In Ovid's Heroides, Sappho's father died when she was seven. The earliest and most commonly attested name for him is Scamandronymus. Ancient sources record ten different names for him this proliferation of possible names suggests that he was not explicitly named in any of Sappho's poetry. This may derive from a now-lost poem or record, though ancient scholars may simply have guessed this name, assuming that Sappho's daughter Cleïs was named after her. Gregory Hutchinson suggests she was active until around 570 BC. She therefore may have been born in the third quarter of the seventh century – Franco Ferrari infers a date of around 650 or 640 BC David Campbell suggests around or before 630 BC. This is the date given by most ancient sources, who considered her a contemporary of Alcaeus and Pittacus. She was from the island of Lesbos and lived at the end of the seventh and beginning of the sixth centuries BC. Little is known about Sappho's life for certain. Some scholars, such as Mary Lefkowitz, argued that almost nothing can be known about the lives of early Greek poets such as Sappho most scholars believe that ancient testimonies about poets' lives contain some truth but must be treated with caution. In the latter half of the 20th century, scholars became increasingly sceptical of Greek lyric poetry as a source of autobiographical information. In the 19th century, classicists began to be more sceptical of these traditions, and instead tried to derive biographical information from their surviving poetry. Until the 19th century, ancient sources about archaic poets' lives were largely accepted uncritically. Some of the ancient traditions about her, such as those about her sexuality and appearance, may derive from comedy. The information about Sappho's life recorded in ancient sources was derived from statements in her own poetry that ancient authors assumed were biographical, along with local traditions. Other sources that mention details of her life were written much closer to her own era, beginning in the fifth century BC. The earliest surviving biography of Sappho dates to the late second or early third century AD, approximately eight centuries after her own lifetime the next is the Suda, a Byzantine-era encyclopedia. Sappho's own poetry is the only contemporary source for her life. Modern knowledge of Sappho comes both from what can be inferred from her own poetry, and from mentions of her in other ancient texts. Beyond her poetry, she is well known as a symbol of love and desire between women, with the English words sapphic and lesbian deriving from her name and that of her home island respectively. Sappho's poetry is still considered extraordinary and her works continue to influence other writers. Sappho's poetry was well-known and greatly admired through much of antiquity, and she was among the canon of Nine Lyric Poets most highly esteemed by scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. Her works are known for their clarity of language, vivid images, and immediacy. Most of her best-known and best-preserved fragments explore personal emotions and were probably composed for solo performance. She probably wrote poetry for both individual and choral performance. She was best-known in antiquity for her love poetry other themes in the surviving fragments of her work include family and religion. Sappho was a prolific poet, probably composing around 10,000 lines. According to legend, she killed herself by leaping from the Leucadian cliffs due to her love for the ferryman Phaon. She was exiled to Sicily around 600 BC, and may have continued to work until around 570 BC. Two of them, Charaxos and Larichos, are mentioned in the Brothers Poem discovered in 2014. Ancient sources say that she had three brothers Charaxos (Χάραξος), Larichos (Λάριχος) and Eurygios (Εὐρύγιος). She was from a wealthy family from Lesbos, though her parents' names are uncertain. Three epigrams attributed to Sappho are extant, but these are actually Hellenistic imitations of Sappho's style. As well as lyric poetry, ancient commentators claimed that Sappho wrote elegiac and iambic poetry. Most of Sappho's poetry is now lost, and what is extant has mostly survived in fragmentary form only the " Ode to Aphrodite" is certainly complete. In ancient times, Sappho was widely regarded as one of the greatest lyric poets and was given names such as the "Tenth Muse" and "The Poetess". Sappho is known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by music. 570 BC) was an Archaic Greek poet from Eresos or Mytilene on the island of Lesbos. Sappho ( / ˈ s æ f oʊ/ Greek: Σαπφώ Sapphō Aeolic Greek Ψάπφω Psápphō c. Head of a woman from the Glyptothek in Munich, identified as "probably" a copy of Silanion's fourth-century BC imaginative portrait of Sappho
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