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soundbox rises up next to her body and arches away from it; the strings are vertical, the longest ones being furthest from her. The second type is similar except that it is a frame harp, having a front pillar. The third is markedly different. It is again a frame harp with the neck at the bottom and vertical stringing, but the soundbox is straight, spindle-shaped (widest in the middle, tapering to the ends), and usually on the far side from the player.103 This type, sometimes called 'spindle harp', is rarely seen after the end of the fifth century.104 |
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Besides pektis, Attic writers refer to the trigonos or trigonon ('triangular'), which is evidently not a synonym of pektis.105 As the 'spindle harp' is aggressively triangular and the other types are not, it is assumed that the name trigonos belongs to it. Pektis probably covered both of the other two, which differ from each other only in the matter of the pillar. If so, it is a reasonable inference that the harp of Sappho and Alcaeus had an affinity with the Attic types with arching soundbox held next to the player. The one without the pillar is closer to oriental models and no doubt the earlier.106 |
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It is generally believed that another early Greek name for a harp was magadis. The word, which must be a derivative of magas 'bridge (of a lyre)', appears in a quotation from Alcman, where its meaning |
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103 This playing position is quite exceptional from an ethnographic point of view, to go by the distribution table in NG viii. 215. |
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104 For the artistic material see R. Herbig, MDAI(A) 54 (1929) 164-93; Wegner, Musikleben, 203-5; Paquette, 194-201; Maas-Snyder, 151-4, 161, 163-4, 181-3, 195-7. |
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105 Soph. frs. 239, 412, Eup. frs 88. 2, 148. 4, Ar. fr. 255, Pherecr. fr. 47. Plato Com. fr. 71. 13, Theopomp. Com. fr. 50, Diogenes, TrGF 45 F 1. 9, Pl. Reap. 399c, Arist. Pol. 1341a 41, Aristox. fr. 97. The masculine form trigonos is the older. Sophocles calls it Phrygian, but Diogenes has it in a Lydian context with the pektis, and Photius (a 2956-7 = Anecd. Bekk. 452-3) attributes its invention to Tyrrhenos of Lydia. Juba. FGrH 275 F 15, makes it Syrian, while Ptolemy, Harm. 3. 7, speaks of contemporary Alexandrian trigona. It is described by Aelian (ap. Porph. in Ptol. Harm p. 34. 30) as having strings of equal thickness but graded in length, the longest being furthest out. |
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106 All the ancient oriental harps are pillarless. On the 7th-c. Assyrian reliefs from Nineveh we see open angular harps with from eighteen to twenty vertical strings, held the same way round as the Attic pektis (Rimmer. pl. X, XII, XIII). Their soundboxes curve forward only slightly, if at all, but otherwise they are quite similar to the Greek instrument. An older version, with only seven strings and a very bulky soundbox, is represented on a clay plaque from Eshnunna of the early 2nd millennium (NG viii. 192, fig. 5). Cognates can be traced across Persia and Central Asia to the Far East. The soundbox of the pektis in S. Italian vase-painting is often adorned with a series of raised crests along the outer edge. This is presumably the type of harp designated by the name pelex, which normally means 'crested helmet' or 'serpent's crest' (Poll. 4. 61); see Pl. 17. |
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