|
|
|
|
|
|
|
However, this would be something quite unlike Stesichorus' songs, and presumably unlike Xenocritus'. It is an arrangement more suited to the dramatic enactment of scenes from legend, as in the Sappho fragment where the lead singer plays the part of Aphrodite and enacts with her chorus the death of Adonis.49 At Sicyon in the early sixth century the story of Adrastus was ritually portrayed by 'tragic' choruses, where there may well have been this kind of antiphony.50 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The dictators who held power in various cities at various times were sometimes instrumental in reforming festivals and festival music, or, by their patronage, attracted outstanding musicians from other places and so contributed towards a cross-fertilization of local traditions. Periander's hospitality kept Arion much at Corinth, and the new form of dithyramb was instituted as a result. At Sicyon Cleisthenes, for political reasons, changed the nature of the 'tragic' performances, and put a stop to those of the rhapsodes. At Athens the organization of the Great Panathenaea as a musical festival seems slightly to pre-date Pisistratus' rise to power, but he may have influenced its further development. It was during his rule that Thespis transformed the enactment of mythical scenes by Dionysiac choruses into tragedy, by adding a speaker. At Samos Aeaces and his son Polycrates gathered notable singers to their court. Here Ibycus from Rhegium, a man trained in the same western tradition as Stesichorus, came together with Anacreon, who composed in the closed strophes of Ionian tradition. Poetically the two have certain ideas in common, but the formal difference is fascinating. In one respect it looks as if Ibycus has picked up an east Greek rhythmical device.51 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
After the fall of Polycrates Anacreon found another patron at Athens in Pisistratus' son Hipparchus. Here again different currents were running together. Hipparchus' circle also embraced Lasus of Hermione and Simonides. His elder brother Hippias was managing the city, and Hipparchus himself had power enough to influence its cultural life. It was he who developed the rhapsodes' competition at the Great Panathenaea into an organized serial performance of the whole Iliad and Odyssey.52 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
49 Sappho loc. cit. Similarly in the 5th c. with Bacchylides' Theseus, and probably Telesilla, PMG 717; Eur. Hipp. 58-71. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
50 Hdt. 5. 67. 5. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
51 Choriambic expansion (above, p. 149). See my Greek Metre, 52. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
52 Ps.-Pl. Hipparch. 228b, cf. 228c (Anacreon, Simonides), Hdt. 7. 6. 3 (Lasus). |
|
|
|
|
|