Sappho’s Exile in Sicily and Her Statue in Syracuse

Abstract Sappho’s poetry makes reference to exile but not to Sicily. There is no source other than the Parian Marble that makes reference to Sappho herself being in Sicily for any reason. There is also no clear evidence as to why the Syracusans, according to Cicero, honored Sappho with a statue in their prytaneion, although the Athenian comic tradition told stories of her jumping into the sea as far west as Leucas and there is a strong tradition of people being rescued from the water, transported to opposite shores, and commemorated with statues. Because Sappho’s statue remains the only extant piece of evidence explicitly linking Sappho to Sicily by the time of the Parian Marble, it is therefore at least possible that the Syracusan tradition of the statue was somehow the sole origin of the Parian Marble’s account.