Fresco of young woman holding a stylus and a booklet of wax tablets, Sappho, from house in Pompeii. Sappho (630 - 570 BC) was an archaic Greek poet known for her lyric poetry. Most of Sappho's poetry is now lost, and what is extant has survived only in fragmentary form, except for one complete poem: Ode to Aphrodite. Her poetry was greatly admired through much of antiquity, and she was among the canon of nine lyric poets most highly esteemed by scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. Beyond her poetry, she is well known as a symbol of love and desire between women. No reliable portrait of Sappho's physical appearance has survived; all representations are artists' conceptions.