Simichidas appears in Theocritus as an urban poet visiting the countryside and engaging with rustic singers, his character bridging city and pastoral worlds. The character represents the self-conscious literariness of Hellenistic pastoral, acknowledging that bucolic poetry is created by urban poets idealizing rural life. Simichidas enriches the pastoral tradition by introducing metapoetic awareness, his presence reminding readers that pastoral verse is a sophisticated literary construction, not naive country song.

Simichidas appears in Theocritus's Seventh Idyll as the narrator-poet, often identified with Theocritus himself, representing the sophisticated urban poet playing at being a shepherd. This persona demonstrates pastoral's self-conscious artifice. Poets invoke Simichidas when exploring the relationship between real poet and pastoral persona, the constructed nature of bucolic poetry, and the educated artist's adoption of rustic masks. The character illustrates pastoral's knowing artificiality, showing that bucolic poetry acknowledged its own literary construction rather than claiming authentic rusticity.