‘Shipwreck on the Coast’ by Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863).
‘Shipwreck on the Coast’ by French artist Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), painted in 1862.
Part 1 of 2
THE MAN with a trade* has his treasures beside him always. Simonides, who composed such remarkable songs, embarked on a tour of the finest cities of Asia, singing the praises of competition winners for a fee,* as being an easier way to support himself in hard times. After he had made himself very well off in this fashion, he was ready to take ship for home (for he was, they say, born in the island of Kea). While he was on board, the ship went down, as the result of a terrific storm working on the vessel’s ageing timbers. Some passengers snatched up their moneybelts, others scrabbled about for the valuables that were the mainstay of their livelihoods. Curiosity drove one to ask: “Simonides, have you nothing you want to take with you?” “All that is mine” he replied “is here with me.” After that some swam for it, though a great many were drowned, weighed down by their baggage.
* In Latin ‘doctus’, which implies training. It is important for the story that we imagine a man with practical and saleable skills, a man with a trade: abstract learning did not impress Simonides unless it conferred independence. “Those who have need of the wealthy are many in number” mused Aristotle in his Rhetoric (II. xvi. 1391a) “Hence the answer of Simonides to the wife of Hiero concerning the wise and the rich, when she asked which was preferable, to be wise or to be rich. ‘Rich,’ he answered, ‘for we see the wise spending their time at the doors of the rich.’”
* Simonides pioneered the ‘victory ode’, a form of poetry celebrating winners of athletic competitions in the Panhellenic games. His services came at a price, but if the price was high enough he would prostitute his art quite cheerfully. “When the winner in a mule-race” recalled Aristotle, reflecting on the poet’s handling of rhetoric “offered Simonides a small sum, he refused to write an ode, as if he thought it beneath him to write on half-asses; but when he gave him a sufficient amount, he wrote:
‘Hail, daughters of storm-footed steeds!’
—
and yet they were also the daughters of asses.” The nature of a victory ode inevitably tended towards hyperbole, of course, but Simonides was often criticised for going too far. On one occasion, he sang that on current form Glaucus of Carystus, a famous boxer, would have knocked out Heracles.
Précis
Roman fabulist Phaedrus told how the ancient Greek songwriter Simonides, sailing home after a highly lucrative musical tour of Asia, had been caught in a storm and shipwrecked. While the other passengers loaded themselves with their treasures, Simonides leapt into the waters saying that he had all he needed, and was one of the few who made it ashore. (59 / 60 words)
Part Two
Ioulida, birthplace of Simonides.
Ioulida (anciently, Ioulis), the chief town of the island of Kea and the birthplace of Simonides. Kea, also known as Ceos, is the westernmost island in the Aegean group called the Cyclades, and lies just a few miles southeast of the Greek mainland.
THOSE who survived were plundered by robbers, who stripped their helpless victims naked and took what little they had managed to save from the wreck. As it happened, the ancient city of Clazomenae lay nearby,* and the wretched mariners sought it out. Here a man devoted to the study of literature, who had often read Simonides’s verses and greatly admired him, even though he had never actually met him, recognised him by his tricks of speech and welcomed him with the greatest of pleasure into his home. Simonides was supplied with clothes, money and attendants; the others, meanwhile, carried pictures of their shipwreck about the streets, begging for scraps.*
Simonides happened to bump into them. “I told you that I had everything of mine with me” he said. “Whatever you tried to carry off you lost.”*
* Clazomenae or Klazomenai was an ancient city in Ionia, a region of western Anatolia near Smyrna (Smyrna is now Izmir in Turkey). The ruins of the town are to be found today in Urla (Vourlá in Greek).
* Shipwrecked mariners would paint an image of their unhappy experience onto a board, and hope to stir passers-by to pity with it. Juvenal, reflecting in Satire XIV on who the madmen of this world were, bade us look at the seafaring merchant. “Poor wretch! on this very night perchance he will be cast out amid broken timbers and engulfed by the waves, clutching his purse with his left hand or his teeth. The man for whose desires yesterday not all the gold which [the River] Tagus and the ruddy Pactolus rolls along would have sufficed, must now content himself with a rag to cover his cold and nakedness, and a poor morsel of food, while he begs for pennies as a shipwrecked mariner, and supports himself by a painted storm!”
* Simonides evidently regarded his wardrobe and the roof over his head as payment for his songwriting, not as pity for wretchedness: dependency was a status he found uncomfortable. “When Simonides was asked why at his advanced age he was so careful of his money,” recorded John of Stobi (fl. 5th century AD), “he replied, ‘It is because I should rather leave money for enemies when I die than stand in need of friends while I live; for I know too well how few friendships last.’”
Précis
The survivors had few possessions between them, and what they had was stolen by robbers. Simonides did not suffer much, because a wealthy fan spotted him and gave him a place to stay; but the other shipwrecked mariners had to beg in the streets. Simonides reminded them that he had always said he had all he needed. (57 / 60 words)
