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battle 'slowly, to the music of many pipers, as is their established custom, not for religious reasons but so that their approach should be even and rhythmical and their line not broken, as tends to happen with large forces as they come forward'. Plutarch develops the picture further: |
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When their battle-line was ready drawn up, with the enemy looking on, the king would slaughter the nanny-goat, giving the word for everyone to put on wreaths and telling the pipers to pipe the Castor tune, while he gave the lead in the marching paean. It was a solemn and terrifying sight to see them, stepping in time to the pipe, with no split in their line and no disturbance in their spirits, calmly and cheerfully following the music into mortal danger. |
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Not only communal but also individual exertions might take their tempo from the pipe. Hipponax, in a satirical song addressed to an emaciated glutton, recommends him to drink medicine, but first to strip and do physical exercises 'while Kikon plays you Kodalos' air'.85 It was common to have a piper in attendance while training for, or sometimes competing in, athletic events of several kinds. Many sixth- and fifth-century vase-paintings bear witness to this, most frequently in connection with the long jump or with throwing the discus or javelin. We are told that for the long jump in the Olympic pentathlon the 'Pythian melody' was played, apparently by the aulete who had won the prize for piping at the Pythian Games two years previously.86 Philostratus says that the purpose was to give the jumper an additional stimulus. Other authors refer to piping as an accompaniment to boxing and (at a certain Argive festival) to wrestling.87 |
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85 Fr. 118c; my Studies in Greek Elegy and lambus, 147f. |
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86 See Pl. 10; Paus. 5. 7. 10, 17. 10; 6. 14. 10; cf. Diogenes of Seleucia, SVF iii. 225. 31 (who also mentions the discus (?) and shadow-boxing), ps.-Plut. De mus. 1140d, Philostr. De gymnastica 55. |
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87 Epicharmus fr. 210; Paus. 5. 17. 10 (the chest of Cypselus); ps.-Plut. De mus. 1140c. The Etruscans are said to have had it for boxing, and also for flogging slaves and kneading dough (Alcimus, FGrH 560F 3, Arist. fr. 608, Eratosth. FGrH 241 F 4; for kneading, cf. above, p. 28). See further Wegner, Musikleben, 101f., 192-4 (list of vases) and pl. 5a; H. A. Harris, Greek Athletes and Athletics (London, 1964), 81, 84, and pl. 7, 12b; J. Jüthner, Philostratos über Gymnastik (Leipzig and Berlin, 1909), 301, and Die athletischen Leibesübungen der Griechen, ii(1) (Sitz. Wien 249. 2, 1968), 163 Abb. 36, 174 Abb. 48, 220, 341, and pl. 46a, 52, 55b, 60, 90, 94b. |
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