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1 results

  • Chapter 5 - Do Alexandrians Dream of Electric Sound?

  • from Part III - Technologies of Musical Memory
  • Edited by Lauren Curtis, Bard College, New York, Naomi Weiss, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book:
    Music and Memory in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds
    Published online:
    14 October 2021
    Print publication:
    28 October 2021, pp 123-147

  • Summary

    This chapter explores two strategies for preserving the memory of live music in early Ptolemaic Egypt by reading Posidippus’ epigram (37 AB) on Arion’s lyre next to Hedylus’ epigram (4 GP) on an automated rhyton in the shape of the Egyptian god Bes. While Arion’s lyre captures the essence of a classic but long-dead virtuoso in amber, the rhyton performs its song on endless repeat. I suggest that the automated rhyton, as interpreted by Hedylus, represents an attempt to create an eternal first performance of a type of song that could represent the Graeco-Egyptian Ptolemaic empire: a hymn to the Nile.