Melinno's work is important because it is a Hellenistic attempt at a revival of the moribund Sapphic stanza in Greek, keeping alive a tradition in the Greek world that that was already being translated to Latin by Horace, and would continue with Catullus.
Bowra also thinks that Melinno's ode may have been by influenced Pindar's ode Olympian V, written for the tyrant Psaumis of Camarina, which could be a spurious attribution that is really the work of a Sicilian Greek imitator.