Listed 5 sub titles with search on: Biographies for destination: "IMERA Ancient city SICILY".
632 - 552
Stesichorus, (Stesichoros). A celebrated Greek poet of Himera in Sicily, contemporary
with Sappho, Alcaeus, Pittacus, and Phalaris. He is said to have been born B.C.
632, to have flourished about 608, and to have died in 552 at the age of eighty.
Of the events of his life we have only a few obscure accounts. As with other
great poets, his birth is fabled to have been attended by an omen; a nightingale
sat upon the babe's lips, and sang a sweet strain. He is said to have been carefully
educated at Catana, and afterwards to have enjoyed the friendship of Phalaris,
the tyrant of Agrigentum. Many writers relate the fable of his being miraculously
struck with blindness after writing an attack upon Helen, and recovering his
sight when he had composed a Palinodia or recantation. He is said to have been
buried at Catana by a gate of the city, which was called after him the Stesichorean
Gate.
Stesichorus was one of the nine-chiefs of lyric poetry recognized
by the ancients. He stands, with Alcman, at the head of one branch of the lyric
art, the choral poetry of the Dorians. He was the first to break the monotony
of the strophe and antistrophe by the introduction of the epode, and his metres
were much more varied, and the structure of his strophes more elaborate, than
those of Alcman. His odes contained all the essential elements of the perfect
choral poetry of Pindar and the tragedians. The subjects of his poems were chiefly
heroic; and he transferred the subjects of the old epic poetry to the lyric
form, dropping, of course, the continuous narrative, and dwelling on isolated
adventures of his heroes. He also composed poems on other subjects, and fables,
among the latter the wellknown one of the horse, the stag, and the man. His
extant remains may be classified under the following heads: (1) mythical poems;
(2) hymns, encomia, epithalamia, paeans; (3) erotic poems, and scolia; (4) a
pastoral poem, entitled Daphnis; (5) fables; (6) elegies. The dialect of Stesichorus
was Dorian, with an intermixture of the epic.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Stesichorus. Lyric poet, probably from Himera on Sicily,
who lived during the first half of the 6th century BC. The name Stesichorus actually
means “Chorus Master”, so it might have been a title and not a name.
His real name might have been Tisias.
Stesichorus was very creative and prolific, and is considered the
first literary celebrity in Greece.
He influenced many poets with his long, narrative poems with mythological themes.
Not much of his work has survived, but we know that he wrote in the Doric dialect,
and that he was inspired by Homer. He wrote “The Wooden Horse”, “The
Capture of Troy”, “Homecoming”
and “Oresteia”. The latter surely inspired Aeschylus.
These poems were accompanied by a chorus or maybe a solo singer and
a flute. He is traditionally credited with inventing the triad: three stanza metrical
groupings, which were later used in verses and Athenian stage dramas: strophe:
turn, antistrophe: counterturn, and epodos: after song.
Stesichorus also wrote two poems about Helen of Troy:
one true and one false. According to the false one, Helen was never in Troy,
but a phantom of her was sent there by the gods. According to an anecdote, Stesichorus
was struck blind after he had written the first, traditional version, and did
not regain his sight until he had completed the second one.
This text is cited Sept 2003 from the In2Greece URL below.
Demophilus. Of Himera, a painter, who flourished about B. C. 424, was said by some to have been the teacher of Zeuxis. (Plin. xxxv. 9. s. 36.2)
Helianax, brother of Stesichorus, who, according to Suidas (s. v.), was a lawgiver, probably in one of the states of Sicily
P. Servilius, Q. F. CN. N. Geminus, was consul in B. C. 252, with C. Aurelius
Cotta. Both consuls carried on the war in Sicily against the Carthaginians, and
some towns were taken by them. Himera was among the number; but its inhabitants
had been carried off by the Carthaginians. In B. C. 248 he was consul a second
time, with his former colleague, and besieged Lilybaeum and Drepana, while Carthalo
endeavoured to make a diversion by a descent upon the coast of Italy (Zonar. viii.
14, 16).
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
