Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/184

162 162 HISTORY OF THE much later than Terpander, celebrated as a composer of aulodic nomes, one of which was called Elegos, on account of its plaintive tone. The poetry, which was set to his compositions and sung to the flute, chiefly consisted of hexameters and elegiac distichs, without any artificial rhyth- mical construction. Secondly, Hierax, of Argos, a scholar of Olympus, was a master of flute -playing ; he invented the music to which the Argive maidens performed the ceremony of the Flower-carrying (cu'fao^oota), in the temple of Here ; and another in which the youths represented the graceful exercises of the Pentathlon. We will next enumerate the masters who, after Thalelas, contributed the most towards the new arrangement of music in Sparta. These were Xenodamus, a Lacedae- monian ofCythera, a poet and composer of pseans and hyporchemes, like Thaletas ; Xenocritus, from Locri Epizephyrii in Italy, a town noted for its taste in music, and poetry. To this Xenocritus is attributed a peculiar Locrian, or Italian measure, which was a modification of the iEolic*; as the Locrian love-songs f approached closely to the iEolic poetry of Sappho and Erinna. Erotic poems, however, are not attributed to Xenocritus, but dithyrambs, the subjects of which were taken from the heroic mythology ; a peculiar kind of poetry, the origin and style of which we will endeavour to describe hereafter. Lastly, there are to be mentioned Polymnestus, of Colophon J, and Sacadas, of Argos ; the former was an early contemporary of Alcman, who improved upon the aulodia of Clonas, and exceeded the limits of the five styles §. He appears, in general, to have enlarged the art of music, and was particularly distinguished in the loud and spirited Orthian nome. Sacadas was celebrated as having been victorious in flute-playing, at the first three Pythian games, at which the Amphictyons presided (Olymp. 47. 3; 49.3; 50. 3; b. c. 590, 582, 578). He first played the flute in the Pythian style, but without singing. He left this branch of the art to Echembrotus, an Arcadian musician, who, in the first Pythiad, gained the prize for accompanying the voice with the flute. But, according to Pausanias, this connexion of flute-playing and singing seemed, from its mournful and gloomy expression, so unsuited to the Pythian festival — a joyful celebration of victory, — that the Amphictyons abolished this contest after the first time. With regard to Sacadas, and the state of music in his time, he is stated to have been the inventor of the tripartite nome {rpi^epiie *'o//oe), in which one strophe was set in the Doric, the second in the Phrygian, the third in the Lydian style; the entire character of the music and poetry being, doubtless, changed with the change of the style. ■}■ AoKfiiKa aiTf/.a,ra. I The son of Meles, a name derived from Smyrna, which seems to have bet-n often adopted in families of musicians and poets. (See above, ch. 5, § 2.) § By the vxoln>s <rovo;, Plutarch de Mus. c. 29, although c.8 does not agree with this statement. (See above, § 4.)
 * Boeckh do Metris Pind. p. 212, 225, 241, 279.