Simonides of Ceos

   Simonides of Ceos (556-468 b.c.), Greek lyric poet, born on the island of Ceos. For a time he lived in Athens at the court of the tyrant Hipparchus, and after the assassination of Hipparchus in 514 B.C. he attached himself to the ruling families of Thessaly, the Scopadae and the Aleuadae. Returning to Athens, he won great fame by lauding the heroes and the battles of the Greeks in their struggle with the Persians. The latter part of his life was spent at Syracuse in Sicily, at the court of Hiero I. Simonides wrote for many patrons in a great variety of poetic forms, including epigrams, hymns, paeans, scolia, triumphal odes, encomiums, dithyrambs, dance songs, and threnodies or dirges. Little of Simonides' work has survived.