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sensual, erotic, and adulterous songs, 117 and in general it appears in contexts of love and pleasure, from Sappho's time on. Anacreon speaks of a boy carrying one in a dance, but its usual place is the banqueting-room or the boudoir, and its players, in the Classical period, are nearly always women.118 Later we hear of male exponents who gave solo recitals or taught the young.119 |
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We come next to the instrument which is usually called sambyke (Latin sambuca), but in the earliest references iambyke and in two late lexica zambyke; the variations probably represent different renderings of a foreign word that began with a sound like zh.120 Some Hellenistic antiquarians assumed the iambyke to be something different from the sambyke, and speculated that it used to accompany the singing of iamboi.121 But its associations in Eupolis are just those of the sambyke later, and iamboi have nothing to do with it. |
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The instrument had short strings and a high register.122 We have an idea of its form, because there was a kind of Roman siege engine that presented a similar appearance and was named after it. It was for scaling a wall where the approach was by water. A broad, covered stairway was mounted on the prows of two ships lashed together, projecting out to the front, and it was raised into position by means of cables which passed over pulleys high on the masts and were |
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117 Chionides fr. 4; Eup. and Plato Com. locc. citt. These two speak of the trigonos, and Aristotle distinguishes this from the pektis as being more voluptuous (Pol. 1341a 40). |
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118 Anac. PMG 386; Wegner, Musikleben 50f., 92; Maas-Snyder, 147-54, 181-2. |
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119 Recitalists: Alcidamas(?) in PHib. 13. 7. 25, Machon 104 ff., IG 11. 105, 120 (Delos, 284, 236 BC; in the latter, two psaltai perform meta prosoidiou, 'with accompanying song'), Plut. Quomodo adul. 67f, Chares, FGrH 125 F 4, etc. Teachers: Men. fr. 430a Koerte. SIG 578. 15 (Teos, 2nd c. BC). |
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120Iamb- Eup. fr. 148. 4, and manuscript variation points to this in Arist. Pol. 1341a 41, zamb- Hsch., Phot. It is listed as a foreign import by Aristox. fr. 97, Juba, FGrH 275 F 15(?), Strab. 10. 3. 17. Sammû is a Babylonian type of lyre. A similar fluctuation between s- and z- occurs in the name of the Thracian deity Salmoxis/ Zalmoxis. Neanthes, FGrH 84 F 5 (cf. Suda ii. 607. 19). claimed that the sambyke was invented by Ibycus. This might mean that Ibycus provided the first mention of it in literature, but it may be merely an attempt to derive iambyke from Ibykos, just as Serous, FGrH 396 F 1. postulated an inventor Sambyx to avoid the assumption of foreign origin. |
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121 Phillis ap. Ath. 636b, Hsch., Phot., Suda. |
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122 Ath. 633f; Aristid. Quint. p. 85. 10, who comments on its feminine and ignoble sound. |
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