Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ttngx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T12:40:07.582Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Note on the Metre of the Inscriptions in Popular Greek

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2013

J. B. Bury
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The inscriptions in popular Greek on A and B are highly interesting as the earliest examples of the metrical cries of the Factions of the Hippodrome. Hitherto the earliest known example dated from about half a century later, in A.D. 561 (see Theophanes, ed. De Boor, 236). Then we have several acclamations in the record of A.D. 602. Phocas was greeted by the chant:—

ὕπαγε, μάθε τὴν κατάστασιν, ‘Away, understand the situation,

ὁ Μαυρίκιος οὐκ ἀπέθανεν, Maurice is not dead,

<ὔπαγε> μάθε τὴν ἀλήθειαν (Away), learn the truth!’

(See Theoph. Simoc, [304 ed. de Boor], and John of Antioch, 218d, in F.H.G. v. 37.) Each verse has ten syllables and the accent falls on the antepenultimate. In all this popular ‘poetry,’ the metre depends not on quantity but on the number of syllables and the accent.

Type
Research Article
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 17 , November 1911 , pp. 92 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1911

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 92 note 1 We have a full description of the διβέρσιον in Porphyrogennetos, Constantine, De Cerimoniis Ant. Byz. [ed. Bonn, ], p. 336Google Scholar; καὶ φέρουσιν οἱ ἡνίοχοι τοὺς ἀφέτας, τὰ ἱππάρια, τοὺς θυρανοίκτας καὶ τοὺς θεωρητάς, καὶ παραδιδοῦσι ἀλλήλοις τὰ ἄρματα . . ., ἀντιπαραδιδοῦσι τοὺς ἴππους καὶ τοὺς (MSS. ἔξης) καὶ τὰ κατάθηκα αὐτῶν. These regulations are followed by a detailed account of the procedure to be followed in the event of any omission in making these exchanges.

page 92 note 2 Cf. Anth. Plan. 374, on a charioteer Constantine, who

ἤμειψε μὲν ἴππους ἀντιπάλος κείνους δὲ λαβὼν οἶς πρόσθεν ἐνίκα τοῖς αὐτοῖς πὰλιν εἶλε μίαν τε καὶ εἴκοσι νίκας

page 92 note 3 Verses sung by the Factions in mockery of Maurice in A.D. 602 are preserved by John of Ant. 218cib. and Theophanes, ed. De Boor, 283. The metre is trochaic and Krumbacher has attempted to reconstruct them (Gesch. der byz. Litt. 2 792).

page 93 note 1 Cp. Theophanes 236, ἄψον ὦδε, ἄψον ὲκεῖ

page 93 note 2 Is it possible that in l. 3 a second μóνος has been omitted by mistake?

page 93 note 3 For ἄγεται here I do not know a parallel. I believe that the phrase means ‘whether it is in order or not—whether it is on the programme or not’; and that ἄγω is affected by the uses of the Latin ago.

page 93 note 4 The sense seems to be, we shall not mind his winning the Demosion though he is a Blue. Cf. Anth. Plan. 341 νεῖκος ἀπειπάμενοι