Plant/Women Writers, 1. Sappho

Born about 630 BC, Sappho was by far the most famous woman writer in antiquity. Plato called her the tenth Muse, Antipater said that she surpassed all other women poets, Strabo that no other woman came close to rivalling her as a poet. She was honoured with portraits on coins from both Mytilene and Eresus (two cities on Lesbos which both claimed to be her birthplace) and with a bronze statue outside the prytaneion (town hall) in Syracuse, where she also lived for a while. Her early popularity in Athens is illustrated by an extant Athenian vase dated between 510–500 BC that shows her playing the lyre.