Simonides of Ceos

• 1. Origins On The Island Of Ceos

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  Simonides of Ceos was born in Ioulis, the outermost island of the Cyclades. Ancient sources offer conflicting dates for his birth, ranging from 556 BC to 532 BC. He lived until at least 468 BC, surviving into his eighties or nineties. His father was named Leoprepes and he descended from Hylichus. Most scholars accept the span of 556 to 468 BC as the most plausible timeline despite some awkward consequences. This would make him about fifty years older than his nephew Bacchylides. Yet he remained active internationally even at eighty years of age. Other ancient records suggest a grandfather with the same name won a poetry competition in Athens in 489 BC. That grandfather would have been over one hundred years old if Simonides' birth date were correct. Some argue these earliest references might actually point to this grandfather rather than the poet himself.

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• 2. Patrons In Thessaly And Sicily

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  After leaving Athens around thirty years of age, Simonides moved to Thessaly. There he found protection under the Scopadae and Aleuadae families. These were two of the most powerful clans in the Thessalian feudal aristocracy. The head of the Scopadae clan was named Scopas. He was fond of drinking and vain displays of wealth. Scopas commissioned a victory ode for a boxer but refused to pay the full fee. He told the poet to collect half the money from Castor and Pollux instead. Later that night, a banquet hall collapsed while Simonides was inside. He had left briefly to see two visitors who turned out to be the twins. They saved his life by sending him away just before the roof fell. This event inspired his system of mnemonics based on images and places. He later spent his final years in Sicily as a friend of Hieron of Syracuse. He acted as a peace-maker between Hieron and another tyrant named Theron of Acragas.

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• 3. Epigrams For The Persian Wars

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  Simonides returned to Athens during the Persian Wars to become a prominent international figure. Athenians chose him over Aeschylus to write an epigram honoring their war-dead at Marathon. The tragedian withdrew sulking to the court of Hieron of Syracuse after losing this commission. Simonides composed commemorative verses for battles including Artemisium, Salamis, and Plataea. He wrote epitaphs for Spartans and Corinthians alongside those for Athenians. One poem dedicated to Leonidas and his men survives only in fragments. Plutarch records that Themistocles once rejected a bribe from the poet. Themistocles compared himself to a good poet because both keep laws or stay in tune. A feud also existed between Simonides and Timocreon of Rhodes. Simonides composed a mock epitaph touching on the issue of medism involving the Rhodian lyric poet. Modern scholars consider only one attributed epigram unquestionably authentic. This is an inscription for the seer Megistius quoted by Herodotus.

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• 4. The Memory Palace Legend

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  A story recorded by Cicero and Quintilian describes how Simonides developed a system of mnemonics. After the banquet hall collapsed, he identified each guest killed by correlating their identities to their positions at the table. Their bodies had been crushed beyond recognition. He completed the task by remembering where each person sat before leaving. This experience inspired him to create what later became known as the method of loci. The technique uses images and places to aid memory. It was widely used in oral societies until the Renaissance. Cicero dismissed the invention with a comment about forgetting things one would rather not remember. The Suda credits Simonides with inventing four letters of the Greek alphabet. It also claims he invented the third note of the lyre though this is historically inaccurate since the instrument had seven strings from the seventh century BC. His creative mind likely invented the genre of the victory ode.

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• 5. Innovations In Choral Poetry

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  Simonides composed verses almost entirely for public performances and inscriptions unlike previous lyric poets. He established the choral dirge as a recognized form of lyric poetry. Quintillian and Horace both praised his aptitude for this genre. Catullus wrote that Simonides' dirges were more mournful than tears. He was highly successful in dithyrambic competitions according to an anonymous epigram. That text credited him with 57 victories possibly in Athens. The dithyramb was traditionally sung to Dionysus but Simonides developed it into narratives illustrating heroic myths. Strabo mentioned a dithyramb named Memnon where Simonides located the hero's tomb in Syria. He also wrote Paeans and Prayers or Curses. Some scholars believe he composed works in genres where no record survives today. A recently discovered poem describes the run-up to the Battle of Plataea comparing Pausanias to Achilles.

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• 6. The Miser And The Sage

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  Aristophanes imagined Sophocles turning into Simonides in his play Peace. The poet was described as old and decayed yet willing to go to sea in a sieve if paid enough. A scholiast claimed Simonides introduced money-grabbing into songs and wrote them for pay. Another story said he kept two boxes, one empty for favors and one full for money. When at Hieron's court in Syracuse, he sold daily provisions received from the tyrant. He justified this by saying all should see Hieron's magnificence and his own moderation. Aristotle reported that Hieron's wife asked whether it was better to be wealthy or wise. Simonides replied that wealth was better since he saw wise men spending days at the doors of the wealthy. An anecdote on papyrus dating to 250 BC records him saying all things grow old except money-making. Yet generosity is glimpsed in his payment for an inscription on a friend's epitaph recorded by Herodotus.

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• 7. Fragments From Ancient Egypt

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  Today only glimpses of Simonides' poetry remain in the form of papyrus fragments. Archaeologists unearth new fragments at Oxyrhynchus, a city and site in Egypt. Excavations have yielded papyrus fragments from over a century of digging there. P.Oxy. 3965 reveals Simonides speaking as an old man rejuvenated in the company of his homo-erotic lover. Some short passages identified as epigrams may have been performed at symposia. Very little of his poetry survives yet enough is recorded on papyrus fragments and quotes. The Suda mentions a feud between Simonides and Timocreon involving medism. Callimachus revealed in one poem that Simonides was buried outside Acragas. His tombstone was later misused in the construction of a tower. Modern scholars continue to draw conclusions tentatively from these surviving texts. Nobody knows if or when the sands of Egypt will reveal further discoveries.

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