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The Praise Singer

by Mary Renault

First published 1978

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4.4(282)

Simonides of Ceos remembers a childhood in which physical appearance and family discipline made music his clearest route to independence. Apprenticed to the travelling singer Kleobis, he learns oral composition and the compromises required to earn patronage at courts such as that of Polycrates on Samos.

Simonides eventually prospers in Athens under Peisistratus and his sons, especially the cultivated Hipparchus. His position as a court poet gives him close access to the personal conflict that ends in Hipparchus's assassination and the collapse of a political order that had also supported a major flowering of performance and written poetry.

Historical Periods

Athensc. 508–322 BCE Achaemenid Persian Empire550–330 BCE Assassination of Hipparchus and Fall of the Peisistratids514–510 BCE

Genres

Biographical Fiction Court & Political Fiction

Historical people

Simonides of Ceosc. 556–468 BCE Hipparchus6th century BCE–514 BCE Polycrates575 BCE–523 BCE Pythagorasc. 6th century BCE–c. 490s BCE

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