Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/178

156 156 HISTORY OP THE sisting of three long syllables, by which the fragment of Terpander ought probably to be measured. § 6. The accounts of Terpander's inventions, and the extant remains of his nomes, however meagre and scanty, give some notion of his merits as the father of Grecian music. Another ancient master, how- ever, the Phrygian musician Olympus, so much enlarged the system of the Greek music, that Plutarch considers him, and not Terpander, as the founder of it. The date, and indeed the whole history of this Olympus, are involved in obscurity, by a confusion between him (who is certainly as historical as Terpander) and a mythological Olympus, who is connected with the first founders of the Phrygian religion and worship. Even Plu- tarch, who in his learned treatise upon music has marked the distinc- tion between the earlier and the later Olympus, has still attributed inventions to the fabulous Olympus which properly belong to the his- torical one. The ancient Olympus is quite lost in the dawn of mythical legends ; he is the favourite and disciple of the Phrygian Silenus, Mar- syas, who invented the flute, and used it in his unfortunate contest with the cithara of the Hellenic god Apollo. The invention of nomes could only be ascribed to this fabulous Olympus, and to the still more ancient Hyagnis, as certain nomes were attributed by the Greeks to Olen and Philammon ; that is to say, certain tunes were sung at festivals, which tradition assigned to these nomes. There was also in Phrygia a family said to be descended from the mythical Olympus, the members of which, probably, played sacred tunes on the flute at the festivals of the Magna Mater: to this family, according to Plutarch, the later Olympus belonged. § 7. This later Olympus stands midway between his native country Phrygia and the Greek nation. Phrygia, which had in general little connexion with the Greek religion, and was remarkable only for its enthusiastic rites and its boisterous music, obtained, by means of Olympus, an important influence upon the music, and thus upon the poetry, of Greece. But Olympus would not have been able to exercise this influence, if he had not, by a long residence in Greece, become acquainted with the Greek civilization. It is stated that he produced new tunes in the Greek sanctuary of Pytho; and that he had disciples who were Greeks, such as Crates and Hierax the Argive*. It was by means of Olympus that the flute attained an equal place in Greek music with the cithara ; by which change music gained a much greater com- pass than before. It was much easier to multiply the tones of the flute than those of the cithara ; especially as the ancient flute-players were accustomed to play upon two flutes at once. Hence the severe censors writer, c. 2G, and Pollux iv. 10. 79. Accordingly it is not probable that this second Olympus was a. mythical personage, or a collective appellation of the Phrygian nius'c in its improved state.
 * The former is mentioned by Plutarch de Mus. 7 ; the latter by the same