See already sigma 439, and again sigma 441. Simonides was consistently criticized for taking large gifts for his poetry. This gave rise to tales such as this one, whose implications we must conjecture.
[1] Adler prints the transmitted gra/yei, i.e. seemingly dative singular of the abstract noun gra/yis; however, the Suda's source, a scholion on Aristophanes, Peace 697 (where S. is mentioned), has the aorist infinitive gra/yai, as translated here.
[2] The word may mean either small rooms or closets, or chests, such as a traveling poet might have with him.
[3] Stobaeus, Florilegium 3.10.38; cf. Plutarch, Moralia 555F.
[4] Aristophanes, Birds 919, with scholion. Note also Aristophanes, Clouds 1362, where S. called "a bad poet" (kako\n pohth/n, "a hack" in the translation at web address 1). It is a judgment that his lyric on the victory of the boxer Krios of Aegina (apparently the man mentioned by Herodotus 5.53 & 70) is out of fashion. Aristophanes puns on the word for 'ram' (krio/s) to call the poem How the Ram got shorn (see epsilon 2112), perhaps because of Simonides' habit of 'fleecing' his clients. The use of poiki/los 'artful' was probably originally literary, but here seems to refer to dubious practices to seduce his clients into paying more (indeed a possible use of the word). Cf. pi 661.
[5] Correctly Leoprepes at sigma 439.
[6] Simonides fr. 542 PMG (Page).29-30; cf. alpha 1828. This poem, apparently defending the right of Scopas to do evil deeds, (see sigma 439) if under necessity, is given by Plato, Protagoras 338E-347A, who assigns to Socrates a perverse interpretation of the message of the poem, perhaps to indicate his habit of wrestling evidence and opponents into agreement with his ideas. See web address 2.