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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2013
On July 17, 1977 what appears to be the most recently found ancient Greek musical fragment was unearthed some twenty-five meters northeast of the palaestra at Epidaurus. Carved on red limestone in the third century ad, the inscription consists of eleven fragmentary hexameters from a hymn to Apollo and other divine offspring, only the first line of which seems to contain suprascript musical notation. M. Mitsos published the inscription three years later without musicological analysis, and S. Sepheriades then attempted a preliminary analysis at the 1982 Eighth International Greek and Latin Epigraphical Congress. The present paper explores in greater detail the purported music of this brief, enigmatic inscription in the hope of furthering (but certainly not completing) our understanding of this, a possible fourth ancient Greek musical fragment on stone.
1 Markellos Mitsos, ‘Ίερὸς ὕμνος ἐξ Άσκληπιείου Έπιδύρου ArchEph 1980, 212–16. Mitsos (212) gives a physical description of the stone (15 × 13 cm at its greatest height and width) and the remaining text with verbal parallels. He also offers supplements of the text of lines 2 and 4–8. That at line 4, Άπόλλω]νι κλυτοτόξῳ certainly has Homeric, precedent (Od. xxi 267Google Scholar); cf. Bacchyl. 1.37. His supplement for lines 7 and 8 needlessly derive from a Solonian elegy (13.1–2 West). An equally appropriate supplement might be Άσκληπ]ιοῦ ἀγλαά τέκνα. Precedent for invoking offspring of Asclepius can be found in the anonymous Paean Erythraeus (4th cent, BC) and the Paean ad Urbem Dium Repertus (c. 2nd cent. AD). For other testimonia see Edelstein, L., Asclepius i 125, 282, 366, 592, 592aGoogle Scholar.
2 Stelios Sepheriades, Ίερός ὔμνος ἐξ Άσκληπιείον Έπιδαύρου, Άνακοινώσεις, Eighth International Congress on Greek and Latin Epigraphy (1982) 156–9.
3 The other three are the two Delphic inscriptions and the Seikilos epitaph. We now have over forty authentic published fragments of Greek music.
4 And the papyri, all of which are reasonably consistent. The musical notations of PMich 2958 (2nd cent, AD) occur directly over the syllable or, at word-end, above the space between that and the next word, e.g. lines 10 and 11. See Pearl, O. M. and Winnington-Ingram, R. P., 'A Michigan papyrus with musical notation’, JEA li (1965) 179–95Google Scholar. Even in this uncustomary arrangement there is great consistency. A similar pattern can be found in PBerolin 6870, a photograph of which is published in Schubart, W., ‘Ein griechischer Papyrus mit Noten’, SB Berlin xxxvi (1918) 763–68Google Scholar.
5 Parallels for a textual diphthong sung to just one pitch include POslo 1413.8b and Mesomedes Hymn to Nemesis 13. All line references hereafter unless otherwise noted are from Pöhlmann, Egert, Denkmäler altgriechischer Musik (Nürnberg 1970Google Scholar).
6 Normal procedure would have one long diseme stand above both notes of a melismatic diphthong and not one over each, e.g. PBerolin 6879.6 and 7.
7 Greek music often colors words relating to song, e.g. the first Delphic hymn, lines 15 (ὠδαὰν) and 16 (ὔμνοιοιν άναμέλπεται). All three words here contain the colorful borrowed note 0.
8 Aristoxenus iii 65.
9 Aristox. iii 74 ( = 92.12–17 da Rios), followed by Cleonides 195.4–196.8 Jan, allows for a rearrangement of tetrachordal intervals with the three σχήματα of the dia tessaron (½11, 1½1, 11½), but even a mixture of two different ‘figures’ would not contain the necessary three consecutive halftones. Cf. Aristox. iii 65.
10 Where modulation occurs in the fragments, it moves most often from one tonos, genus, or system to another in cola or blocks of cola but not back and forth within one word. Both Delphic hymns modulate in blocks of cola.
11 Cf. Winnington-Ingram, R. P., Mode in ancient Greek music (Cambridge 1936) 40 n. 1Google Scholar, and Eitrem, Amundsen, and Winnington-Ingram, , ‘Fragments of unknown Greek tragic texts with musical notation’, Symb.Osl. xxxi (1955) 45–7Google Scholar.
12 PWien G 13763/1494, line 3. contains a rise of a ninth. The second Delphic hymn, line 29, contains a drop of a ninth.
13 Eitrem Amundsen-Winnington-Ingram (n. 12) 62, line 7 over-δάμεια.
14 For the contour over an uncircumflexed diphthong, cf. POxy 1786.3 (ύμνούντων).
15 For the most part the pitch sung to the accented syllable stands higher than the pitches used on the previous, unaccented syllables of the same word. The rules for accentual corresponsion as outlined in Pöhlmann 140 need re-examination. Cf. POxy 1786.5 (ἄμην) and POxy 3161. 8–9.
16 Several pieces from the Anonymus Bellermanni (Pöhlmann nos 8, 9, II) are in ascending scalar order, but these ‘exercises’ with instrumental notation are not attached to any text.
17 PBerolin in 1918, POxy 1786 in 1922, PZenon 59533 in 1931, POslo in 1955, POxy 2436 in 1959, PMich 2858 in 1965, PLeiden inv. 510 in 1973, and POxy 3161 and 3162 in 1976.
18 I would like to thank Profs Thomas J. Mathiesen of Brigham Young University and Michael W. Haslam of UCLA for their careful reading of this paper and subsequent criticisms and suggestions. I am grateful as well to M. Mitsos and Alcibiades N. Oikonomides for calling the inscription to my attention.