LIFE OF SAPPHO

Ovid Letters of the Heroimes (Sappho to Phaon|:
Daughters of Lesbos, whose love has made me of
ill- report, throng ye no more to hear my lyre.

Aristotle Rheloric: . . . The wise are honoured
universally. ‘The Parians have honoured Archilochus
despite his slanderous tongue, the Chians Homer
though he was not of their city, and the Mytilenaeans

Sappho for all she was a woman ;! while the Spartans,

who have no love for learning, elected Chilon of their
senate .. .3

Pollux Tocabulary: The Mytilenaeans engraved
Sappho on their coinage.®

Palatine Anthology: Antipater of Sidon on Sappho
the lyric poetess of Mytilene: That which thou
coverest, Aeolian soil, is Sappho,’ one that is sung
for a mortal Muse among Muses immortal, one that
was reared by Cypris and by Eros too, one that helped
Persuasion weave the everlasting garland of the
Pievian Maids. a delight unto Greece, a glory unto
thee. O ye Fates that twirl the three-ply thread
from the distaff, why span ye not a never-dying day
tor the songstress who devised the deathless gitts
of the Daughters of Helicon?

Plato Phaedrus: Socrates: I cannot go so far with
you as that. ‘There are wise ancients, both men and
women, whose sayings or writings will refute me if
I allow you to persuade me of it.--Puarpres: Who
may these be? and where have they given vou

τ ἢν. he does not say can er? woman’ 2 οἵ, Aristid.
12. & 3 where she may still he seen, as also on that of
Eresus; in both cases the coins are of Imperial times
4 Antipater (ec. 120 pc. evidently believed that δι died in
Lesbos; cf. Max. Tyr. 18. 9 below

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