Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/105

 DORIC DIALECT EMPLOYED IN THE CHORUS. g? in. 1 Those who recollect that in earlier periods of our history, and in all countries where there is little accumulated stock, an exorbitant difference is often experienced in the price of corn before and after the harvest, will feel the justice of Alkman's descrintion. Judging from these and from a few other fragments of this poet, Alkman appears to have combined the life and exciting vigor of ' Archilochus in the song properly so called, sung by himself individ- ually, with a larger knowledge of musical and rhythmical effect in regard to the choric performance. He composed in the Laco- nian dialect, a variety of the Doric with some intermixture of JEolisms. And it was from him, jointly with those other compos- ers who figured at Sparta during the century after Terpander, as well as from the simultaneous development of the choric muse 2 in Argos, Sikyon, Arcadia, and other parts of Peloponnesus, that the Doric dialect acquired permanent footing in Greece, as the only proper dialect for choric compositions. Continued by Stesichorus and Pindar, this habit passed even to the Attic dram- atists, whose choric songs are thus in a great measure Doric, while their dialogue is Attic. At Sparta, as well as in other parts of Peloponnesus, 3 the musical and rhythmical style appears to have been fixed by Alkman and his contemporaries, and to have been tenaciously maintained, for two or three centuries, with little or no innovation ; the more so, as the flute-players at Sparta formed an hereditary profession, who followed the routine of their fathers. 4 1 Alkman, Frag. 64, ed. Bergk. (5' eo//Ke rpelf, depot; uxupav rpl-av Kat TETpaTov rb rip, OKO. 'ZaA.hei per, ecr&isiv d' aSav OVK <m'. 1 Plutarch, De Musica, c. 9, p. 1134. About the dialect of Alkman, see Ahrens, De Dialccto ^Eolica, sects. 2, 4 ; about his different metres, "Welcker, Alkman. Fragm. pp. 10-12. 3 Plutarch, De Musica, c. 32, p. 1142, c. 37, p. 1144; Athenzeus, xir, p. 032. In Krete, also, the popularity of the primitive musical composers was mai ntained, though along vith the innovator Timotheus : see Inscription No. 3053, ap. Boeckh, Corp. Ins. 4 Herodot. vi, 60. They were probably a yevof with an heroic progenitor, like the heralds, to whom the historinn compares them