the praise singer

Fine book in near fine dust jacket. Additional images available at request.

It is on Keos that the boy Simonides follows a sign from Apollo and finds his master and teacher, Kleobis the bard. He accompanies him to Samos, where amidst the rich and colorful life of that sumptuous island, he carries out his apprenticeship. After the death of Kleobis he goes to Athens to the court of the Pisistratids under the patronage of Hipparchos, who gathers to him a glittering group of artists of all kind. Tyrants in only the ancient sense of the world, the Pisistratids had come to power as the people's friends and they seem so to the Athenians almost to the end, when hipparchos's folly precipitates murder by Harmodios and Aristogeiton and the court's eventual fall from power. Simonides once again survives upheaval and finally retires to sicily, where he looks back over his long and eventful life.