¹ Pindar fr. 70b Maehler, 1–5. The augmented form , found in most MSS, should probably be retained in line 1 (Van der Weiden, p. 64) and is used henceforthGoogle Scholar

² The translation is that given in Pickard-Cambridge, DTC, p. 23, incorporating the widely accepted supplements in Grenfell and Hunt, 34JT.:Google Scholar. Other suggestions may be found in Gerber, D. E.,Emendations in Pindar 1513–1972(Amsterdam,1976),164.1 offer a new reading and reconstruction in Section VI below.Google Scholar

³ POxy 1604 no. II: line 3 corresponds to Google Scholar

⁴ Athenaeus 10.455 be. Cf. Dion. Hal.De comp. verb. 14.80, p. 54 U.-R., Aristoxenus fr. 87 WehrliGoogle Scholar

⁵ The tradition may partly depend on the allusion to Lasos detected in Pindar's lines (Privitera [1965], p. 61).Google Scholar

⁶ Privitera (1965), p. 32.Google Scholar

⁷ Clearchus wrote a work on (frs. 84–95 Wehrli): they were commonly couched in dactylic or iambic verse, not in lyric.Google Scholar

⁸ Pickard-Cambridge (DTC, p. 24) concluded that ‘the expression [] remains difficult’ and ‘we cannot be certain to what exactly “stretched out like a rope” refers’.Google Scholar

⁹ Arist. Poetics 1448a28f; Pickard-Cambridge, DTC, pp. 13.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Hdt. 1.139; cf.Athen. 11.467.Google Scholar

¹¹ DTC, p. 24.Google Scholar

¹² Wilamowitz, p. 342: ‘Das S wird nicht als solches getadelt, sondern daβ es vom Munde kam, also seine Aussprache. Mit dem Namen des Buchstaben hat das nichts zu tun.’Google Scholar

¹³ E.g. etc.: Buck, pp. 57–8, 70, 71.Google Scholar

¹⁴ A well-known exception is the Boeotism in 01. 1. 82, . Boeotian has phonological features found in Doric dialects (Buck, pp. 345–6).Google Scholar

¹⁵ The question of Arion is discussed below, Section VII.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Cf. West (1992), p. 344: ‘The reference to the "false-sounding ‘s’" clearly serves to define “formerly” as “before the refinements of Lasus”.‘ In Anacreon fr. 388 Page, the opening is balanced by (line 10): there too the current situation is contrasted with a former one still vivid in the poet's memory, .Google Scholar

¹⁷ The specificity was recognized by G. Huxley: in Pindar's Vision of the Past (Belfast, 1975) he speculated that dithyrambs were originally imported from Anatolia, and that the pronunciation of s as sh preserved evidence of their ‘outlandish origin’ (p. 41)Google Scholar

¹⁸ The close interconnection of the lines is recognized by West (1971), who suggests (p. 310 n. 4): ‘Pindar is saying that in the traditional dithyramb in the aulodic the a did not come out true from men's mouth, it did not live up to its promise, because of the pipe accompaniment. His new dithyramb has quite a different sound.‘ However, an association with the here is unconvincing: is descriptive of singing () rather than alluding to any particular , and the element cannot be overlooked (see below, Section V). is perhaps related to the bird so named (LSJ s.v. ): such ‘imitative’ nomoi included the Pythian nome (see n. 44 below), and cf. Alcman's (PMG 40).Google Scholar

¹⁹ PMG 702 = Athenaeus 14.624e (quoting Heraclides of Pontus): ‘I sing of Demeter and Kore, wife of Clymenus, raising my honey-voiced hymn in the deep Aeolian strain’.Google Scholar

²⁰ That the Demeter was not a dithyramb is indicated by its Aeolian mode; Heraclides called it simply (fr. 16J W). The only candidate for an asigmatic dithyramb by Lasos is the cited by Athenaeus (we have only the title), whose attribution to Lasos was debated in antiquity

²¹ Pickard-Cambridge comments that ‘the only certain fact about the contents of his dithyrambs is the wholly unimportant one recorded by Aelian [N.A. 7.47] that he called a young lynx by the name of skymnos(whelp)’ (DTC, p. 15). By the same token, ironically, this confirms that Lasos' dithyrambs were not all asigmatic. A line from Philodemus’ (PapHerc 994, col. 37, 8–11) reads: –‘not even Lasos’ compositions that are most elaborated in such a way do this sort of thing’ (sc. omit the sigma?).Google Scholar

²² Clearly, the solution was not simply a more sparing use of s. Despite the interesting statistics presented by dayman (p. 81), s remains much in evidence in Pindar, as in this actual dithyramb

²³ Privitera writes (1965, p. 30): ‘La questione delle lettere eufoniche e disfoniche, a cui Democrito dedico un suo scritto ( in Vorsokr.10 68 B 18 b) era dunque viva gia verso la fine del sec. VI.’Google Scholar

²⁴ Fr. 87 W = Athenaeus 11.467: ‘Musicians, as Aristoxenus often says, tended to avoid the utterance of the.s because of its harshness and unsuitability to the aulos.Google Scholar

²⁵ Lawler (1950) related to the manner of performance of the dithyramb (see further below, n. 59), and Privitera (1988) raised the question of ‘Feffetto spettacolare’ of the but neither attempted to consider its aural impactGoogle Scholar

²⁶ E.g. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Strabo, and Clearchus quoted above (see n. 4). Such an interpretation is supported by reading as echoing the construction of

²⁷ The boys' chorus may have been a later institution (see further n. 87). In the fifth century, each of the ten Attic tribes contributed both a men's and a boys' chorus for the City Dionysia (Pickard-Cambridge, DFA, p. 75 n. 1).Google Scholar

²⁸ The neglect of this point may have been encouraged by imprecise translations, e.g. Wilamowitz's ‘vom Munde’ (see n. 12 above) and West's ‘from men's mouth’ (n. 18 above).

²⁹ West (1992), p. 42. describes voices that are ‘fine and concentrated, like those of cicadas, grasshoppers, and nightingales, and in general all those voices that are refined and have no extraneous sound accompanying them’ (Ps.-Arist. De Audibilibus 804a21).Google Scholar

³⁰ West (1992), pp. 40–1.Google Scholar

³¹ When I conducted the 100-strong Kodaly Choir at Oxford, I sought to deal with trailing sibilants by instructing the choristers to substitute ‘ts’ for final V. In employing such contemporary criteria to evaluate ancient evidence, one caveat is that ‘choral’ today does not include the element of dance.

³² Thomas, R.,Literacy & Orality in Ancient Greece (Cambridge,1992), (117f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³³ As if were derived from ,‘hissing’, is used by Aristotle).

³⁴ Lipogrammatism, the deliberate omission of one or more letters of the alphabet as a test of literary skill (prodigiously employed in modern times in the work of Georges Perec, whose wholesale omission of the letter ‘e’ in La Disposition was emulated in Gilbert Adair's ingenious English translation A Void) was an Alexandrian pastime. It is strikingly demonstrated in the sixty-line fragment published by E. G. Turner as ‘Papyrus Bodmer XXVIII: a Satyr-Play on the Confrontation of Heracles and Atlas’ (MH33 [1976], 1–23). Interestingly, in these verses f is not omitted (though there is no trace of 0 or Q, which shows that the lipogrammatism was not based on purely aural criteria, as Lasos’ Hymn to Demeter may have been the short fragment avoids all three letters). Clearchus, in referring to Lasos’ asigmatism in his (fr. 86 W, see n. 7 above), may have been partly responsible for its being misleadingly characterized as an intellectual diversion; despite Lasos’ penchant for wordplay (see below, n. 50), the omission of the sigma was not a gimmickGoogle Scholar

³⁵ Scholars have usually inferred that Lasos was personally sensitive in this respect (‘empfindlich’, Wilamowitz, p. 342), ‘indulged his dislike for sibilants’ (Pickard-Cambridge, DTC, p. 14, echoed by Webster, p. 91, ‘Lasos disliked sibilants’), or was ‘self-consciously intellectual’ (West [1992], p. 342).Google Scholar

³⁶ Cf. Ar. Ra. 7 2 1 - 5: the way to discover was to test their ‘ring’, .Google Scholar

³⁷ Rhet. 1415b38.Google Scholar

³⁸ Pickard-Cambridge, DTC, pp. 137f. I have argued elsewhere for a Semitic origin of , relating it to an original sense of ‘counterfeit’ coin, one of several money terms borrowed by the Greeks from PhoeniciaGoogle Scholar

³⁹ See in general Zimmermann, ch. 4.1, and Seaford (1977), pp. 88f.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Paus. 10.7.7.

⁴¹ Aristox. Elem. Harm., p. 3 Meib.Google Scholar

⁴² The tension between tradition and innovation is a feature of Greek music from its earliest mention in Homer. Musical history thus provides an important paradigm for the study of the meaning of innovation in Greek culture (the subject of my Ph.D. thesis, in progress). Anxiety about innovations is often assuaged by assimilating them to the past; the ‘shock of the new’ is thus absorbed, but historical memory is distorted. This may have happened with the account of Arion's and Lasos’ respective contributions to the dithyramb (see Section VII below).Google Scholar

⁴³ Paus. 10.7.7Google Scholar

⁴⁴ There is no evidence for a sung version of the , but musical onomatopoeia occurs in dithyrambs of the late fifth century. Timotheus, for instance, was said to have imitated a storm in his Nauplius and Semele's birthpangs in his Semele(Athenaeus 8.337f, 352a).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Philochorus, FGrH 328 F 23Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Plato would have banned solo kithara-playing altogether as (Laws 669e6). Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes: (De comp. verb. 14.80, p. 54 U.-R.).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Dionysos and Apollo were closely associated at Delphi: the dithyramb took over from the paean during the winter months (Plut. de Ei ap. Delph., p. 388e). For the connection of Dionysos with snakes cf. Eur. Ba. 101–4 with Dodds’ note, and the invocation of Dionysos (Ba. 1017–18). In the parodos of the Bacchae the sibilance is notable (): Euripides was conscious of its power for dramatic effect (the locus classicus is Medea 476–1; see dayman, p. 69).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Privitera (1965, p. 53) compares Protagoras’ , but Lasos' concern had a more practical aspect.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Hdt. 7.6.3. Herodotus actually says that Lasos caught Onomacritus ‘in the act’ (), but perhaps this dramatizes what may have been an act of stylistic detective work on Lasos' part.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Lasos' wit and verbal skill gave rise to the term (Hesychius s.v.). His fourth-century biographer Chamaeleon reported two anecdotes (fr. 30 Wehrli): in one Lasos puns that a raw fish might also be (not ‘cooked’ but ‘visible’), in the other he plays on the different meanings of (‘catch’ and ‘possess’)

⁵¹ The Aristoxenian school opposed the Pythagorean in affirming the priority of the musical ear over arbitrary mathematical hypotheses: Porph. In Ptol. 23.25ff.

⁵² Phlb.56a. Lasos' regard for the practical approach is perhaps suggested by the response attributed to him in the pseudo-Aristotelian (Stobaeus 3.29.70): .

⁵³ Privitera(1965), p. 82.

⁵⁴ The Suda states that Lasos was the first person to write a treatise () on music. West (1992, p. 225) suggests that he may actually have coined the word , first attested shortly afterwards in Pindar and Epicharmus

⁵⁵ PMG 708.6–7; Pickard-Cambridge (1962), pp. 17f., Seaford (1977).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ A. Barker, ‘Heterophonia and Poikilia: Accompaniments to Greek Melody’, in Gentili, B. and Perusino, F.,Mousike: Metrica Ritmica e Musica Greca in memoria di Giovanni Comotti (Rome,1995),46–47,55.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ (line 11) has been translated ‘spittle-destroying reed’, but it also suggests ‘hiss-suppressing reed’.

⁵⁸ Wilamowitz (p. 342); quoted, for example, by Privitera (1988), p. 131 n. 19, and Zimmermann, p. 44. Van der Weiden (p. 63) refers to the meaning of as ‘land-measure’ (Hdt. 2.6) as well as ‘rush, reed’, but strangely concludes that ‘in both cases the interpretation is “monotonous"’.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Lawler (1950, p. 81) is an exception: ‘Pindar may be telling us that before his reforms in the dithyramb the dancers often used the old-fashioned formation with hands joined or enmeshed; but that in his day newer, freer dance forms were coming into the cyclic performance.’ This ingenious interpretation of does not take account of the word's connotation of ‘straightness’ or its close connection here with the sound of san.

⁶⁰ Dissen translated it labebatur ex ore, and Barker, A. D.translates ′In earlier times the dithyramb crept along (Greek Musical Writings, I:The Musician and His Art [Cambridge,1984]). Bowra (95)thought that suggested ‘not indeed that the old Dithyrambs crawled along, but at least that they do not dance’: he related Pindar's lines to Arion's institution of a ‘stationary chorus’. Privitera (1988) objected that as the verb is qualified by d-zro , it cannot refer to the choreutai, but to ‘come l'ode e il san uscivano, come venivano cantati’ (p. 131 n. 19). Although this may be strictly the case, the verb in context (as Bowra saw) encompasses the movement of both the sound and the singers.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Following G. Thompson's inspired account of the dithyramb's development in Aeschylus & Athens(London, 21946), ch. 10, many scholars including Bowra (p. 95), Webster (p. 68), Seaford (1981, p. 270), and Privitera (1988, p. 129) have gestured towards interpreting Pindar's fragment along these lines. Privitera connects it to Arion's establishment of a Google Scholar, followed by Comotti, L.(Music in Greek and Roman Culture [Baltimore, 1989],23f.). Zimmermann categorically states (p. 26) ‘Arion hat den Dithyrambos vom einfachen Prozessionslied zum kunstvollen Rundtanz gemacht’, but refers this conclusion solely to Proclus' dubious testimony (discussed below, Section VII).Google Scholar

⁶² Hdt. 1.189.3,7.23.1

⁶³ E.g. Hermogenes, De Jnventione 4.4: . West (1992), Zimmermann et al. have also sought to explain as ‘long-winded’ by analogy with the of Aristophanes, Frogs 1296 (schol. ad loc. refers to , ‘a rope-winder's songs’).

⁶⁴ Hdt. 1.199.2.

⁶⁵ Pollux 7.87, Hesychius : Pickard-Cambridge, DFA, p. 262. Pindar's chorus may also have wielded KporaXa, like the Olympians in their dance (line 10). Audible ‘conducting’ was common well into the modern period: the story of how in 1687 the composer Jean Baptiste Lully died from an abscess which developed after he struck his foot with the rod he was using to conduct a choir is well-known to music students. Rousseau, in his Dictionary of Music (1767), writing about a conductor of the Paris opera, mentions ‘le bruit insupportable de son baton qui couvre et amortit tout l'effet de la Symphonie’ (see further under ‘Conducting’ in Scholes, P. A., The Oxford Companion to Music[Oxford, 10 1970]).Google Scholar

⁶⁶ ‘Follow’ is a term which holds untold risks for rhythmical co-ordination (‘conform to the beat’ is less misleading). I recall a competition in which a group of twelve wind-players took the stage in a broad semi-circle without a conductor, and sought to ‘follow the beat’ set by the foot-tapping tuba player at one end. In taking up the beat in succession, each slightly late, the players unwittingly demonstrated with their feet the reason for their lack of ensemble.

⁶⁷ I owe this suggestion to Professor Richard Seaford, who intends to elaborate it in a forthcoming article

⁶⁸ Alternatively ‘It looked like a rope and emitted many “s"s, but was not a snake: what was it?’ (Answer: a dithyramb). I propose a Greek version exempli gratia:

⁶⁹ Sch. Aeschin. In Tim. 10: ‘in circular choruses the aulos-player stood in the middle’. Sch. //. 14.200 cites an Aeschylean passage:, suggesting that the aulete stood on the step of the central altar.

⁷⁰ Early theatres had rising tiers of wooden benches (; see Photios s. v.), set up in a central public space such as the agora: on one occasion (perhaps in 498 B.C.) such a structure collapsed, killing many spectators (Sudas.v.). The earliest surviving stone theatre is that of Dionysos at Athens: part of its construction appears to date to the early fifth century.

⁷¹ Pratinas' words suggest that the aulete was expected to dance as well as play (cf. Arist. Poetics 1461b31). The aulete Pronomos of Thebes was famous for his gyrations: (Paus. 9.12.4).

⁷² Lines 5–8 M. In Section VI below I offer a new supplement for line 5.

⁷³ rather than may indicate the stationary (non-processional) aspect of the circular dance depicted (as may ).

⁷⁴ E.g. on the ‘Phrynichos’ krater (Pickard-Cambridge, DTC, Plate \b). For the ivy, cf. Pindar fr. 75.9 . ‘Dionysos the column’: Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 1.24) quotes a late oracular verse

⁷⁵ I am grateful to Dr Revel Coles of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, for making the papyrus and an excellent facsimile available for inspection.

⁷⁶ Diodorus (17.10, p. 117 Fischer) uses similarly to connote ‘spread out in a circle around a central point’:

⁷⁷ v is more likely: the trace shows the ‘beginning of a rising stroke, probably v, because thicker and higher than most t‘s’ (Van der Weiden, p. 52

⁷⁸ E.g. in Anacreon fr. 388 Page (see n. 16 above), does not occur elsewhere in Pindar, so a contrastive use of cannot be categorically ruled out.

⁷⁹ So Van der Weiden (p. 66), but the length of the intervening section before line 23 surely rules out her interpretation. Furthermore, continuative ‘and now’ (as opposed to ‘but now’) still contains some element of temporal contrast, e.g. Soph. O. C. 932 (‘I said it before, and I say it again now)

⁸⁰ Elsewhere Pindar uses only the compound for gates opening, e.g. 01. 6.27

⁸¹ Arist. Poet. 1459a9: (‘compound words are particularly suited to dithyrambs’).

⁸² .Athenaeus 15.682 (cf. Eustathius, Comment, in II. 1295.14)

⁸³ ‘Petals’ recalls Pindar's { has the same root). LSJ III.2 has ‘central part of a rose’ (citing Ps.-Arist. Pr. 907a20); if this were thought to constitute its nectary, would also connote ‘fragrant-centred’.

⁸⁴ ‘Epic' correption in dactylo-epitrites is found in the sequence - v v -: Maas, p. 80.

⁸⁵ An extension of Porson's Law (known as Maas's Law or the Maas-Barrett Bridge) applies here: West, M. L.,Greek Metre(Oxford,1982)74.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ For Pindar's neglect of Porson's Law (in contrast to Bacchylides), see Maas, p. 35.

⁸⁷ Simonides' fr. 79 D (477/6 B.C.?) refers to fifty-six dithyrambic victories won with choruses of men, which ’raises the question whether the choruses of boys may not have been a later institution than the choruses of men’ (Pickard-Cambridge, DTC, p. 16). The introduction of youths as dithyrambic performers might be connected with the requirement for men to remain on military alert during the Persian Wars; Pindar's dithyramb might then be dated to the 470s

⁸⁸ The repetition of (within a different metrical unit) was not offensive to Pindar: cf.Isthm. 5.12–13 .

⁸⁹ ‘Im Athen des 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. ist der Dithyrambos der Par excellence; ja, Dithyrambos und werden als Synonyme gebraucht’ (Zimmermann, p. 25). Cf. Pickard-Cambridge (DTC, p. 32): ‘The name "circular chorus”, which always means dithyramb, was probably derived from the dancers being arranged in a circle, instead of in rectangular formation as dramatic choruses were.’ As these quotations show, commentators recognize that the synonymity was functional, but not semantic.

⁹⁰ Were it not for the connection of Lasos with asigmatism in the sources quoted, the words of Pindar's dithyramb alone might have suggested that Pindar himself was the innovator.

⁹¹ Lawler, L. B. wrote (The Dance in Ancient Greece[London,1964],79): ‘it is generally believed that Arion gave to the dithyrambic dance a circular form, with movement around the altar of Dionysus–the form which arose became its distinguishing characteristic, and from which the term "cyclic chorus”, as commonly applied to a group of dithyrambic singers and dancers.’ Zimmermann calls Arion without qualification ’der Erfinder des (P– 25), while Privitera writes: ‘Quasi certamente era ciclico gia il coro istituito da Arione a Corinto’ (1988, p. 129). Van der Weiden alone has cautiously suggested that ‘the introduction of the circular dance would not be incompatible with the picture of Lasus as it emerges from other sources’(p. 10).Google Scholar

⁹² Privitera (1988), p. 125.

⁹³ Pickard-Cambridge, DTC, p. 118

⁹⁴ The classic study is A. Kleingiinther, (Philologus, Suppl. Band XXVII, 1933).

⁹⁵ Pickard-Cambridge, DTC, pll. la, b.

⁹⁶ Burkert, W.,Greek Religion, tr. John Raffan (Oxford,1985),99Google Scholar

⁹⁷ G. Thompson's, loc. cit. n. 64, is the classic statement. The word itself has been linked to (etymologically related to triumphus), signifying a kind of procession.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ Poet. 1449a14f.

⁹⁹ Thesm. 966f.; Pickard-Cambridge, DFA, pp. 239f. Wilamowitz's suggestion(Einleitung in die griechische Tragodie[Berlin 1907], pp. 78, 79) that the were m fact rectangular formations danced in a circular orchestra is an attempt to square the circle. It seems likely that at least the less formal dithyrambic performances, such as those we find portrayed on vases, took place in the agora and other non-circular arenas until quite a late date, even after they were called m Pindar fr. 75 the gods are summoned to the ‘richly-adorned and glorious agora’.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ The traditional reading of the Marmor Parium, ‘Thespis first won a prize for tragedy at the City Dionysia in 534’ is unreliable:Connor, W R.,‘City Dionysia and Athenian Democracy’, CIMed 40(1989),7–32Google Scholar. Tragic competitions may have been instituted by the fledgling democracy (argued by Connor), but the organization of the City Dionysia seems to antedate Clisthenes’ tribal reform (C. Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘Something to Do with Athens: Tragedy & Ritual’, in Hornblower, S.and R., Osborne, Ritual, Finance, Politics: Democratic Accounts Rendered to D. M. Lewis[Oxford,1994],269–90).Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Suda s.v. , Plut. Symp. Quaest. 1.1.5.

¹⁰² Ol. 13.18–19. The rhetorical question arises in the context of an ode in honour of Pindar's Corinthian patron Xenophon. As the scholiast (on 01. 13.25) points out, Pindar knew of other traditions which traced the origins of the dithyramb to Naxos and Thebes

¹⁰³ This is so even if also alludes to the ox that was won as the prize for the best dithyramb.

¹⁰⁴ Hdt. 1. 23: .

¹⁰⁵ Schol. Ar. Av. 1403 (Sutton, p. 15, T.8).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Pfeiffer, R.,History of Classical Scholarship,1(Oxford,1968),160f.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ Chrest. 12 (Sutton, p. 13, T.3). Edmonds suggested reading Aristocles' for Aristotle′, after the author of a book entitled (FGrH 463 F 1).

¹⁰⁸ The development of the dithyramb from a popular cult revel into a ‘literary’ genre has been associated with the promotion of the Dionysiac cult by Periander: Zimmermann, pp. 24ff

¹⁰⁹ If can be held, perhaps by contrast with the of Proclus, to allude to the dancers not changing their location (that is, dancing ‘on the spot’ as suggested by Pindar's , cf. n. 73 above), the beginnings of a change from a processional dance may already be implied. Webster (p. 68) tentatively makes this suggestion, and connects the stationary form (cf. stasimon) with the triads of Stesichorus (p. 77; cf. Pickard-Cambridge, DTC, pp. 11–12). In classical times, however, simply meant ‘to assemble a chorus*

¹¹⁰ Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 1.16: Tzetzes (Lye p. 252 Miller) attempts to reconcile both traditions: (Xaflpiov codd. dett.)’

¹¹¹ PMG 939;C. M. Bowra, ‘Arion and the Dolphin′, MHZQ (1963), 121–34.Google Scholar