The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 3 (of 3)Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Philosophy
The Deipnosophists; or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus, Vol. 3 (of 3)
Athenaeus, of Naucratis
Civilization, Greco-Roman; Dinners and dining -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality -- Greece
And the Lacedæmonians dance this dance in Pindar. And the
Hyporchematica is a dance of men and women. Now the best modes are
those which combine dancing with the singing; and they are these—the
Prosodiacal, the Apostolical (which last is also called παρθένιος), and
others of the same kind. And some danced to the hymn and some did not;
and some danced in accompaniment to hymns to Venus and Bacchus, and to
the Pæan, dancing at one time and resting at another. And among the
barbarians as well as among the Greeks there are respectable dances and
also indecorous ones. Now the Cordax among the Greeks is an indecorous
dance, but the Emmelea is a respectable one: as is among the Arcadians
the Cidaris, and among the Sicyonians the Aleter; and it is called
Aleter also in Ithaca, as Aristoxenus relates in the first book of his
History of Sicyon. And this appears enough to say at present on the
subject of dances.
31. Now formerly decorum was carefully attended to in music, and
everything in this art had its suitable and appropriate ornament: on
which account there were separate flutes for each separate kind of
harmony; and every flute-player had flutes adapted to each kind of
harmony in their contests. But Pronomus the Theban was the first man
who played the three different kinds of harmony already mentioned
on the same flute. But now people meddle with music in a random and
inconsiderate manner. And formerly, to be popular with the vulgar was
reckoned a certain sign of a want of real skill: on which account
Asopodorus the Phliasian, when some flute-player was once being much
applauded while he himself was remaining in the hyposcenium,[77]
said—"What is all this? the man has evidently committed some great
blunder:"—as else he could not possibly have been so much approved
of by the mob. But I am aware that some people tell this story as if
it were Antigenides who said this. But in our days artists make the
objects of their art to be the gaining the applause of the spectators
in the theatre; on which account Aristoxenus, in his book entitled
Promiscuous Banquets, says—"We act in a manner similar to the people
of Pæstum who dwell in the Tyrrhenian Gulf; for it happened to them,
though they were originally Greeks, to have become at last completely
barbarised, becoming Tyrrhenians or Romans, and to have changed their
language, and all the rest of their national habits. But one Greek
festival they do celebrate even to the present day, in which they meet
and recollect all their ancient names and customs, and bewail their
loss to one another, and then, when they have wept for them, they
go home. And so," says he, "we also, since the theatres have become
completely barbarised, and since music has become entirely ruined
and vulgar, we, being but a few, will recall to our minds, sitting
by ourselves, what music once was." And this was the discourse of
Aristoxenus.
[Sidenote: MUSIC.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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