“Phocylides: —Of Miletus, a philosopher, contemporary with Theognis. Both flourished 1047 years after the Trojan War, their date being the 59th Olympiad （544-1 B.C.）.1 Phocylides wrote epic and elegiac verse, counsels or maxims, entitled by some authorities Heads or Chapters . They are taken from the Sibylline Books.” Suidas Lexicon
“Archilochus may be blamed for his subject-matter, Parmenides for his versification, Phocylides for his poverty of expression, Euripides for his discursiveness, Sophocles for his inequality of style.... Yet each is praised for the peculiar power nature has given him to rouse and lead his hearers.” Plutarch On Listening
“The familiarity of the ancients with music is at once clear from Homer, who, because all his poetry was for music, gives many lines that are ‘headless’ （with a short syllable for a long at the beginning）, ‘weak’ （in the middle）, and even ‘curtal’ （in the last or second last foot）, without minding in the least; whereas Xenophanes, Solon, Theognis, and Phocylides, and also Periander the elegy-writer of Corinth, and indeed all of the others who do not put music to their poetry, always make their lines in strict accordance with the number and arrangement of the metrical units, and take care to avoid all lines of the above sorts.” Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner
“We are told by Chamaeleon in his book On Stesichorus that not only the poems of Homer but of Hesiod and Archilochus, and even of Mimnermus and Phocylides, were sung to music.” Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner
“I have seen Pompey here. He talked much of politics —of course, to judge by what he said （we must always say that of him ）, with self-depreciation; running down Syria, turning up his nose at Spain —here again we must add to judge by what he said , and so, I think, we must whenever we speak of him, like a sort of ‘Thus also spake Phocylides.’” Cicero Letters to Atticus
“Perhaps some of the work of the other poets might be called ‘popular,’2 giving counsel and exhortation to the generality of men, for instance, I take it, the poems of Phocylides and Theognis . . . whereas the poetry of Homer, etc.” Dio Chrysostom Orations
“In proof of this we might adduce the poetry of Hesiod, Theognis, and Phocylides, whom they declare to have been the best counsellors in human life ever known, and yet choose to concern themselves rather with one another's follies than with these poets' exhortations.” Isocrates To Nicocles
