chapter six TERPANDER . The tradition Now nearly forgotten, Terpander was highly honoured among the an- cients. He was one of the greatest Greek musicians of the Archaic period, the first and foremost in the row of celebrated citharodes of Lesbos, and an extensive tradition of his life was developed. He set both his own and Homer’s hexametric poetry to music, and composed also in lyric metres. His musical performances took him far beyond his home island: he is reported to have travelled to Sparta, Phocis, Egypt and, perhaps also to Asia Minor. Terpander is recorded as a winner at the musical contests at the Carneian festival and the Pythian games. In Sparta he supposedly organized music in some way, and also restored peace or healed people with the help of his music. Sparta was also the place where he died choking on a fig. Many innovations in music were ascribed to him, such as several citharodic and aulodic nomes, a new mode, improvement of the harp, the inventions of the barbitos and the genre of drinking songs. Ancient chronographers placed Terpander roughly in the time of Midas and Archilochus, i.e. in the first part of the seventh century bc. Terpander’s poetry as a source for his biographical tradition The extant nine fragments of Terpander’s poetry (or the fragments as- cribed to him) contain almost no hints to his life. All that appears from them is that Terpander had dactylic prooemia and hymns in his repertoire,thatsomeofhiscompositionswere,perhaps,sungtofour notes (or to a four-stringed lyre), some to seven notes (or to a seven- stringed cithara), and that some of his songs may have been thematically connected to Sparta. M. Kivilo - 9789004193284 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 09:19:21PM via free access chapter six . Terpander’s home and origin Four cities are mentioned as Terpander’s home towns in ancient sources: Antissa and Methymna on Lesbos, Arne (in Boeotia), and Cyme in Asia Minor. The earliest extant references are from the fifth century: Pindar says that Terpander came from Lesbos, and the citharode Timotheus of Miletus specifies that Terpander’s home town was Antissa.1 Antissa remained the most frequently mentioned among the poet’s home towns, and its claim is strengthened by the fact that there is no other reason to maintain that Terpander was its citizen except that the bard had actually lived there.2 Methymna, mentioned by Diodorus Siculus, was usually believed to be a birth-place of Arion, and might be transferred into Terpander’s tradition from the one of Arion.3 Beside the information that Terpander came either from Arne, Antissa, or Cyme, the Suda says that the poet was a descendant either of Hesiod or Homer, suggesting that Terpander was a Homerid, in a way. It gives a genealogy:4 1 Pi. fr. Sn.-M.: τ ν \α Τρπανδρ ς π!’ , Λσις εTρεν/πρτς 1ν δεπνισι Λυδν/ψαλμν 3ντ#!γγν <ψηλkς 3κων πακτδς;Timoth.Pers. fr. e (.– PMG), see p. n. 2 Other Antissa references: [Plut.] Mus. .c, Clem. Alex. Strom. .., Steph. Byz. p. s. Meineke, Photius Lex.s.v.μετ8 Λσιν NSδ ν,Sudas.v.Τρπανδρς and μετ8 Λσιν NSδ ν. Modern commentators almost unanimously regard Terpander as having come from Antissa, see DGRBM s.v Terpander, Schmid-Stählin :, RE s.v. Terpandros, OCD nd and rd ed. s.v. Terpander, Podlecki :, etc. West leaves it open whether Terpander was a Lesbian or Cymean citharode (:). 3 Diod. Sic. ap. Tz. Chil. ., cf. Boethius Inst. mus..:Terpander atque Arion Methymnaeus Lesbios atque Iones gravissimis morbis cantus eripuere praesidio.Arionwas also presented on coins of Methymna, see Richter : and figs. –. More about Arion see below p. 4 Suda s.v. ΤρπανδρςA MΑρνας, C Λσις 3π MΑντσσης, C ΚυμαςA / δH κα4 3πγ νν Ησι δυ 3νγραψαν, Eλλι δH Qμ7ρυ, Βυ λγντες α)τν τ6 Φωκως, τ6 Ε)ρυ#ντς, τ6 Qμ7ρυA λυρικ ς, 0ς πρτς aπτ8 Jρδν 1πησε τ7ν λραν κα4 ν μυς λυρικ]ς πρτς @γραψεν, ε- κα4 τινες Φιλ μμωνα !λυσι γεγρα#ναι. M. Kivilo - 9789004193284 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 09:19:21PM via free access terpander Homer Euryphon (Phoceus) Boeus5 Terpander The names Boeus and Phoceus in the genealogy may be simply another way to say that Terpander’s father was the Boeotian, and his grandfather the Phocian. The same applies to the Marmor Parium’s entry that the poet’s father was Derdenes or Derdenis, which might be a real name, but might as well be an allusion to Terpander’s Aeolian origin: Dardanus was the ancestor of the Trojan kings in the Iliad.6 We know from several sources that Terpander used to sing besides his own hexametric poetry also that of Homer.7 This might be one of the reasons why the tradition emerged that Terpander, like the Homerids of Chios, was a descendant of Homer: according to tradition, Homer, while in Chios, had married Aresiphone the daughter of Gnotor of Cyme, and had two sons, Eriphon andTheolaus,andadaughterwhobecameawifeofStasinusofCyprus.8 Perhaps the Eriphon in this account is the same as Euryphon in the Suda’s genealogy of Terpander.9 Cyme is, with Smyrna and Chios, the city which had the strongest claim for Homer’s citizenship, and also Hesiod is through his father’s home town strongly linked with this city.10 5 Or Boeus of Phocis. 6 Marmor Ep. : 3#’ U Τρπανδρς , Δερδνες , Λσις τ]ς ν μυς τ][ς κι!]α[ρωι.δ. [ικ]]ς |!αιαυλητ ... ||1και| ντ μ]ησε κα4 τ%ν @μπρσ!ε μυσικ%ν μετ- στησεν, @τη ΗΗΗΓΔΔΔΔΙ, EρJντς MΑ!7νησιν Δρωπδυ (Jacoby’semendations). The nominative form of the father’s name in Aeolic dialect may be Δερδενες,seeBechtel :. Cf. also Il. Δ ρδανς,andAristoph.Vesp. where a flute girl is called ( Δαρδανς. 7 Heracl. Pont. fr. Wehrli, Alex. Polyhist. F , [Plut.] Mus. .c. 8 Suda s.v. PQμηρς – Allen. 9 Tzetzes says that Homer was married to Eurydice and had sons Seriphon and Theolaus, and a daughter Arsiphone (as he spells the name) who married Stasinus (Chil. ff.). ‘Seriphon’ may be an erroneous reading of Suda’s account: “.. / δ’ υ/ες MΕρ#ων...” 10 The genealogies, which the two epic poets share, include several Cymeans, see p. M. Kivilo - 9789004193284 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 09:19:21PM via free access chapter six Thus, if Terpander was believed to be a descendant either of Hesiod or Homer, he may have been indirectly regarded also as a citizen of Aeolian Cyme.11 The same reasoning may lie in the background of the claim that Terpander came from Arne, if Arne here is the town in Boeotia mentioned in the Iliad,12 for it has been suggested that Lesbos was colonized by the Aeolians of Boeotia.13 Also one of the nomes of Terpander is called Boeotian and it is emphasised that this nome (just as the one called Aeolian)wasnamedafterthepeoplewhosemusicformed the basis of the nome.14 Hesiod, of course, was a Boeotian whose father had moved to Boeotia from Cyme.15 Thus, Arne and Cyme as Terpander’s home towns may be derived from the Boeotian origin of Aeolians on Lesbos, or from the traditions of Hesiod or Homer to which Terpander’s tradition became attached.16 In other words, the traditions of Arne and Cyme may reflect the opinions about Terpander’s ancestors and his status as a poet and musician, rather than the opinions about his home town. TheBoeotianAeolianswereofthesameraceasthePieriansamong whom, it seems, Orpheus was thought to have belonged.17 According to tradition, after the women had torn Orpheus in pieces, his head and harp were thrown into the sea and borne across to Antissa. The head prophesied for a while on Lesbos and was eventually buried in a cave near Antissa; Orpheus’ harp was taken to Terpander.18 On these grounds, and supported by the possible significance of Terpander’s name, some 11 DGRBM s.v. Terpander, Müller :. 12 Il. ., ., Paus. .., etc. Some sources locate Arne in Thessaly: e.g. Thuc. ., Steph. Byz. s.v. iΑ ρ ν η .SeetheentriesArne in RE and Brill’s New Pauly. 13 See Huxley :. The suggestion is based on Str. .. (), .. () and Thuc. ... Strabo says that the Boeotians returned from Thessaly to Boeotia at the time the sons of Orestes were despatching to Asia (..), and that Lesbos was colonized by Gras, a great-grandson of Orestes (..). He does not explicitly say that the Boeo- tians joined the Aeolian colonists. According to Thucydides, however, the Lesbians still regarded the Boeotians as their kindred at the time of the Peloponnesian War (..). Cf. Sakellariou :–. 14 Pollux Onom. .; schol. ad Aristoph. Ach.(butcf.Sudas.v.Μ σJς bEδων ΒιDτιν), cit. in p. n. 15 Hesiod is never connected with Arne in tradition. Zenodotus, however, emended “iΑρνην”inIl. .as “iΑσκρην”. 16 Although we have no information that Terpander had sung the poetry of Hesiod, there are traditional epic works ascribed to Hesiod which Terpander could well have performed at the contests, e.g. The Shield of Heracles. 17 Although Orpheus is generally called a Thracian, his grave and cult belong not to Thrace but to Pieria in Macedonia, a region which formely had been inhabited by the Thracians, cf. OCD rd ed. s.v. Orpheus. 18 Nicom. Exc. , Conon F , Philostr. Her. .–. M. Kivilo - 9789004193284 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 09:19:21PM via free access terpander modern commentators have postulated that Terpander belonged to an ancient family of Lesbian musicians.19 Against this opinion, however, is the fact that there is not one figure in tradition who could be linked with the pre-Terpandrean musical tradition of Lesbos.