Anacreon, a Greek lyric poet, born at Teos in Ionia about 561 B. C. When that city was taken by the Persians, about 540 B. C., he emigrated to Abdera in Thrace, whence he afterward went to Samos, and spent several years at the court of Polycrates. On the death of Poly crates he was invited to x\thens by the tyrant Hipparchus, who sent a vessel for him. Here he formed an intimacy with Simo-nides and other poets. He left Athens probably on the murder of Hipparchus in 514, and died in the 85th year of his age, but the place of his death is uncertain. He is said to have been choked by a grape stone. We possess only a few genuine fragments of the poems of Anacreon. His favorite themes were love and wine; his distinguishing characteristics licentiousness, gracefulness, and fervor. The best editions are by Fischer (3d ed., Leipsic, 1793) and Mehlom (Glogau, 1825), and of the separate fragments that of Bergk (Leipsic, 1834).