---
node: sappho
type: person
slug: sappho
title: "Sappho"
lead: "Sappho (c. 630–c. 570 BC) was a lyric poet of Mytilene on Lesbos, among the greatest lyric voices of antiquity; later tradition has Plato calling her the tenth Muse. Her intensely personal poems of love and longing, many addressed to women, gave the words sapphic and lesbian their modern senses."
published: 2026-07-10
updated: 2026-07-10
image_file: sappho.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bust_of_Sappho_frontal.jpg"
image_author: "Bari' bin Farangi"
image_license: "CC BY-SA 4.0"
---

## Who they were

Sappho lived c. 630–c. 570 BC (the dates are approximate) in Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, and stands among the greatest lyric voices of antiquity — later tradition even has Plato calling her the tenth Muse. Little of her life is certain: the later biographical traditions of a marriage, a daughter Cleis, exile to Sicily, and a legendary leap from the Leucadian cliff mix fact and invention.

## What they did

She composed songs to the lyre in Aeolic Greek: wedding songs, hymns, and above all intensely personal poems of love and longing, many addressed to women — an association that gave the words sapphic and lesbian their modern senses. Of a reported nine ancient books of her poetry, only one complete poem, the Ode to Aphrodite, survives along with fragments — some recovered from Egyptian papyri as recently as 2004 and 2014.

## Legacy

Admired throughout antiquity, she was quoted by critics and imitated by Catullus and Horace. She remains a founding figure of the personal lyric, and an icon for women's writing and, in modern times, for lesbian identity.