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Archaic vases. The processional song, prosodion, was recognized by the ancients as a particular category of choral lyric, to which great poets such as Pindar and Bacchylides made contributions. What may be the oldest surviving fragment of Greek lyric verse comes from a processional composed for a Messenian contingent going to sacrifice on Delos.8 A number of eighth- and early seventh-century vases show processions or processional dances, apparently of a ritual nature, accompanied by the lyre, the pipes, or both.9 |
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The central sacrifice and the preparation of the meat for the sacrificial feast were carried out with a musician in attendance, again usually a piper; the absence of pipes is one of the things that Herodotus finds noteworthy in Persian sacrifices.10 In some cults there were traditional hymns, invocations, or formulae sung round the altar. Then came the feast, a joyful occasion in which music might play a further part. |
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We often hear of choruses of men, boys, or girls in connection with festivals, and we often see them represented in art.11 The two most widely recognized species of cultic song were the paean and the dithyramb. The paean, which might be anything from a brief solemnity consisting of little more than the formula Ie Paian, Ie Paian, sung in unison, to a long and elaborate song like the Paeans of Pindar, was particularly often heard, and in one form or another it was something that every man on occasion joined in singing. It had a firm place in private social life as an auspicious thing to sing after a dinner, at the beginning of a symposium, or in a wedding procession. It was frequently sung by soldiers or sailors at moments of exaltation, whether going into battle, or during it, or returning from it in triumph. There were many public festivals at which the paean had its place as a holy song, for example the Panathenaea at Athens, the Theoxenia at Delphi, the Hyakinthia and the Gymnopaidiai at Sparta. It could also be sung ad hoc as a civic response to some exceptional event, either as a prayer for deliverance from danger or |
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8PMG 696. It is ascribed to Eumelus, sometime before 735 BC. This may be too earlyit is doubtful whether Delos enjoyed such national importance in the 8th c.but the fragment may go back to the time of the Messenian revolt from Sparta, c. 660. |
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9 See Pl. 2; Maas-Snyder, 11, 19-23 figs. 5b, 7a, 10-13; 48 fig. 13a. |
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10 J. Quasten, Musik und Gesang in den Kulten der heidnischen Antike und christlicher Fruhzeit (Liturgiegeschichtl. Quellen und Forschungen 25, Münster, 1930). 6-9, 42f.: Hdt. 1. 132. 1; Men. Dyscolus 432; Apollod. Bibl. 3. 15.7. Evidence from vase paintings: Wegner, Mlusikleben, 97f., 191. |
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11 See generally Webster. |
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