Simonides of Ceos

“ It was at the Dionysia that, as we shall see, the Athenian drama took its rise as a service of worship to the god.
Literature found a whole-hearted patron in the great
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tyrant’s younger son Hipparchus. At his court were, among others, Simonides, Anacreon, and Onomacritus. Simonides of Ceos is specially associated with the dithyramb, the chorus in honour of Dionysus, which played a great part in the development of the chorus of tragedy. He was also a composer of odes of victory for successful athletes, though here his fame was eclipsed by his younger rival Pindar. ”

“ The term Gnomic, when applied to a certain number of Greek poets, is arbitrary. There is no definite principle for rejecting some and including others in the class. It has, however, been usual to apply this name to Solon, Phocylides, Theognis, and Simonides of Ceos. Yet there seems no reason to exclude some portions of Callinus, Tyrtæus, Mimnermus, and Xenophanes. These poets, it will be observed, are all writers of the elegy. Some of the lyric poets, however, and iambographers, such as Simonides of Amorgos and Archilochus, have strong claims for admission into the list. ”

“ In the fifth century, lyric was brought to its perfection by singers not of Athens. But Ceos, the birthplace of two of them, was moored close to Attica. Simonides, the poet-laureate of the Persian wars, was much in Athens, and his nephew Bacchylides took the Attic Theseus for the theme of two of his extant poems, wrote one of his epinician odes in honour of an Athenian victor, and composed another poem expressly in laudation of Athens. ”

“ Theognis represents the maturer union of politics with a proverbial philosophy. Another gnomic poet was Phocylides of Miletus; an admonitory poem extant under his name is probably the work of an Alexandrine Jewish Christian. Xenophanes gives a philosophic strain to elegy. With Simonides of Ceos it reverts, in an exquisite form, to its earliest destination, and becomes the vehicle of epitaph on those who fell in the Persian Wars. Iambic verse was used by Simonides (or Semonides) of Amorgus, as by Archilochus, for satire—but satire directed against classes rather than persons. ”

“ Simonides exercised his calling of chorus-teacher at Carthæa in Ceos, and lived at the χορηγεῖον, or resort of the chorus, near the temple of Apollo. But the greater portion of his life, after he had attained celebrity, was passed with patrons—with Hipparchus, who invited him to Athens, where he dwelt at amity with Anacreon, and at enmity with Pindar's master, Lasos; with the Scopads and Aleuads of Thessaly, for whom he composed the most touching threnoi and the most brilliant panegyrics, of which fragments have descended [Pg 329] to us ”

“ BACCHYLIDES, [ Greek ] , a famous Greek lyric poet, born at lulis in Ceos, was the nephew of Simonides, and flourished about 470 years before Christ. He resided long at the court of Hiero of Syracuse with Simonides and Pindar, of whom he is said to have been the rival. ”

“ Of these Iulis is represented by the town of Zea, and Carthaea by the village of ’S tais Polais; traces of the other two can still be made out. Iulis was the birthplace of the lyric poets Simonides and Bacchylides, the philosophers Prodicus and Ariston, and the physician Erasistratus; the excellence of its laws was so generally recognized that the title of Cean Laws passed into a proverb. One of them forbade a citizen to protract his life beyond sixty years. The people of Ceos fought on the Greek side at Artemisium and Salamis ”

“ This story is also told by Cicero, De Oratore, 2. 352 ff., and by others. 1, 2. Quantum...superius: an earlier fable (4. 23) relates how Simonides, shipwrecked and destitute, was received most hospitably by one of his admirers. 4. Simonides: the renowned Greek lyric poet of Ceos. His ode upon those who fell at Thermopylae was especially famous. Sterling translates:
Of those who at Thermopylae were slain,
Glorious the doom, and beautiful the lot;
Their tomb an altar: men from tears refrain
To honor them; and praise, but mourn them not. ”

“ When we reflect what would have become of the civilization of the world but for these Greek victories—when we remember that the events which these few couplets record transcend in importance those of any other single period of history—we are almost appalled by the contrast between the brevity of the epigrams and the world-wide vastness of their matter. In reviewing the life of Simonides, after admitting that he was greedy of gain and not adverse to flattery, we are bound to confess that, as a poet, he proved himself adequate to the age of Marathon and Salamis. ”

“ Themistocles laughed again, and even more lightly.
“A deserter, you say. Then why, by Athena’s owls, has he left ‘the Land of Roast Hare’ among the Persians, whither so many are betaking themselves? We’ve not so many deserters to our cause that to-night we can ignore one. Fetch him in.”
“But the council with Eurybiades?” implored Simonides, almost on his knees.
“To the harpies with it! I asked Zeus for an omen. It comes—a fair one. There is time to hear this deserter, to confound Adeimantus, and to save Hellas too!” ”

“ Simonides did as he was told, and, with an injured expression, walked away. Next day he wrote a Greek letter to the librarian, bitterly complaining about the Apage, and offering some more MSS. for his inspection. But all was in vain; too much had been discovered about him in the meantime. He was certainly a most extraordinary man—a scholar who, if he had applied his ingenuity to editing instead of forging Greek MSS., might have held a very high position. His greatest achievement was, of course, the newly discovered Greek text of the history of ancient Egypt by Uranios. ”

“ Now, for the first time, poets began to sell their songs of praise for money. Simonides introduced the practice, which had something shocking in it to Greek taste, and which Plato especially censures as sophistic and illiberal in his Protagoras. Now, too, poets became the friends and counsellors of princes, mixing freely in the politics of Samos, Syracuse, Agrigentum, Thessaly; aiding the tyrants Polycrates, Hiero, Theron, the Scopads, with their advice. ”

“ Their tone reminds us of Mimnermus, who said the utmost when he cried—
Zeus to Tithonus gave a grievous ill—
Undying age, than death more horrible!
To multiply more elegies of this description would be useless. We may, however, allude to a poem of Simonides (Frag. 100, ed. Gaisford) , which combines the sweetness of Mimnermus and the energy of Theognis: "Nothing human endures for aye. Well said the bard of Chios, that like the leaves so is the race of men: yet few who hear this keep it in their mind; for hope is strong within the breast of youth. ”

“ Yet he was popular, for he knew every one of the citizens by name, and gave impartial judgment in all cases referred to him as arbitrator. Once, when Simonides of Keos asked him to strain a point in his favour, Themistokles, who was a general at the time, answered that Simonides would be a bad poet if he sang out of tune; and he would be a bad magistrate if he favoured men against the law. At another time he rallied Simonides on his folly in abusing the Corinthians, who inhabited so fine a city, and in having his own statue carved, though he was so ugly. ”

“ He was the voice of Hellas—the genius of Fame, sculpturing upon her brazen shield with a pen of adamant, in austere le [Pg 331] tters of indelible gold, the achievements to which the whole world owes its civilization. Happy poet! Had ever any other man so splendid a heritage of song allotted to him?
In style Simonides is always pure and exquisitely polished. The ancients called him the sweet poet—Melicertes—par excellence. His σωφροσύνη, or tempered self-restraint, gives a mellow tone not merely to his philosophy and moral precepts, but also to his art. ”

“ All Hellas had hung with breathless expectation on the events of Marathon and Salamis. The fall of Xerxes brought freedom and relief from terrible anxiety, not only to the towns of Attica and the Peloponnesus, but also to the shores of Sicily and Italy. It is not, therefore, unlikely that the triumph which excited Simonides and Æschylus to the production of masterpieces may have stirred the spirit of the youthful patriot of Agrigentum. Another composition of Empedocles which perished under his sister's hands was a Proemium to Apollo. ”

“ The evening of his days Simonides passed in Syracuse, the ornament of Hi’ero’s court, the recipient of royal favors during his life, and at his death of the highest funeral honors. It was here that the poet, who was somewhat of a philosopher, confessed his inability to answer the question of the Syracusan monarch, “What is God?”
Simonides was remarkably successful in adapting the elegy to funeral songs and epitaphs, and thus embalming Grecian heroism for the contemplation of future ages. He lived in the time of the Persian War, and commemorated its worthies. ”

“ In one given in this selection, [12] a great poet has bent to this light and trivial style. The high note of Simonides is as clear and certain here as in his lines on the Spartans at Thermopylae or in the cry of grief over the young man dead in the snow-clogged surf of the Saronic sea. With such exceptions, the only touch of poetry is where a graver note underlies their light insolence. "Drink with me," runs the Greek song, "be young with me; love with me, wear garlands with me ”

“ Simonides had difficulty in dragging himself onward. Fortunately the distance was not great; in ancient times the houses were small, supplied with numerous corners, it is true, but covering little space. Supported by Lycon’s arm, Simonides walked through the short colonnade outside of the men’s rooms; in the little peristyle of the women’s apartment, where he was forced to stop a moment to rest, no human being appeared and the small chambers occupied by the slaves,—half a score of dungeon-like cells,—all stood empty. The same state of affairs existed in the women’s work-room. ”

“ Simonides, in his lines on happiness, prays first for health and next for beauty; and a thousand passages might be quoted to prove how naturally and sincerely the Greeks reckoned physical beauty among the chief goods of life, and how freely they exhibited it in all its splendor. As a slight indication of the popular feeling, we might quote the reproof for effeminacy which Aristophanes utters against the young men who thought it necessary to appear clothed at the Panathenaic festival; from which it is clear that the Greek conscience connected nudity with purity. ”

“ Guided by no supernatural revelation, with no Mosaic law for conduct, they trusted their αἴσθησις, delicately trained and preserved in a condition of the utmost purity. This tact is the ultimate criterion in all matters of art—a truth which we recognize in our use of the word æsthetic, though we too often attempt to import the alien elements of metaphysical dogmatism and moral prejudice into the sphere of beauty. This tact was also for the Greeks the ultimate criterion of ethics. Ὑγιαίνειν μὲν ἄριστον ἀνδρὶ θνατῷ, says Simonides. ”

“ Simonides could scarcely believe his ears, and turned to his guest in speechless surprise. Lycon laughed in his sleeve.
At a sign from Carion, two young slaves entered and laid at their master’s feet large and small whips, iron collars, fetters, stocks, branding irons, neck-wheels, and the so-called “tree,” which served as a pillory and at the same time inflicted the torture of sitting in a doubled up position. Bringing in all these articles consumed time enough to enable Simonides to regain his composure. ”

“ Beauty, goodness, and truth were to the Greeks almost convertible terms; and the nearest approach which Plato made to the conception of a metaphysical deity was called by him the ἰδέα τοῦ καλοῦ. Not less Greek is the sentiment expressed in the following lines (1027) : "Easy among men is the practice of wickedness, but hard, friend Cyrnus, is the method of goodness." Theognis here expresses very prosaically what Hesiod and Simonides have both enunciated in noble verse (Op. et Dies, 285-290, and Simonides, Frag. 15, ed. Gaisford) . ”

“ He had not sailed far, when his ship was overtaken by a dreadful storm, and every man on board perished except Pericles, who was cast by the sea-waves naked on an unknown shore, where he had not wandered long before he met with some poor fishermen, who invited him to their homes, giving him clothes and provisions. The fishermen told Pericles the name of their country was Pentapolis, and that their king was Simonides, commonly called the good Simonides, because of his peaceable reign and good government. ”

“ The young man’s blood rose over his cheeks and forehead, and he said earnestly, ’Who but a Herod can be king while Rome endures?’"
"Meaning what?"
"That the empire must be destroyed before there could be another rule."
Simonides gazed for a time at the ships and their shadows slowly swinging together in the river; when he looked up, it was to end the interview.
"Enough, Malluch," he said. "Get you to eat, and make ready to return to the Orchard of Palms; you must help the young man in his coming trial. Come to me in the morning. ”

“ Simonides answered,
"The great sums you have given to the Church here in Antioch, I am witness to. Now, instantly almost with this gift of the generous sheik’s, comes the news of the persecution of the brethren in Rome. It is the opening of a new field. The light must not go out in the capital."
"Tell me how I can keep it alive."
"I will tell you. The Romans, even this Nero, hold two things sacred—I know of no others they so hold—they are the ashes of the dead and all places of burial. ”