This tomb reveals where Sappho's ashes lie,
But her sweet words of wisdom ne'er will die.
(Lord Neaves.)
And Plato:
Some thoughtlessly proclaim the Muses nine;
A tenth is Lesbian Sappho, maid divine.
(Lord Neaves.)
Indeed, all the praises of the Epigrammatists are in the same strain; none but held her, with the poetess Nossis, 'the flower of the Graces.'
Many authors relate how the Lesbians gloried in Sappho's having been their citizen, and say that her image was engraved on the coins of Mitylene—'though she was a woman,' as Aristotle remarks. J. C. Wolf describes six extant coins which may presumably have been struck at different times in honour of her; he gives a figure of each on his frontispiece, but they have little artistic merit.
It is worthy of note that no coins bearing the name or effigy of Sappho have hitherto been discovered which were current before the Christian era, so that no conclusion drawn from inscriptions on them is of any historical importance. In the time of the Antonines, from which most of these coins seem to date, her name was as much sullied by traditions as it has been to the present day.