Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/181

159 LITERATURE OF ANCIKN1 GREECE. 159 of Greece, it is natural that his precise date should not have been recorded. His date, however, is sufficiently marked by the advances of the Greek music and rhythm due to his efforts; and the generation to which he belonged can thus be determined. For, as it appears both from the nature of his inventions and from express testimony that music had made some progress in his time, he must be later than Ter- pander; on the other hand, he must be prior to Thaletas, according to the statement just mentioned ; so that he must be placed between the 30th and 40th Olympiads (b. c. 060—20) *. § 9. Thaletas makes the third epoch in the history of Greek music. A native of Crete, he found means to express in a musical form the spirit which pervaded the religious institutions of his country, by which he produced a strong impression upon the other Greeks. He seems to have been partly a priest and partly an artist; and from this circum- stance his history is veiled in obscurity. He is called a Gortynian, but is also said to have been born at Elyrus; the latter tradition may per- haps allude to the belief that the mythical expiatory priest Carmanor (who was supposed to have purified Apollo himself from the slaughter of the Python, and to have been the father of the bard Chrysothemis) lived at Tarrha, near Elyrus, in the mountains on the west of Crete. It is at any rate certain that Thaletas was connected with this ancient seat of religious poetry and music, the object of which was to appease passion and emotion. Thaletas was in the height of his fame invited to Sparta, that he might restore peace and order to the city, at that time torn by intestine commotions. In this attempt he is supposed to have completely succeeded ; and his political influence on this occasion gave rise to the report that Lycurgus had been instructed by him f. In fact, however, Thaletas lived several centuries later than Ly- curgus, having been one of the musicians who assisted in perfecting Terpander's musical system at Sparta, and giving it a new and fixed form. The musicians named by Plutarch, as the arrangers of - this second system, are Thaletas of Gortyna, Xenodamus of Cythera, Xeno- critus the Locrian, Polymnestus of Colophon, Sacadas of Argos. Among these, however, the last named are later than the former ; as Polymnestus composed for the Lacedaemonians a poem in honour of Thaletas, which is mentioned by Pausanias. If, therefore, Sacadas was a victor in the Pythian games in Olymp. 47, 3 (b. c. 590), and if this may be taken as the time when the most recent of these musi- cians flourished, the first of them, Thaletas, may be fixed not later Gordius ; but this is no argument against the assumed date, as the Phrygian kings, down to the time of Croesus, were alternately named Midas and Gordius. •f Nevertheless Straho, x. p. 481, justly calls Thaletas a legislative man. Like the Cretan training in general (^Elian V. H. ii. 39,) he doubtless combined poetry and music with a measured and well-ordered conduct.
 * Accordiiiiito Suidas, Olympus was contemporary with a king Midas, the son of