A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Κόριννα), a Greek poetess, a native of Tanagra in Boeotia. According to some accounts (Eudocia, p. 270; Welcker, in Creuzer's Meletem, ii. pp. 10-17), she was the daughter of Achelodorus and Procratia. On account of her long residence in Thebes, she was sometimes called a Theban. She flourished about the beginning of the fifth century B. C., and was a contemporary of Pindar, whom she is said to have instructed (Plut. de Glor. Athen. iv. p. 348a.), and with whom she strove for a prize at the public games at Thebes. According to Aelian (Ael. VH 13.25), she gained the victory over him five times. Pausanias (9.22.3) does not speak of more than one victory, and mentions a picture which he saw at Tanagra, in which she was represented binding her hair with a fillet in token of her victory, which he attributes as much to her beauty and to the circumstance that she wrote in the Aeolic dialect, as to her poetical talents. At a later period, when Pindar's fame was more securely established, she blamed her contemporary, Myrtis, for entering into a similar contest with him. (Apollon. Dyscol. in Wolf, Corinnae Carm. p. 56, &c.)

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