Page "Bacchylides" Paragraph 6

Ceos, where Bacchylides was born and raised, had long had a history of poetical and musical culture, especially in its association with Delos, the focal point of the Cyclades and the principal sanctuary of the Ionian race, where the people of Ceos annually sent choirs to celebrate festivals of Apollo.

There was a thriving cult of Apollo on Ceos too, including a temple at Carthaea, a training ground for choruses where, according to Athenaeus, Bacchylides's uncle, Simonides, had been a teacher in his early years.

Ceans had a strong sense of their national identity, characterized by their own exotic legends, national folklore and a successful tradition of athletic competition, especially in running and boxing – making the island a congenial home for a boy of quick imagination.

Athletic victories achieved by Ceans in panhellenic festivals were recorded at Ioulis on slabs of stone and thus Bacchylides could readily announce, in an ode celebrating one such victory ( Ode 2 ), a total of twenty-seven victories won by his countrymen at the Isthmian Games.

Ceans had participated in the defeat of the Persians at the Battle of Salamis and they could take pride in the fact that an elegy composed by Bacchylides's uncle was chosen by Athens to commemorate the Athenians who fell at the Battle of Marathon.

Being only thirteen miles from the Athenian cape Sunium, Ceos was in fact necessarily responsive to Athenian influences.