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Page 266
Rhythmic and articulatory' notation
We saw in Chapter 5 that Greek music for the most part used only two different note values, monoseme and diseme, while certain rhythms also made use of trisemes. Not until the second century AD (p. 202) do we find a wider range of possibilities in common use. The need for a multiplicity of rhythmic symbols was accordingly limited. The Anonymus Bellermanni (1, 3, 83) lists the following:
db1017e3fd9b6bbecd5f283ecd392883.gif db1017e3fd9b6bbecd5f283ecd392883.gif
0266-001.gif 'two-time long' (diseme)
0266-002.gif 'three-time long' (triseme)
0266-003.gif 'four-time long' (tetraseme)
0266-004.gif 'five-time long' (pentaseme).
In the musical documents the diseme symbol occurs frequently, written above (or occasionally just to the right of) vocal or instrumental notes. In vocal texts, however, diseme notes are often unmarked as such, their rhythmic value being left to be inferred from the metre of the words. The triseme symbol is found in one or two papyri and one inscription, but generally in the form 0266-005.gif.29 The tetraseme and pentaseme signs are not attested outside the Anonymus; in the Berlin Paean (40), where the tempo is slow and long syllables are set to the shorter note-values and double-length longs to the longer ones, diseme signs are used for the latter. No sign for monosemes is attested, though in non-musical verse texts the metrical long-sign had a short counterpart 0266-006.gif, and presumably this might have been used if need arose.
The duration of a long note could be made up from a shorter note plus a rest. A monoseme rest, called a leimma,30 was denoted by the initial letter of that word, 0266-007.gif, sometimes given a peculiar rounded shape, 0266-008.gif. A diseme rest was denoted by the same sign surmounted by the diseme symbol, 0266-009.gif or 0266-010.gif.31 Besides being used to mark actual pauses, rests are sometimes written to show that the following note is delayed, in other words that the preceding note is prolonged. For
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298 PVindob. G 29825(c) 2: 15 Seikilos epitaph. For other papyri see Pöhlmann, DAM 125, 138; M. W. Haslam in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri xliv (1976), 60, n. on fr. 4.3. One of the unpublished Hellenistic fragments appears to have the form 0266-011.gif.
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30 Aristid. Quint. p. 38. 29, defined as 'minimum empty time'. Anon. Bellerm. 102 calls it a 'short empty (time)' (kenos brachys).
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31 Aristides loc. cit. calls this prosthesis; Anon. Bellerm. calls it a 'long empty', and adds a 'triple long empty' (0266-012.gif) and 'quadruple long empty' (0266-013.gif). Cf. Quint. Inst. 9. 4. 51.

 
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