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SimondLyric poet of Ancient Greece.
Country:
 Greece |
Biography of Simonides
Simonides, a lyrical poet of Ancient Greece, was one of the most significant lyrical poets of his time. He was included in the canonical list of the Nine Lyric Poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. Simonides was born in the city of Iulis on the island of Ceos. He studied poetry and music from a young age. As the leader of the choir at the Temple of Apollo in the city of Carrae, he composed hymns for the Delian festivals in honor of Apollo.
Feeling that his hometown offered limited opportunities for his talents, Simonides moved to Athens, where he lived in high esteem at the court of the tyrant Hipparchus, who patronized literature. Later, Anacreon joined Simonides in Athens. After the assassination of Hipparchus in 514 BCE, Simonides moved to Thessaly, where he received protection and patronage from the Scopads and Aleuads, famous Thessalian dynasties. He returned to Athens after the Battle of Marathon, but soon after, he traveled to Sicily at the invitation of Hiero I, the tyrant of Syracuse, where he spent the rest of his life. He was a close friend of Themistocles and Pausanias of Sparta. Simonides died around 468 BCE, and the cause of his death is unknown.
Simonides was known for his leadership of the choral groups and his composition of dithyrambic hymns for Dionysian festivals. As a choral lyric poet, he enjoyed greater fame among his contemporaries than Pindar. His elegy in honor of the fallen at the Battle of Marathon was considered superior to all those composed by his rivals, including Aeschylus. According to the poet himself, he was awarded 56 oxen and an equal number of tripods in poetry competitions, which were only given on special occasions. Simonides gained widespread recognition after the Greco-Persian Wars when he celebrated the famous battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Artemisium. He is known for an epitaph to the soldiers who died in the Battle of Thermopylae (although its authorship is disputed). Simonides' verses on the liberating war against the Persians gave a powerful impulse to national patriotism. His popularity was so great that it manifested in real political influence. The Corinthians allegedly sought his impartial testimony about their actions during the Persian War, and it is reported that Simonides reconciled Hiero I and Theron (who resorted to his mediation in their conflicts) on the eve of an almost battle.
As a scholar, Simonides was considered the founder of mnemonics and the transformer of the Greek alphabet. He is credited with introducing the double consonants γ and δ and the distinction between long vowels (ε/η, ο/ω) in writing. (The new rules were adopted in the Ionian alphabet and became widely spread during the archonship of Euclid, after 403 BCE). According to Cicero, Simonides' patron, Scopas, reproached the poet for dedicating too much space in a praise ode to Scopas' victory in chariot races to Castor and Pollux and too little to the actual winner. Scopas refused to pay the full amount for the ode and suggested that Simonides seek payment from the deities. Soon after, Simonides was informed that two young men wanted to speak with him. When Simonides left the banquet, the roof of the hall collapsed, killing Scopas and his guests. Simonides was called upon to identify the bodies in the rubble, and he succeeded by matching the position each person occupied at the table. Thanking Castor and Pollux for the payment of the ode, Simonides used this experience in developing the "theatre of memory," the so-called method of loci, a memory organization system widely used in oral public practice until the Renaissance. Simonides wrote hymns, hyporchems, dithyrambs, partheneia, elegies, epigrams (epitaphs), epinicians, and threnodies. Only three short elegies (one of which apparently belongs to Simonides of Amorgos), several epigrams, several epitaphs (including an epitaph on the death of Anacreon), and about 90 fragments of monodic and choral lyrics have survived to this day. In 1992, new papyrus fragments with texts of Simonides' elegies were published. (Among them, the most interesting is a large fragment about the Battle of Plataea, which emphasizes the decisive role of the Spartans.) The surviving texts are characterized by deep and enlightened pathos, strength, and grandeur.
Simonides gave final treatment to epinicians, combining the narrative of the games with moralizing and philosophical reflections. He also worked on the genre of the epigram, which initially was a simple epitaph, usually in the form of an elegiac couplet. (Out of all of Simonides' epigrams, only one is satirical, addressed to the poet Timocreon.) The epitaphs, intended for public and private burials, are characterized by warmth of feeling and some epic qualities. Among them, the famous epitaph of Archidike, the daughter of Hippys the Pisistratid, stands out.
Simonides' elegies are distinguished not only by graceful images but also by depth of thought and a characteristic tinge of sadness that permeates many of his poems. Perhaps the most famous fragment of Simonides' elegiac poetry is about the heroes of Marathon and the Battle of Thermopylae. The surviving lyrical fragments vary in character. They include an address to Artemisius (with which Simonides defeated Aeschylus in one of the poetic competitions), praising those who fell at Thermopylae, fragments from traditional hymns, hyporchems, epinicians, and more.
His threnodies (laments) were highly esteemed, characterized by a calm and majestic pathos in expressing grief. One of the threnodies possibly includes the famous song of Danae, in which her father Acrisius locked her and her son Perseus in a box due to her relationship with Zeus.
Simonides achieved numerous victories in dithyrambic competitions, with up to 57 wins attributed to him. He won the competition for composing elegiac verses in memory of those who fell at Marathon, including a victory over Aeschylus. Tradition attributes constant rivalry between Simonides (and his nephew Bacchylides) and Pindar.
Simonides was also famous for his wise and witty sayings. His most well-known statement is "Poetry is a singing painting, just as painting is a silent poetry." This remark was paraphrased by Horace in his "Ars Poetica" (ut pictura poesis, poetry is like painting); Lessing begins his "Laocoön" with this observation. Simonides analyzes and evaluates the aphorisms of ancient sages, sometimes reproducing them in a more beautiful form (for example, the famous lines by Hesiod about the "narrow path leading to virtue"). Simonides influenced the conception and practice of poetic activity, asserting that the patron who commissioned a poem should provide adequate compensation. He was considered the first poet to write for payment and received significant sums for his works.
When asked by Hiero's wife whether it is better to be born a genius or wealthy, Simonides replied, "Wealthy, because at the gate of the wealthy, one can always find a genius." When someone asked him to write a eulogy in exchange for sincere gratitude, Simonides replied that he "keeps two chests, one for gratitude and the other for money; when he opens them, the first one is always empty, while the second one is full." Thus, Simonides can be considered the first professional poet who turned poetry into a source of income. (Later authors, starting with Aristophanes, accused him of greed due to this policy.) In this regard, Simonides can be seen as a precursor to the sophists of the 5th century BCE.
Engaging in a rivalry with Pindar, Simonides argued against the values of aristocratic ethics, which formed the basis of Pindar's worldview (Simonides' position is most clearly expressed in his encomium to Scopas). Simonides was closer to the ethical concept of the new merchant class; he was pragmatic, realistic, and inclined towards relativism. He recognized the imperfections of human achievements.
Simonides did not demand high and inflexible virtue. "It is difficult to become a good person who is as perfect as a square, both in hand and foot and in thought. Whoever is bad but not immoral, for whom justice is not strange, and who benefits cities - that person is good; I will not find fault with them, for the race of fools is endless... I praise and love everyone who does not sin willingly; even the gods do not attack without necessity" [Fr. 5, Bergk]; "virtue is found on a high and difficult mountain"; "let us seek pleasures, for all things descend into Charybdis, be it virtue or wealth."
At the same time, Simonides is not a hedonist; his morality, no less than his art, is permeated with virtue, for which his native Ceos was renowned - temperance and humility. Hence, Simonides' ethics is characterized by a humble fatalism, contemplation of human suffering and weaknesses, and the inscrutable ways of higher powers. However, there is nothing gloomy in this fatalism; the overall tone of Simonides' art is highly positive. Perhaps the most famous text of Simonides that illustrates his concept is a fragment of a lament in which Danae, sailing with her infant Perseus through a stormy night sea, finds peace in her child's peaceful sleep.
