Simonides of Ceos (pronounced s-eye-MON-ee-deez; Ancient Greek: Σιμωνίδης ὁ Κεῖος; around 556 to 468 BC) was a Greek lyric poet born in Ioulis on the island of Ceos. Scholars from Hellenistic Alexandria added him to a special list of the nine lyric poets they considered important for study. This list included Bacchylides, his nephew, and Pindar, who was known to be a rival. Both Bacchylides and Pindar were influenced by Simonides' creative methods in lyric poetry. However, Simonides was more connected to the major events and people of his time than either of them.
During the Enlightenment era, the writer Lessing called Simonides "the Greek Voltaire." His widespread recognition comes from stories about his life, which describe him as one of the wisest people, a greedy person, an inventor of a memory system, and the creator of certain Greek letters (ω, η, ξ, ψ). These stories include some imaginative details, but Simonides truly influenced the intellectual movement of the Classical era. His fame as a poet is due to his ability to express simple human experiences in a moving way. The Roman writer Quintilian (35–100 AD) said:
Simonides is often linked to epitaphs that honor fallen soldiers, such as the Lacedaemonians who died at the Battle of Thermopylae.
Today, only small parts of Simonides’ poetry remain, either as pieces of ancient paper called papyrus or as quotes from other ancient writers. New pieces of his work are still being found by archaeologists in Oxyrhynchus, an Egyptian city and site where many papyrus fragments have been discovered over many years. Simonides appears in various stories, including Mary Renault’s modern novel The Praise Singer (where he is the narrator), Plato’s Protagoras (where he is discussed), and some verses in Callimachus’ Aetia (where he is shown as a ghost upset about the destruction of his tomb in Acragas).
Biography
Few clear details about Simonides' life are known today, even though he was famous and had a big influence. Ancient sources are unsure about when he was born. According to the Byzantine encyclopedia, Suda: "He was born in the 56th Olympiad (556/552 BC) or, according to some writers, in the 62nd (532/528 BC). He lived until the 78th Olympiad (468/464 BC), having lived eighty-nine years." Simonides was credited with creating four letters of the revised alphabet. As a writer of inscriptions, he was the first major poet to compose verses meant to be read rather than recited. By chance, he also wrote a dithyramb about Perseus, which is now one of the largest surviving fragments of his work.
Modern scholars usually accept that Simonides lived from 556 to 468 BC, even though this creates some problems. For example, it would make him about fifty years older than his nephew, Bacchylides, and still very active internationally at about 80 years old. Other ancient sources also have problems. For instance, the Parian Marble says Simonides died in 468/467 BC at age 90, but it also lists a victory by his grandfather in a poetry competition in Athens in 489/488 BC. This would mean the grandfather was over 100 years old if Simonides was born in 556 BC. The grandfather’s name, as recorded by the Parian Marble, was also Simonides. Some scholars argue that early references to Simonides in ancient sources might actually refer to this grandfather. However, the Parian Marble is known to be unreliable, and it may have been a grandson, not the grandfather, who won the competition. According to the Suda, this grandson was another Simonides and wrote books on genealogy.
Simonides was the son of Leoprepes and the grandson or descendant of Hylichus. He was born in Ioulis on Ceos (Ἰουλίς, Κέως), the outermost island of the Cyclades. The innermost island, Delos, was the birthplace of Apollo, where people from Ceos regularly sent choirs to perform hymns in the god’s honor. Carthaea, another Cean town, had a choregeion or school where choirs were trained, and Simonides may have worked there as a teacher in his early years.
Ceos had a strong tradition of athletic competition, especially in running and boxing. Names of Ceans who won at Panhellenic competitions were recorded on stone slabs in Ioulis. This made the island a good place for Simonides to develop his genre of choral lyric poetry, the victory ode. The grandfather of Simonides’ nephew, Bacchylides, was one of the island’s notable athletes.
Ceos lies about fifteen miles southeast of Attica, where Simonides went around the age of thirty to work at the court of the tyrant Hipparchus, a supporter of the arts. His rivalry with another chorus-trainer and poet, Lasus of Hermione, became a joke to later Athenians. This is mentioned briefly by the comic playwright Aristophanes, who described Simonides as a greedy professional poet.
After the assassination of Hipparchus in 514 BC, Simonides moved to Thessaly, where he received protection and support from the Scopadae and Aleuadae families. These were two powerful families in the Thessalian feudal aristocracy, but later Greeks like Theocritus only remembered them for their connection to Simonides. Thessaly was a cultural backwater at the time, still in the "Dark Ages" until the end of the 5th century. According to Plutarch, the Ionian poet once dismissed the Thessalians as "too ignorant" to be influenced by poetry.
One of Simonides’ most colorful patrons in Thessaly was Scopas, the head of the Scopadae clan. Scopas enjoyed drinking, social gatherings, and showing off his wealth. His proud and capricious behavior with Simonides is described in a story by Cicero and Quintilian. According to this story, Simonides was asked to write a victory ode for a boxer. He included many references to the twins Castor and Pollux, heroic figures associated with boxers. Scopas then told Simonides to collect half the fee from the twins, as he would only pay the other half. However, Simonides ended up receiving much more from the twins than just money. He owed them his life. According to the story, Simonides was called out of a feast hall to meet two visitors, who were likely Castor and Pollux. As soon as he left the hall, it collapsed, killing everyone inside. These events inspired Simonides to develop a system of memory based on images and places, called the method of loci. This method is one part of the art of memory.
After his time in Thessaly, most biographies say Simonides returned to Athens during the Persian Wars. He became a prominent international figure, especially for writing commemorative verses. According to an anonymous biographer of Aeschylus, the Athenians chose Simonides over Aeschylus to write an epigram honoring their war dead at Marathon. This led Aeschylus, who had fought at the battle and whose brother had died there, to leave Athens and go to the court of Hieron of Syracuse. This story may be based on the inventions of comic dramatists, but it is likely that Simonides did write some kind of commemorative verses for the Athenian victory at Marathon.
His ability to write tastefully and poignantly about military themes made him in high demand among Greek states after their defeat of the second Persian invasion. He composed epitaphs for Athenians, Spartans, and Corinthians, a commemorative song for Leonidas and his men, a dedicatory epigram for Pausanias, and poems about the battles of Artemisium, Salamis, and Plataea.
According to Plutarch, the Cean had a statue of himself made around 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 compared himself to a good poet, saying an honest magistrate keeps the laws and a good poet keeps in tune. The Suda mentions a feud between Simonides and the Rhodian lyric poet Timocreon, for whom Simonides apparently wrote a mock epitaph that touched on the issue of the Rhodian’s medism—a topic also involving Themistocles.
The last years of Simonides’ life were spent in Sicily, where he became a friend and confidant of Hieron of Syracuse. According to a scholiast on
Poetry
Simonides wrote most of his poems for public events and inscriptions, unlike earlier poets like Sappho and Alcaeus, who wrote more personal poems for friends. Scholars once believed that Simonides’ work marked the end of individual expression in lyric poetry. However, recent discoveries, such as the papyrus P.Oxy. 3965, show that Simonides also wrote poems for private gatherings, including scenes where he described an elderly man with a romantic companion. Some short poems once thought to be inscriptions may also have been performed at such events. Though few of Simonides’ poems remain today, fragments on papyrus and quotes from ancient writers allow scholars to draw some conclusions, though more discoveries may yet be found.
Simonides wrote a variety of choral poems with an Ionian style and elegiac verses in a Doric dialect. He is credited with creating a new type of choral lyric called the encomium, especially the victory ode, which praised human achievements rather than only gods and heroes. In one victory ode, he claimed that a famous boxer, Glaucus of Carystus, was so strong that even legendary heroes like Heracles and Polydeuces could not have matched him. This bold statement was noted by later writers, including Lucian.
Simonides also helped establish the choral dirge, a type of poem for mourning, as a recognized form of lyric poetry. Ancient writers like Quintillian, Horace, Catullus, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus praised his skill in this genre. He also wrote lively poems meant for dancing, called hyporchema, which Plutarch admired. Simonides won many competitions in dithyrambic poetry, a genre originally dedicated to Dionysus. He is the earliest known poet to expand this form into narratives about heroic myths, as noted by the geographer Strabo.
Simonides is famous for writing epitaphs for soldiers who died in the Persian Wars. However, many short, wise sayings attributed to him may not be his work. Scholars now believe only one epitaph, for a seer named Megistius, is definitely authentic. Other famous inscriptions, like the one honoring the Spartans at Thermopylae, are likely not his. He also wrote longer poems about the Persian Wars, such as Dirge for the Fallen at Thermopylae, Battle at Artemisium, and Battle at Salamis, though their exact forms are unclear. A recently discovered poem about the Battle of Plataea shows that he wrote narrative poems in elegiac meter. Simonides also composed paeans (songs to gods) and prayers or curses.
Like other poets of his time, Simonides used compound adjectives and elaborate descriptions, but his style was balanced and clear. His language was straightforward, as seen in a quote by Stobaeus. The rhythm of his poems often followed choriambic patterns (¯˘˘¯, ¯˘˘¯), with some dactylic expansions (¯˘˘¯˘˘¯) and iambic endings (˘¯,˘¯). In one passage, the word "long-winged" (τανυπτέρυγος) describes a dragonfly and symbolizes the fragility of human life. The rhythm of the poem mirrors the movement of the dragonfly and the changing nature of human fortune.
Ethics
Simonides supported a kind and respectful view of people, emphasizing the value of simple acts of kindness. He also acknowledged the many challenges that life can place on individuals. This belief is shown in a poem by Simonides (fragment 542), which appears in Plato's dialogue called the Protagoras. The poem has been recreated based on a recent understanding, and it is the only complete lyric poem by Simonides that remains today.