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such a bar would have approximated to  . Aristoxenus, however, while assigning to the first note a value intermediate between a normal long and short, seems to have left the second with its regular length.23 It is worth noting that in such cases the 'irrational' long syllable normally belonged to the same word (or closely connected word-group) as the syllable immediately following it, as if that made it easier to squeeze. In what follows I shall use the symbol for a note that may be either  or  . When it appears in a timed bar, it will usually represent a note that should be short to fit the measure but in fact is sometimes long. |
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Other variants of the iambic metron do not involve this problem of irrational note-values. Either or both of the long notes could be divided into two short ones, giving  or  or  , except that at the end of a series, if there was a pause or any interruption of the rhythmic flow, the last long note could not be divided.24 Division of long notes could be combined with the irrational long at the beginning of the metron:  or  or  |
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Another set of forms was produced by amalgamating  into a single triseme note in either half of the metron, giving  or  or  . In the Archaic period the first of these seems to have been confined to the beginning of a sequence, and the other two to the end. From the time of Simonides we find them being used more freely, in choral lyric and tragedy, though not much in comedy. At any rate, we find the syllabic sequences  , and  being used among ordinary iambic metra as if they were equivalent to them; occasionally, particularly in Bacchylides,  or  in one strophe corresponds to  at the same place in another. The assumption that triseme notes are involved in such cases is confirmed by the fragments |
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23 So I infer from his remarks about the 'irrational choreios' (Rhythm. 2. 20), a foot in which the thesis was equivalent to two short notes and the arsis to between one and two. From Aristid. Quint. p. 37. 24 ff. we learn that 'irrational choreios' covered both  (for  ) in iambic rhythm and  (for  ) in trochaic. Cf. also Bacchius 101 ( with irrational arsis and long thesis); Gevaert, ii. 52-6. |
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24 It might, however, be replaced by a short note plus a compensatory rest. This phenomenon, known to modern metricians as brevis in longo at period-end, occurs in nearly every type of metre and composition, and will be taken for granted in the following pages. |
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