Famous Greek Poetry

Here are the words of Simonides of Ceos (c. 556 BC-468 BC), the famous Greek lyric poet, who was a contemporary of King Leonidas and the 300 Spartans, who died defending all of Greece from the invasion of the tyrannical Persian ruler, Xerxes the Great, and his slave army of one to two hundred thousand men massed at Thermopylae. These words were used as an epitaph on a commemorative stone placed on top of the burial mound of the Spartans at Thermopylae.

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Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε

κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.

Ō xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti tēide

keimetha tois keinōn rhēmasi peithomenoi.

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"Go tell the Spartans, thou that passest by,

That here, obedient to their laws, we lie."


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-- Spencer