Simonides

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Simonides is cited by Dante in the twenty-second canto of Purgatorio, within a list of Greek poets mentioned alongside Agathon and others. The mention occurs while Statius concludes his speech on the great poets of antiquity, after recalling Homer, Euripides, Antiphon, Agathon, and other Greek and Latin authors who would be welcomed in Limbo together with the three already named by Virgil (Horace, Ovid, and Lucan), with Juvenal, and with Statius himself, as can be gathered from the notes to the canto. The authorized source relating to the verse indicates that Simonides, like the other Greek poets listed here (Euripides, Antiphon, and Agathon), was likely known to Dante only by reputation, through the mentions found in the Latin authors and in Aristotle. The verse itself provides no further biographical details or specific placements of the figure in a precise location of the journey beyond the textual citation.