Anacreon was a peripatetic figure who moved from place to place throughout his long life span. He was born in Asia Minor, in the Greek city of Teos, but when the Persians attacked the city about 540 Anacreon and his fellow citizens moved to Thrace, an area bordering the northern edge of the Aegean Sea. There they founded the city of Abdera. At some point, probably close to 530, Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, invited him to his court. When Polycrates was assassinated in 522, Hipparchus, son of the tyrant Pisistratus, invited Anacreon to Athens, where he stayed until Hipparchus was murdered in 514. The evidence for his movements after 514 is murky, but he may have spent some time at a royal court in Thessaly and then returned to Athens w

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First published 05 April 2006

Citation: Gerber, Douglas. "Anacreon". The Literary Encyclopedia. 5 April 2006.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=104, accessed 21 November 2009.]