Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/177

155 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 155 and who lived before Hipponax (Olym. 60)*. Probably some of these nomes of Terpander were improvements on ancient tunes used in religious rites ; and this appears to be the meaning of the statement that some of the nomes noted down by Terpander were invented by the ancient Delphic bard Philammon. Others seem to have grown out of popular songs, to which the names of iEolic and Boeotian nomes allude f. The greater number were probably invented by Terpander himself. These nomes of Terpander were finished compositions, in which a cer- tain musical idea was systematically worked out ; as is proved by the different parts which belonged to one of them J. The rhythmical form of Terpander's compositions was very simple. He is said to have added musical notes to hexameters §. In particular he arranged passages of the Homeric poems (which hitherto had only been recited by rhapsodists) to a musical accompaniment on the cithara ; he also composed hymns in the same metre, which probably resembled the Homeric hymns, though with somewhat of the lyric character ||. But the nomes of Terpander can scarcely all have had the simple uni- form rhythm of the heroic hexameter. That they had not, is proved by the names of two of Terpander's nomes, the Orthian and the Trochaic; so called (according to the testimony of Pollux and other grammarians) from the rhythms. The latter was, therefore, composed in trochaic metre ; the former in those orthian rhythms, the peculiarity of which consists in a great extension of certain feet. There is like- wise a fragment of Terpander, consisting entirely of long s)llables, in which the thought is as weighty and elevated as the metre is solemn and dignified. "Zeus, first cause of all, leader of all; Zeus, to thee I send this beginning of hymns <fl" Metres composed exclusively of Ion"- syllables were employed for religious ceremonies of the greatest solemnity. The name of the spondaic foot, which consisted of two long syllables, was derived from the libation (cnrovd))), at which a sacred silence was observed**. Hymns of this kind were often sung to Zeus in his ancient sanctuary of Dodona, on the borders of Thesprotia and Molossia ; and hence is explained the name of the Molossian foot, con- a.XXooa.<7roli(riv. t Plutarch de Mus. 4. Pollux iv. 9. 65. { These, according to Pollux, iv.9, 6t>, were 'iva^u.. piraexa, xarurgo-ra, ih.itu.ku.tu.- r^o'ra, bft<pu.os, trtpguys, iTTiXoyos. § See, particularly, Plutarch de Mus. 3; cf. 4. C. ; Proclus in Photius, Biblioth. p. 523. been proems of this kind by Terpander. For example, that to Athene (xxviii.) appears to be peculiarly fitted for s:nging to the cithara. •[f 7,iu, rruvrciiv u.^x a i vavruv a-ynrag, '/.iv. iroi v'iu.vw ravrav bf&vwv ugfcdv. In Clemens Alex. Strom, vi. p. 784. who also states that this hymn to Zeus was set in the Doric style.
 * Hence in Sappho, fr. 52, Blomf. (GO, Neue), the Lesbian singer is called vlppo%/>s
 * It i«, however, possible that some of the smaller Homeric hymns may have
 * ibtpr./jLiu..