Greek lyric poet (c. 556–468 BC)
He wrote the epitaph for the Spartans who died at Thermopylae — and if later ages remember any ancient Greek lyric poet for the power to make you feel loss, it's him.
Born around 556 BC on the island of Ceos, Simonides became one of the nine canonical lyric poets in the Greek tradition, more entangled with the personalities and crises of his era than his contemporaries Pindar and his own nephew Bacchylides. He pioneered new approaches to lyric form that both rivals borrowed, but his real gift was simpler: an ability to distill human grief and basic emotion into language that hit plainly and stuck. The Enlightenment called him "the Greek Voltaire"; the ancients spun tall tales around him — miser, mnemonic genius, alphabet inventor. What survived those myths,…
Sourced, dated quotes from Simonides of Ceos
[Word-for-word translation]O stranger, announce to the Lacadaemonians [Spartans] that hereWe lie, to their words [or laws] obedient.
Here lies Megistias, who diedWhen the Medes crossed Spercheius' tide. A great seer, yet he scorned to saveHimself, and shared the Spartans' grave.
Anankei d' oude theoi makhontai.
We did not flinch but gave our lives to save Greece when her fate hung on a razor's edge.
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