SIMONIDES, the name of several poets celebrated in antiquity. But by the Marbles it appears that the eldest and most illustrious of them was born in the fifty-fitth Olympiad, 538 years before Christ, and that he died in his ninetieth year, which nearly agrees with the chronology of Eusebius. He was a native of Ceos, one of the Cyclades, in the neighbourhood of Attica, and the preceptor of Pindar. Both Plato and Cicero give him the character of a good poet and musician, and speak of him as a person of great virtue and wisdom. Such longevity gave him an opportunity of knowing a great number of the first characters in antiquity with whom he was in some measure connected. It appears in Fabricius, that Simonides was contemporary with Pittacus of Mitylene, Hipparchus, tyrant of Athens, Pausanias, king of Sparta, Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, as well as with Themistocles, and with Alevades, king of Thessaly. He is mentioned by Herodotus; and Xenophon, in his Dialogue upon Tyranny, makes him one of the interlocutors with Hiero king of Syracuse. Cicero alleges, what has often been quoted in proof of the modesty and wisdom of' Simonides, that when Hiero asked him for a definition of God, the poet required a whole day to meditate on so important a question. At the end of that time, upon the prince putting the question to him, he asked two days’ respite, and in this manner always doubled the delay each time he was required to answer it; till at length, to avoid offending his patron by more disappointments, he frankly confessed that he found the question so difficult, that the more he meditated upon it, the less was his hope of being able to solve it.

In his old age, perhaps from seeing the respect which money procured to such as had lost the charms of youth, and the power of attaching mankind by other means, he became somewhat mercenary and avaricious. He was frequently employed by the victors at the games to write panegyrics and odes in their praise, before his pupil Pindar had exercised his talents in their behalf. But Simonides refused to gratify their vanity in this particular, till he had first tied them down to a stipulated sum for his trouble; and upon being upbraided for his meanness, he said, that he had two coffers, in one of which he had for many years put his pecuniary rewards, whilst the other was for honours, verbal thanks, and promises, that the first was pretty well filled, but the last remained always empty; and he made no scruple to confess in his old age, that of all the enjoyments of life, the love of money was the only one of which time had not deprived him.

He was frequently reproached for this vice; but he always defended himself with good humour. Upon being asked by Hiero’s queen, whether it was more desirable to he learned or rich, he answered, that it was far better to be rich; for the learned were always dependent on the rich, and waiting at their doors; whereas, he never saw rich men at the doors of the learned. When he was accused of being so sordid as to sell part of the provisions with which his table was furnished by Hiero, he said he had done it in order “to display to the world the magnificence of that prince and his own frugality.” To others he said, that his reason for accumulating wealth was, that “he would rather leave money to his enemies after death, than be troublesome to his friends whilst living.”[7:20:356] He obtained the prize in poetry at the public games when he was fourscore years o f age. According to Suidas, he added four letters to the Greek alphabet, and Pliny assigns to him the eighth string of the Lyre; but these claims are disputed by the learned.

His poetry was so tender and plaintive, that he acquired the cognomen of Melicertes, sweet as honey, and the tearful eye of his muse was proverbial. Dionysius places him amongst those polished writers who excel in a smooth volubility, and flow on like plenteous and perennial rivers, in a course of even and uninterrupted harmony.

There is a second great poet of the name of Simonides recorded on the Marbles, and supposed to have been his grandson, who gained, in 478 before Christ, the prize in the games at Athens.