Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"Plutarch
Philosophy
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 1 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"
Plutarch
Classical literature; Essays; Ethics; Philosophy
To these succeeding ages added another sort, which were called
Polymnastia. But the measures set down for those that played and
sung to the harp, being the invention of Terpander, were much more
ancient than the former. To these he gave the several appellations
of Boeotian, Aeolian, Trochaean, the Acute, Cepion, Terpandrian, and
Tetraoedian.[55] And Terpander made preludes to be sung to the lyre in
heroic verse. Besides, Timotheus testifies how that the lyric nomes
were anciently appropriated to epic verses. For Timotheus merely
intermixed the dithyrambic style with the ancient nomes in heroic
measure, and thus sang them, that he might not seem to make too sudden
an innovation upon the ancient music. But as for Terpander, he seems to
have been the most excellent composer to the harp of his age, for he is
recorded to have been four times in succession a victor at the Pythian
games. And certainly he was one of the most ancient musicians in the
world; for Glaucus the Italian in his treatise of the ancient poets and
musicians asserts him to have lived before Archilochus, affirming him
to be the second next to those that first invented wind-music.
5. Alexander in his Collections of Phrygia says, that Olympus was the
first that brought into Greece the manner of touching the strings
with a quill; and next to him were the Idaean Dactyli; Hyagnis was
the first that sang to the pipe; after him his son Marsyas, then
Olympus; that Terpander imitated Homer in his verses and Orpheus in his
musical compositions; but that Orpheus never imitated any one, since
in his time there were none but such as composed to the pipe, which
was a manner quite different from that of Orpheus. Clonas, a composer
of nomes for flute-music, and somewhat later than Terpander, as the
Arcadians affirm, was born in Tegea or, as the Boeotians allege, at
Thebes. After Terpander and Clonas flourished Archilochus; yet there
are some writers who affirm, that Ardalus the Troezenian taught the
manner of composing to wind-music before Clonas. There was also the
poet Polymnestus, the son of Meles the Colophonian, who invented the
Polymnestian measures. They farther write that Clonas invented the
nomes Apothetus and Schoenion. Of Polymnestus mention is made by Pindar
and Alcman, both lyric poets; but of several of the lyric nomes said to
be instituted by Terpander they make Philammon (the ancient Delphian)
author.
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