SIMONIDES of Ceos, B.C. 556-467, the most eminent of the lyric poets, lived for some years at the court of Hipparchus of Athens (B.C. 528- 514), afterwards among the feudal nobility of Thessaly, and was again living at Athens during the Persian wars. The later years of his life were spent with Pindar and Aeschylus at the court of Hiero of Syracuse. He was included in the /Garland/ of Meleager (l. 8, "the fresh shoot of the vine-blossom of Simonides"); fifty-nine epigrams are under his name in the Palatine MS., and eighteen more in Planudes, besides nine others doubtfully ascribed to him. Several of his epigrams are quoted by Herodotus; others are preserved by Strabo, Plutarch, Athenaeus, etc. In all, according to Bergk, we have ninety authentic epigrams from his hand. There were two later poets of the same name, Simonides of Magnesia, who lived under Antiochus the Great about 200 B.C., and Simonides of Carystus, of whom nothing definite is known; some of the spurious epigrams may be by one or other of them. Beyond the point to which Simonides brought it the epigram never rose. In him there is complete ease of workmanship and mastery of form together with the noble and severe simplicity which later poetry lost. His dedications retain something of the antique stiffness; but his magnificent epitaphs are among our most precious inheritances from the greatest thought and art of Greece. BACCHYLIDES of Iulis in Ceos flourished B.C. 470. He was the nephew of Simonides, and lived with him at the court of Hiero. There are only two epigrams in the Anthology under his name. The /Garland/ of Meleager, l. 34, speaks of "the yellow ears from the blade of Bacchylides." This phrase may contain an allusion to his dedicatory epigram to the West Wind, ii. 34 in this selection. Finally, forming the transition between this and the great Athenian period, comes AESCHYLUS, B.C. 525-456. That Aeschylus wrote elegiac verse, including a poem on the dead at Marathon, is certain; fragments are preserved by Plutarch and Theophrastus, and there is a well- supported tradition that he competed with Simonides on that occasion. As to the authorship of the two epigrams extant under his name there is much difference of opinion. Bergk does not come to any definite conclusion. Perhaps all that can be said is that they do not seem unworthy of him, and that they certainly have the style and tone of the best period. It was not till the decline of literature that the epoch of forgeries began. It is, however, suspicious that a poet of his great eminence should not be mentioned in the /Garland/ of Meleager; for we can hardly suppose these epigrams, if genuine, either unknown to Meleager or intentionally omitted by him. II. Period of the ascendancy of Athens, and of the great dramatists and historians; from the repulse of the Persian invasion to the extinction of Greek freedom at the battle of Chaeronea, B.C. 480- 338.