"The morning star" Aristophanes called him because Ion wrote a poem about the beginning morning. Ion of chios lived from 490 BC until 421 BC and was besides a poet also a philosopher and dramatist. In his youth he went to live in Athens. Here Ion met Aeschylys, Euripides and the dramatist Sophocles. It is also believed he was a friend of Socrates.

In 429 BC Ion took part in a tragic contest and won the third prize, The contest was won by Euripides with his work Hyppolytus. However the next year he did win the tragic contest. To pay tribute to this achievement he gave a present to every person that lived in Athens. The present was a jar of Chiosian wine. Athens in this time is believed to have had approximately 20.000 citizens.

As with many writers of ancient Greece his work has not survived until the present day, only few titles and fragments remain nowadays. His work is believed to be of forty till fifty plays. One of the fragments that remain is "Everything is three, not less than three. The trinity: power, mind and happiness". This shows he was obviously influenced by Pythagoras and his quest for number harmony. Because only fragments survived it is not exactly known what his precise ideas were about this.

Together with sophocles he took part in the war of samos in 442BC until 440 BC. He described the power of Sparta in a fragment that has remained as follows: "the city of Sparta is not protected with words, the logic rules and the hand does the deed".