Simonides The Poet

Simonides the Poet Simonides is tantalising and enigmatic, known both from fragments and from an extensive tradition of anecdotes. This monograph, the first in English for a generation, employs a two-part diachronic approach:  Richard Rawles first reads Simonidean fragments with attention to their intertextual relationship with earlier works and traditions, and then explores Simonides through his ancient reception. In the first part, interactions between Simonides’ own poems and earlier traditions, both epic and lyric, are studied in his melic fragments and then in his elegies. The second part focuses on an important strand in Simonides’ ancient reception, concerning his supposed meanness and interest in remuneration. This is examined in Pindar’s Isthmian 2, and then in Simonides’ reception up to the Hellenistic period. The book concludes with a full reinterpretation of Theocritus 16, a poem which engages both with Simonides’ poems and with traditions about his life. RICHARD RAWLES is Lecturer in Greek at the University of Edinburgh, and has previously taught at the University of St Andrews, University College London and the University of Nottingham. With Peter Agócs and Chris Carey he has co-edited two volumes on epinician poetry, and his other publications include articles on Aeschylus, Simonides, Sappho and Theocritus. Simonides the Poet Intertextuality and Reception Ri cha rd  Raw l e s University of Edinburgh University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06-04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107141704 DOI: 10.1017/9781316493816 © Richard Rawles 2018 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2018 Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rawles, Richard (Richard John), author. Title: Simonides the poet : intertextuality and reception / Richard Rawles. Description: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017057296 | ISBN 9781107141704 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Simonides, approximately 556 B.C.–467