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accompanied himself. One or two of the representations actually show a seated player who might be taken for such a performer.16 The majority, however, show the player standing and accompanying male, female, or mixed groups of dancers. The instrument appears quite large, often large enough to reach from the player's waist to the top of his head. Perhaps its size owes something to artistic licence, but the kitharas of sixth- and fifth-century painting on the whole maintain a similar height in relation to their players. |
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In the seventh century seven-stringed kitharas begin to appear more regularly. Some of them are still round-based and not noticeably different in design from the eighth-century models, apart from the greater number of strings. Some, however, represent a distinctly different design. They are flat-bottomed, and their arms are more obviously composite: the lower sections, rising from and continuing the soundbox, curve round towards each other, while the upper sections, which carry the crossbar, are straight and parallel. In the finest example, engraved on a piece of bronze armour from towards the end of the century,17 the insides of the lower arms are carved into elaborate volutes. What we see here is closely similar to the standard kithara of the Classical period as depicted on very many Attic and Italian vases. When pseudo-Plutarch tells us18 that the form of the kithara was established in the time of Kepion, a pupil of Terpander, it was no doubt the Classical kithara that his source had in mind. The association of its design with a citharode of the earlier seventh century is consistent enough with the evidence of art for us to suspect that Kepion's name was preserved by a genuine tradition among citharodes, though his subordination to the famous Terpander might well be a secondary construction. And if one genuine tradition about innovation in kithara design survived from that time, we have the more reason to attach weight to the tradition of an earlier four-stringed lyre. |
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The Athenian vase-painters render the curlicues on the inner arms of the kithara in a very detailed and consistent way (P1. 14): they no longer look like mere ornamentation, but like some kind of mechanism for releasing or adjusting the tension of the arms. This is |
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16 Especially a Cretan bronze figurine of the late eighth century, Heraklion 2064 (Pl. 13); cf. J. N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece (London, 1977). 284. 'a seated minstrel singing to a four-stringed lyre'. |
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17 Said to be in a private collection on Zacynthus: illustrated in Wegner. Bilder, 45; Aign, 238, Maas-Snyder, 45. |
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18De mus. 1133c. |
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