Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1016

alone would undoubtedly be a very high authority; but, in addition to the caution which is required in dealing with indirect evidence, and in addition to the testimonies which assign a different date to Terpander, it may be questioned whether the date of Sosibius for the institution of the Carneia is to be understood literally, or whether it was not derived from some other epoch by a computation which, on a different chronological system, would have given a different result. There can be little doubt that the records of Sparta, which Sosibius "may well have" followed were kept, not by Olympiads, but by the reigns of the kings, and that, in turning the dates of those early kings into Olympiads, Sosibius computed from the date which he assumed for the Trojan War, namely B.C. 1180; and that, if he had taken a different date for the Trojan War, c. g. that of B.C. 1217, he would, by the same computation, have placed the institution of the Carneia at Ol. 16, a date which would agree well enough with that really given by Hellanicus. (See Car. Müller, Frag. Hist. vol. ii. p. 626.) On the whole, then, it seems probable that the date of B.C. 676 is not quite so certain as it has been represented.

With respect to the other testimonies, that of Hellanicus, already referred to, is rendered somewhat indefinite by the, at least partly, mythological character of Midas; but, if the date has any historical value at all, it would place Terpander at least as high as Ol. 20, B.C. 700, the date of the death of Midas, according to Eusebius, confirmed by Herodotus (i. 14), who makes Midas a little older than Gyges. To the same effect is the testimony of the Lydian historian Xanthus, who lived before Hellanicus, and who placed Terpander at Ol. 18, B.C. 708 (Clem. Alex. Strom, vol. i. p. 398, Potter). Glaucus of Rhegium also, who lived not long after Hellanicus, stated that Terpander was older than Archilochus, and that he came next after those who first composed aulodic music, meaning perhaps Olympus and Clonas; and Plutarch, who quotes this statement {de Mus. iv. p. 1132, e.) introduces it with the remark, καὶ τοῑς χρόνοις δὲ σφόδρα παλαιός έστι, and presently afterwards (5, p. 1133, a) he adds, as a general historical tradition (παραδίδοται) that Archilochus flourished after Terpander and Clonas. Mr. Grote accepts these testimonies; but draws from them the inference, that Archilochus should be placed lower than he usually is, about B.C. 670 instead of 700. The statement of Hieronymus (Ath. I.e.) that Terpander was contemporary with Lycurgus, is perhaps only another form of the tradition that the laws of Lycurgus were aided by the music and poetry of Terpander and Tyrtaeus, which has evidently no chronological significance. On the other hand, Phanias made Terpander later than Archilochus (Clem. Alex. l.c), and the chronologers place his musical reform at Ol. 33, 2, B.C. 647 (Euseb.) or Ol. 34. l, B.C. 644. (Marm. Par. Ep. 34). Lastly, we are told that Terpander was victorious in the musical contest at four successive Pythian festivals; but there is abundance of evidence to prove that these Pythian musical contests were not those established by the Amphictyons in Ol. 48. 3. but some which had existed long before, and which were celebrated, according to Müller, every eight years, a circumstance which throws doubt on the number of Terpander's victories. (See Müller, Dor. b. iv. c. 6. §2; Grote, Hist, of Greece, vol. iv. p. 103, note). These discrepancies will show the great uncertainty attending the chronology of so early a period, and the danger of resting even upon an apparently definite date; although in the present case, the general comparison of the testimonies makes it far from improbable that the date first assigned is about the right one. All that can be said, with any approach to certainty, is that Terpander flourished somewhere between B.C. 700 and 650, and that his career may possibly have extended either a little above the higher, or, less probably, a little below the lower, of those dates.

Fortunately, we have clearer information respecting the scene and the nature of his artistic labours. From motives which were variously stated by tradition, he removed from Lesbos to Sparta, and there introduced his new system of music, and established the first musical school or system (κατάστασις) that existed in Greece. (Plut. de Mus. 9, p. 1134, c.: the other authorities respecting the migration of Terpander, the powerful effect of his music on the Spartans, and the honour in which they held him, during his life and after his death, are collected by Plehn, Lesbiaca, p. 147.)

In order to explain fully the musical improvements introduced by Terpander, it would be necessary to enter into the subject of Greek music at greater length than is consistent with the limits of this article, or the plan of the work. A full account of the subject will be found in the Dictionary of Antiquities, art. Musica, in Müller's History of the Literature of Ancient Greece, c. 12, and in Böckh (de Metr. Pind. iii. 7). It will be enough here to state that Terpander enlarged the compass of the lyre from a tetrachord to an octave; but in a peculiar manner. The old lyre had four strings, which were so tuned that the extreme notes had to one another the relation called by the Greeks διά τεσσάρων, the fourth, and the two intermediate notes were such, according to the most ancient genus of music, namely, the diatonic, and the prevailing mode, the Dorian, that the intervals were (ascending) semitone, tone, tone, that is: —

To this tetrachord Terpander added another, the lowest note of which was one tone above the highest of the other, and the intervals of which the same as those of the former, that is:—

But, in combining these two tetrachords, he omitted the third string, reckoning from the highest, so that the intervals (ascending) were 1/2, 1, 1, 1, 11/2, 1^[1], that is:—

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1. In Müller, two of these figures are transposed, p. 152, n. He gives the intervals (descending) 1, 1, 11/2, 1, 1, 1/2; they should be 1, 11/2, 1, 1, 1, 1/2. Also in the text, l.4, the deficient string is said to have been in the lower tetrachord; it should be the upper.