich tradition of athletic competition, especially in running and boxing (the names of Ceans victorious at Panhellenic competitions were recorded at Ioulis on slabs of stone) making it fertile territory for a genre of choral lyric that Simonides pioneered—the victory ode. Indeed, the grandfather of Simonides' nephew, Bacchylides, was one of the island's notable athletes.Jebb, Bacchylides: the poems and fragments, Cambridge University Press (1905), page 5 digitalized by Google
Ceos lies only some fifteen miles south-east of Attica, whither Simonides was drawn, about the age of thirty, by the lure of opportunities opening up at the court of the tyrant Hipparchus, a patron of the arts. His rivalry there with another chorus-trainer and poet, Lasus of Hermione, became something of a joke to Athenians of a later generation—it is mentioned briefly by the comic playwright AristophanesAristophanes, The Wasps 1411 ff., cited by D. Campbell, Greek Lyric III, Loeb Classical Library (1991), page 299 who earmarked Simonides as a miserly type of professional poet (see The Miser below)
Middle career: Thessaly After the assassination of Hipparchus (514 BC), Simonides withdrew to Thessaly, where he enjoyed the protection and patronage of the Scopadae and Aleuadae. These were two of the most powerful families in the Thessalian feudal aristocracy yet they seemed notable to later Greeks such as Theocritus only for their association with Simonides.Theocritus, 16.42–47, cited by D. Campbell, Greek Lyric III, Loeb Classical Library (1991), page 341. Thessaly at that time was perceived as a cultural backwater by other Greeks. According to an account by Plutarch, the Ionian poet once dismissed the Thessalians as "too ignorant" to be beguiled by poetry.Plutarch, aud. poet. 15c, cited by D. Campbell, Greek Lyric III, Loeb Classical Library (1991), page 341.
Among the most colourful of his "ignorant" patrons was the head of the Scopadae clan, named Scopas. Fond of drinking, convivial company and vain displays of wealth, this aristocrat's proud and capricious dealings with Simonides are demonstrated in a traditional account related by CiceroCicero, de orat. 2.86.351-3, cited by D. Campbell, Greek Lyric III, Loeb Classical Library (1991), page 375. and Quintilian,Quintilian, Inst. 11.2.11–16, cited by D. Campbell, Greek Lyric III, Loeb Classical Library (1991), page 377. according to which the poet was commissioned to write a victory ode for a boxer. Simonides embellished his ode with so many references to the twins Castor and Pollux (heroic archetypes of the boxer) that Scopas told him to collect half the commissioned fee from them — he would only pay the other half.John H. Molyneux, Simonides: A Historical Study, Bolchazy-Caducci Publishers (1992), pages 117–24. Simonides however ended up getting much more from the mythical twins than just a fee; he owed them his very life (see Miraculous escapes). According to this story he was called out of the feast hall to see two visitors who had arrived and were asking for him – presumably Castor and Pollux. As soon as he left the hall, it collapsed, killing everyone within. These events were said to have inspired him to develop a system of mnemonics based on images and places called the method of loci. The method of loci is one component of the art of memory.
Career highlight: Persian Wars The Thessalian period in Simonides' career is followed in most biographies by his return to Athens during the Persian Wars and it is certain that he became a prominent international figure at that time,John H. Molyneux, Simonides: A Historical Study, Bolchazy-Caducci Publishers (1992), page 147. particularly as the author of commemorative verses. According to an anonymous biographer of Aeschylus,Vit. Aesch., cited by D. Campbell, Greek Lyric III, Loeb Classical Library (1991), page 342-2. the Athenians chose Simonides ahead of Aeschylus to be the author of an epigram honouring their war-dead at Marathon, which led the tragedian (who had fought at the battle and whose brother had died there) to withdraw sulking to the court of Hieron of Syracuse — the story is probably based on the inventions of comic dramatistsCampbell, David, Greek Lyric Poetry, Bristol Classical Press (1982), page 378. but it is likely that Simonides did in fact write some kind of commemorative verses for the Athenian victory at Marathon.John H. Molyneux, Simonides: A Historical Study, Bolchazy-Caducci Publishers (1992), page 153.
His ability to compose tastefully and poignantly on military themes put him in great demand among Greek states after their defeat of the second Persian invasion, when he is known to have composed epitaphs for Athenians, Spartans and Corinthians, a commemorative song for Leonidas and his men, a dedicatory epigram for Pausanias, and poems on the battles of Artemisium, Salamis, and Plataea.D. Boedeker and D. Sider (eds), The New Simonides:contexts of praise and desire, Oxford University Press (2001).
According to Plutarch, the Cean had a statue of himself made about this time, which inspired the Athenian politician Themistocles to comment on his ugliness. In the same account, Themistocles is said to have rejected an attempt by the poet to bribe him, then likened himself as an honest magistrate to a good poet, since an honest magistrate keeps the laws and a good poet keeps in tune.Plutarch Them. 5.6–7, cited by D. Campbell, Greek Lyric III, Loeb Classical Library (1991), pages 339, 353. Suda mentions a feud between Simonides and the Rhodian lyric poet, Timocreon, for whom Simonides apparently composed a mock epitaph that touches on the issue of the Rhodian's medism—an issue that also involved Themistocles.David Campbell, Greek Lyric IV, Loeb Classical Library (1992), pages 84–97.
Final years: Sicily