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have been the first aulete of all, and Marsyas was subordinated to him by being made his son. Some Greeks thought of these people as having lived long before the Trojan War, but others put Olympus in the reign of Midas (c. 738-696). The discrepancy was dealt with by the typical device of assuming two men of the same name, an older and a younger Olympus.9 |
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It was precisely in the time of Midas that Greeks had cultural dealings with Phrygians at the highest level. Midas sent a splendid throne to Delphi as a gift. He married the daughter of a king of Cyme. And his tomb was said by the Cymaeans to bear an epigram composed by Homer when the poet was at Cyme. Perhaps it was from Cyme that Olympus' reputation went forth. One cannot feel much confidence in his historicity. But certainly the Greeks felt the aulos to be especially appropriate to the 'Phrygian' mode,10 and Phrygian slave auletes were not unfamiliar figures in Archaic Greek society.11 |
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Many of the traditional airs played on the auloi in ritual settings in the fifth and fourth centuries were attributed to Olympus, as were some of the more elaborate nomoi played in competitions.12 It may be that few of them, if any, were really as old as the eighth century, but they were admired for their inimitable old-fashioned simplicity and their uplifting quality. What is said of them provides the best clues we have to the character of Archaic aulos music. Olympus' tunes, like Terpander's, used relatively few notes, without modulation; they were 'simple and three-note'. It was Olympus who invented the enharmonic genus, initially in a form without the divided semitone, that is, a scale of pentatonic character.13 The modes he used were the Dorian, the Phrygian, and the Lydian, especially the two latter.14 |
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References to 'Phrygian melody' go back as far as Alcman and |
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9 Most of the sources for Olympus are set out by Campbell (as in n. 6). 272ff., but he overlooks Pind. fr. 157, Telestes, PMG 806., Eur. IA 576, ps.-Plut. De mus. 1137d, Philostr. Imag. 1. 20, Clem. Strom. 1. 76. 6, Tzetz. Chil. 1. 373. |
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10 Cf. the passage of Aristotle quoted on p. 180. |
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11 Alcm. PMG 109, cf. 126; Hipponax fr. 118. 12, cf. Ar. Vesp. 1371. An aulete from Acragas called Midas, Pind. Pyth. 12; a Theban one called Olympichos, Aris-todemus, FGrH 383 F 13. An aulete on an Attic amphora of c. 560 is labelled Olympos (Athens 559; Wegner, Bilder, 71). |
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12 Pratinas, PMG 713(i), Ar. Eq. 9, Pl. Smp. 215c, Minos 318b, Arist. Pol. 1340d9, Aristox. fr. 80, ps.-Plut. De mus. 1133d-f, 1141b. |
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13 Aristox. fr. 83 ap. ps.-Plut. De mus. 1134f-1135b; 1137 ab. See pp. 163, 173. |
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14 Aristox. loc. cit., also ps.-Plut. De mus. 1137d, 1143b, Poll. 4. 78. |
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