|
|
|
|
|
|
|
make it into an art form.45 In some other places, however, wealthy families instituted commemorative dirges. At Corinth the noble Bacchius' Megarian wife was lamented annually by a chorus of fifty young men and girls sent from Megara.46 Sophocles represents Clytaemestra as having decreed monthly sacrifices and choral performances in commemoration of Agamemnon.47 The Cypriot prince Nicocles honoured his dead father with 'choruses and music' as well as with athletic contests and horse and naval races.48 At Megalopolis Philopoemen was honoured following his death in 182 BC with annual sacrifices and encomia sung by the young.49 Dirges commissioned from such poets as Simonides and Pindar achieved literary currency. We know nothing of the circumstances in which they were performed; they may have been either semi-public or purely domestic occasions. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Domestic and personal music-making |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In the society portrayed in the Homeric poems it is music and song that provide the normal entertainment of the household, especially epic song of the type practised by Homer himself. The bards Phemius and Demodocus are attached to the kings' mansions in Ithaca and Scheria respectively, and they are called upon to play their lyres and sing of the deeds of men while the company eats and drinks and listens.50 Odysseus considers that there is no greater pleasure than that of sitting at a feast, well supplied with food and wine, and listening to a bard.51 These singers also provide music for dancing.52 and in one episode Demodocus gives an outdoor performance either after or simultaneously with a dance by a group of boys.53 The Trojans and their allies, settled round their camp-fires for the night, divert themselves with auloi and panpipes.54 Under the |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
45 F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrées des cités grecques (Paris, 1969), nos. 77C 15 (Delphi), 97A 11 (Ioulis); Plut. Sol 21. 5; Alexiou, op. cit. 14-23; Garland, op. cit. 21f. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
46Anecd. Bekk. 281. 26, cf. Zenobius (vulg.) 5.8 in Leutsch-Schneidewin, Corpus Paroemiographorum Graecorum, i. 117. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
47El. 277-81. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
48 Isoc. 9. 1. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
49 Diod. 29. 21. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
50Od. 1. 150-5, 325-422; 8. 43-108, 471-541; 17. 261-71, 358-60; 22. 330-56; cf. Stesichorus, SLG 148. 3-4. The lyre is called 'dinner's companion', Od. 8.99, 17.271. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
51Od. 9.5-11. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
52. Od. 1. 152, 421; 4.17-19; 23. 133-47. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
53Od. 8. 250-369; see J. B. Hainsworth's notes on 254 and 256-384 in A. Heubeck and others, A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey, i (Oxford, 1988), 362. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
54Il. 10. 13. |
|
|
|
|
|