Simonides of Ceos

Simonides of Ceos was a Greek lyric poet active during the late archaic and early classical periods, probably living from about 556 to 468 BCE. Born on the island of Ceos, he worked for aristocratic patrons and rulers in several parts of the Greek world, including Athens, Thessaly and Sicily. Ancient tradition credited him with exceptional skill in choral lyric, epigram and poetic commemoration, and with earning unusually substantial fees for commissioned verse.

Simonides became particularly associated with the Persian Wars and with memorial poetry for the Greek dead at battles such as Thermopylae and Marathon, although the attribution of individual surviving epigrams is often uncertain. He also composed victory odes, dithyrambs, dirges and other forms, most of which survive only in fragments or later quotations. His polished style and interest in memory, fame and human mortality strongly influenced later Greek literary culture. He died in Sicily at an advanced age.

In Mary Renault’s The Praise Singer, 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.