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TABLE 3.1.
Evidence from vase-painting for lyres with more than 9 strings |
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Berlin Antiqu. 8519(bronze mirror) |
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Literary evidence, some of it contemporary, confirms that from the middle of the fifth century certain provocative citharodes were adding extra strings to their instruments. Aristophanes alludes to a new music that rejoices in having gone beyond the monotony of seven notes; Ion of Chios, who died in 422, wrote a poem acclaiming the novelty of an eleven-stringed lyre; Pherecrates speaks of Timotheus raping Music with his dozen strings; Timotheus himself glories in having brought forth a kithara with 'eleven-note measures and rhythms'.71 Later writers produce various conflicting lists of who first added the eighth string, who the ninth, who the tenth, and so on.72 Some of the names are unknown to us and may be legendary, but from the ones we recognize it is evident that the increase beyond |
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70 M. Jatta, Mon. Ant. 16 (1906), tav. 3. |
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71 Ar. fr. 467, Ion fr. 32 West, Pherecr. fr. 155. 25, Timoth. PMG 791. 229. The interpretation of the last passage is contested. Whatever it is that Timotheus had eleven of, he says that Terpander had ten, which was itself an advance over the original lyre of Orpheus. A reference to nine-string melodies by the early comic poet Chionides (fr. 4) is probably to harp music; see below, p. 349. |
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72 U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Timotheos (Leipzig, 1903). 74, Gombosi, op. cit. 64f. According to Nicomachus, p. 274. 6 J., the number eventually reached eighteen. |
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