A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

SIMONIDES. SIMONIDES. 835
sanias himself, was erased by the Lacedaemonians, His sepulchre is said by Suidas (s. v.) to have been
who substituted for it the names of the states ruthlessly destroyed by Phoenix, a general of the
which had taken part in the battle (Thuc. i. 132; Agrigentines, who used its materials for the conPaus. iii. 8. ~ 1). Various stories are told respect- struction of a tower, when he was besieging
ing the poet's intimacy with Pausanias; and, Syracuse.
among them, that, the king having called upon the Little space is left to describe the personal and
poet for some wise saying, Simonides replied, poetical character of Simonides, and this has al"Remember that thou art a man." Pausanias ready been done so well by Ottfried Miiller, that
made light of the warning, until he was shut up it is hardly necessary to say very much. (Hist. Lit.
in the brazen house, when he was heard to ex- Anc. Greece, vol. i. pp. 208, foll.) Belonging to a
claim, l', (e'e Ke~?, /i4ya TL apa pXp/Lta'v d Adyos people eminent for their orderly and virtuous charoo, oyd cB drr' dvolas ov6&v auTr'v' try 1vai racter (Plat. I'rot(ag. p. 341, e., see Stallbaum's
(Plutarch, Consol. ad Apollon. p. 105, a; Aelian, note), Simonides himself became proverbial for that
V. H. ix. 41). The story certainly bears a very virtue which the Greeks called (oeppoov-r', temsuspicious likeness to the well-known tale of perance, order, and self-command in one's own
Croesus and Solon. conduct, and moderation in one's opinions and
Simonides had completed his eightiethyear,when desires and views of human life; and this spirit
his long poetical career at Athens was crowned by breathes through all his poetry. (Schn. p. xxxiii.)
the victory which he gained with the dithy- His reverence for religion is shown in his treatrambic chorus, in the archonship of Adeimantus, ment of the ancient myths. His political and
two years later than the battle of Plataeae (01. moral wisdom has already been referred to;it often
75. ~, B. C. 477), being the fifty-sixth prize which assumed a polemic character; and he appears to
he had carried off (Epig. 203, 204). have been especially anxious to emulate the fame
It must have been shortly after this that lie was of the Seven Wise Men, both for their wisdom
invited to Syracuse by Hiero, at whose court he itself, and for their brief sententious form of exlived till his death in B. c. 467. On his way to pressing it; and some ancient writers even reckoned
Sicily he appears to have visited Magna Graecia, him in the number of those sages. (Plat. Protag.
and at Tarentum he is said to have been a second p. 343, c.; comp. Schn. p. xxxvi. foill.) The leading
time miraculously preserved from destruction as principle of his philosophy appears to have been
the reward of his piety (Liban. vol. iv. p. 1101, the calm enjoyment of the pleasures of the present
Reiske; Epig. 183, 184). He served Hiero by life, both intellectual and material, the making as
his wisdom as well as by his art, for, immediately light as possible of its cares, patience in bearing its
after his arrival in Sicily, he became the mediator evils, and moderation in the standard by which
of a peace between Hiero and Theron of Agrigen- human character should be judged. He appears
tum (Scshol. ad Pind. 01. ii. 29). There are to have taken no pleasure in the higher regions of
several allusions to the wise discourses of the poet speculative philosophy. (See especially, Plat. 1. c.
at the court of the tyrant (Plat. Epist. ii.); and and foll.; Schn. pp. xxxiv. xxxv.) Of the numeXenophon has put his Dialogue on the Evils and rous witty sayings ascribed to him, the following
Excellencies of Tyranny (the Hiero) into the may serve as an example: to a person who pre
mouths of Hiero and Simonides. The celebrated served a dead silence during a banquet, he said,
evasion of the question respecting the nature of " My friend, if you are a fool, you are doing a
God is ascribed by Cicero (de Nat. Deor. i. 22) to wise thing; but if you are wise, a foolish one."
Simonides, as an answer to Hiero. He lived on (Plutarch, Conv. iii. Prooem.)
similar terms of philosophic intercourse with the Though he was moderate and indulgent in his
wife of Hiero. views of human life, yet the moral sentiments emOf all the poets whom Hiero attracted to his bodied in his poems were so generally sound, that,
court, among whom were Pindar, Bacchylides, ald in his own age, he obtained the approval of the
Aeschylus, Simonides appears to have been his race of men who fought at Marathon and Salamis,
favourite. He provided so munificently for his and in the succeeding period of moral and poetical
wants, that the poet, who always displayed a decline his gnomic poetry was extolled by the adstrong taste for substantial rewards, was able to mirers of that earlier age, in contrast to the licensell a large portion of the daily supplies sent him tious strains of Gnesippus, and his scolia still contiby the king; and, upon being reproached for nued to be sung at banquets, though the " young
trading in his patron's bounty, he assigned as his generation" affected to despise them. (Aristoph.
motive the desire to display at once the munifi- Nub. 1355-1.362; Ath. xiv. p. 638, e.; Schol.
cence of Hiero and his own moderation. He still ad Aristoph. Vesp. 1217.) Even the philosophers
continued, when at Syracuse, to employ his muse were indebted to Simonides and the other gnomic
occasionally in the service of other Grecian states. poets for their most admired conceptions; thels
Thus, as Cicero remarks (Cat. JIaj. 7), he con- Prodicus, in his celebrated Clhoice of Hercules,
tinned his poetical activity to extreme old age; followed an Epinician Ode of Simonides, which
and Jerome mentions him among those swan-like again was a paraphrase of the well-known lines
poets, who sang more sweetly at the approach of of Hesiod (Op. et Di. 265), Tr's aperls TspCTa, &c.
death (Epist. 34). His remains were honoured (See Schn. p. xxxix. and Fr. 32.)
with a splendid funeral, and the following epitaph, Simonides is said to have been the inventor of
probably of his own composition, was inscribed the mnemonic art and of the long vowels and
upon his tomb (Tzetz. Chil. i. 24): double letters in the Greek alphabet. The latter
Eei'cIVa: 7 ao Vstatement cannot be accepted literally, but this is
(Et en}l 7aErse7,tco'aO, iy/W1r, 7lpao icKai not the place to discuss it.
Kal rpuiroSas' r v EIKeh, 7i reSc,. The other side of the picture may be described
Keilc i v#i4X/lP Aseireis, "EXAilt 1' rraavov almost in one word: Simonides made literature a
E4uvme'TOi 4uX~s 0(rs r7r EYEVOtieio0to. profession, and soLught for its pecuniary rewards ill
3 ii 2