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then but seldom. Occasionally a distinction is made between the 'multiple-stem syrinx' (i.e. panpipe) and a 'single-stem syrinx', which must be a flute with finger-holes.143 'Single-stem syrinx' is given in lexica as a meaning of the word iynx, which must accordingly have been one sort of flute. Iynx is also the name of a bird, the wryneck, whose call is said to imitate 'the transverse aulos': this presumably refers to a flute, not to the instrument described on p. 93, and where plagios aulos or plagiaulos appears as the source of a soft wind-like sound, or as a rustic instrument in settings appropriate for the panpipe, we must again interpret it as a flute.144 Another term that probably designates a flute is photinx, which Hesychius rather wildly defines as 'a syrinx, a transverse aulos, like a sort of trumpet' (because blown without a reed?). The photinx was current at Alexandria, and the word perhaps incorporates an Egyptian root with the Greek suffix -inx on the analogy of syrinx et al.145 |
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Representations in art show that there was both an end-blown and a side-blown flute.146 A specimen of the latter type, found at Halicarnassus, is preserved in the British Museum. It has a scooped mouthpiece raised slightly from the side of the tube. A replica was found to have a soft, cooing tone.147 |
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A lexical source records that a chorus-trainer might give his choir their starting note 'by piping on the so-called epitonion'.148 This is |
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143 Euphorion ap. Ath. 184a (Hermes as inventor, or alternatively certain Thracians). |
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144Iynx: Anecd. Bekk. 265. 21 = Etym. Magn. 480. 1; Ael. NA 6. 19. The melodious soughing of the wind in the trees of the Isles of the Blest likened to 'the calm piping of transverse auloi': Lucian, Ver. Hist. 2.5. Rustic: ps.-Theoc. Id. 20. 29, Bion fr. 10. 7 Gow, Philodemus Anth. Pal. 11. 34. 5 = GP 3292, Longus 1. 4. 3, 4. 26. 2, Heliodorus 5. 14. 2; invented by Midas, Pliny HN 7. 204. |
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145 Earliest attestation Posidonius fr. 86 Th.; invented by Osiris, Juba, FGrH 275 F 16 ('the plagiaulos called photinx'); Alexandrian, Ath. 175 f ('the photinx aulos'); made of lotus-wood, ibid. 182d (cf. Poll. 4. 74, Libyan plagiaulos = lotus-wood aulos); used in enticing crabs from their lairs, Plut. De soll. an. 961 e, Ael. NA 6.31; grouped with plagiaulos but distinct from it, Nicom. p. 243.16. Apuleius, Met. 11.9, describes pipers in the worship of Sarapis who play an obliquus calamus that extends past their ear. The 'Libyan lotus' that appears several times in Euripides is merely a poetic equivalent of the aulos. |
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146 See Howard, 14f. |
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147 C. T. Newton, A History of Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and Branchid, ii. 1 (London, 1862), 339; Welch, 248f. Now BM 1976. 1-4.2. |
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148Etymologicum Gudianum cod. z.s.v. apotomon, p. 177. 12 de Stefani. The name is formed from tonos 'pitch'. |
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