“ MIMNERMUS of Colophon, Greek elegiac poet, flourished about 630–600 B.C. His life fell in the troubled time when the Ionic cities of Asia Minor were struggling to maintain themselves against the rising power of the Lydian kings. One of the extant fragments of his poems refers to this struggle, and contrasts the present effeminacy of his countrymen with the bravery of those who had once defeated the Lydian king Gyges. ”