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
8. There was also another mood in use among the ancients, called
Cradias, which Hipponax says Mimnermus always delighted in. For
formerly they that played upon the flute sang also elegies at the same
time set to notes. Which the description of the Panathenaea concerning
the musical combat makes manifest. Among the rest, Sacadas of Argos
set several odes and elegies to music, he himself being also a good
flute-player and thrice a victor at the Pythian games. Of him Pindar
makes mention. Now whereas in the time of Polymnestus and Sacadas there
existed three musical moods, the Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian, it is
said that Sacadas composed a strophe in every one of those moods, and
then taught the choruses to sing the first after the Dorian manner,
the second according to the Phrygian, and the third after the Lydian
manner; and this nome was called Trimeres (or threefold) by reason of
the shifting of the moods, although in the Sicyonian catalogue of the
poets Clonas is said to be the inventor of this name.
9. Music then received its first constitution from Terpander at Sparta.
Of the second constitution, Thaletas the Gortinean, Xenodamus the
Cytherean, Xenocritus the Locrian, Polymnestus the Colophonian, and
Sacadas the Argive were deservedly acknowledged to be the authors. For
these, having introduced the Gymnopaediae into Lacedaemon, settled the
so-called Apodeixeis (or Exhibitions) among the Arcadians, and the
Endymatia in Argos. Now Thaletas, Xenodamus, and Xenocritus, and their
scholars, were poets that addicted themselves altogether to making
of paeans; Polymnestus was all for the Orthian or military strain,
and Sacadas for elegies. Others, and among the rest Pratinas, affirm
Xenodamus to have been a maker of songs for dances (Hyporchemes), and
not of paeans; and a tune of Xenodamus is preserved, which plainly
appears to have been composed for a dance. Now that a paean differs
from a song made for a dance is manifest from the poems of Pindar, who
made both.
10. Polymnestus also composed nomes for flute-music; but in the
Orthian nome he made use of his lyric vein, as the students in harmony
declare. But in this we cannot be positive, because we have nothing
of certainty concerning it from antiquity; and whether Thaletas of
Crete was a composer of hymns is much doubted. For Glaucus, asserting
Thaletas to be born after Archilochus, says that he imitated the odes
of Archilochus, only he made them longer, and used the Paeonic and
Cretic rhythm, which neither Archilochus nor Orpheus nor Terpander
ever did; for Thaletas learned these from Olympus, and became a good
poet besides. As for Xenocritus the Locrian from Italy, it is much
questioned whether he was a maker of paeans or not, as being one that
always took heroic subjects with dramatic action for his verses, for
which reason some there were who called his arguments Dithyrambic.
Moreover, Glaucus asserts Thaletas to have preceded him in time.
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