Misplaced Pages

#872127

65-506: His work was collected by Alexandrian scholars in just two "books" (relatively few compared for example with the twenty-six books for Stesichorus ) and today only small fragments survive. The fragments confirm the ancient estimate of him as a "consummate poet" but also indicate that he was a "sturdier character" than the indulgent love poet he was assumed to be by various ancient commentators. Almost no reliable biographical details have been recorded. One ancient account linked him romantically with

130-585: A bent old man holding a book. Eusebius dated his floruit in Olympiad 42.2 (611/10 BC) and his death in Olympiad 55.1 (560/59 BC). The Suda' s claim that Hesiod was the father of Stesichorus can be dismissed as "fantasy" yet it is also mentioned by Tzetzes and the Hesiodic scholiast Proclus (one of them however named the mother of Stesichorus via Hesiod as Ctimene and the other as Clymene). According to another tradition known to Cicero , Stesichorus

195-438: A close rival of Homer; but he is redundant and diffuse, a fault to be sure but explained by the abundance of what he had to say. —Quintilian In a similar vein, Dionysius of Halicarnassus commends Stesichorus for "...the magnificence of the settings of his subject matter; in them he has preserved the traits and reputations of his characters", and Longinus puts him in select company with Herodotus , Archilochus and Plato as

260-572: A collection of short poems on a variety of themes (not just love), whereas the Smyrneis appears to have been a quasi-epic about Smyrna's confrontation with the Lydians. A cryptic comment by the Hellenistic poet Callimachus (see Comments by other poets below) also seems to refer to those two books, commending one for "sweetness" and distinguishing it from "the great lady". The latter seems to be

325-525: A description of the river Himera as well as praise for the town named after it, and his poem Geryoneis included a description of Pallantium in Arcadia. His possible exile from Arcadia is attributed by one modern scholar to rivalry between Tegea and Sparta . Traditional accounts indicate that he was politically active in Magna Graeca. Aristotle mentions two public speeches by Stesichorus: one to

390-508: A distinctive poetry of easy grace and pleasing rhythm. Typically, the elegiac couplet enabled a poet to develop his ideas in brief, striking phrases, often made more memorable by internal rhyme in the shorter, pentameter line. Mimnermus employs the internal rhyme in the pentameter lines 2 ( μοι... μέλοι ) and 4 ( ἄνθεα...ἁρπαλέα ). Here is the same poem paraphrased in English to imitate the rhythms of an elegy , with half-rhymes employed in

455-574: A famous Smyrnean victory against Gyges near the Hermus river (and yet names ending in - ermus were quite common in Ionia). He was alive when Smyrna was besieged for the final time by the Lydians under Alyattes of Lydia and possibly he died with the town. The disappearance of Smyrna for the next three hundred years might be the reason why Colophon was able to claim the poet as one of its own, yet Smyrna's own claim persisted and this suggests that its claim had

520-409: A flute girl who subsequently gave her name, Nanno, to one of his two books. The Byzantine encyclopaedia Suda provides a good example of the biographical uncertainties. Mimnermus, son of Ligyrtyades, from Colophon or Smyrna or Astypalaea , an elegiac poet. He flourished in the 37th Olympiad (632–29 BC) and so is earlier than the seven sages , although some say that he was their contemporary. He

585-518: A golden storeroom at the edge of Oceanus ", survive in brief quotes by ancient authors. According to Strabo, Smyrna was named after an Amazon and, according to a manuscript on proverbs, Mimnermus once composed on the theme of the proverb "A lame man makes the best lover", illustrating the Amazonian practice of maiming their men. Unlike epic and lyric verse, which were accompanied by stringed instruments (the cithara and barbiton respectively), elegy

650-730: A link between Homer 's epic narrative and the lyric narrative of poets like Pindar . Stesichorus also exercised an important influence on the representation of myth in 6th century art, and on the development of Athenian dramatic poetry. Stesichorus was born in Metauros (modern Gioia Tauro) in Calabria , Southern Italy c. 630 BC and died in Katane (modern Catania ) in Sicily in 555 BC. Some say that he came from Himera in Sicily, but that

715-409: A pederast and yet still have composed elegies about his love for Nanno: "Greek pederasty ... was for the most part a substitute for heterosexual love, free contacts between the sexes being restricted by society." Mimnermus apparently was also capable of playing all by himself—Strabo described him as "both a pipe-player and an elegiac poet". According to the poet Hipponax , Mimnermus when piping used

SECTION 10

#1732773388873

780-477: A quote by the geographer Strabo , is characteristic of the "descriptive fulness" of his style: A nineteenth century translation imaginatively fills in the gaps while communicating something of the richness of the language: See The Queen's Speech in the Lille fragment for more on Stesichorus's style. The Homeric qualities of Stesichorus' poetry are demonstrated in a fragment of his poem Geryoneis describing

845-499: A reference to Smyrneis , whereas the sweet verses—apparently the slender, economical kind of verses on which Callimachus modelled his own poetry—appear to refer to Nanno . However, the comment is preserved as an incomplete fragment and modern scholars are not unanimous in their interpretation of it. Another Callimachus fragment has been interpreted as proof that Mimnermus composed some iambic verse but this conjecture has also been disputed. Elegy has been described as "a variation upon

910-578: A scene showing Aeneas and his father Anchises departing 'for Hesperia ' with 'sacred objects', which might have more to do with the poetry of Virgil than with that of Stesichorus. Ismene In Greek mythology , Ismene ( / ɪ s ˈ m iː n iː / ; Ancient Greek : Ἰσμήνη , romanized :  Ismḗnē ) is a Theban princess. She is the daughter and half-sister of Oedipus , king of Thebes, daughter and granddaughter of Jocasta , and sister of Antigone , Eteocles , and Polynices . She appears in several tragic plays of Sophocles : at

975-457: A thing of beauty—the poppy has not wilted or died. Stesichorus adapted the simile to restore Death's ugliness while still retaining the poignancy of the moment: The mutual self-reflection of the two passages is part of the novel aesthetic experience that Stesichorus here puts into play. The enduring freshness of his art, in spite of its epic traditions, is borne out by Ammianus Marcellinus in an anecdote about Socrates: happening to overhear, on

1040-470: Is determined to take this course of action, and says she will do the same. Antigone, however, tells her not to keep silent but to tell everyone in the city. Ismene does not stop her sister, but makes her opinion of her foolishness clear. Once Antigone is caught, in spite of her betrothal to his son Haemon , Creon decrees that she is to be buried alive. Ismene then declares that she has aided Antigone and wants to share her fate, though she did not participate in

1105-563: Is mentioned in no other extant classical writing, but the scene is represented on a sixth-century BC Corinthian black-figure amphora now housed in the Louvre . The vase depicts Tydeus brandishing his sword at Ismene, who is nude and reclining on a couch, while Theoclymenus flees and looks back, not at Ismene, but at Tydeus's sword. In another tradition by early fifth-century poet Ion of Chios , Eteocles's son Laodamas burned Ismene alive together with Antigone inside Hera's temple. Ismene

1170-747: Is mere fantasy. Smyrna seems to be the most likely candidate. The nickname Ligyaistades was probably taken by the Suda from an elegy addressed to Mimnermus by one of the seven sages—the Athenian lawgiver and elegiac poet, Solon (see Comments by other poets ). Solon clearly admired the skills of the older poet, whom he addressed as Ligyaistades , yet he objected to his hedonism and singled out this couplet for criticism: αἲ γὰρ ἄτερ νούσων τε καὶ ἀργαλέων μελεδωνέων Would that my fated death might come at sixty, unattended by sickness and grievous cares. Solon thought he should be willing to live to eighty. Plutarch

1235-517: Is not named, but is seen at the end of Oedipus Rex as her father/brother laments the "shame" and "sorrow" he is leaving her and her sister. Oedipus begs Creon to watch over them, but in his grief reaches to take them with him as he is led away. Creon prevents him from taking his daughters out of the city with him. Ismene appears in Oedipus at Colonus to tell her father of the situation in Thebes and

1300-799: Is possible that these are the works of another Stesichorus belonging to the fourth century, mentioned in the Marmor Parium . Bovillae , about twelve miles outside Rome, was the original site of a monument dating from the Augustan period and now located in the Capitoline Museum . The stone monument features scenes from the fall of Troy, depicted in low relief, and an inscription: Ιλίου Πέρσις κατα Στησίχορον ('Sack of Troy according to Stesichorus'). Scholars are divided as to whether or not it accurately depicts incidents described by Stesichorus in his poem Sack of Troy . There is, for example,

1365-595: Is repeated by Pliny the Elder but it was the epic qualities of his work that most impressed ancient commentators, though with some reservations on the part of Quintilian : The greatness of Stesichorus' genius is shown among other things by his subject-matter: he sings of the most important wars and the most famous commanders and sustains on his lyre the weight of epic poetry. In both their actions and their speeches he gives due dignity to his characters, and if only he had shown restraint he could possibly have been regarded as

SECTION 20

#1732773388873

1430-438: The Suda' s dates "fit reasonably well" with other indications of Stesichorus's life-span — for example, they are consistent with a claim elsewhere in Suda that the poet Sappho was his contemporary, along with Alcaeus and Pittacus , and also with the claim, attested by other sources, that Phalaris was his contemporary. Aristotle quoted a speech the poet is supposed to have made to the people of Himera warning them against

1495-595: The 'most Homeric' of authors. Modern scholars tend to accept the general thrust of the ancient comments – even the 'fault' noted by Quintilian gets endorsement: 'longwindedness', as one modern scholar calls it, citing, as proof of it, the interval of 400 lines separating Geryon's death from his eloquent anticipation of it. Similarly, "the repetitiveness and slackness of the style" of the recently discovered Lille papyrus has even been interpreted by one modern scholar as proof of Stesichorean authorship – though others originally used it as an argument against. Possibly Stesichorus

1560-507: The Athenian sage said: ἀλλ᾽ εἴ μοι κἂν νῦν ἔτι πείσεαι, ἔξελε τοῦτον:— μηδὲ μέγαιρ᾽ ὅτι σεῦ λῷον ἐπεφρασάμην:— καὶ μεταποίησον, Λιγυαιστάδη, ὧδε δ᾽ ἄειδε: ὀγδωκονταέτη μοῖρα κίχοι θανάτου. But if even now you will listen to me, remove this (i.e. Mimnermus's objectionable verse)— and do not be offended because my thoughts are better than yours— and changing it, Ligyaistades, sing as follows: May my fated death come at eighty. And Mimnermus who, after much suffering, discovered

1625-667: The Greek West . His poetry reveals both Doric and Ionian influences and this is consistent with the Suda' a claim that his birthplace was either Metauria or Himera, both of which were founded by colonists of mixed Ionian/Doric descent. On the other hand, a Doric/Ionian flavour was fashionable among later poets — it is found in the 'choral' lyrics of the Ionian poets Simonides and Bacchylides — and it might have been fashionable even in Stesichorus's own day. His poetry included

1690-531: The Trojan War and thus restoring himself to full sight. The ancients associated the lyrical qualities of Stesichorus with the voice of the nightingale, as in this quote from the Palatine Anthology : "...at his birth, when he had just reached the light of day, a nightingale, travelling through the air from somewhere or other, perched unnoticed on his lips and struck up her clear song." The account

1755-494: The advantage of being true. Smyrna lay near Mount Sipylos , one of whose rocky outcrops was traditionally imagined to be the tragic figure Niobe . Like other archaic poets, Mimnermus adapted myths to his own artistic needs and Aelian recorded that he attributed twenty children to Niobe, unlike Homer, for example, who attributed twelve to her. According to Sallustius , Mimnermus was just as creative in his poetical account of Ismene , representing her as being killed by Tydeus at

1820-518: The border of Thebes so that they will have the desirable outcome. Hearing this, Oedipus curses his sons and refuses to leave Colonus. The chorus (in this play the elders of Colonus) tell him that because he has walked on the sacred ground of the Eumenides , he has to "perform rites of purification." Due to his blindness and age, Oedipus is unable to fulfill this task and asks one of his daughters to instead. Ismene agrees and exits to do so. Later in

1885-466: The command of the goddess, Athena , in the very act of making love to Theoclymenus —an original account that was soon accepted by an international audience, being represented on an early Corinthian amphora (pictured below). Imaginative accounts of the sun, voyaging at night from west to east in a golden bed, and of Jason the Argonaut voyaging to " Aeetes ' city, where the rays of the swift Sun lie in

1950-503: The crime. Antigone refuses to let her be martyred for a cause she did not stand up for, telling her to live. Antigone expresses that while Ismene's "choices seemed right to some--others agreed with [hers]," but Ismene tells her that the both of them were "equally wrong." Aeschylus' play, Seven Against Thebes , depicts the war and demise of Eteocles and Polynices. At the end of the play the Chorus narrates Ismene and Antigone entering to sing

2015-516: The cult of Philoctetes at Sybaris , Diomedes at Thurii and the Atreidae at Tarentum . It was also a sympathetic environment for his most famous poem, The Palinode, composed in praise of Helen, an important cult figure in the Doric diaspora. On the other hand, the western Greeks were not very different from their eastern counterparts and his poetry cannot be regarded exclusively as a product of

Mimnermus - Misplaced Pages Continue

2080-539: The death of the monster Geryon. A scholiast writing in a margin on Hesiod's Theogony noted that Stesichorus gave the monster wings, six hands and six feet, whereas Hesiod himself had only described it as 'three-headed'. yet Stesichorus adapted Homeric motifs to create a humanized portrait of the monster, whose death in battle mirrors the death of Gorgythion in Homer's Iliad , translated here by Richmond Lattimore : Homer here transforms Gorgythion's death in battle into

2145-584: The earliest surviving account of the Ionian migration, celebrating the settlement of Colophon and Smyrna from Pylos , while another quotation, recorded by Stobaeus , describes the heroic exploits of a Greek warrior against the cavalry of the Lydian king, Gyges , early in the 7th century—Mimnermus evidently hoped thereby to strengthen his countrymen's resolve against further Lydian encroachments. The name "Mimnermus" might have been chosen by his parents to commemorate

2210-563: The end of Oedipus Rex , in Oedipus at Colonus and in Antigone . She also appears at the end of Aeschylus ' Seven Against Thebes . The seventh-century BC poet Mimnermus accounts that Ismene was murdered by Tydeus , one of the Seven against Thebes. In this account, Ismene and her lover Theoclymenus met outside of the city during the siege. Tydeus had been told their whereabouts by

2275-584: The eve of his own execution, the rendition of a song of Stesichorus, the old philosopher asked to be taught it: "So that I may know something more when I depart from life." According to the Suda , the works of Stesichorus were collected in 26 books, but each of these was probably a long, narrative poem. The titles of more than half of them are recorded by ancient sources: Some poems were wrongly attributed to Stesichorus by ancient sources, including bucolic poems and some love songs such as Calyce and Rhadine . It

2340-535: The form of epic poetry – works such as the Palinode were also a recasting of epic material: in that version of the Trojan War, the combatants fought over a phantom Helen while the real Helen either stayed home or went to Egypt (see a summary below ). The 'Lyric Age' of Greece was in part self-discovery and self-expression – as in the works of Alcaeus and Sappho – but a concern for heroic values and epic themes still endured: Stesichorus' citharodic narrative points to

2405-428: The goddess Athena , and apprehended Ismene while Theoclymenus escaped. While she begged for sympathy, Tydeus was unaffected by her pleas and killed her. This tradition cannot be reconciled with the events depicted in later works by Aeschylus and Sophocles, in which Ismene appears alive after the battle is over and Tydeus is dead; it is also incompatible with Ismene's later timid and meek characterization. This version

2470-618: The heroic hexameter , in the direction of lyric poetry ," and, in Mimnermus, this takes the form of a variation on Homer, as appears for example in Fragment 1, quoted below, about which one modern scholar had this to say" Mimnermus' dependence on Homer is striking: it is amusing to see him express such un-Homeric thoughts as those of fr.1 in language which is almost entirely Homer's. Homer's vocabulary, line-endings, formulas, similes, all reappear, but from this material Mimnermus creates quite

2535-403: The location is secret and he has forbidden that they be told of it. Antigone resolves to return to Thebes, and Ismene goes with her. In the opening scene of the play Antigone tells Ismene of her plans to bury their brother Polynices, and asks her to join her. While Ismene laments the fate of Polynices' corpse, she refuses to defy the laws of the city. She advises her sister to be secretive if she

2600-402: The melancholy "fig-branch strain," apparently a traditional melody played while scapegoats were ritually driven from town, whipped with fig branches. Ancient commentators sometimes refer to a work called Nanno and there is one clear reference to a work called Smyrneis . Modern scholars have concluded that these could be the two books mentioned by Porphyrion. The Nanno appears to have been

2665-400: The name wasn't unique — there seems to have been more than one poet of this name (see Spurious works below). The Suda in yet another entry refers to the fact, now verified by Papyrus fragments, that Stesichorus composed verses in units of three stanzas (strophe, antistrophe and epode), a format later followed by poets such as Bacchylides and Pindar . Suda claims this three-stanza format

Mimnermus - Misplaced Pages Continue

2730-402: The people of Himera, warning them against Phalaris, and another to the people of Locri , warning them against presumption (possibly referring to their war against Rhegium ). Philodemus believed that the poet once stood between two armies (which two, he doesn't say) and reconciled them with a song — but there is a similar story about Terpander . According to the 9th century scholar Photius ,

2795-460: The philosopher Plato the poet's father was named Euphemus, but an inscription on a herm from Tivoli listed him as Euclides. The poet's mathematically inclined brother was named Mamertinus by the Suda but a scholiast in a commentary on Euclid named him Mamercus. Stesichorus's lyrical treatment of epic themes was well-suited to a western Greek audience, owing to the popularity of hero-cults in southern Italy and Magna Graeca , as for example

2860-467: The play, in an attempt to force Oedipus to return to Thebes , Creon tells him that he has seized Ismene and takes Antigone away as well. However, Theseus and the Athenians overpower them and exit to free the girls. Ismene appears again at the end of the play with her sister as they mourn the death of their father and lament that they cannot join him. Theseus tells them that Oedipus has been buried but

2925-478: The rivalry of his sons. She explains that Eteocles has taken the throne from Polynices and driven him out of the city. As a result of this, Polynices gathered his own army to either take back the city "or to die there with honor." According to the Oracle of Delphi, the location where Oedipus is buried will determine the result of the war between the brothers. Ismene tells her father that Creon plans to have him buried on

2990-602: The same light until she magically punished him with blindness for blaspheming her in one of his poems. According to a colourful account recorded by Pausanias , she later sent an explanation to Stesichorus via a man from Croton , who was on a pilgrimage to White Island in the Black Sea (near the mouth of the Blue Danube), and it was in response to this that Stesichorus composed the Palinode, absolving her of all blame for

3055-734: The same lines 2 (far...for) and 4 (youth...bloom): Commenting on the poem, Maurice Bowra observed that "...after the challenging, flaunting opening we are led through a swift account of youth, and then as we approach the horrors of old age, the verse becomes slower, the sentences shorter, the stops more emphatic, until the poet closes with a short, damning line of summary." Of all the other early elegists, only Archilochus might be compared with Mimnermus for effective use of language, both being lifelong poets of outstanding skill. Addressing Mimnermus and criticizing him for his stated wish to die at sixty years of age, as quoted above in Life and work ,

3120-402: The same lines have also been attributed to Theognis . A robust side to his personality is shown by his versatility as a poet. Archaic elegy was often used for patriotic purposes, to screw courage to the sticking place in times of war and to celebrate national achievements, and there is ample evidence that Mimnermus assumed this role as a poet. A quote recorded by the geographer Strabo represents

3185-557: The scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria , and yet his work attracted relatively little interest among ancient commentators, so that remarkably few fragments of his poetry now survive. As David Campbell notes: "Time has dealt more harshly with Stesichorus than with any other major lyric poet." Recent discoveries, recorded on Egyptian papyrus (notably and controversially, the Lille Stesichorus ), have led to some improvements in our understanding of his work, confirming his role as

3250-433: The simultaneous coexistence of different literary genres and currents in an age of great artistic energy and experimentation. It is one of the exciting qualities of early Greek culture that forms continue to evolve, but the old traditions still remain strong as points of stability and proud community, unifying but not suffocating. —Charles Segal. The following description of the birthplace of the monster Geryon , preserved as

3315-540: The sweet sound and breath given off by the soft pentameter, was on fire for Nanno... Defining the kind of poetry he liked and believed best suited to his own, much later times, the Alexandrian scholar-poet commended Mimnermus thus [brackets indicate gaps in the text]: Of the two [types of poetry] it was his slender [verses?], not the big lady, that revealed Mimnermus' sweetness. plus in amore valet Mimnermi versus Homero: :carmina mansuetus lenia quaerit Amor. In love

SECTION 50

#1732773388873

3380-572: The term eight all (used by gamblers at dice) derives from an expensive burial the poet received outside Catana, including a monument with eight pillars, eight steps and eight corners, but the 3rd century grammarian Julius Pollux attributed the same term to an 'eight all ways' tomb given to the poet outside Himera. Many modern scholars don't accept the Suda' s claim that Stesichorus was named for his innovations in choral poetry — there are good reasons to believe that his lyrical narratives were composed for solo performance (see Works below). Moreover

3445-408: The tyrannical ambitions of Phalaris. The Byzantine grammarian Tzetzes also listed him as a contemporary of the tyrant and yet made him a contemporary of the philosopher Pythagoras as well. According to Lucian , the poet lived to 85 years of age. Hieronymus declared that his poems became sweeter and more swan-like as he approached death, and Cicero knew of a bronzed statue representing him as

3510-468: The versatility of lyric meter is suited to solo performance with self-accompaniment on the lyre – which is how Homer himself delivered poetry. Whether or not it was a choral technique, the triadic structure of Stesichorean lyrics allowed for novel arrangements of dactylic meter – the dominant meter in his poems and also the defining meter of Homeric epic – thus allowing for Homeric phrasing to be adapted to new settings. However, Stesichorus did more than recast

3575-429: The verses of Mimnermus prevail over those of Homer. Gentle love calls for soft songs. si, Mimnermus uti censet, sine amore iocisque nil est iucundum, vivas in amore iocisque. If, as Mimnermus believes, without love and jests There is no joy, may you live amid love and jests. Stesichorus Stesichorus ( / s t ɪ ˈ s ɪ k ə r ə s / ; Greek : Στησίχορος , Stēsichoros ; c. 630 – 555 BC)

3640-415: Was a Greek lyric poet native of Metauros ( Gioia Tauro today). He is best known for telling epic stories in lyric metres, and for some ancient traditions about his life, such as his opposition to the tyrant Phalaris , and the blindness he is said to have incurred and cured by composing verses first insulting and then flattering to Helen of Troy . He was ranked among the nine lyric poets esteemed by

3705-692: Was accompanied by a wind instrument (the aulos ) and its performance therefore required at least two people—one to sing and one to play. Ancient accounts associate Mimnermus with a female aulos player, Nanno (Ναννώ), and one makes him her lover (see quote from Hermesianax in Comments by other poets below). Another ancient source indicates that Mimnermus was a pederast , which is consistent with conventional sexual themes in Greek elegy. However, as noted by Martin Litchfield West , Mimnermus could have been

3770-405: Was also called Ligyaistades because of his harmonious clarity. He wrote ... books. The gap indicates a corruption in the text and the original wording probably testified to two books, though the only source we have for this number was the grammarian Pomponius Porphyrion . The Suda ' s mention of Astypalaea, an island in the southern Aegean, as a possible candidate for the poet's home town

3835-422: Was an expert in geometry and a second brother Helianax, a law-giver. He was a lyric poet. His poems are in the Doric dialect and in 26 books. They say that he was blinded for writing abuse of Helen and recovered his sight after writing an encomium of Helen, the Palinode, as the result of a dream. He was called Stesichorus because he was the first to establish ( stesai ) a chorus of singers to the cithara ; his name

3900-484: Was another ancient author critical of the poet's self-indulgence, dismissing one poem (see Fragment 1 in Poetic style below) as "the utterances of intemperate people." Mimnermus however was not timid in his hedonism, as indicated by a couplet attributed to him in the Palatine Anthology , an exhortation to others to live intemperately: "Enjoy yourself. Some of the harsh citizens will speak ill of you, some better.". However,

3965-460: Was due to him moving from Metauros to Himera later in life. When exiled from Pallantium in Arcadia he came to Katane ( Catania ) and when he died there was buried in front of the gate which is called Stesichorean after him. In date he was later than the lyric poet Alcman , since he was born in the 37th Olympiad (632/28 BC). He died in the 56th Olympiad (556/2 BC). He had a brother Mamertinus who

SECTION 60

#1732773388873

4030-493: Was even more Homeric than ancient commentators realized – they had assumed that he composed verses for performance by choirs (the triadic structure of the stanzas, comprising strophe, antistrophe and epode, is consistent with choreographed movement) but a poem such as the Geryoneis included some 1500 lines and it probably required about four hours to perform – longer than a chorus might reasonably be expected to dance. Moreover,

4095-464: Was originally Tisias. The specific dates given by the Suda for Stesichorus have been dismissed by one modern scholar as "specious precision" — its dates for the floruit of Alcman (the 27th Olympiad), the life of Stesichorus (37th–56th Olympiads) and the birth of Simonides (the 56th Olympiad) virtually lay these three poets end-to-end, a coincidence that seems to underscore a convenient division between old and new styles of poetry. Nevertheless,

4160-477: Was popularly referred to as the three of Stesichorus in a proverbial saying rebuking cultural buffoons ("You don't even know the three of Stesichorus!"). According to one modern scholar, however, this saying could instead refer to the following three lines of his poem The Palinode , addressed to Helen of Troy: Helen of Troy's bad character was a common theme among poets such as Sappho and Alcaeus and, according to various ancient accounts, Stesichorus viewed her in

4225-399: Was the grandson of Hesiod yet even this verges on anachronism since Hesiod was composing verses around 700 BC. Stesichorus might be regarded as Hesiod's literary "heir" (his treatment of Helen in the Palinode, for example, may have owed much to Hesiod's Catalogue of Women ) and maybe this was the source of confusion about a family relationship. According to Stephanus of Byzantium and

#872127