SIMONIDES (abreviado com0 “S.

” no texto abaixo)

I. Life
S. was born in Ioulis on Ceos [1], the son of Leoprepes, uncle of Bacchylides.
Of the two birth dates given in the Suda - the 56th Olympiad (556/553 BC)
and the 62nd Olympiad (532/529 BC), the earlier is generally accepted.
According to the Suda, S. died in the 78th Olympiad (468/465 BC) at the age
of 89. His tomb was shown at Acragas (Sicily) (Callim. fr. 64,4). His most
securely datable work is from the period of the Persian Wars. According to
Pl. Hipparch. 228b-c and [Aristot.] Ath. pol. 18,1, it was Hipparchus [1], the
son of Peisistratus, who brought S. and Anacreon [1] to Athens. It was
supposedly thanks to S.'s presence on Sicily that Hieron [1] I of Syracuse
became reconciled with Theron of Acragas in the 470s (Pind. Ol. 29d = Tim.
FGrH 566 F 936). Anecdotes also connect S. with Themistocles and
Thessalian dynasties (esp. the Scopadae and the Aleuadae).
Robbins, Emmet (Toronto)
[German version]
II. Works
S. is the only one in the Alexandrian canon of nine lyric poets for whom no
exact number of books is given. The Suda speaks of dirges (thrênoi),
encomia, epigrams, tragedies and 'other works'. No trace of tragedies
survives, or of the dithyrambs with which S. won 57 victories (cf. Anth. Pal.
6,213). We know in adition that he wrote epinician poetry, hymns (576; 589
PMG), a propemptikon (580 PMG), 'prayers' or 'curses' (kateuchaí, 537; 538
PMG) and probably elegies for performance at symposia (19-33 IEG, vol. 2).
Mention of a category called 'compound' or 'miscellaneous' (sýmmikta, 540
PMG) seems to indicate Alexandrian confusion in the classification. S. wrote
Epicinian odes for victors in the games (506-519 PMG; epinikion ). The
fragments show frequent reference to the Dioscuri and Heracles [1]. An
anecdote in Cic. De or. 2,86,351-353 and Quint. Inst. 11,2,11-16 (= 510 PMG)
further emphasizes the importance of the Dioscuri in S.' praise-poetry,
though the purpose of the story is to emphasize the mnemonic skill for
which S. was famous. Sources emphasize that S. was the first poet to write
for a fee (Schol. Pind. I.2,9a): he was a paid professional, composing upon
commissioned from his patrons.
The two longest surviving passages of S.' works (542; 543 PMG) are
reconstructions in poetry from the prose of the authors who quote them.
542 PMG (from Pl. Prt. 339a-346d) is an address to Scopas discussing what
it means to be good and commending the man who of his own free will does
not act basely. Vocabulary of praise is prominent in this poem. It may have
been an enkomion , epinikion or skolion . Other fragments emphasize the
difficulty or inaccessability of virtue (541?, 579) and human helplessness
(520-527), often with highly pessimistic statements. 543 PMG, quoted by
Dion. Hal. Comp. 26 to prove that triadic composition (strophe - antistrophe
- epode) is not easily distinguishable from prose, is the prayer to Zeus
of Danae, cast adrift by night with the infant Perseus, and is famous for its
tenderness and pathos. Poetry for the Persian Wars includes
the enkomion for those fallen at Thermopylae (531 PMG), a lyric poem (532-
535 PMG) for the battle of Artemisium [1], an elegy for Artemision (1-4
IEG), and an elegy for Salamis (5-9 IEG). The Suda states that S. composed
in a Doric dialect; this is evident in the lyric fragments, while the elegies are
in the Ionic tradition.
Extensive papyrus fragments reveal an elegy on the Battle of Plataeae (10-14
IEG). The prooemium is an invocation of Achilles [1], with a description of
his death and burial with Patroclus. Homer is mentioned as the poet who
gave glory to the warriors who fought at Troy and the poet then summons
the Muse to assist him in celebrating the warriors of Plataeae (Muse,
invocation of the). There is considerable detail about the battle. This poem
supports the theory that extended elegies were performed on public
occasions and in contests, like tragedies [4].
S. held undisputed pre-eminence in the composition of elegy and epigram.
From his lifetime to the compilation of the Anthologia Palatina (Hellenistic
period and later), epigrams were attributed to him indiscriminately. Of the
three quoted in Hdt. 7,228, only the one to Megistias is accepted by all
authorities, though many also accept the authenticity of the famous couplet,
translated by e.g. Cic. Tusc. 1,101 and F. Schiller, in which the dead of
Thermopylae ask the passerby to bring the news of their obedience to Sparta
(cf. Leonidas [1]). After Herodotus there is no writer before Aristotle
(Aristoteles [6], 4th cent.) who ascribe an epigram to S. Greek distichs do
not normally contain the name of their author, while in some cases the
attributions are clearly impossible. When Meleager [8] c. 100 BC put
together his 'Garland' (Stephanos) he drew on a collection ascribed to S.,
probably in the late 4th cent. BC.
Robbins, Emmet (Toronto)
[German version]
III. Reputation in Antiquity
There is a rich anecdotal tradition about the venality and miserliness of S.,
though the stories are stereotyped and not likely to reveal biographical truth.
His particular 'wisdom' (sophía, Pl. Rep. 331d-e; 335e) may derive from his
association with the ruling class of his time, for there is a long tradition of
associating sages with rulers in Greece. The new situation in which the poet
was paid a fee for his services inevitably led to his being seen as a 'proto-
Sophist' by modern scholars (cf. Sophists). His services were in demand
throughout Greece, and the variety of his patrons, including tyranny and
democracy, is proof of his stature, not of particular political loyalty. S. was
much admired in Antiquity for his pathos (Quint. Inst. 10,1,64). His saying
that painting was silent poetry, poetry painting that speaks (Plut. Mor.
346 f.) was the starting point for Lessing's Laokoon.
Robbins, Emmet (Toronto)

Bibliography

1 J. M. BELL, Κίμβιξ καὶ σοφός: S. in the Anecdotal Tradition, in: Quaderni urbinati 28,
1978, 29-86
2 D. E. GERBER, Greek Lyric Poetry Since 1920, in: Lustrum 36, 1994, 129-
152
3 J. H. MOLYNEUX, S.: A Historical Study, 1992
4 E. L. BOWIE, Early Greek Elegy, Symposium and Public Performance, in:
JHS 106, 1986, 13-35
5 D. BOEDEKER, D. SIDER (Eds.), The New S., 2001
6 O. POLTERA, Le langage de Simonide, 1997.

Mimnermus
(760 words)
[German version]
(Μίμνερμος; Mímnermos) of Colophon or Smyrna, 2nd half of the 7th century BC. One of
the earliest writers of Greek elegy. In antiquity, he was viewed, along with Callinus
[1] and Archilochus as its possible ‘inventor’. The Suda dates M. to the 37th Olympiad
(632-629 BC), but the opinion of scholars is divided: that M. was still living around 600
cannot be proved by citing Solon (20 W., purporting to be a reply to M.) (contra [7]);
praise of a victor from an earlier generation over the Lydians (14 W.), as well as a poem
about a battle against Gyges [1] (Paus. 9,29,4; 13 W.), fit well with a date of c. 640 BC.
This poem, which later bore the title Smyrnēḯs (Σμυρνῃίς; 13a W.), contained a complex
prooemium to the Muses (13W.): it was presumably a long narrative elegy that
commemorated not only the wars of the recent past with Lydia (cf. the elegy on Plataea
by Simonides) but perhaps also the foundation of Smyrna [6]. The great lady (μεγάλη
γυνή) of Callimachus (fr. 1,11-12 ‘Pf.’) was perhaps an allusion to this Smyrnē ḯs, one of the
two books in which the Hellenistic edition of M. circulated (cf. Porph. Hor. comm. epist.
2,2,101).
The other book named by Callimachus, αἱ κατὰ λεπτόν [sc. ῥήσιες] (‘finely composed
discourses’), probably bore the title Nannṓ (Ναννώ), and was preferred not only by him
but by other ancient readers as well. The character Nanno is not mentioned in any of the
fragments, but the statement by Hermesianax that ‘M. was aflame with love for Nanno’
(καίετο μὲν Ναννοῦς, CollAlex 7,37) suggests that he was familiar with love poems by M. in
which she played a role (cf. her description as an aulós player, Athen. 13,597a).
The Nannṓ was perhaps a collection (compiled by Antimachus [3]?) of symposiac elegies
by M., which had in common the fact that some of the poems were addressed to Nanno (cf.
Perses in Hesiod's Erga, Cyrnus in Theognis). Verse citations from the Nannṓ by later
writers deal with various themes, such as a declaration of love lamenting the brevity of
youth and the frailty of old age (5 W., likewise 1 W. and 2 W.), with Tithonus as an example
(4 W.). The tale of ‘our’ ancestors from Pylos, who settled in Colophon and migrated from
there to Smyrna (9-10 W.), suggests that M. dealt with this theme in his short elegies as
well as in the Smyrnēḯs, rather than that the Smyrnēḯs was part of the Nannṓ(opposing
view in [8]). A short myth tells of the sun's return from the west to a golden bed in the east
(12 W.). Other fragments locate the palace of the sun in eastern Oceanus, and that of
Aeetes nearby (11; 11 a W.). The mention of a Trojan Daites (18 W.) and of the Niobids (19
W.) indicate that M. drew on panhellenic myths to a greater extent than other early
elegists.
Many of M.'s love poems were pederastic (cf. 1,9 W., Alexander Aetolus fr. 5,1-5 CollAlex),
and a certain Examyes may have played a role in this context (Hermesianax CollAlex 7,35-
40). The few iambic verses attributed to M. (24-26 W.) are generally considered
inauthentic, but invective poetry by M. was known in antiquity (Hermesianax CollAlex
7,35-40).
The Nannṓ, which Antimachus [3] perhaps drew upon as a model for his Lýdē, was
admired by Callimachus (fr. 1,11-12 Pf.), while Poseidippus (Anth. Gr. 12,168),
Hermesianax (CollAlex 7,35-40) and Propertius (1,9,11-12; cf. Hor. Epist. 1,6,65-66)
praised M. as a love poet. M.'s work was excerpted for the anthology on which
our Theognidea ( Theognis) are based (5,1-6 W. = Thgn. 1017-22, 7W. = Thgn. 795-6), as
well as by Stobaeus (1; 2; 3; 5,4-8; 8; 14 W.) and the compiler of the Anthologia Graeca (7
W.). M. was known to Hipponax, Strabo, Plutarch, Pausanias, Diogenes [17] Laertius,
Athenaeus [3] and Aelian [2]. A gymnasium was named after him in Smyrna the 1st cent.
AD. (CIG 3376).
Elegy
Bowie, Ewen (Oxford)

Bibliography

Bibliography:
1 D. E. GERBER, in: Lustrum 33, 1991, 152-163 (for 1921-1989).

Editions:
2IEG
3 B. GENTILI, C. PRATO, Poetarum et elegiacorum testimonia et fragmenta, vol. 1, 19882
4 D. E. GERBER, Greek Elegiac Poetry, 1999.

Commentaries:
5 A. ALLEN, The Fragments of Mimnermus, 1993.

Literature:
6 E. L. BOWIE, Early Greek Elegy, Symposium and Public Festival, in: JHS 106, 1986, 28-
30
7 A. DIHLE, Zur Datierung des Mimnermos, in: Hermes 90, 1962, 257-275
8 C. W. MÜLLER, Die antike Buchausgabe des Mimnermos, in: RhM 131, 1988, 197-211.
BREVES EXPLICAÇÕES SOBRE PERIODIZAÇÃO DA
HISTÓRIA GREGA

2. The Archaic Period

The term 'Archaic period' was coined in archaeology; it remains problematic
whether there is a genuine historical epoch that runs parallel to this phase in
the fine arts [10. 26]. Winckelmann himself knew scarcely any works of art
from this period; his image of the Archaic style relied primarily on supposed
Egyptian and 'Etrurian' parallels. In the first half of the 19th cent., the
pediment sculptures from the Temple of Aphaea at Aegina, discovered in
1811 and brought in 1828 to the specially constructed Aeginetan room in the
Munich Glyptothek, which today are considered an example of the transition
to the Severe style, shaped the image of the beginnings of Greek art. In
Germany, the Apollo of Tenea (also in the Glyptothek since 1854) was
acknowledged as the first genuinely Archaic work. The technical term
'Archaic' appears for the first time in the description of that statue in J.
Overbeck's Kunstarchäologische Vorlesungen, published in 1853, but
Overbeck's negative judgment [19. 6] remained authoritative until the 1870s.
This changed through the work of H. Brunn (Professor at Munich since 1865
and curator of the numismatic department and the antiquities collection),
who for the first time exhibited a series of comparable monuments that
enabled reflections on stylistic development (whereas his predecessors Hirt
and Müller had to some extent not yet distinguished between Archaic and
archaistic works). Beginning in 1867, the technical term 'Archaic' occurs
more frequently in Brunn, not only as a style, but also as an epoch. In 1872-
1873, he wrote a comprehensive account of Archaic sculpture and
architecture (edited from his posthumous papers in 1897 [27. 8]), a first
attempt to conceive of the Archaic period as an epoch in its own right, and
not just as a forerunner of the Classical epoch. The transfer of the term from
a style to the period in which it emerged presupposed a parallelisation of the
various contemporaneous phenomena occurring at the time (art, literature,
politics, economics), as was probably first attempted by J. Burckhardt in his
lecture on Greek cultural history of 1872 (edited from the manuscript and
transcriptions of his posthumous papers in 1902 [19. 11]). The cultural
pessimism of the late 19th and early 20th cents. (Nietzsche, Spengler)
brought about a re-evaluation of the concept of the Archaic; enthusiasm for
this epoch, which was now felt to be original, vital and powerful, reached its
height in the 1920s. Yet another change has occurred since the 1970s, when
the material tradition was placed at the center of the interpretation of
epochs, and the literary tradition was approached with greater skepticism
[7. 200ff.; 27]; this also led to a questioning of the separation between the
Archaic and the Classical [27]. This problem of periodisation and the limits
of epochs [13. 159ff.] is today as current as it was previously, and also finds
expression in inconsistent terminology: The epoch called Archaic as a whole
is divided into the Geometric (1050-700 BC, itself further subdivided) and
the Archaic (700-480 BC) epoch, yet their succession of styles is not
consistent; on this point, and for a better understanding of the stylistic
plurality: [17. 586].
Bäbler, Balbina (Göttingen)
[German version]

3. The Classical Period (CT)

Chronologically, this epoch is understood as the high point and transition
from the archaic polis to the bourgeois society of the Hellenistic monarchies
[4. 609]. Winckelmann, too, whose theories were typified by the
masterpieces in the Belvedere and who defended the thesis of the exemplary
nature of classical Greek art (as Caylus [1692-1765] had already done before
him), had considered this period as a 'flowering'. In Winckelmann's view of
art, the freedom and democracy of the Periclean age played a central role in
the development of this flowering, but the distortion of his theory by
the Classicism of the 19th cent. brought about an increasing dissociation
from historical preconditions. The Greek Classical period was received in
conscious rejection of the courtly Baroque, and was experienced exclusively
as an ideal, not as a historical phenomenon. Although there was some
criticism of Winckelmann's scheme, his conception of the flowering of art in
the 5th-4th cent. BC was nevertheless "institutionalised" at the end of the
19th cent. [5. 9ff.]. There followed an intensive discussion of the Classical
period in the first 30 years of the 20th cent. ([3]; on the attempts to define
the essence and content of the Classical [11. 16f.]), which was not to be taken
up again until recently (above all in connection with the questions
surrounding the Classical vs. classicism, cf. [11. 14ff., 56ff.]). The formal
analyses of Wickhoff, Riegl and von Salis led to a new evaluation of Roman
art and to the first attempts to grasp the particular character of the
Hellenistic as distinct from the Classical style [3. 207-211]. In response to
the research of Wölfflin (1916), Rodenwaldt defended the view that classical
periods appear cyclically, with, however, the Greek Classical period being
the foundation of all classical styles [3. 212-217]. Rodenwaldt's thoughts
were taken up by the structural research of Classical archaeology, which, to
be sure, utilized “Classical” as a value concept, but avoided Winckelmann's
scheme and no longer made pronouncements about the artistic quality of
individual works. The first decades of the 20th cent. also witnessed the re-
evaluation and increasing appreciation of the Archaic style, which led to the
4th cent. BC being viewed as the epoch of decline.
So far, there is no consensus with regard to the beginning and end of the
Classical period, except for the years 450-430 BC, which roughly encompass
the period of construction of the Parthenon [3. 219]. The 5th century is
wholly or partially included in this span, and to some extent even the 4th
cent. ([3. 219]: Schefold). However, this last viewpoint is most likely
untenable, since Greek artists of the 4th cent. already sensed those of the 5th
cent. as 'Classical' and exemplary, and therefore assimilated their art
selectively and consciously ([2]; on the Classical style and Classicism of the
Augustan period: [2. 305ff.]).
Bäbler, Balbina (Göttingen)
[German version]

4. Hellenism (CT)
The term was first used by Droysen in 1833, in the sense of a blending of
Greek and Oriental culture through the policies of Alexander the Great,
whence it was also adopted in archaeology. However, archaeology long
lacked the material basis that would have enabled knowledge of the artistic
work of this epoch, which had been stricken from the history of art without
further ado by Pliny the Elder. According to nat. 34,51f., art had ceased
around 295 BC, and had not returned to life until 156 BC (the so-
called cessavit-revixit judgment). To be sure, works such as the Laocoon
group and the Farnese bull had long been known in Rome; yet since
Winckelmann these and other works had been attributed to the epoch of
'decline'. "A broad gap in our knowledge" (i.e. of the Hellenistic epoch) still
existed around 1860 [18. 109], to which the sparse literary tradition also
contributed. This first changed with W. Helbig's studies of the wall-paintings
of Pompeii and Herculaneum [9; 16. 154, 164f.]. Helbig demonstrated the
Hellenistic origin of these paintings, and, in the second half of his book [9],
with its chapters on the external conditions of Hellenistic art, society, feeling
for nature, etc., wrote the first cultural history of the Hellenistic age [18. 110;
9. 140ff.]. Burckhardt took over entire sections of this work, sometimes word
for word, in his Griechische Kulturgeschichte [16. 169f. with n. 39]. Later,
the concept of Hellenism as an epoch was suddenly filled with further
content by the sensational find of the Pergamum Altar 1878-80, about which
the excavator C. Humann rightly judged that it represented the find of an
entire period of art [30. 5ff.]. However, the first reactions of 19th-cent.
research, still under the influence of Classicism, were negative. Brunn
("materialism, formalism of the purely material"), Conze ("a desperate
grasping after effects") and Furtwängler ("the disorderly excesses of
Hellenistic art") all made deprecating pronouncements on the work
[30. 6f.]. Kekulé was the first who was able to comprehend the sculptures
adequately and to appreciate them in their special character, urging (1908)
that works of art be explained independently and on the basis of the
conditions of their origin. A true investigation of Hellenistic art did not
begin until the 1920s, once the inscriptions, sculptures and the altar had
been presented in the multi-volume Altertümer von Pergamon (1890-1910)
[30. 7]. Here too, however, the problems of delimiting epochs have
remained unsolved until today [1. 182-188]. There are divergences in the
archaeological literature in estimates both of the beginning of this period
(death of Alexander; around 300 BC; beginning of the 3rd cent. BC) and of
the end (Battle of Actium; before or after the 1st cent. BC). A chronological
framework obtained through historical events cannot be brought into
precise agreement with its fundamental cultural content; therefore, one is
often defined by means of the other. Thus, in the archaeological literature
Alexander and/or his death are often designated as a 'time marker', while in
the same works stylistic epoch-boundaries with different dates are drawn on
the basis of art-historical criteria, as for instance in Schuchhardt [1. 186].
There are no sharp delimitations, manifesting themselves simultaneously in
every domain (art, politics, etc.) and at all places; on the latter point (early
comparable phenomena in the realm of the Greek colonies; 'pre-Hellenism'
in Phoenicia), cf. [8. 635].