Page:The Tragic Drama of the Greeks (1896).djvu/32

This page needs to be proofread.
18
EARLY HISTORY OF GREEK TRAGEDY.
[CH.

forms, as to introduce order, system, and regularity into those which already existed. Thus it was he, most likely, who fixed the number of dancers at fifty—a number which was never afterwards changed[1]. He may also have been the author of the antistrophic arrangement of the verse[2]. This arrangement, which was common to all the lyrical compositions of the Dorians, as systematised by the poets of the seventh century, was intended to guide and regulate the alternate movements of the dancers. But it is hardly likely to have been employed in the earliest form of the dithyramb, since it implies a greater precision in the evolutions of the dance than seems consistent with the character of the old folk-songs.

Arion is sometimes said to have revolutionised the musical character of the dithyramb, and to have converted it into a more dignified species of composition, by substituting the grave Doric mode for the emotional music of the Phrygian style, and by employing the harp as well as the flute[3]. But the evidence for these assertions is far from reliable[4]. And the fact that in later times the dithyramb was always set to Phrygian music, and to the accompaniment of the flute, renders it improbable that Arion should have effected any such inno-

  1. ↑ Simonides, epigr. 147 πεντήκοντ' ἀνδρῶν καλὰ μαθόντι χορῷ. Schol. Aesch. Timarch. § 11 πεντήκοντα παίδων χορὸν ἢ ἀνδρῶν. Pollux 4. 110. Tzetzes ad Lycoph. p. 1.
  2. ↑ Aristot. Probl. 19. 15 διὸ καὶ οἱ διθύραμβοι, ἐπειδὴ μιμητικοὶ ἐγένοντο, οὐκέτι ἔχουσιν ἀντιστρόφους· πρότερον δὲ εἶχον. Dion. Hal. Comp. Verb. 19 ἐπεὶ παρά γε τοῖς ἀρχαίοις τεταγμένος ἧν ὁ διθύραμβος.
  3. ↑ Sittl, Griech. Literatur. 3, p. 113. K.O. Müller, Greek Literature, p. 204.
  4. ↑ The only evidence for the employment of the Doric mode is Simonides' epigram on the dithyrambic victory of the tribe Acamanthis (epigr. 148 εὖ δ' ἐτιθηνεῖτο γλυκερὰν ὄπα Δωρίοις Ἀρίστων | Ἀργεῖος ἡδὺ πνεῦμα χέων καθαροῖς ἐν αὐλοῖς.) Here however Bergk conj. Δωριεύς. In any case the testimony only applies to the fifth century B.C. The fragment of Pratinas (Bergk, p. 1219), where he speaks of τὰν ἐμὰν Δώριον χορείαν, is from a hyporcheme, not a dithyramb. It is true that the latest dithyrambic poets mixed the Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian modes in the same dithyramb; but the practice was regarded as an unjustifiable licence. The introduction of the harp along with the flute is inferred from the fact that Arion is said to have been the greatest harp-player of his time. But there is nothing to show that he used the harp in his dithyrambs. The hymns and proems which he is known to have composed (Proclus, Chrest. c. 14; Suidas v. Ἀρίων) would naturally be set to the harp.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.