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series can end with the extended figure  as well as in various other ways. Interspersed among the triple-time measures there may be some in duple time, as in Aeschylus, Persians 68-72 = 76-80 (Ex. 5.8). |
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It is sometimes supposed that these apparent duple bars were in fact triple, the long note being extended to twice its length,  , but this is an arbitrary hypothesis. The assumption of variable bar-length fits better with what we know of Classical Greek music than the assumption of doubled note-length. Other forms of lengthening and shortening occur at the beginning of a series:  or  or  . |
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In the course of time many alternative forms of ionic measure were evolved by the division of a long note into two short ones or the amalgamation of two shorts into a long:  ,  ,  ,  , and by the Hellenistic period  ,  , and  . |
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That might seem to exhaust the possibilities. But in Aristophanes a rather freer style of ionic makes it appearance, in which such measures as  or  , where the note-values do not quite add up to the notional figure, are allowed to stand in responsion with the normal  . These free forms recur in later texts, together with others such as  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , etc.50 The texts in question are popular compositions, ranging from religious hymns to erotic songs. Sophisticated poets who used ionics maintained stricter standards. It is interesting to see this difference opening up, from the late fifth century onward, |
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50 See my Greek Metre, 127, 142-7. 167-8. |
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