Ode to Polycrates (also To Polycrates, 282a or S151) is an ancient Greek poem written by Ibycus and dedicated to Polycrates, tyrant of Samos. It was composed some time in the middle of the 6th century BC and displays close similarities to the work of Stesichorus.
The fragment containing the poem was found at Oxyrhynchus. It was published as Papyrus Oxyrhynchus XV 1790 in 1922. [1] The scrap measures 31.5 cm by 20 cm, is eminently legible and only damaged by wormholes. Judging from the text's hand, its inscription has been dated to the second century BC. [2] Since the publication of PMG it has been known as fragment 282a, or as S151 in the SLG .
Typically of Greek choral odes, the poem is structured in a triadic form, dominated by dactyls with aeolic elements. [3] Its language broadly follows the dialect of epic with traces of the Doric dialect of Magna Graecia. [4]
The decipherable parts of the fragment begin with a summary of the Trojan War, covering roughly the outline of the conflict and its protagonists. [5] A shift occurs at line 36, as the poem turns to one Cyannippus whose beauty fascinated 'both Greeks and Trojans'. Similar, undying fame is then promised to the poet himself and Polycrates to whom the poem is dedicated. [6] Because of its formal qualities as well as its interaction with Homeric motifs, the ode has been compared to the poems of Ibycus' contemporary Stesichorus. However, an attribution to the poet is unlikely. [7]
If the reference to Polycrates is genuine, the ode must have been composed after Ibycus' arrival on the island of Samos. According to the Suda , his arrival dates to the reign of Croesus who reigned over Sardis from c. 560 BC to c. 546 BC, as well as the 54th Olympiad (564-60 BC). Therefore, the poem may be dated to some time in the middle of the 6th century BC. [8]
Sappho was an Archaic Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by music. In ancient times, Sappho was widely regarded as one of the greatest lyric poets and was given names such as the "Tenth Muse" and "The Poetess". Most of Sappho's poetry is now lost, and what is extant has mostly survived in fragmentary form; only the "Ode to Aphrodite" is certainly complete. As well as lyric poetry, ancient commentators claimed that Sappho wrote elegiac and iambic poetry. Three epigrams attributed to Sappho are extant, but these are actually Hellenistic imitations of Sappho's style.
Ibycus was an Ancient Greek lyric poet, a citizen of Rhegium in Magna Graecia, probably active at Samos during the reign of the tyrant Polycrates and numbered by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria in the canonical list of nine lyric poets. He was mainly remembered in antiquity for pederastic verses, but he also composed lyrical narratives on mythological themes in the manner of Stesichorus. His work survives today only as quotations by ancient scholars or recorded on fragments of papyrus recovered from archaeological sites in Egypt, yet his extant verses include what are considered some of the finest examples of Greek poetry.
In Greek mythology, Geryon, son of Chrysaor and Callirrhoe, the grandson of Medusa and the nephew of Pegasus, was a fearsome giant who dwelt on the island Erytheia of the mythic Hesperides in the far west of the Mediterranean. A more literal-minded later generation of Greeks associated the region with Tartessos in southern Iberia. Geryon was often described as a monster with either three bodies and three heads, or three heads and one body, or three bodies and one head. He is commonly accepted as being mostly humanoid, with some distinguishing features and in mythology, famed for his cattle.
Polycrates, son of Aeaces, was the tyrant of Samos from the 540s BC to 522 BC. He had a reputation as both a fierce warrior and an enlightened tyrant.
Anacreon was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and erotic poems. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets. Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in the ancient Ionic dialect. Like all early lyric poetry, it was composed to be sung or recited to the accompaniment of music, usually the lyre. Anacreon's poetry touched on universal themes of love, infatuation, disappointment, revelry, parties, festivals and the observations of everyday people and life.
Stesichorus was a Greek lyric poet. He is best known for telling epic stories in lyric metres, and for some ancient traditions about his life, such as his opposition to the tyrant Phalaris, and the blindness he is said to have incurred and cured by composing verses first insulting and then flattering to Helen of Troy.
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a group of manuscripts discovered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt.
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 8 is a fragment of Greek hexameter poetry. The dialect is a mixture of Aeolic and Doric. It was discovered by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897 in Oxyrhynchus. The fragment is dated to the first or second century. It is housed in the Houghton Library. The text was published by Grenfell and Hunt in 1898.
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 12 is a fragment of a chronological work in Greek. It was discovered by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897 in Oxyrhynchus. The fragment is dated to the first or second century. It is housed in the Cambridge University Library. The text was published by Grenfell and Hunt in 1898.
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 14 is a fragment of an elegiac poem by an unknown author in Greek. It was discovered by Grenfell and Hunt in 1897 in Oxyrhynchus. The fragment is dated to the second or third century. It is housed in the Edinburgh University Library. The text was published by Grenfell and Hunt in 1898.
Sappho 44 is a fragment of a poem by the archaic Greek poet Sappho, which describes the wedding of Hector and Andromache. Preserved on a piece of papyrus found in Egypt, it is the longest of Sappho's surviving fragments, and is written in epic style suiting its subject. The metre is glyconic with double dactylic expansion.
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 215 is a philosophical fragment by an unknown author, written in Greek. It was discovered in Oxyrhynchus. The manuscript was written on papyrus in the form of a roll. It is dated to the first century BC or first century AD. Currently it is housed in the British Library in London.
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 216 is a rhetorical exercise by an unknown author, written in Greek. It was discovered in Oxyrhynchus. The manuscript was written on papyrus in the form of a roll. It is dated to the first century BC or first century AD. Currently it is housed in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (35) of the Yale University.
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 222 is a list of ancient Olympic victors by an unknown author, written in Greek. It was discovered in Oxyrhynchus. The manuscript was written on papyrus in the form of a roll. It is dated to the third century. Currently it is housed in the British Library in London.
Greek lyric is the body of lyric poetry written in dialects of Ancient Greek. It is primarily associated with the early 7th to the early 5th centuries BC, sometimes called the "Lyric Age of Greece", but continued to be written into the Hellenistic and Imperial periods.
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 281 is a fragment of a Complaint against a Husband, in Greek. It was discovered in Oxyrhynchus. The manuscript was written on papyrus in the form of a sheet. It is dated between years 20-50. Currently it is housed in the library of the Royal Holloway College in Surrey.
Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 282 is a fragment of a Complaint against a Wife, in Greek. It was discovered in Oxyrhynchus. The manuscript, written on papyrus in the form of a sheet, is dated between 26 January 29 – 22 May 37. It is housed in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of the Yale University in New Haven.
Semonides of Amorgos was a Greek iambic and elegiac poet who is believed to have lived during the seventh century BC. Fragments of his poetry survive as quotations in other ancient authors, the most extensive and well known of which is a satiric account of different types of women which is often cited in discussions of misogyny in Archaic Greece. The poem takes the form of a catalogue, with each type of woman represented by an animal whose characteristics—in the poet's scheme—are also characteristic of a large body of the female population.
The "Geryoneis" is a fragmentary poem, written in Ancient Greek by the lyric poet Stesichorus. Composed in the 6th century BC, it narrates an episode from the Heracles myth in which the hero steals the cattle of Geryon, a three-bodied monster with a human face.
Aeaces was the father of Polycrates, the powerful tyrant of Samos. He was a prominent aristocrat in his own right, and may even have been the ruler of the island for a period in the mid-sixth century. He is sometimes referred to as Aeaces I to distinguish him from his grandson Aeaces II, who ruled Samos in the late sixth and early fifth centuries BC.