Talk:Semonides of Amorgos

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Untitled [On Semonides v. Simonides][edit]

I have changed the name from the incorrect Simonides to the correct Semonides. I don't currently have the Greek font on my keyboard. The vowel in the Greek should be an eta. Dactylion (talk) 23:48, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

nothing incorrect.It's a conventional modern spelling.

Semonides 'of Amorgos' (in the Cyclades), so called to distinguish him from his greater namesake, Simonides of Ceos [1] Catalographer (talk) 18:58, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the reference. But it's not standard scholarship--at least in English--to consider an "eta" and a "iota" as sufficiently equivalent to speak of the two as namesakes. See, for example, The Oxford Classical Dictionary, s.v. "Semonides" and "Simonides". It's certainly not uncommon to transliterate the "eta" from a modern Greek name as an "i" in English, but it is not usual in English-speaking scholarship to transliterate the "eta" from an ancient name as an English "i". Dactylion (talk) 01:48, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Compare and check upon a similar case Agesander (disambiguation), so many different spellings..Catalographer (talk) 19:55, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Semonides' name is correctly written Σιμωνίδης in Greek, see for instance Strabo, 10.5.12. The only source using "Semonides" is Georgius Choeroboscus (Etymologicum Magnum 713.17), who specifically distinguishes Semonides the iambic poet and Simonides the melic poet. The convention stuck. Jastrow (Λέγετε) 10:41, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Almost three years later: I've removed the Greek of the name from the introduction. It now receives its own, cited discussion. My two cents: the Philodemos papyrus (1st c. BCE or CE) lends credence to Choeroboscus' "Semonides" (Σημωνίδης), and the modern convention of distinguishing our poet from Simonides of Ceos might actually reflect the truth or at least the practice of the Hellenistic period, which in questions like this is often as near to the truth as we can aspire to be. ^davidiad _.: 20:26, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]