Page "Simonides of Ceos" Paragraph 14

The Thessalian period in Simonides ' career is followed in most biographies by his return to Athens during the Persian Wars and it is certain that he became a prominent international figure at that time, particularly as the author of commemorative verses.

According to an anonymous biographer of Aeschylus, the Athenians chose Simonides ahead of Aeschylus to be the author of an epigram honouring their war-dead at Marathon, which led the tragedian ( who had fought at the battle and whose brother had died there ) to withdraw sulking to the court of Hieron of Syracuse — the story is probably based on the inventions of comic dramatists but it is likely that Simonides did in fact write some kind of commemorative verses for the Athenian victory at Marathon.

His ability to compose tastefully and poignantly on military themes put him in great demand among Greek states after their defeat of the second Persian invasion, when he is known to have composed epitaphs for Athenians, Spartans and Corinthians, a commemorative song for Leonidas and his men, a dedicatory epigram for Pausanias, and poems on the battles of Artemisium, Salamis, and Plataea.

According to Plutarch, the Cean had a statue of himself made about this time, which inspired the Athenian politician Themistocles to comment on his ugliness.

In the same account, Themistocles is said to have rejected an attempt by the poet to bribe him, then likened himself as an honest magistrate to a good poet, since an honest magistrate keeps the laws and a good poet keeps in tune.

Suda mentions a feud between Simonides and the Rhodian lyric poet, Timocreon, for whom Simonides apparently composed a mock epitaph that touches on the issue of the Rhodian's medism — an issue that also involved Themistocles.