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regularly at a particular house, or travelled from one community to another in search of patronage. Later there were the citharodes and auletes who performed at festivals and competed for prizes there. We cannot tell how many of them depended on their art for a livelihood, but they certainly developed a more than ordinary skill, and from time to time they introduced refinements in the construction of their instruments or in the techniques of playing them. Then there were the poet-composers like Simonides, Bacchylides, and Pindar, who created songs for a fee for patrons in various parts of the Greek world. The other category, that of those who provided a routine service, is represented by the professional mourners who sometimes appeared at funerals, and by the pipers, male or female, who played accompaniments for other people to sing to, for instance at the symposium. They were commonly slaves or hirelings, sometimes of foreign origin. |
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The former class of professional naturally enjoyed a rather higher status than the latter. Homer represents the epic singer as someone worthy of esteem and respect from everyone; like the seer, the healer, or the carpenter, he is welcome in a new place because of the special skill that he exercises for the public's benefit.110 The provision of valuable prizes for singers and instrumentalists at games presupposes that they are not people to be looked down upon. The victorious aulete in the Pythian Games of 490 BC, Midas of Acragas, was able to commission a celebratory ode from Pindar. Pindar himself obviously reckons to be a man of high standing, a friend of kings and tyrants, able to address them on equal terms. Later, virtuoso citharodes and auletes enjoyed great public acclaim, and were sometimes commemorated by public or private monuments.111 |
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But their exceptional technical ability displayed itself in musical innovations that, while delighting the ear of the crowd, displeased many educated critics who had been taught an older set of rules.112 And this new music was beyond the reach of amateur players, who were left with a static repertory that to many sounded increasingly old-fashioned. The result was a decline in private music-making, a greater tendency to leave it to the professionals, and the emergence of a snobbish feeling that it was after all not an altogether worthy |
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110Od. 8.479, 17. 382-6, cf. 22.345f. |
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111 Cf. e.g. Pliny, HN 35. 109 (Telestes), Ath. 19b (Archelaus), Paus. 9. 12. 5 (Pronomus). |
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112 See Ar. Nub. 961-72, Pl. Leg. 658e-659c, 700a-701a. |
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