In his article “Simonides, Ephorus, and Herodotus on the Battle of Thermopylae” (The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 48, No. 2 (1998), pp. 365-379) Michael A. Flower quotes an excerpt of an apparently longer poem written by Simonides about the Battle of Thermopylae. It was the first time I had run across this poem and thought you, my readers, might also enjoy the fragment, incomplete as it is, and poor as this English translation may be:
at Thermopylae,
glorious is the fortune,
fair is the fate.
Their grave is an altar.
Instead of lamentation,
they have remembrance,
for pity they have praise.
Such a shroud
neither mold
nor all-subduing time
can make obscure.
This shrine of noble men
chose the good reputation
of Greece
as its inhabitant.
Leonidas also bears witness,
king of Sparta,
who left behind a great adornment
of valor and ever-flowing fame.
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