Anacreon

(c. 582 BC - c. 485 BC)

Anacreon was born in one of the twelve cities that made up the Ionian League, a confederation of cities created to deter Persian invasion. He enjoyed a peripatetic existence, traveling from city to city in search of patrons for his work, with Polycrates of Samos and Hipparchus of Athens being two of his more noteworthy supporters. His poetry survives only in fragments, the remains devoting praise in equal measure to boys, women, and wine. One account of the poet’s death says that he departed this earth choking on a grape seed.