Simonides Lyricus : Essays on the 'other' classical choral lyric poet

Simonides of Keos was one of the most important praise-poets of the early fifth century BCE, ranking alongside Pindar and Bacchylides.

In Simonides Lyricus, a group of leading international experts revisit familiar questions about his lyric poetry, and pose new ones.

Themes discussed include textual criticism and attribution of fragments; poetic genre and the place of the poet's melic fragments in his larger oeuvre; the historical, cultural and political background of the poems; and Simonides' afterlife in the biographical and anecdotal traditions that formed around his name.

The volume makes a substantial contribution to modern discussions of Simonides' place in Greek literary and cultural history and to the understanding of this poet's often fragmentary and difficult texts.