The New Student's Reference Work/Ibycus

Ib′ycus, a lyric poet of the 6th century, B. C., born in the Greek colony of Rhegium in southern Italy, is best known to moderns from a poem of Schiller, The Cranes of Ibycus. Ibycus is known to have been a wandering bard, but Cicero ranks him with so great a poet as Anacreon. The story of his death, according to Schiller's poem, is that, when mortally wounded by robbers, he called upon a flock of cranes to avenge him. This they did, for, when a flock of cranes passed over the theater at Corinth during a performance, one of the assassins who was present involuntarily cried out: “Yonder are the avengers of Ibycus!” Thus the murderers were detected, and the crime avenged.