No one will attempt to study this treatise on music, without some previous knowledge of the principles of Greek music, with its various moods, scales, and combinations of tetrachords. The whole subject is treated by Boeckh, De Metris Pindari (in Vol. I. 2 of his edition of Pindar); and more at length in Westphal’s Harmonik und Melopöie der Griechen (in Rossbach and Westphal’s Metrik, Vol. II. 1).

An elementary explanation of the ordinary scale and of the names of the notes (which are here retained without any attempt at translation) may be of use to the reader.

The most ancient scale is said to have had only four notes, corresponding to the four strings of the tetrachord. But before Terpander’s time two forms of the heptachord (with seven strings) were already in use. One of these was enlarged to an octachord (with eight strings) by adding the octave (called νήτη). This addition is ascribed to Terpander by Plutarch (§28); but he is said to have been unwilling to increase the number of strings permanently to eight, and to have therefore omitted the string called τρίτη, thus reducing the octachord again to a heptachord. The notes of the full octachord in this form, in the ordinary diatonic scale, are as follows:—

1.ὑπάτηe

2.παρυπάτηf

3.λιχανόςg

4.μέσηa

5.παραμέσηb

6.τρίτηc

7.παρανήτηd

8.νήτηe (octave)

The note called ὑπάτη (hypate, or highest) is the lowest in tone, being named from its position. So νήτη or νεάτη or lowest) is the highest in tone.

The other of the two heptachords mentioned above contained the octave, but omitted the παραμέση and had other changes in the higher notes. The scale is as follows:—

1.ὑπάτηe

2.παρυπάτηf

3.λιχανόςg

4.μέσηa

5.τρίτηb

6.παρανήτηc

7.νήτηd

This is not to be confounded with the reduced octachord of Terpander. This heptachord includes two tetrachords so united that the lowest note of one is identical with the highest note of the other; while the octachord includes two tetracllords entirely separated, with each note distinct. The former connection is called κατὰ συναφήν, the latter κατὰ διάζευξιν. Of the eight notes of the octachord, the first four (counting from the lowest), ὑπάτη, παρυπάτη, λιχανός and μέση, are the same in the heptachord; παραμέση is omitted in the heptachord; while τρίτη, παρανήτη, and νήτη in the heptachord are designated as τρίτη συνημμένων, παρανήτη συνημμένων, and νήτη συνημμένων, to distinguish them from the notes of the same name in the octachord, which sometimes have the designation διεζευγμένων, but generally are written simply τρίτη, etc.

These simple scales were enlarged by the addition of higher and lower notes, four at the bottom of the scale (i.e. before ὑπάτη), called προσλαμβανόμενος, ὑπάτη ὑπατῶν, παρυπάτη ὑπατῶν, λιχανός ὑπατῶν; and three at the top (above νήτη), called νήτη, παρανήτη, τρίτη, each with the designation ὑπερβολαίων. The lowest three notes of the ordinary octachord are here designated by μέσων, when the simple names are not used. Thus a scale of fifteen notes was made; and we have one of eighteen by including the two classes of τρίτη, παρανήτη, and νήτη designated by συνημμένων and διεζευγμένων.

The harmonic intervals, discovered by Pythagoras, are the Octave (διὰ πασῶν,) with its ratio of 2:1; the Fifth (διὰ πέντε), with its ratio of 3: 2 (λόγος ἡμιόλιος or Sesquialter); the Fourth (διὰ τεσσάρων), with its ratio of 4: 3 (λόγος ἐπίτριτος or Sesquilerce); and the Tone (τόνος), with its ratio of 9: 8 (λόγος ἐπόγδοος or Sesquioctave). (G.)

For this reason, upon the second day of the Saturnalian festival, the famous Onesicrates invited certain persons, the best skilled in music, to a banquet; by name Soterichus of Alexandria, and Lysias, one of those to whom he gave a yearly pension. After all had done and the table was cleared,—To dive, said he, most worthy friends, into the nature and reason of the human voice is not an argument proper for this merry meeting, as being a subject that requires a more sober scrutiny. But because our chiefest grammarians define the voice to be a percussion of the air made sensible to the ear, and for that we were yesterday discoursing of Grammar,—which is an art that can give the voice form and shape by means of letters, and store it up in the memory as a magazine,—let us consider what is the next science to this which may be said to relate to the voice. In my opinion, it must be music. For it is one of the chiefest and most religious duties belonging to man, to celebrate the praise of the Gods, who gave to him alone the most excelling advantage of articulate discourse, as Homer has observed in the following verses:— With sacred hymns and songs that sweetly please,The Grecian youth all day the Gods appease;Their lofty paeans bright Apollo hears,And still the charming sounds delight his ears.Il. I. 472.

Now then, you that are of the grand musical chorus, tell your friends, who was the first that brought music into use; what time has added for the advantage of the science; who have been the most famous of its professors; and lastly, for what and how far it may be beneficial to mankind.

This the scholar propounded; to which Lysias made reply. Noble Onesicrates, said he, you desire the solution of a hard question, that has been by many already proposed. For of the Platonics the most, of the Peripatetic philosophers the best, have made it their business to compile several treatises concerning the ancient music and the reasons why it came to lose its pristine perfection. Nay, the very grammarians and musicians themselves who arrived to the height of education have expended much time and study upon the same subject, whence has arisen great variety of discording opinions among the several writers. Heraclides in his Compendium of Music asserts, that Amphion, the son of Jupiter and Antiope, was the first that invented playing on the harp and lyric poesy, being first instructed by his father; which is confirmed by a small manuscript, preserved in the city of Sicyon, wherein is set down a catalogue of the priests, poets, and musicians of Argos. In the same age, he tells us, Linus the Euboean composed several elegies; Anthes of Anthedon in Boeotia was the first author of hymns, and Pierus of Pieria the first that wrote in the praise of the Muses. Philammon also, the Delphian, set forth in verse a poem in honor of the nativity of Latona, Diana, and Apollo, and was the first that instituted dancing about the temple of Delphi. Thamyras, of Thracian extraction, had the best voice and the neatest manner of singing of any of his time; so that the poets feigned him to be a contender with the Muses. He is said to have described in a poem the Titans’ war against the Gods. There was also Demodocus the Corcyraean, who is said to have written the Destruction of Troy, and the Nuptials of Vulcan and Venus; and then Phemius of Ithaca composed a poem, entitled The Return of those who came back with Agamemnon from Troy. Not that any of these stories before cited were compiled in a style like prose without metre; they were rather like the poems of Stesichorus and other ancient lyric poets, who composed in heroic verse and added a musical accompaniment. The same Heraclides writes that Terpander, the first that instituted the lyric nomes, According to K. O. Müller (History of Greek Literature, Chap. XII § 4), the nomes were musical compositions of great simplicity and severity, something resembling the most ancient melodies of our church music. (G.) set verses of Homer as well as his own to music according to each of these nomes, and sang them at public trials of skill. He also was the first to give names to the lyric nomes. In imitation of Terpander, Clonas, an elegiac and epic poet, first instituted nomes for flute-music, and also the songs called Prosodia.Προσόδια were songs sung to the music of flutes by processions, as they marched to temples or altars; hence, songs of supplication. (G.) And Polymnestus the Colophonian in later times used the same measure in his compositions.

Now the measures appointed by these persons, noble Onesicrates, in reference to such songs as are to be sung to the flutes or pipes, were distinguished by these names, —Apothetus, Elegiac, Comarchius, Schoenion, Cepion, Tenedius, and Trimeles (or of three parts).

To these succeeding ages added another sort, which were called Polymnastia. But the measures set down for those that played and sung to the harp, being the invention of Terpander, were much more ancient than the former. To these he gave the several appellations of Boeotian, Aeolian, Trochaean, the Acute, Cepion, Terpandrian, and Tetraoedian.See Rossbach and Westphal, II. 1, p. 84. (G.) And Terpander made preludes to be sung to the lyre in heroic verse. Besides, Timotheus testifies how that the lyric nomes were anciently appropriated to epic verses. For Timotheus merely intermixed the dithyrambic style with the ancient nomes in heroic measure, and thus sang them, that he might not seem to make too sudden an innovation upon the ancient music. But as for Terpander, he seems to have been the most excellent composer to the harp of his age, for he is recorded to have been four times in succession a victor at the Pythian games. And certainly he was one of the most ancient musicians in the world; for Glaucus the Italian in his treatise of the ancient poets and musicians asserts him to have lived before Archilochus, affirming him to be the second next to those that first invented wind-music.

Alexander in his Collections of Phrygia says, that Olympus was the first that brought into Greece the manner of touching the strings with a quill; and next to him were the Idaean Dactyli; Hyagnis was the first that sang to the pipe; after him his son Marsyas, then Olympus; that Terpander imitated Homer in his verses and Orpheus in his musical compositions; but that Orpheus never imitated any one, since in his time there were none but such as composed to the pipe, which was a manner quite different from that of Orpheus. Clonas, a composer of nomes for flute-music, and somewhat later than Terpander, as the Arcadians affirm, was born in Tegea or, as the Boeotians allege, at Thebes. After Terpander and Clonas flourished Archilochus; yet there are some writers who affirm, that Ardalus the Troezenian taught the manner of composing to wind-music before Clonas. There was also the poet Polymnestus, the son of Meles the Colophonian, who invented the Polymnestian measures. They farther write that Clonas invented the nomes Apothetus and Schoenion. Of Polymnestus mention is made by Pindar and Alcman, both lyric poets; but of several of the lyric nomes said to be instituted by Terpander they make Philammon (the ancient Delphian) author.