SIMONIDES OF CEOS

born c. 556 BC, , Iulis, Ceos died c. 468?, BC, Syracuse, Sicily lyric poet and epigrammatist from the Aegean island of Ceos. He appears to have originated the epinician ode in honour of victors in the Olympic Games, his epinicion of 520 being the earliest recorded. Simonides studied music and poetical composition on Ceos but left as a young man and lived mostly in Athens. Allusions by later writers associate him with tyrant rulers of Athens, or Crannon and Larissa in Thessaly, and of Syracuse, but he did not depend entirely on patronage. His lines on the Spartan rear guard that held the pass of Thermopylae against the Persians in 480 BC are a memorable epitaph, and such was his fame that many epigrams were later wrongfully ascribed to him. He was also the first Greek poet known to have written on commission for fees. The fragments of his dithyrambic (impassioned, chanted) poetry, which are known to have been successful in many Athenian competitions, the remains of his choral lyrics, and his epigrams indicate that he was well-suited to express the Panhellenic ideals of the new age that developed after the Greek victories over Persia.