Plato, in his Phaedrus, calls Sappho 'beautiful,' for the sweetness of her songs; 'and yet,' says Maximus Tyrius, 'she was small and dark,' une petite brunette,—'est etiam fusco grata colore venus':
The small dark body's Lesbian loveliness
That held the fire eternal.
(Swinburne.)
The epithet 'beautiful' is repeated by so many writers that it may everywhere refer only to the beauty of her writings. Even Ovid seems to think that her genius threw any lack of comeliness into the shade—a lack, however, which, if it had existed, could not have escaped the derision of the Comic writers, especially since Homer (Iliad, ix. 129, 271) had celebrated the characteristic beauty of the women of Lesbos. The address of Alcaeus to Sappho, quoted on p. [8], shows the sweetness of her expression, even if the epithet ἰόπλοκος (violet-weaving) cannot be replaced by ἰοπλόκαμος (with violet locks), as some MSS. read. And Damocharis, in the Greek Anthology, in an Epigram on a statue of Sappho, speaks of her bright eyes showing her wisdom, and compares the beauty of her face to that of Aphrodite. To another writer in the Greek Anthology she is 'the pride of the lovely-haired Lesbians.' Anacreon, as well as Philoxenus, calls her 'sweet-voiced' (cf. fr. [1]).
But though we know so little of Sappho's personal appearance, the whole testimony of the ancient writers describes the charm of her poetry with unbounded praise.
Strabo, in his Geography, calls her 'something wonderful' (θαύμαστόν τι χρῆμα), and says he knew 'no woman who in any, even the least degree, could be compared to her for poetry' (cf. p. [10]).
Such was her unique renown that she was called 'The Poetess,' just as Homer was 'The Poet.' Plato numbers her among the Wise. Plutarch speaks of the grace of her poems acting on her listeners like an enchantment, and says that when he read them he set aside the drinking-cup in very shame. So much was a knowledge of her writings held to be an essential of culture among the Greeks, that Philodemus, a contemporary of Cicero, in an Epigram in the Greek Anthology, notes as the mark of an ill-informed woman that she could not even sing Sappho's songs.
Writers in the Greek Anthology call her the Tenth Muse, child of Aphrodite and Erôs, nursling of the Graces and Persuasion, pride of Hellas, companion of Apollo, and prophesy her immortality. For instance, Antipater of Sidon says:
Does Sappho then beneath thy bosom rest,