The
Anacreontic Society was a popular gentlemen's club of amateur musicians in
London founded in the mid-18th century. These barristers, doctors, and other professional men named their club after the
Greek court
poet Anacreon, who lived in the 6th century B.C. and whose poems, "
anacreontics", were used to entertain patrons in
Teos and
Athens. Dubbed "the convivial bard of Greece", Anacreon's songs often celebrated women, wine, and entertaining.