UDC 80 Philologia Classica. 2021. Vol. 16. Fasc. 1 A Reading of Fragments 926(a) and 926(g) PMG within the Context of the New Music* Vasiliki Kousoulini National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Faculty of Philology, School of Philosophy, University Campus Zografou, Athens 15784, Greece;
[email protected] For citation: Kousoulini V. A Reading of Fragments 926(a) and 926(g) PMG within the Context of the New Music. Philologia Classica 2021, 16 (1), 18–31. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu20.2021.102 There has been much controversy regarding the date, the performative context, and the gener- ic quality of fragment 926 PMG, which has been preserved on papyrus (P. Oxy. 9 + P. Oxy 2687) in a rhythmical treatise by an unknown author. The verse fragments on this papyrus were composed in iambic dactyls (∪ — ∪ –) and used as examples of the occurrence of syncope in various lyric meters. Fragments 926(a) and (g) PMG are from a composition performed by a maiden chorus which bear similarities to Alcman’s partheneia and have affinities with archaic epic and lyric poetry. Supposedly, these fragments might have been fragments of partheneia composed in the time of the New Music. Nonetheless, they are not shaped according to the bulk of the aesthetic values and the compositional rules of the New Music. These fragments seem to belong to cultic songs created for maiden choruses, possibly, to honor Dionysus. The alternative is that they imitate such songs within a dramatic context. We may assume that these quasi-dithyrambic partheneia were composed to serve religious needs or at least imi- tated cultic songs.