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Home , Anacreon

ANACREONI

Life

Anacreon was born in the Ionian city of , near Smyrna in Asia Minor. The Suda reports his birth (the likely reading of y£yove2) was during the 52nd Olympiad (572/569 B.C. = test. 1). This date would fit with the floruit given by Eusebius, 01. 61.1 (536/5 B.C. = test. 2), close to the time when and his brothers seized power on Samos and just slightly later than the Eusebian acme for .3 Himerius' 29th Oration (fr. 491) pre­ serves the tradition that Anacreon was invited to the island as tutor of the young Polycrates, which would suit the chronology placing Anacreon's birth in 01. 52, allowing him to be at his floruit in instructing the boy. It is likely that prior to moving to Samos Anacreon had fled from Teos to Abdera with the rest of the Teians c. 545 B.C., when the city fell to the Persians (Hdt. 1.168). Like Ibycus, Anacreon enjoyed the patronage of Polycrates as a court poet. This sophisticated setting was a natural milieu for the refined tastes of Anacreon's poetry, but the relationship with Poly­ crates came to an abrupt end when the was treacherously murdered by the Persian satrap Oroetes c. 522.4 Anacreon's reputa­ tion as a poet had spread to , and he was immediately sum­ moned to the Athenian court by the Peisistratid Hipparchus, who dispatched a warship to Samos in order to assure his safe transport

1 The numbering of the fragment<; will follow that of Page (PMG) unless othenvise indicated. Testimonia included in Campbell's Loeb edition (1988) will be cited according to his numbering. 2 Mosshammer, Chronicle 298-299. The Suda entry is given in test. 1. re"(OVE is sometimes translated "lived" (i.e. floruit) but this is impossible, for if his acme (aged 40) was in 572 Anacreon would have been 80 in 532 when Polycrates first ruled Samos, and 90 when the tyranny ended and the poet moved to Athens. The situation is further complicated by the fact. that the Suda reports a second tradition according to which Anacreon is synchronized with Cyrus and Cambyses (Ol. 55, or 560/556 B.C.). 3 Mosshammer, Chronicle 290. Eusebius gives 01. 60.1 (540/39) as the acme for Ibycus. 4 Evidence for the closeness between poet and patron is apparent in Hero­ dotus' account of the murder of Polycrates (3.120): when the Persian messen­ ger arrived at the Samian court he found Polycrates and Anacreon together at table. ANA CREON 199

(Plato, 1-Iipparch. 228b = test. 6). There he joined Simonides, enhanc­ ing the artistic life surrounding another tyrant, paying poetic tribute to such notables as , grandfather of the politician who bore his name (fr. 495) . When tyranny came to an end in Athens with the murder of Hipparchus in 514 B.C. and the expulsion of Hippias in 510 B.C. he appears to have established some connection with the royal house in Thessaly.5 His latter years were spent in Athens, where he apparently adapted to the democratic regime, becoming a friend of , father of (Himerius, Or. 39.11 Colonna). He lived until the age of 85, according to (Macr. 26 = test. 8), long enough to enjoy the lyrics of Aeschylus. Valerius Maximus adds the (apocryphal?) detail that he died by choking on a grape stone (9.12. ext. 8 =test. 9).

Reputation

Anacreon's reputation as a poet, which earned him passage to Athens, continued to flourish after his arrival in the city. He became a public figure, and was depicted on vases while still alive: fragments of a red-figure calyx crater by the Kleophrades painter (late 6th century B.C., Copenhagen MN 13365) show a komos figure of a type which immediately afterwards became popular on Attic vases. The man's head is bound in the sakkos (a turban worn in the Ionian Greek East) and he throws his head backwards in the pose characteristic of a singer. He carries a parasol, and on the fragment of the arm of a is inscribed the name "Anacreon." There are 46 vases of this type, surviving in fragments, most of them dating to the years 490-450 B .C. A figure identified as "Ana­ creon" is found in 13 of these, and on five of them Anacreon is shown alone.6 describes ,a statue of the poet on the Acro­ polis, placed beside statues of Pericles and his father Xanthippus (1.25.1 =test. 10), and there are several others recorded.7 His popula­ rity had not waned by the Roman period, when "Anacreon" coins

5 This is inferred from the fact that two epigrams attributed to him (Anth. Pal. 6 .136, 6.142) were written to accompany dedications made by the Thessalian king and his wife. 6 Rosenmeyer 30. On the interpretation of these vases, the Eastern features of the iconography and their possible connection with early comic choruses see also Price 133-175. 7 Rosenmeyer 22.