Did the Early Historian Simonides of Ceos Ever Exist?

The Byzantine lexicon Suda in one of its entries mentions Simonides of Ceos, a historian and genealogist, who was, according to this sole testimony about him, a grandson of the lyric poet of the same name and lived in the fifth century BC, before the Peloponnesian War. This writer is usually believed to be a real person. F. Jacoby in the Fragmente der griechischen Historiker ascribes to him seven fragments, two with certainty and five as ‘questionable and doubtful’. R. Fowler in the Early Greek Mythography considers Simonides the grandson to be the author of only two fragments, but still does not deny his historicity, although he agrees that there are some incongruities in the evidence (one of the fragments is of Euhemeristic character, in another fragment peacocks appear as poultry – things that are more usual in the Hellenistic period). The article analyzes all seven fragments and makes an attempt to prove that the fifth century BC mythographer Simonides, the poet’s grandson, never existed; some of the fragments ascribed to him by Jacoby should be attributed to the lyricist, while others – to the littleknown Hellenistic author Simonides the Younger (whose grandfather of course could not be the poet) mentioned in Pliny’s Natural History. Some other examples of abundant gross errors in Suda’s entries on early Greek historians are also cited in the article.

Simonides of Ceos, early historical writing, lyric poetry, genealogy, mythography, fragments, Suda