Anacreon

Author Code: CACR

Anacreon is said to have left his home in Teos when it was threatened by the Persian invasion of Cyrus in ca. 545 BC. He fled to Thrace and took part in the fighting against the Persians before being summoned to Samos by the ruler Polycrates who wished him to instruct his son. He then went to Athens at the behest of Hipparchus and around 514 B.C. went to Thessaly. He returned for a period to Athens, but spent his final days in his home in Teos. Anacreon's poetry has survived in the form of various fragments in the Ionic vernacular, the majority of which deal with the pleasures of drinking, love and festivals. A statue of him was raised on the Acropolis and is said to have influenced many later Greek and Roman poets.