kalai | historical context |

Imagine everything we can gather of Sappho:

She lived smack in the middle of the Great Age of Greek Tyranny (750-500 BC), in a Lesbos that prospered economically, but also saw war (Sigean War, 608 BC) and instability, insofar that many aristocrat families tried to seize power, one after the other.

It was this intrigue that eventually sent Sappho and her family in exile to Sicily, while her beloved Atthis - whose family had been wise and stayed out of the worst conflict - could stay behind and plan on how to use the unrest to assert themselves. The aristocracy was weak from war and internal fighting, now was the time, everyone found, to step into their place.

Meanwhile the second tyrant of Lesbos, Myrsilus, was rising to power around the time of the Sigean War and his second-in-command Pittacus of military fame stood by his side as the long arm of the law, until eventually in 597 BC, Myrsilus died and Pittacus could take over his throne himself. Unsurprisingly, it was Myrsilus' death that allowed Sappho and her family to finally return to Lesbos once more.

Despite prompting laws that were extremely unpopular with the aristocrats of Mytilene, Pittacus would - by history - eventually come to be regarded as one of the Seven Sages of Greece.