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116-466: The Ioulida of today, while popular with both tourists and middle-class Athenians, is relatively unspoiled in that cars must be left at the entrance of the town, and "life is pretty much the way it has always been." As in Korissia, "the architectural style is not like the typical Cycladic. The heart of Chora is the square with the grand city hall." The ancient city (also called Iulis ) was celebrated as

232-467: A free city under Roman rule, some of the institutions of Lycurgus were restored, and the city became a tourist attraction for the Roman elite who came to observe exotic Spartan customs. In 214 AD, Roman emperor Caracalla , in his preparation for his campaign against Parthia , recruited a 500-man Spartan cohort ( lokhos ). Herodian described this unit as a phalanx , implying it fought like

348-535: A scholiast on Pindar, he once acted as peace-maker between Hieron and another Sicilian tyrant, Theron of Acragas , thus ending a war between them. Scholiasts are the only authority for stories about the rivalry between Simonides and Pindar at the court of Hieron, traditionally used to explain some of the meanings in Pindar's victory odes (see the articles on Bacchylides and Pindar ). If the stories of rivalry are true, it may be surmised that Simonides's experiences at

464-536: A "place in Lacedaemonia" named after Agis. The actual transition may be captured by Isidore of Seville 's Etymologiae (7th century AD), an etymological dictionary . Isidore relied heavily on Orosius ' Historiarum Adversum Paganos (5th century AD) and Eusebius of Caesarea 's Chronicon (early 5th century AD), as did Orosius. The latter defines Sparta to be Lacedaemonia Civitas , but Isidore defines Lacedaemonia as founded by Lacedaemon, son of Semele, which

580-602: A Greek alliance against the Persians at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. The decisive Greek victory at Plataea put an end to the Greco-Persian War along with Persian ambitions to expand into Europe. Even though this war was won by a pan-Greek army, credit was given to Sparta, who besides providing the leading forces at Thermopylae and Plataea, had been the de facto leader of the entire Greek expedition. In 464 BC,

696-509: A city and archaeological site in Egypt that has yielded papyrus fragments from over a century of excavations. He is included in narratives as diverse as Mary Renault 's modern historical novel The Praise Singer (where he is the narrator and main character), Plato 's Protagoras (where he is a topic of conversation), and some verses in Callimachus ' Aetia (where he is portrayed as

812-571: A commemorative song for Leonidas and his men, a dedicatory epigram for Pausanias , and poems on the battles of Artemisium , Salamis , and Plataea . According to Plutarch , the Cean had a statue of himself made about 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 likened himself as an honest magistrate to

928-484: A considerable number of votive offerings. The city-wall , built in successive stages from the 4th to the 2nd century, was traced for a great part of its circuit, which measured 48 stades or nearly 10 km (6 miles) (Polyb. 1X. 21). The late Roman wall enclosing the acropolis, part of which probably dates from the years following the Gothic raid of 262 AD, was also investigated. Besides the actual buildings discovered,

1044-540: A dithyramb, Memnon , in which Simonides located the hero's tomb in Syria, indicating that he didn't compose only on legends of Dionysus.) Simonides has long been known to have written epitaphs for those who died in the Persian Wars and this has resulted in many pithy verses being mis-attributed to him "... as wise saws to Confucius or musical anecdotes to Beecham ." Modern scholars generally consider only one of

1160-467: A double effect on Greek thought: through the reality, and through the myth.... The reality enabled the Spartans to defeat Athens in war; the myth influenced Plato's political theory, and that of countless subsequent writers.... [The] ideals that it favors had a great part in framing the doctrines of Rousseau , Nietzsche , and National Socialism . The ancient Greeks used one of three words to refer to

1276-456: A form of it, the victory ode . These were extensions of the hymn , which previous generations of poets had dedicated only to gods and heroes: But it was Simonides who first led the Greeks to feel that such a tribute might be paid to any man who was sufficiently eminent in merit or in station. We must remember that, in the time of Simonides, the man to whom a hymn was addressed would feel that he

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1392-485: A genre of choral lyric that Simonides pioneered—the victory ode . Indeed, the grandfather of Simonides' nephew, Bacchylides, was one of the island's notable athletes. Ceos lies only some fifteen miles south-east of Attica , whither Simonides was drawn, about the age of thirty, by the lure of opportunities opening up at the court of the tyrant Hipparchus , a patron of the arts. His rivalry there with another chorus-trainer and poet, Lasus of Hermione , became something of

1508-538: A ghost complaining about the desecration of his own tomb in Acragas ). Few clear facts about Simonides' life have come down to modern times in spite of his fame and influence. Ancient sources are uncertain even about the date of his birth. According to the Byzantine encyclopaedia, Suda : "He was born in the 56th Olympiad (556/552 BC) or according to some writers in the 62nd (532/528 BC) and he survived until

1624-558: A good poet, since an honest magistrate keeps the laws and a good poet keeps in tune. Suda mentions a feud between Simonides and the Rhodian lyric poet, Timocreon , for whom Simonides apparently composed a mock epitaph that touches on the issue of the Rhodian's medism —an issue that also involved Themistocles. The last years of the poet's life were spent in Sicily, where he became a friend and confidant of Hieron of Syracuse. According to

1740-462: A joke to Athenians of a later generation—it is mentioned briefly by the comic playwright Aristophanes who earmarked Simonides as a miserly type of professional poet (see The Miser below) After the assassination of Hipparchus (514 BC), Simonides withdrew to Thessaly , where he enjoyed the protection and patronage of the Scopadae and Aleuadae . These were two of the most powerful families in

1856-460: A long period of decline, especially in the Middle Ages , when many of its citizens moved to Mystras . Modern Sparta is the capital of the southern Greek region of Laconia and a center for processing citrus and olives. Sparta was unique in ancient Greece for its social system and constitution , which were supposedly introduced by the semi-mythical legislator Lycurgus . His laws configured

1972-461: A maiden sculptured on a tomb is imagined to proclaim her eternal vigilance, quotes Simonides commenting on it in a poem of his own: "Stone is broken even by mortal hands. That was the judgement of a fool." His rationalist view of the cosmos is evinced also in Plutarch's letter of consolation to Apollonius: "according to Simonides a thousand or ten thousand years are an indeterminable point, or rather

2088-465: A man's good enough as long as he's not too lawless, and has the sense of right that does cities good: a solid guy. I won't find fault with a man like that. After all, isn't there a limitless supply of fools? The way I see it, if there's no great shame in it, all's fair. So I'm not going to throw away my dole of life on a vain, empty hope, searching for something there cannot be, a completely blameless man—at least not among us mortals who win our bread from

2204-461: A message to Sparta saying "If I invade Laconia, I shall turn you out.", the Spartans responded with the single, terse reply: αἴκα , "if". When Philip created the League of Corinth on the pretext of unifying Greece against Persia, the Spartans chose not to join, since they had no interest in joining a pan-Greek expedition unless it were under Spartan leadership. Thus, upon defeating the Persians at

2320-587: A number of points were situated and mapped in a general study of Spartan topography, based upon the description of Pausanias . In terms of domestic archaeology, little is known about Spartan houses and villages before the Archaic period, but the best evidence comes from excavations at Nichoria in Messenia where postholes have been found. These villages were open and consisted of small and simple houses built with stone foundations and clay walls. The Menelaion

2436-492: A popular story that the poet kept two boxes, one empty and the other full – the empty one being where he kept favours, the full one being where he kept his money. According to Athenaeus , when Simonides was at Hieron's court in Syracuse , he used to sell most of the daily provisions that he received from the tyrant, justifying himself thus: "So that all may see Hieron's magnificence and my moderation." Aristotle reported that

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2552-477: A prominent international figure at that time, particularly as the author of commemorative verses. According to an anonymous biographer of Aeschylus , the Athenians chose Simonides ahead of Aeschylus to be the author of an epigram honouring their war-dead at Marathon , which led the tragedian (who had fought at the battle and whose brother had died there) to withdraw sulking to the court of Hieron of Syracuse —

2668-547: A real influence on the sophistic enlightenment of the Classical era . His fame as a poet rests largely on his ability to present basic human situations with affecting simplicity. In the words of the Roman rhetorician Quintilian (35–100 AD): Simonides has a simple style, but he can be commended for the aptness of his language and for a certain charm; his chief merit, however, lies in the power to excite pity, so much so that some prefer him in this respect to all other writers of

2784-669: A result of the so-called Lycurgan Reforms. Xenophon, Constitution of the Lacedaimonians, chapter 1 In the Second Messenian War , Sparta established itself as a local power in the Peloponnesus and the rest of Greece. During the following centuries, Sparta's reputation as a land-fighting force was unequalled. At its peak around 500 BC, Sparta had some 20,000–35,000 citizens, plus numerous helots and perioikoi. The likely total of 40,000–50,000 made Sparta one of

2900-406: A single flaw; only a god can have that prize; but a man, there's no way he can help being bad when some crisis that he cannot deal with takes him down. Any man's good when he's doing well in life, bad when he's doing badly, and the best of us are those the gods love most. But for me that saying of Pittacus doesn't quite ring true (even though he was a smart man): he says "being good is hard": for me,

3016-431: A small fee to compose a victory ode for the winner of a mule race (it was not a prestigious event) but, according to Aristotle, changed his mind when the fee was increased, resulting in this magniloquent opening: "Greetings, daughters of storm-footed steeds!" In a quote recorded by Plutarch , he once complained that old age had robbed him of every pleasure but making money. All these amusing anecdotes might simply reflect

3132-605: A variant form by Josephus . Jewish historian Uriel Rappaport notes that the relationship between the Jews and the Spartans expressed in this correspondence has "intrigued many scholars, and various explanations have been suggested for the problems raised ... including the historicity of the Jewish leader and high priest Jonathan 's letter to the Spartans, the authenticity of the letter of Arius to Onias, cited in Jonathan's letter, and

3248-464: A vassal harbor, Gytheio , on the Laconian Gulf . Lacedaemon (Greek: Λακεδαίμων ) was a mythical king of Laconia. The son of Zeus by the nymph Taygete , he married Sparta , the daughter of Eurotas , by whom he became the father of Amyclas , Eurydice , and Asine. As king, he named his country after himself and the city after his wife. He was believed to have built the sanctuary of

3364-552: A victory by his grandfather in a poetry competition in Athens in 489/488 BC — this grandfather must have been over a hundred years old at that time if the birth dates for Simonides are correct. The grandfather's name, as recorded by the Parian Marble, was also Simonides, and it has been argued by some scholars that the earliest references to Simonides in ancient sources might in fact be references to this grandfather. However,

3480-534: A violent earthquake occurred along the Sparta faultline destroying much of what was Sparta and many other city-states in ancient Greece. This earthquake is marked by scholars as one of the key events that led to the First Peloponnesian War . In later Classical times, Sparta along with Athens , Thebes , and Persia were the main powers fighting for supremacy in the northeastern Mediterranean. In

3596-477: Is a shrine associated with Menelaus , located east of Sparta, by the river Eurotas, on the hill Profitis Ilias ( Coordinates : 37°03′57″N 22°27′13″E  /  37.0659°N 22.4536°E  / 37.0659; 22.4536 ). Built around the early 8th century BC, the Spartans believed it had been the former residence of Menelaus. In 1970, the British School in Athens started excavations around

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3712-519: Is also remarkable for his restraint and balance. His expression was clear and simple, relying on straightforward statement. An example is found in a quote by Stobaeus paraphrased here to suggest the original Aeolic verse rhythms, predominantly choriambic ( ¯˘˘¯, ¯˘˘¯ ), with some dactylic expansion (¯˘˘¯˘˘¯) and an iambic close (˘¯,˘¯): Being a man you cannot tell what might befall when tomorrow comes Nor yet how long one who appears blessed will remain that way, So soon our fortunes change even

3828-515: Is commended by Plutarch. He was highly successful in dithyrambic competitions according to an anonymous epigram dating from the Hellenistic period, which credited him with 57 victories, possibly in Athens. The dithyramb , a genre of lyrics traditionally sung to Dionysus, was later developed into narratives illustrating heroic myths; Simonides is the earliest poet known to have composed in this enlarged form (the geographer Strabo mentioned

3944-476: Is consistent with Eusebius' explanation. There is a rare use, perhaps the earliest of "Lacedaemonia", in Diodorus Siculus ' The Library of History, but probably with Χώρα (‘’chōra’’, "country") suppressed. Lakedaimona was until 2006 the name of a province in the modern Greek prefecture of Laconia . Sparta is located in the region of Laconia, in the south-eastern Peloponnese . Ancient Sparta

4060-423: Is described as "the country of lovely women", an epithet for people. The residents of Sparta were often called Lacedaemonians. This epithet utilized the plural of the adjective Lacedaemonius (Greek: Λακεδαιμόνιοι ; Latin: Lacedaemonii , but also Lacedaemones ). The ancients sometimes used a back-formation , referring to the land of Lacedaemon as Lacedaemonian country . As most words for "country" were feminine,

4176-505: Is difficult to reconstruct because the literary evidence was written far later than the events it describes and is distorted by oral tradition. The earliest certain evidence of human settlement in the region of Sparta consists of pottery dating from the Middle Neolithic period, found in the vicinity of Kouphovouno some two kilometres (1.2 miles) south-southwest of Sparta. This civilization seems to have fallen into decline by

4292-478: Is recorded on papyrus fragments and in quotes by ancient commentators for many conclusions to be drawn at least tentatively (nobody knows if and when the sands of Egypt will reveal further discoveries). Simonides wrote a wide range of choral lyrics with an Ionian flavour and elegiac verses in Doric idioms. He is generally credited with inventing a new type of choral lyric, the encomium , in particular popularising

4408-463: Is unclear in Herodotus' text and has been interpreted in a number of ways). Aristotle describes the kingship at Sparta as "a kind of unlimited and perpetual generalship" (Pol. iii. 1285a), while Isocrates refers to the Spartans as "subject to an oligarchy at home, to a kingship on campaign" (iii. 24). Civil and criminal cases were decided by a group of officials known as the ephors , as well as

4524-642: The Cyclades . The innermost island, Delos , was the reputed birthplace of Apollo , where the people of Ceos regularly sent choirs to perform hymns in the god's honour. Carthaea , another Cean town, included a choregeion or school where choirs were trained, and possibly Simonides worked there as a teacher in his early years. In addition to its musical culture, Ceos had a rich tradition of athletic competition, especially in running and boxing (the names of Ceans victorious at Panhellenic competitions were recorded at Ioulis on slabs of stone) making it fertile territory for

4640-1000: The Arcadian Achaeans to the northwest. The evidence suggests that Sparta, relatively inaccessible because of the topography of the Taygetan plain, was secure from early on: it was never fortified. Nothing distinctive in the archaeology of the Eurotas River Valley identifies the Dorians or the Dorian Spartan state. The prehistory of the Neolithic, the Bronze Age and the Dark Age (the Early Iron Age) at this moment must be treated apart from

4756-626: The Battle of the Granicus , Alexander the Great sent to Athens 300 suits of Persian armour with the following inscription: "Alexander, son of Philip, and all the Greeks except the Spartans, give these offerings taken from the foreigners who live in Asia". Sparta continued to be one of the Peloponesian powers until its eventual loss of independence in 192 BC. During Alexander's campaigns in the east,

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4872-596: The Charites , which stood between Sparta and Amyclae , and to have given to those divinities the names of Cleta and Phaenna . A shrine was erected to him in the neighborhood of Therapne . Tyrtaeus , an archaic era Spartan writer, is the earliest source to connect the origin myth of the Spartans to the lineage of the hero Heracles ; later authors, such as Diodorus Siculus , Herodotus, and Apollodorus , also made mention of Spartans understanding themselves to be descendants of Heracles. Thucydides wrote: Suppose

4988-585: The Corinthian War , Sparta faced a coalition of the leading Greek states: Thebes , Athens , Corinth , and Argos . The alliance was initially backed by Persia, which feared further Spartan expansion into Asia. Sparta achieved a series of land victories, but many of her ships were destroyed at the Battle of Cnidus by a Greek-Phoenician mercenary fleet that Persia had provided to Athens. The event severely damaged Sparta's naval power but did not end its aspirations of invading further into Persia, until Conon

5104-534: The Mycenaean Greek citadel at Therapne , in contrast to the lower town of Sparta. This term could be used synonymously with Sparta, but typically it denoted the terrain in which the city was located. In Homer it is typically combined with epithets of the countryside: wide, lovely, shining and most often hollow and broken (full of ravines), suggesting the Eurotas Valley . "Sparta" on the other hand

5220-515: The Palatine Anthology , both attributed to Simonides and both dedicated to a drowned man whose corpse the poet and some companions are said to have found and buried on an island. The first is an epitaph in which the dead man is imagined to invoke blessings on those who had buried the body, and the second records the poet's gratitude to the drowned man for having saved his own life – Simonides had been warned by his ghost not to set sail from

5336-613: The poleis of Koressos and Poieessa were absorbed by their neighbours Ioulis and Karthaia, and in the Late Roman period Karthaia ceased to exist, leaving Ioulis (Chora) as the single polis of the island." In the thirteenth century it seems to have been still the only town on the island. Its ruins were visited by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort in 1700 and identified by P. O. Brønsted in 1826. Simonides Simonides of Ceos ( / s aɪ ˈ m ɒ n ɪ ˌ d iː z / ; ‹See Tfd› Greek : Σιμωνίδης ὁ Κεῖος ; c. 556 – 468 BC)

5452-402: The wise and blessed , even putting into the mouth of Socrates the words "it is not easy to disbelieve Simonides, for he is a wise man and divinely inspired," but in his dialogue Protagoras , Plato numbered Simonides with Homer and Hesiod as precursors of the sophist . A number of apocryphal sayings were attributed to him. Michael Psellos accredited him with "the word is the image of

5568-472: The 'memory theatre' or ' memory palace ', a system for mnemonics widely used in oral societies until the Renaissance . According to Cicero, Themistocles wasn't much impressed with the poet's invention: "I would rather a technique of forgetting, for I remember what I would rather not remember and cannot forget what I would rather forget." The Suda credits Simonides with inventing "the third note of

5684-457: The 78th (468/464 BC), having lived eighty-nine years." Simonides was popularly accredited with the invention of four letters of the revised alphabet and, as the author of inscriptions, he was the first major poet who composed verses to be read rather than recited. Coincidentally he also composed a dithyramb on the subject of Perseus that is now one of the largest fragments of his extant verses. Modern scholars generally accept 556-468 BC as

5800-646: The Athenian ravaged the Spartan coastline and provoked the old Spartan fear of a helot revolt. After a few more years of fighting, in 387 BC the Peace of Antalcidas was established, according to which all Greek cities of Ionia would return to Persian control, and Persia's Asian border would be free of the Spartan threat. The effects of the war were to reaffirm Persia's ability to interfere successfully in Greek politics and to affirm Sparta's weakened hegemonic position in

5916-404: The Greek political system. Sparta entered its long-term decline after a severe military defeat to Epaminondas of Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra . This was the first time that a full strength Spartan army lost a land battle. As Spartan citizenship was inherited by blood, Sparta increasingly faced a helot population that vastly outnumbered its citizens. The alarming decline of Spartan citizens

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6032-599: The Introduction), Horace (" Ceae ... munera neniae "), Catullus (" maestius lacrimis Simonideis ") and Dionysius of Halicarnassus , where he says: Observe in Simonides his choice of words and his care in combining them; in addition—and here he is found to be better even than Pindar—observe how he expresses pity not by using the grand style but by appealing to the emotions. Simonides was adept too at lively compositions suited to dancing ( hyporchema ), for which he

6148-467: The Menelaion in an attempt to locate Mycenaean remains in the area. Among other findings, they uncovered the remains of two Mycenaean mansions and found the first offerings dedicated to Helen and Menelaus. These mansions were destroyed by earthquake and fire, and archaeologists consider them the possible palace of Menelaus himself. Excavations made from the early 1990s to the present suggest that

6264-522: The Parian Marble is known to be unreliable and possibly it was not even the grandfather but a grandson that won the aforementioned victory in Athens. According to the Suda, this grandson was yet another Simonides and he was the author of 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

6380-671: The Persian invasion from their deposed king Demaratus , which prompted them to consult the Delphic oracle. According to Herodotus, the Pythia proclaimed that either one of the kings of Sparta had to die or Sparta would be destroyed. This prophecy was fulfilled after king Leonidas died in the battle. The superior weaponry, strategy, and bronze armour of the Greek hoplites and their phalanx fighting formation again proved their worth one year later when Sparta assembled its full strength and led

6496-418: The Spartan society to maximize military proficiency at all costs, focusing all social institutions on military training and physical development. The inhabitants of Sparta were stratified as Spartiates (citizens with full rights), mothakes (free non-Spartiate people descended from Spartans), perioikoi (free non-Spartiates), and helots (state-owned enslaved non-Spartan locals). Spartiate men underwent

6612-468: The Spartan city-state and its location. First, "Sparta" refers primarily to the main cluster of settlements in the valley of the Eurotas River . The second word, "Lacedaemon" ( Λακεδαίμων ), was often used as an adjective and is the name referenced in the works of Homer and the historians Herodotus and Thucydides . The third term, "Laconice" ( Λακωνική ), referred to the immediate area around

6728-624: The Spartan king Agis III sent a force to Crete in 333 BC to secure the island for the Persian interest. Agis next took command of allied Greek forces against Macedon, gaining early successes, before laying siege to Megalopolis in 331 BC. A large Macedonian army under general Antipater marched to its relief and defeated the Spartan-led force in a pitched battle. More than 5,300 of the Spartans and their allies were killed in battle, and 3,500 of Antipater's troops. Agis, now wounded and unable to stand, ordered his men to leave him behind to face

6844-553: The Spartans: Areus king of the Lacedemonians to Onias the high priest, greeting: It is found in writing, that the Lacedemonians and Jews are brethren, and that they are of the stock of Abraham : Now therefore, since this is come to our knowledge, ye shall do well to write unto us of your prosperity. We do write back again to you, that your cattle and goods are ours, and ours are yours. The letters are reproduced in

6960-612: The Thessalian feudal aristocracy yet they seemed notable to later Greeks such as Theocritus only for their association with Simonides. Thessaly at that time was a cultural backwater, remaining in the 'Dark Ages' until the close of the 5th century. According to an account by Plutarch , the Ionian poet once dismissed the Thessalians as "too ignorant" to be beguiled by poetry. Among the most colourful of his "ignorant" patrons

7076-465: The adjective was in the feminine: Lacedaemonia ( Λακεδαιμονία , Lakedaimonia ). Eventually, the adjective came to be used alone. "Lacedaemonia" was not in general use during the classical period and before. It does occur in Greek as an equivalent of Laconia and Messenia during the Roman and early Byzantine periods, mostly in ethnographers and lexica of place names. For example, Hesychius of Alexandria 's Lexicon (5th century AD) defines Agiadae as

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7192-573: The advancing Macedonian army so that he could buy them time to retreat. On his knees, the Spartan king slew several enemy soldiers before being finally killed by a javelin. Alexander was merciful, and he only forced the Spartans to join the League of Corinth, which they had previously refused. During the Punic Wars , Sparta was an ally of the Roman Republic . Spartan political independence

7308-494: The age of individualism in lyric poetry has passed." Or so it seemed to modern scholars until the recent discovery of papyrus P.Oxy.  3965 in which Simonides is glimpsed in a sympotic context , speaking for example as an old man rejuvenated in the company of his homo-erotic lover, couched on a bed of flowers. Some of the short passages identified by ancient or modern authors as epigrams may also have been performed at symposia. Very little of his poetry survives today but enough

7424-526: The area around the Menelaion in the southern part of the Eurotas valley seems to have been the center of Mycenaean Laconia . The Mycenaean settlement was roughly triangular in shape, with its apex pointed towards the north. Its area was approximately equal to that of the "newer" Sparta, but denudation has wreaked havoc with its buildings and nothing is left of its original structures save for ruined foundations and broken potsherds . The prehistory of Sparta

7540-496: The attributed epigrams to be unquestionably authentic (an inscription for the seer Megistius quoted by Herodotus ), which places in doubt even some of the most famous examples, such as the one to the Spartans at Thermopylae, quoted in the introduction. He composed longer pieces on a Persian War theme, including Dirge for the Fallen at Thermopylae , Battle at Artemisium and Battle at Salamis but their genres are not clear from

7656-492: The birthplace of Simonides , Bacchylides , Prodicus , Erasistratus , and Aristo ; it was said to have been built by "Eupylos the son of Chryso the demi-goddess." It led a revolt against Athens in 364/3 BC; an Athenian decree has been preserved imposing a fine and punishing rebels, of which "ll. 27-42 contain 'the most formidably complex sentence so far to be found in classical Athenian decrees' ( KJ Dover , TPS 1981, 1-14 at 8-11)." A nineteenth-century description says: Iulis

7772-427: The boxer) that Scopas told him to collect half the commissioned fee from them — he would only pay the other half. Simonides however ended up getting much more from the mythical twins than just a fee; he owed them his very life (see Miraculous escapes ). According to this story he was called out of the feast hall to see two visitors who had arrived and were asking for him – presumably Castor and Pollux. As soon as he left

7888-1214: The broad earth. (If I do find one, mind you, I'll be sure to let you know.) So long as he does nothing shameful willfully, I give my praise and love to any man. Not even the gods can fight necessity. ἄνδρ' ἀγαθὸν μὲν ἀλαθέως γενέσθαι χαλεπὸν, χερσίν τε καὶ ποσὶ καὶ νόωι τετράγωνον, ἄνευ ψόγου τετυγμένον· θεὸς ἂν μόνος τοῦτ' ἔχοι γέρας‧ ἄνδρα δ' οὐκ ἔστι μὴ οὐ κακὸν ἔμμεναι, ὃν ἀμήχανος συμφορὰ καθέληι· πράξας γὰρ εὖ πᾶς ἀνὴρ ἀγαθός, κακὸς δ' εἰ κακῶς, <οὓς δ' οἱ θεοὶ φιλέωσιν πλεῖστον, εἰσ' ἄριστοι.> οὐδ᾽ ἐμοὶ ἐμμελέως τὸ Πιττάκειον νέμεται, καίτοι σοφοῦ παρὰ φωτὸς εἰ- ρημένον· χαλεπὸν φάτ' ἐσθλὸν ἔμμεναι. <ἐμοὶ ἀρκέει> μητ' <ἐὼν> ἀπάλαμνος εἰ- δώς τ' ὀνησίπολιν δίκαν, ὑγιὴς ἀνήρ· οὐ<δὲ μή νιν> ἐγώ μωμήσομαι· τῶν γὰρ ἠλιθίων ἀπείρων γενέθλα. πάντα τοι καλά, τοῖσίν τ' αἰσχρὰ μὴ μέμεικται. τοὔνεκεν οὔ ποτ' ἐγὼ τὸ μὴ γενέσθαι δυνατὸν διζήμενος κενεὰν ἐς ἄ- πρακτον ἐλπίδα μοῖραν αἰῶνος βαλέω, πανάμωμον ἄνθρωπον, εὐρυεδέος ὅσοι καρπὸν αἰνύμεθα χθονός· ἐπὶ δ' ὔμμιν εὑρὼν ἀπαγγελέω. πάντας δ' ἐπαίνημι καὶ φιλέω, ἑκὼν ὅστις ἔρδηι μηδὲν αἰσχρόν· ἀνάγκαι δ' οὐδὲ θεοὶ μάχονται. Lacedaemonians Sparta

8004-477: The city of Sparta to be deserted, and nothing left but the temples and the ground-plan, distant ages would be very unwilling to believe that the power of the Lacedaemonians was at all equal to their fame. Their city is not built continuously, and has no splendid temples or other edifices; it rather resembles a group of villages, like the ancient towns of Hellas, and would therefore make a poor show. Until

8120-637: The city-state maintained its political independence until its forced integration into the Achaean League in 192 BC. The city nevertheless recovered much autonomy after the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC and prospered during the Roman Empire , as its antiquarian customs attracted many Roman tourists. However, Sparta was sacked in 396 AD by the Visigothic king Alaric , and underwent

8236-656: The course of the Peloponnesian War , Sparta, a traditional land power, acquired a navy which managed to overpower the previously dominant flotilla of Athens, ending the Athenian Empire . At the peak of its power in the early 4th century BC, Sparta had subdued many of the main Greek states and even invaded the Persian provinces in Anatolia (modern day Turkey), a period known as the Spartan hegemony . During

8352-433: The courts of the tyrants, Hipparchus and Scopas, gave him a competitive edge over the proud Pindar and enabled him to promote the career of his nephew, Bacchylides, at Pindar's expense. However, Pindar scholiasts are generally considered unreliable, and there is no reason to accept their account. The Hellenistic poet Callimachus revealed in one of his poems that Simonides was buried outside Acragas , and that his tombstone

8468-605: The early 20th century, the chief ancient buildings at Sparta were the theatre , of which, however, little showed above ground except portions of the retaining walls ; the so-called Tomb of Leonidas , a quadrangular building, perhaps a temple, constructed of immense blocks of stone and containing two chambers; the foundation of an ancient bridge over the Eurotas; the ruins of a circular structure; some remains of late Roman fortifications ; several brick buildings and mosaic pavements. The remaining archaeological wealth consisted of inscriptions, sculptures, and other objects collected in

8584-522: The fact that he was the first poet to charge fees for his services – generosity is glimpsed in his payment for an inscription on a friend's epitaph, as recorded by Herodotus . Herodotus also mentions an earlier poet Arion , who had amassed a fortune on a visit to Italy and Sicily, so maybe Simonides was not the first professional poet, as claimed by the Greeks themselves. Plato , in The Republic , numbered Simonides with Bias and Pittacus among

8700-457: The famous flogging ordeal administered to Spartan boys ( diamastigosis ). The temple, which can be dated to the 2nd century BC, rests on the foundation of an older temple of the 6th century, and close beside it were found the remains of a yet earlier temple, dating from the 9th or even the 10th century. The votive offerings in clay, amber, bronze, ivory and lead dating from the 9th to the 4th centuries BC, which were found in great profusion within

8816-479: The first credible history. Between the 8th and 7th centuries BC the Spartans experienced a period of lawlessness and civil strife, later attested by both Herodotus and Thucydides. As a result, they carried out a series of political and social reforms of their own society which they later attributed to a semi-mythical lawgiver, Lycurgus . Several writers throughout antiquity, including Herodotus, Xenophon, and Plutarch have attempted to explain Spartan exceptionalism as

8932-460: The following year excavations were made at Thalamae , Geronthrae , and Angelona near Monemvasia . In 1906, excavations began in Sparta itself. A "small circus" (as described by Leake ) proved to be a theatre-like building constructed soon after 200 AD around the altar and in front of the Temple of Artemis Orthia . It is believed that musical and gymnastic contests took place here, as well as

9048-742: The fragmentary remains - the first was labelled by Diodorus Siculus as an encomium but it was probably a hymn and the second was characterised in the Suda as elegiac yet Priscian , in a comment on prosody, indicated that it was composed in lyric meter. Substantial fragments of a recently discovered poem, describing the run-up to the Battle of Plataea and comparing Pausanias to Achilles , show that he actually did compose narrative accounts in elegiac meter. Simonides also wrote Paeans and Prayers/Curses ( κατευχαί ) and possibly in some genres where no record of his work survives. Like other lyric poets in late Archaic Greece , Simonides made notable use of compound adjectives and decorative epithets yet he

9164-655: The genre. He is popularly associated with epitaphs commemorating fallen warriors, as for example the Lacedaemonians at the Battle of Thermopylae : Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι. Tell them in Lacedaemon, passer-by That here, obedient to their word, we lie, Today only glimpses of his poetry remain, either in the form of papyrus fragments or quotations by ancient literary figures, yet new fragments continue to be unearthed by archaeologists at Oxyrhynchus ,

9280-461: The hall, it collapsed, killing everyone within. These events were said to have inspired him to develop a system of mnemonics based on images and places called the method of loci . The method of loci is one component of the art of memory . The Thessalian period in Simonides' career is followed in most biographies by his return to Athens during the Persian Wars and it is certain that he became

9396-514: The immense pressures that life places on human beings. This attitude is evident in the following poem of Simonides (fr. 542), quoted in Plato's dialogue, the Protagoras , and reconstructed here according to a recent interpretation, making it the only lyric poem of Simonides that survives intact: For a man it's certainly hard to be truly good—perfect in hands, feet, and mind, built without

9512-468: The island with his companions, who all subsequently drowned. During the excavation of the rubble of Scopas's dining hall, Simonides was called upon to identify each guest killed. Their bodies had been crushed beyond recognition but he completed the gruesome task by correlating their identities to their positions ( loci in Latin ) at the table before his departure. He later drew on this experience to develop

9628-462: The kings were primarily religious, judicial, and military. As chief priests of the state, they maintained communication with the Delphian sanctuary, whose pronouncements exercised great authority in Spartan politics. In the time of Herodotus c. 450 BC, their judicial functions had been restricted to cases dealing with heiresses ( epikleroi ), adoptions and the public roads (the meaning of the last term

9744-470: The larger Greek city-states; however, according to Thucydides, the population of Athens in 431 BC was 360,000–610,000, making it much larger. In 480 BC, a small force led by King Leonidas (about 300 full Spartiates, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans, although these numbers were lessened by earlier casualties ) made a legendary last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae against the massive Persian army, led by Xerxes . The Spartans received advance warning of

9860-541: The late Bronze Age , when, according to Herodotus, Macedonian tribes from the north (called Dorians by those they conquered) marched into the Peloponnese and, subjugating the local tribes, settled there. The Dorians seem to have set about expanding the frontiers of Spartan territory almost before they had established their own state. They fought against the Argive Dorians to the east and southeast, and also

9976-540: The local museum, founded by Stamatakis in 1872 and enlarged in 1907. Partial excavation of the round building was undertaken in 1892 and 1893 by the American School at Athens . The structure has been since found to be a semicircular retaining wall of Hellenic origin that was partly restored during the Roman period. In 1904, the British School at Athens began a thorough exploration of Laconia , and in

10092-466: The long-winged fly Turns around less suddenly. The only decorative word is 'long-winged' ( τανυπτέρυγος ), used to denote a dragonfly , and it emerges from the generalised meanings of the passage as an 'objective correlative' for the fragility of the human condition. The rhythm evokes the movement of the dragonfly and the mutability of human fortunes. Simonides championed a tolerant, humanistic outlook that celebrated ordinary goodness, and recognized

10208-437: The lyre" (which is known to be wrong since the lyre had seven strings from the 7th century BC), and four letters of the Greek alphabet. Whatever the validity of such claims, a creative and original turn of mind is demonstrated in his poetry as he likely invented the genre of the victory ode and he gave persuasive expression to a new set of ethical standards (see Ethics ). In his play Peace , Aristophanes imagined that

10324-625: The major events and with the personalities of their times. Lessing , writing in the Enlightenment era , referred to him as "the Greek Voltaire ." His general renown owes much to traditional accounts of his colourful life, as one of the wisest of men; as a greedy miser; as an inventor of a system of mnemonics ; and the inventor of some letters of the Greek alphabet ( ω, η, ξ, ψ ). Such accounts include fanciful elements, yet he had

10440-408: The morals of the citizens and their mode of life. One of them quoted by Menander was particularly celebrated: ὀ μὴ δυνάμενος ζῆν καλῶς οὑ ζῇ κακῶς ["whoever cannot live well should (at least) not live badly"]. Under Roman rule it enjoyed political supremacy as well has been the main population center of the island. A process of nucleation reduced the number of population centers: "By the 2nd century BC

10556-503: The nearby settlement of Mystras , and Sparta fell further in even local importance. Modern Sparta was re-founded in 1834, by a decree of King Otto of Greece . Sparta was an oligarchy . The state was ruled by two hereditary kings of the Agiad and Eurypontid families , both supposedly descendants of Heracles and equal in authority, so that one could not act against the power and political enactments of his colleague. The duties of

10672-408: The old Spartans as hoplites, or even as a Macedonian phalanx . Despite this, a gravestone of a fallen legionary named Marcus Aurelius Alexys shows him lightly armed, with a pilos-like cap and a wooden club. The unit was presumably discharged in 217 after Caracalla was assassinated. An exchange of letters in the deutero-canonical First Book of Maccabees expresses a Jewish claim to kinship with

10788-605: The peak of the city-state's power had come and gone. In 396 AD, Sparta was sacked by Visigoths under Alaric I . According to Byzantine sources, some parts of the Laconian region remained pagan until well into the 10th century. The Tsakonian language still spoken in Tsakonia is the only surviving descendant of the ancient Doric language . In the Middle Ages, the political and cultural center of Laconia shifted to

10904-462: The poet's interest in them by thus saving his life. Simonides later benefited from the tragedy by deriving a system of mnemonics from it (see The inventor ). Quintilian dismisses the story as a fiction because "the poet nowhere mentions the affair, although he was not in the least likely to keep silent on a matter which brought him such glory ..." This however was not the only miraculous escape that his piety afforded him. There are two epigrams in

11020-531: The precinct range, supply invaluable information about early Spartan art. In 1907, the location of the sanctuary of Athena "of the Brazen House" (Χαλκίοικος, Chalkioikos) was determined to be on the acropolis immediately above the theatre. Though the actual temple is almost completely destroyed, the site has produced the longest extant archaic inscription in Laconia, numerous bronze nails and plates, and

11136-506: The rigorous agoge training regimen, and Spartan phalanx brigades were widely considered to be among the best in battle. Spartan women enjoyed considerably more rights than elsewhere in classical antiquity . Sparta was frequently a subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in Western culture following the revival of classical learning. The admiration of Sparta is known as Laconophilia . Bertrand Russell wrote: Sparta had

11252-471: The span of his life in spite of some awkward consequences—for example it would make him about fifty years older than his nephew Bacchylides and still very active internationally at about 80 years of age. Other ancient sources also have awkward consequences. For example, according to an entry in the Parian Marble , Simonides died in 468/467 BC at the age of ninety yet, in another entry, it lists

11368-437: The story is probably based on the inventions of comic dramatists but it is likely that Simonides did in fact write some kind of commemorative verses for the Athenian victory at Marathon. His ability to compose tastefully and poignantly on military themes put him in great demand among Greek states after their defeat of the second Persian invasion, when he is known to have composed epitaphs for Athenians, Spartans and Corinthians,

11484-512: The stream of Dorian Spartan history. The legendary period of Spartan history is believed to fall into the Dark Age. It treats the mythic heroes such as the Heraclids and the Perseids , offering a view of the occupation of the Peloponnesus that contains both fantastic and possibly historical elements. The subsequent proto-historic period, combining both legend and historical fragments, offers

11600-408: The supposed 'brotherhood' of the Jews and the Spartans." Rappaport is clear that "the authenticity of [the reply] letter of Arius is based on even less firm foundations than the letter of Jonathan". Spartans long spurned the idea of building a defensive wall around their city, believing they made the city's men soft in terms of their warrior abilities. A wall was finally erected after 184 BCE, after

11716-467: The thing." Plutarch commended "the saying of Simonides, that he had often felt sorry after speaking but never after keeping silent" and observed that "Simonides calls painting silent poetry and poetry painting that speaks" (later paraphrased by the Latin poet Horace as ut pictura poesis ). Diogenes Laërtius , after quoting a famous epigram by Cleobulus (one of ancient Greece's 'seven sages') in which

11832-608: The tiniest part of a point." Cicero related how, when Hieron of Syracuse asked him to define god, Simonides continually postponed his reply, "because the longer I deliberate, the more obscure the matter seems to me." Stobaeus recorded this reply to a man who had confided in Simonides some unflattering things he had heard said about him: "Please stop slandering me with your ears!". Simonides composed verses almost entirely for public performances and inscriptions, unlike previous lyric poets such as Sappho and Alcaeus , who composed more intimate verses to entertain friends—"With Simonides

11948-574: The town of Sparta, the plateau east of the Taygetos mountains, and sometimes to all the regions under direct Spartan control, including Messenia . The earliest attested term referring to Lacedaemon is the Mycenaean Greek 𐀨𐀐𐀅𐀖𐀛𐀍 , ra-ke-da-mi-ni-jo , "Lakedaimonian", written in Linear B syllabic script, the equivalent of the later Greek Λακεδαιμόνιος , Lakedaimonios ( Latin : Lacedaemonius ). Herodotus seems to use "Lacedaemon" for

12064-573: The tragic poet Sophocles had turned into Simonides: "He may be old and decayed, but these days, if you paid him enough, he'd go to sea in a sieve." A scholiast , commenting on the passage, wrote: "Simonides seems to have been the first to introduce money-grabbing into his songs and to write a song for pay" and, as proof of it, quoted a passage from one of Pindar's odes ("For then the Muse was not yet fond of profit nor mercenary"), which he interpreted as covert criticism of Simonides. The same scholiast related

12180-440: The wife of Hieron once asked Simonides whether it was better to be wealthy or wise, to which he apparently replied: "Wealthy; for I see the wise spending their days at the doors of the wealthy." According to an anecdote recorded on a papyrus, dating to around 250 BC, Hieron once asked the poet if everything grows old: "Yes," Simonides answered, "all except money-making; and kind deeds age most quickly of all." He once rejected

12296-419: Was a Greek lyric poet , born in Ioulis on Ceos . The scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria included him in the canonical list of the nine lyric poets esteemed by them as worthy of critical study. Included on this list were Bacchylides , his nephew, and Pindar , reputedly a bitter rival, both of whom benefited from his innovative approach to lyric poetry. Simonides, however, was more involved than either in

12412-549: Was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece . In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon ( Λακεδαίμων , Lakedaímōn ), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in the Eurotas valley of Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese . Around 650 BC, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece. Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta

12528-479: Was built on the banks of the Eurotas , the largest river of Laconia, which provided it with a source of fresh water. The Eurotas valley was a natural fortress, bounded to the west by Mt. Taygetus (2,407 m) and to the east by Mt. Parnon (1,935 m). To the north, Laconia is separated from Arcadia by hilly uplands reaching 1000 m in altitude. These natural defenses worked to Sparta's advantage and protected it from sacking and invasion . Though landlocked, Sparta had

12644-428: Was celebrating the same victory with Scopas and his relatives at a banquet when he received word that two young men were waiting outside to see him. When he got outside, however, he discovered firstly that the two young men were nowhere to be found and, secondly, that the dining hall was collapsing behind him. Scopas and a number of his relatives were killed. Apparently the two young men were the twins and they had rewarded

12760-418: Was commented on by Aristotle . Sparta never fully recovered from its losses at Leuctra in 371 BC and the subsequent helot revolts . In 338, Philip II invaded and devastated much of Laconia, turning the Spartans out, though he did not seize Sparta itself. Even during its decline, Sparta never forgot its claim to be the "defender of Hellenism" and its Laconic wit . An anecdote has it that when Philip II sent

12876-476: Was later misused in the construction of a tower. Traditional accounts of the poet's life embody a variety of themes. As mentioned above, both Cicero and Quintilian are sources for the story that Scopas, the Thassalian nobleman, refused to pay Simonides in full for a victory ode that featured too many decorative references to the mythical twins, Castor and Pollux. According to the rest of the story, Simonides

12992-526: Was put to an end when it was eventually forced into the Achaean League after its defeat in the decisive Laconian War by a coalition of other Greek city-states and Rome, and the resultant overthrow of its final king Nabis , in 192 BC. Sparta played no active part in the Achaean War in 146 BC when the Achaean League was defeated by the Roman general Lucius Mummius . Subsequently, Sparta became

13108-502: Was receiving a distinction which had hitherto been reserved for gods and heroes. — In one victory ode, celebrating Glaucus of Carystus, a famous boxer, Simonides declares that not even Heracles or Polydeuces could have stood against him—a statement whose impiety seemed notable even to Lucian many generations later. Simonides was the first to establish the choral dirge as a recognized form of lyric poetry, his aptitude for it being testified, for example, by Quintillian (see quote in

13224-480: Was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars , in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens . Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), from which it emerged victorious after the Battle of Aegospotami . The decisive Battle of Leuctra against Thebes in 371 BC ended the Spartan hegemony , although

13340-481: Was situated on a hill about 25 stadia from the sea, in the northern part of the island, on the same site as the modern Zea, which is now the only town in the island. There are several remains of Iulis: the most important is a colossal lion, about 20 feet in length, which lies a quarter of an hour east of the town.... The laws of Iulis were very celebrated in antiquity; and hence "Cean Laws" were used proverbially to indicate any excellent institutions... These laws related to

13456-504: Was the head of the Scopadae clan, named Scopas. Fond of drinking, convivial company and vain displays of wealth, this aristocrat's proud and capricious dealings with Simonides are demonstrated in a traditional account related by Cicero and Quintilian , according to which the poet was commissioned to write a victory ode for a boxer. Simonides embellished his ode with so many references to the twins Castor and Pollux (heroic archetypes of

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