Search Results: Sappho of Lesbos

Sappho of Lesbos (l. c. 620-570 BCE) was a lyric poet whose work was so popular in ancient Greece that she was honored in statuary, coinage, and pottery centuries after her death. Little remains of her work, and these fragments suggest she...

Lesbos, a Greek island located in the eastern Aegean, had several prosperous city-states which thrived from the Bronze Age to the Byzantine era. Switching many times between independence, Persian and Greek control, Lesbos was often a victim...

A black basalt representation of the Greek poetess Sappho of Lesbos. The work is a 16-18th century CE replica or even a re-working of an ancient original. (Palazzo Massimo, Rome)

Sappho of Lesbos was considered one of the greatest poets of her time. Ancient scholars included her among the illustrious Nine Lyric Poets - a list of the most important and influential poets of the age who mirrored the Nine Muses. Sappho...

Marble head of the poetess Sappho, from Smyrna (Izmir, Turkey). Roman copy of a portrait type belonging to the Hellenistic period. (Istanbul Archaeology Museum)

History is recorded by individual human beings with their own beliefs and interests guiding what they choose to record, and, as such, many events and details may be omitted from the account of a certain event or the story of a great person’s...

Sappho and Alcaeus, oil on panel by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1881. The painting illustrates a passage by the ancient Greek poet Hermesianax (active c. 330 BCE) depicting a scene on the island of Lesbos (Mytilene) during the late 7th century...

Greek literature has influenced not only its Roman neighbors to the west but also countless generations across the European continent. Greek writers are responsible for the introduction of such genres as poetry, tragedy, comedy, and western...

Sappho of Lesbos (c. 630-570 BCE). Painting by John William Godward (1904). Through her poetry which included love between women, she gave the term "lesbian" its modern meaning.

Women in ancient Greece, outside of Sparta, had almost no rights and no political or legal power. Even so, some women broke through the social and cultural restrictions to make their mark on history. All of the women did so at great personal...