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The heptagonon mentioned by Aristotle135 as a hedonistic instrument (like the trigonon and iambyke) is something of a mystery. It may have been another type of harp, to judge from the context, but it is hard to conceive of a harp with seven corners. |
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Finally, for the sake of completeness, I refer to the Indica which appears in a very late and indiscriminate list of stringed instruments that must go back to an older Greek or Latin source.136 It was apparently a harp or lyre set up on a stand, or large enough to stand on the ground, as it was 'struck' by two players at once.137 |
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Pollux lists a simikon (or according to two manuscripts simikion), which had thirty-five strings, and an epigoneion, which had forty. These figures are far higher than seems to have been usual for Greek harps, and Sachs suggested that the instruments in question were in fact board zithers, that is, that the strings were strung horizontally across the surface of a broad soundbox that extended under their whole length. That the epigoneion was originally played in a horizontal position is suggested by Juba's statement that 'it has now been modified into an upright psalterion' while retaining its original name. Three later Roman sarcophagi do carry representations in relief of a relatively small upright zither with eight to ten strings.138 |
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The original epigoneion and the simikon may have been designed not for musical performance but for the academic study of intervals and scale-divisions. The first was named after Epigonus, a Sicyonian musician of (perhaps) the late sixth century, and he also gave his |
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(Footnote continued from previous page) |
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The name corresponds to the Hebrew nebel
*; the Jewish instrument. according to Josephus (AJ 7. 306). had twelve strings. See Sachs, HMI 115-17; É. Masson, Recherches sur les plus anciens emprunts sémitiques en grec (Paris, 1967), 67-9; A. Sendrey, Music in Ancient Israel (London, 1969), 278-89. |
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135Pol. 1341a41. |
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136 Isid. Orig. 3. 22. 3. |
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137 A nine-stringed lyre mounted on a pedestal and plucked by two players, one standing on each side, is seen on a relief from Amarna. Another with eight strings. very tall, is also represented. (N. de G. Davies, The Rock Tomb, of El Amarna, iii (1905), pl. V, VII; Behn 65 and pl. 38, figs. 86-7.) A standing lyre played by two people is also seen on a Hittite vase from Inandyk in the Ankara museum. |
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138 Poll. 4. 59, Juba, FGrH 275 F 84; Varro, Sat. Men. 352?; Sachs, HMI 137 and pl. VIIIb facing p. 144. An epigoneion psalterion is perhaps mentioned in Ath. 456 d (Chamaeleon fr. 42 Giordano: MSS. epitonion). Psalterion usually means a harp, but could in principle apply to any plucked instrument. In the Middle Ages zithers received the name psalterium, our 'psaltery'. |
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