The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus Part 52

And in his Bottle-bearer he says--

_A._ What have you done, you Syrian, with your monaulos?

_B._ What monaulos?

_A._ The reed.

And Sopater, in his Bacchis, says--

And then he sang a song on the monaulos.

But Protagorides of Cyzicus, in the second book of his treatise on the a.s.semblies in Honour of Daphne, says, "He touched every kind of instrument, one after another, castanets, the weak-sounding pandurus, but he drew the sweetest harmony from the sweet monaulos. And Posidonius the Stoic philosopher, in the third book of his Histories, speaking of the war of the Apameans against the Larissaeans, writes as follows--"Having taken short daggers sticking in their waists, and small lances covered with rust and dirt, and having put veils and curtains over their heads which produce a shade but do not hinder the wind from getting to their necks, dragging on a.s.ses laden with wine and every sort of meat, by the side of which were packed little photinges and little monauli, instruments of revelry, not of war." But I am not ignorant that Amerias the Macedonian, in his Dialects, says, that the monaulos is called t.i.tyrinus. So here you have, O excellent Ulpian, a man who mentions the photinx. But that the monaulos was the same instrument which is now called calamaules, or reedfife, is clearly shown by Hedylus, in his Epigrams, where he says--

Beneath this mound the tuneful Theon lies, Whom the monaulos knew its sweetest lord; Scirpalus' son; age had destroy'd his sight, And when he was a child his sire him call'd Eupalamus in his first birthday ode, Showing that he was a choice bouquet where The virtues all had met. For well he sung The Muses' sports amid their wine-glad revels; He sang to Battalus, an eager drinker Of unmix'd wine, and Cotalus and Paencalus.

Say then to Theon with his calamaules, Farewell, O Theon, tunefullest of men.

As, therefore, they now call those who play on a pipe of reeds (???a??) calamaules, so also they call them now rapaules, according to the statement of Amerias the Macedonian, in his dialects.

79. But I wish you to know, my most excellent Ulpian, that a more musical and accomplished people than the Alexandrians is not mentioned.

And I do not speak only of playing on the harp, with which even the poorest people among us, and those who do not make a profession of it, and who are utterly ignorant of every other kind of learning, are so familiarized that they can in a moment detect any error which has been made in striking the strings,--but especially are they skilful with the flute; and not only in those which are called girls' flutes and boys'

flutes, but also in men's flutes, which are called perfect and superperfect; and also in those which are called harp-flutes and finger-flutes. For the flutes called elymi, which Sophocles mentions in his Niobe and in his Drummers, we do not understand to be anything but the common Phrygian flute. And these, too, the Alexandrians are very skilful in. They are acquainted also with the flute with two holes, and also with the intermediate flute, and with those which are called hypotreti, or bored underneath. And Callias also speaks of the flute called elymi, in his Pedetae. But Juba says that they are an invention of the Phrygians, and that they were also called scytaliae, from their resemblance in thickness to the scytale. And Cratinus the younger says that the Cyprians also use them, in his Theramenes. We know, too, of some which are called half-bored, of which Anacreon says--

What l.u.s.t has now seized thus upon your mind, To wish to dance to tender half-bored flutes?

And these flutes are smaller than the perfect flutes. At all events, aeschylus says, speaking metaphorically, in his Ixion--

But very soon the greater swallows up The lesser and the half-bored flute.

And these half-bored flutes are the same as those which are called boys'

flutes, which they use at banquets, not being fit for the games and public shows; on which account Anacreon called them tender.

80. I am acquainted, too, with other kinds of flutes, the tragic flute, and the lysiodic[283:1] flute, and the harplike flute; all which are mentioned by Ephorus, in his Inventions, and by Euphranor the Pythagorean, in his treatise on Flutes, and also by Alexon, who wrote another treatise on Flutes. But the flute made of reeds is called t.i.tyrinus among the Dorians in Italy, as Artemidorus the Aristophanian tells us, in the second book of his History of Doris. And the flute which is called magadis, which is also named palaeo-magadis, sends forth a sharp and a deep note at the same time, as Anaxandrides says in his Armed Fighter--

I will speak like a magadis, both loudly and gently.

And the flutes called lotus flutes are the same which are called photinges by the Alexandrians; and they are made of the plant called the lotus; and this is a wood which grows in Libya. But Juba says that the flute which is made out of the leg bones of the kid is an invention of the Thebans; and Tryphon says that those flutes also which are called elephantine flutes were first bored among the Phnicians. I know, too, that the magadis is a stringed instrument, as is the harp, the lyre, and the barbitos. But Euphorion the epic poet says in his book on the Isthmian Games--"Those men who are now called players on the nablas, and on the pandurus, and on the sambuca, do not use any new instrument, for the baromus and the barbitos (both of which are mentioned by Sappho and Anacreon), and the magadis, and the triangle, and the sambuca are all ancient instruments. At all events, a statue of one of the Muses was erected in Mitylene by Lesbothemis, holding a sambuca in her hand." But Aristoxenus calls the following foreign instruments--phnices, and pectides, and magadides, and sambucae, and triangles, and clepsiambi, and scindapsi, and the instrument called the enneachord or nine-stringed instrument. But Plato, in the third book of his Polity, states--"'We shall not, then,' said I, 'have much need of many strings or of much harmony in our songs and melodies.' 'I think not,' said he. 'But we shall have triangles, and pectides, and all sorts of instruments which have many strings and are very harmonious.'"

81. But the scindapsus is an instrument of four strings, as Matron the parodist says in the following lines--

Nor did they hang it upon pegs where hung The sweet scindapsus with its fourfold strings, Joy of the woman who the distaff hates.

And Theopompus the Colophonian likewise mentions it, the Epic poet, I mean, in his poem ent.i.tled the Chariot--

Shaking the large and lyre-toned scindapsus, Made of young tamarisk, in his skilful hand.

Anaxilas, too, in his Lyre Maker, says--

But I was making three-string'd barbiti, Pectides, citharae, lyres, and scindapsi.

But Sopater the parodist, in his poem ent.i.tled "The Initiated," says that the pectis is an instrument with two strings, saying--

The pectis, proud of its barbaric muse, With its two strings was placed within my hand.

The instrument called pariambis is mentioned by Epicharmus, in his Periallus, in this way--

But Semele doth dance and he doth sing Tunefully on his pariambis lyre, And she rejoices at the rapid song.

Now it was Alexander of Cythera, according to the account given by Juba, who completed the psaltery with its full number of strings. And he, when he had grown old in the city of the Ephesians, suspended this instrument in the temple of Diana, as being the most skilful invention he had made with reference to his art. Juba mentions also the lyrophnix and the Epigonius, which, though now it is transformed into the upright psaltery, still preserves the name of the man who was the first to use it. But Epigonius was by birth an Ambraciot, but he was subsequently made a citizen of Sicyon. And he was a man of great skill in music, so that he played the lyre with his bare hand without a plectrum. For the Alexandrians have great experience and skill in all the above-named instruments and kinds of flutes. And whichever of them you wish me to try, I will exhibit my own skill before you, though there are many others in my country more musical and skilful than I am.

82. But Alexander, my fellow-citizen, and he has only lately died; having given a public exhibition of his skill on the instrument called the triangle, made all the Romans so music-mad that even now most people recollect the way in which he used to play. And Sophocles speaks of this triangle in his Mysians, saying--

The constant music of the Phrygian Tender triangle, and the concerted strains Of the shrill Lydian pectis sounded too.

And in his Thamyras he also mentions it. But Aristophanes, in his Daitaleis, and Theopompus, in his Penelope, likewise speak of it. And Eupolis, in his Baptae, says--

Who plays the drum with wondrous skill, And strikes the strings of the triangle.

And the instrument called the pandurus is mentioned, as has been said before, by Euphorion, and by Protagorides, in the second book of his treatise on the a.s.semblies in honour of Daphne. But Pythagoras, who wrote a book on the Red Sea, says that the Troglodytae make the panduri out of the daphne which grows on the seash.o.r.e.

But horns and trumpets are the invention of the Etrurians. But Metrodorus the Chian, in his history of the Affairs of Troy, says that Marsyas invented the pipe and flute at Celaenae, when all his predecessors had played on a single reed. But Euphorion the epic poet, in his treatise on the Modulation of Songs, says that Mercury invented the pipe which consists of one single reed; but that some say that Seuthes and Ronaces the Medes did so; and that Sileuus invented the pipe which is made of many reeds, and that Marsyas invented that one which is joined together with wax.

83. This then, O my word-hunting Ulpian, is what you may learn from us Alexandrians, who are very fond of the music of the monaulos. For you do not know that Menecles the Barcaean compiler, and also that Andron, in his Chronicles, him of Alexandria I mean, a.s.sert that it is the Alexandrians who instructed all the Greeks and the barbarians, when the former encyclic mode of education began to fail, on account of the incessant commotions which took place in the times of the successors of Alexander. There was subsequently a regeneration of all sorts of learning in the time of Ptolemy the seventh king of Egypt, the one who was properly called by the Alexandrians Cacergetes; for he having murdered many of the Alexandrians, and banished no small number of those who had grown up to manhood with his brother, filled all the islands and cities with men learned in grammar, and philosophy, and geometry, with musicians, and painters, and schoolmasters, and physicians, and men of all kinds of trades and professions; who, being driven by poverty to teach what they knew, produced a great number of celebrated pupils.

84. But music was a favourite amus.e.m.e.nt of all the Greeks of old time; on which account also skill in playing the flute was much aimed at.

Accordingly, Chamaeleon of Heraclia, in his book ent.i.tled Protrepticus, says that the Lacedaemonians and Thebans all learned to play on the flute, and the inhabitants of Heraclea in Pontus devoted themselves to the same study down to his own time. And that so did the most ill.u.s.trious of the Athenians, Callias the son of Hipponicus, and Critias the son of Callaeschrus. But Duris, in his treatise on Euripides and Sophocles, says that Alcibiades learnt music, not of any ordinary master, but of p.r.o.nomus, who had the very highest reputation in that line. And Aristoxenus says that Epaminondas the Theban learnt to play the flute of Olympiodorus and Orthagoras. And likewise, many of the Pythagoreans practised the art of flute-playing, as Euphranor, and Archytas, and Philolaus, and many others. But Euphranor has also left behind an essay on Flutes, and so too has Archytas. And Aristophanes shows us, in his Daitaleis, the great eagerness with which men applied themselves to this study, when he says--

I who am wasted quite away In the study of flutes and harps, Am I now to be sent to dig?

And Phrynichus, in his Ephialtes, says--

But were not you the man who taught him once To play upon the flute and well-strung harp?

And Epicharmus, in his Muses, says that Minerva played a martial strain to the Dioscuri. And Ion, in his Phnician, or Caeneus, calls the flute a c.o.c.k, speaking thus:--

The c.o.c.k then sang the Greeks a Lydian hymn.

And also, in his Garrison, he calls the pipe the Idaean c.o.c.k, using the following expression:--

The pipe, th'Idaean c.o.c.k, precedes your steps.

And, in the Second Phnix, the same Ion writes--

I made a noise, bringing the deep-toned flute With fluent rhythm.

Where he means Phrygian rhythm; and he calls the Phrygian flute deep-toned. For it is deep; on which account they also add a horn to it, having a similarity to the bell mouth of trumpets.

So now this book may be ended, my friend Timocrates; as it is quite long enough.