Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/179

157 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 157 of music in antiquity disapproved of the flute on moral grounds, since they considered the variety of its tones as calculated to seduce the player into an unchaste and florid style of music. Olympus also in- vented and cultivated the third musical scale, the enharmonic ; the powerful effects of which, as well as its difficulties, have been already mentioned. His nomes were accordingly auletic, that is, intended for the flute, and belonged to the enharmonic scale. Among the different names which have been preserved, that of the Harmateios Nomos may be particularly mentioned, as we are able to form a tolerably correct idea of its nature. In the Orestes of Euripides, a Phrygian Eirnuch in the service of Helen, who has just escaped the murderous hands of Orestes and Pylades, describes his dangers in a monody, in which the liveliest expression of pain and terror is blended with a character of Asiatic softness. This song, of which the musical accompaniment was doubtless composed with as much art as the rhythmical structure, was set to the harmatian nome, as Euripides makes his Phrygian say. This mournful and passionate music appears to have been particularly adapted to the talent and taste of Olympus. At Delphi, where the solemnities of the Pythian games turned principally upon the fight of Apollo with the Python, Olympus is said to have played a dirge in honour of the slain Python upon the flute and in the Lydian style *. A nome of Olympus played upon several flutes (Z,vvavia) was well known at Athens. Aristophanes, ir. the beo-innins; of his Knights, describes the two slaves of Demus as giving utterance to their griefs in this tune. But from the esteem in which Olympus was held by the ancients, it seems improbable that all his compositions were of this gloomy character; and we may therefore fairly attribute a greater variety to his genius. His nome to Athene probably had the energetic and serene tone which suited the worship of this goddess. Olympus also shows great richness of invention in his rhythmical forms, and particularly in such as seemed to the Greeks expressive of enthusiasm and emotion. It appears probable from a statement in Plutarch, that he introduced the rhythm of the songs to the Magna Mater, or Galliambi f. The Atys of Catullus shows what an impression of melancholy, beauty and tenderness this metre was capa- ble of producing, when handled by a skilful artist. A more important fact, however, is, that Olympus introduced not only the third scale of music, but also a third class of rhythms. All Lydian style, i^Xots^vwsv. Clem. Alex. Strom. i.p.363. Potter. t The passage of Plutarch de Musica, c. xxix., *«/ -rot x ^' * (pi/tytov), $ ToXkv x'sxpwrai in rolf M»t*»'<»j, probably refers to the 'Iwvixo; avaxXufiivof, which, on account of the prevalence of trochees in it might probably be considered as belonging to the
 * With this is connected the account that Olympus the Mysian cultivated the