Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/54

 56 THE TRAGIC CHORUS. — ARION. chorus or comus represented his noisy band of thyrsus-bearing followers ^ Whatever opinion we may agree to form respecting the etymology of the name, it is at least clear, from any justifiable analysis of the word At-dvpafjL^o<;, that it was addressed to the king of the gods^; and Bacchus belonged, as we have already seen, to a branch of Greek religion which admitted an assumption of his character on the part of his votaries. Arion, a celebrated cithara-player {Ki6ap(pB6<;) of Methymna in Lesbos, who flourished in the days of Stesichorus and Periander, {t. e. about 600 b. c.) is generally admitted to have been the inventor of the C7/cUc chorus {kvklo<; %opo9), in which the Dithyramb was danced around the blazing altar by a band of fifty men or boys^, to a lyric accompaniment. So intimately is Arion connected with this improvement, that he is called the son of Cycleus. We must be very careful not to confuse between this invention, or adaptation, of Arion' s, and the improvements introduced into the older style of Dithyrambic poetry, some one hundred years later, by Lasos of Hermione, the teacher of Pindar and the rival of Simonides*. It is quite clear that the Dithyramb of Lasos gave rise to the style of poetry which existed under that name for many years, after the full development of Tragedy and Comedy, and which is always distin- guished from the dramatic chorus. Instead of passing from the ^ Bacchus is called 6 ^^ap%os by the Chorus of Bacchanalians in Euripides (Bacck. 141), and it seems obvious that the dithyramb must have endeavoured to represent the 6La<xos in all its parts. 2 We have elsewhere discussed the etymology of this veord at some length (New Cratylus, §§317 sqq.) and have endeavoured to show that it is the word dvpaix^os — dpiapi^os appended to the dative of Zevs ; that the termination is dpL^os^'iafi^os, a word denoting a dance of people in close order, or a hymn sung by such a body ; and that the root dvp = dpi is the same as that which is found in d6p-cos. To this opinion we still adhere. The only doubtful point, as it appears to us, is the explanation of the root of Ovpaos. Hartung {Classical Museum, vi. p. 372 sqq.) proposes to connect dvpapL^os with dopv^os. If the one were really a by-form of the other, it would be 66pvfM^o$, not dvpafijSos. Cf. Kdpvp-^os, Wvpi^os, &c. As however the dithyrambic dance was called rvp-^acria. (Jul. Poll. IV, 104: rvp^aaia 5^ e/caXetro to 6pxvi^"' Tb didvpafJiPiKdv), and as the root 6vp-, dop-, dpo-, Opt-, might be connected with that of T^p^T], turha, from which this TvpjSaaia is formed, a question might arise whether the name of the dvpaos was derived from the tumultuous clamours (dpSos, dpoiw, dpiXKos, &c.) of the diaaos of Bacchus ; or whether it was expressive of the symbolical meaning of the Bacchic staff with its accompaniments. 3 Schol. Find. 01. xiii. 16. Simon. Epigr. 76: fii€ivo(piov 6^ rts vlbs 'Apiareidrjs ixopvyei JlevTrjKOi'T' dudpQv KoXd [ladbvri X°PV' 4 Some of the older grammarians were unable to make this distinction. Thus the Scholiast on Aristophanes (Aves, 1403) says: 'AvriiraTpos d^ Kal 'El'u<pp6vios h roh viro- fMvrjfiacri (pacrt tovs kvkXIovs xopoijs cTTrjcraL irpCorou Adcrou Tov'^pp-iovia, oi d^ dpxo-i'bTepoi 'EWdviKOS Kal AiKaiapxos 'kplova Tbv MrjOvfJ-voLou.