Telesilla of Argos fl. c. 494 B.C.

Definition: According to Herodotus, in the late sixth century B.C. the Argives were named the best of the Greeks in the art of music. Following in this artistic tradition, Telesilla lived in Argos in the following century, where she was renowned for her bravery as well as her poetry.

Telesilla of Argos (fl. c. 494 B.C. or c. 510 B.C.) was a Greek woman poet associated with the Battle of Sepeia, whose dates are disputed. Herodotus says of the battle that the Spartan Cleomenes brought his army to the river Sepeia, in the vicinity of Tiryns. There he attacked the Argives by means of a trick or truce violation. [Hendriks] Cleomenes destroyed the Argive army, but legend says that the Argive women, led by Telesilla, manned the walls and Cleomenes, loath to attack the women, left the city. Graf says the historical record does not back this up, even though artifacts and later literary traditions commemorate the legendary event.

A stele representing Telesilla was put in front of a seated statue of Aphrodite near the theater in Argos. Pausanias describes the scene on the stele in which Telesilla's songs are at her feet while she lifts her helmet to her head.

Only fragments remains of Telesilla's writing, as well as three single word quotes and various references, so it is hard to judge the quality of her work. She appears to have written on mythological themes (Alpheios' attack on Artemis, the arrival in Argos of Pythaios, the son of Apollo, and Niobe [Ingalls]).

Pausanias and Plutarch say of Telesilla that she was admired by or among women, although her poetry appears to have had a broader audience than just women. She may have taught choral poetry to women. One word fragment from her works is the word for maidens (korai).

References

• Herodotus 6.77-83
  Pausanias 2. 20. 8-10.
• Snyder, Jane McIntosh. The Women and the Lyre. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991.
• "The Battle of Sepeia"
  Ignace H. M. Hendriks
  Mnemosyne, Vol. 33, Fasc. 3/4 (1980), pp. 340-346.
• "Women, War, and Warlike Divinities"
  F. Graf
  Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 55 (1984), pp. 245-254
• "The 'Women's Tradition' in Greek Poetry"
  Laurel Bowman
  Phoenix, Vol. 58, No. 1/2 (Spring - Summer, 2004), pp. 1-27
• "Ritual Performance as Training for Daughters in Archaic Greece"
  Wayne B. Ingalls
  Phoenix, Vol. 54, No. 1/2 (Spring - Summer, 2000), pp. 1-20