Simónides

Greek lyric and elegiac poet, inventor of a memory technique, c. 556-468

Fishburn and Hughes: "A leading Greek lyric and elegiac poet, few of whose poems survive. Pliny (7.24.1) says that Simonides invented a memory technique (perfected by Metrododorus) which enabled him to repeat anything he heard verbatim. Pliny probably derived this from Cicero who attributed to Simonides the saying that, since vision is the sharpest of our senses, 'by an act of sight we keep hold of things that we can scarcely embrace by an act of thought' (De Oratore 2.357)." (182)