He is said to have been a tutor of Polycrates; that he enjoyed the tyrant's confidence is based on Herodotus,[3] who observes that the poet was sitting in the royal chamber when an audience was given to the Persian herald. In return for his favor and protection, Anacreon wrote many complimentary odes about his patron. Like his fellow-lyric poet, Horace, who was one of his great admirers, and in many respects a kindred spirit, Anacreon seems to have been made for the society of courts.[2]