Melanippides was a native of Melos and the most famous dithyrambic poet of his time. In Xen. Mem. 1. 4. 3. Sokrates regards him as a master in his art, and to be compared with Homer, Sophokles, Polykleitos, and Zeuxis. He probably lived to old age, and died in Makedonia at the court of Perdikkas (454-413). Though a Dorian, he effected many innovations in the dithyramb. He employed ȧvaßolaí and free rhythms for the strophe and antistrophe of the older dithyramb (as we still find them in Bacchylides) and enhanced the importance of the musician, whose encroachment upon the province of the poet had already commenced in the time of Pratinas and Lasos. With Melanippides those artifices of musical composition which indicate that technique was cultivated as an end in itself become still more pronounced. Pherekrates, the comic poet, made him responsible for the beginning of the degeneracy in his art. Holnois says (Frag. 145): Ἐμοὶ γὰρ ἦρξε τῶν κακῶν Μελανιππίδης, His innovations were, she continues, less fatal than those of Kinesias, Phrynis, or Timotheos. We possess fragments of dithyrambs entitled Danaids, Marsyas, and Persephone, subjects which stand in no immediate relation to the cult of Dionysos. The language of Melanippides, though often elegant, is artificial, and his occasional simplicity does not conceal his poverty of thought. He adopts the dactylo-epitritic measure, but under his hand it loses its old-time dignity and calm. Resolution of the thesis is so frequent in his epitrites as to constitute an important modification of the ancient severity of style. Besides dithyrambs, he wrote epics, elegies, and epigrams, though these are attributed by Suidas to his grandfather. Meleager inserted some of the epigrams in his Anthology. (Anth. Pal. 4. 1. 7.) I. Athen. 14. 651 r. It is uncertain whether this obscure fragment contains a description of the punishment of the Danaids. If the daughters of Danaos formed the chorus, their number was just that of the cyclic chorus.-1. μopoâev: Pind. Isthm. 7. 22.-2. Crusius would retain Tàv auтàv YuvaιKelav, translating 'the same women's quarters'; in Bergk's où díaιтav Tàν y. we expect oudé.—3. For the opposition between 1-2 and the foll., cf. Pind. Pyth. 9. 18 å μèv ove' iσtŵV παλιμβάμους ἐφίλησεν ὁδοὺς . . . ἀλλὰ . . . κεράϊζεν ἀγρίους θῆρας. 5. ἱερόδακρυν : cf. Pind. Frag. 122. 3 τᾶς χλωρᾶς λιβάνου čavlà dáκpη.-Metre: dact.-epitrite. II. Athen. 14. 616 E; from the Marsyas, the theme of which was the contest of the flute with the kithara. According to the story, which arose at Athens in the fifth century, Athena, who had invented the flute (Pind. Pyth. 12. 7), threw it away on discovering that its use disfigured her cheeks. The Lateran Marsyas, a copy of the celebrated work of Myron, represents the satyr's consternation when confronted by the goddess, whose wrath was aroused by his presumption in raising from the ground the instrument rejected by her. See Frazer on Paus. 1. 24. 1. The legend that Marsyas the flutist was flayed by Apollo because he dared to contend in musical skill with the god points to the opposition of the early Greeks to the orgiastic instrument of the Phrygians. The invention of the double flute is also referred to Marsyas, who introduced the popßelá. A later age became reconciled to the flute-Sakadas' Pythian nome was famous-and an auletic nome even bore Athena's name. The flute was in disfavour with the poets at Athens shortly before the Peloponnesian war because of its aggressiveness, and an Attic epigram says ̓Ανδρὶ μὲν αὐλητῆρι θεοὶ νόον οὐκ ἐνέφυσαν, ἀλλ ̓ ἅμα τῷ φυσῆν χὠ νόος ἐκπέταται. The second fragment of Melanippides does not, however, prove that the poet was himself hostile to a proper restriction of the music of the flute in the dithyramb. See Telestes i.. 2. Tapyav': the plural of the double flute, as in Dion. Halik. de comp. verb. 11 (so avλoí often in Pind.).—3. te . . . TE: 'as she hurled, she said'; cf. Sim. xiii. 4.-4. μe: the personal for the reflexive pronoun is usually employed either when there is a contrast between two persons or when the speaker puts himself in an objective position. As subject of the inf., ué is generally used in Attic, not the reflexive.-Metre : dact.-epitrite, verses 2-4 in stichic succession. III. Athen. 9. 429 c; perhaps from the Oineus. Cf. Pind. Frag. 166. Athen. 1. 11 A, quoting Il. I 119 † olvw pełúwv, † μ' έβλαψαν θεοὶ αὐτοί, says εἰς τὴν αὐτὴν τιθεὶς πλάστιγγα τὴν Méon Tĥ μavia. Sim. 221 says that wine and music have a common source.-2. тò πρíу: Hom., Archil. 94, Theogn. 483. 4. παράπληκτον : here and Soph. Aias 230 (of χείρ).— Metre: logaoedic. IV. Clem. Alex. Strom. 5. 716. This prayer with its strange modern voice is probably addressed to Dionysos whose cult inculcated faith in immortality. This is the only passage in a lyric poet, apart from Pindar, which expressly attests a belief in the immortality of the soul. θαῦμα βροτῶν : ας θ. βροτοῖσι λ 287. Cf. Διώνυσον, χάρμα βροτοῖσιν — 325. Metre: logaoedic (or log. and cretic ?). V. Plutarch Brot. 15.-Metre: dact.-epitrite. ARIPHRON. ARIPHRON was born at Sikyon, the old home of the dithyramb, but lived at Athens either during or shortly after the Peloponnesian war. A choregic inscription of the beginning of the fourth century (C. I. A. 2. 1280) has ̓Αρίφρων ἐδίδασκεν, but the omission of the name of the victorious tribe makes against the conclusion that the document refers to a dithyrambic contest. The poem on Health is a sympotic paian, not a skolion as Brunck, Ilgen, and others thought it. The worship of Hygieia seems to have spread from Argolis to Athens, though most scholars hold that it originated in Attica; at least it is noteworthy that the oldest known seat of her cult is Sikyon (Paus. 2. 11. 6), the birth-place of the poet. The Sikyonian painter Nikophanes represented her in company with her three sisters. See J. H. S. 5. 82 ff. The Paian to Hygieia is quoted by Athen. 15. 702 A, and is reproduced in a corrupt form on an inscription that is not older than about 300 A.D. (C. I. A. 3. 171=Kaibel 1027). It was inscribed in the Asklepieion at Athens. The poem was famous in a later period: Lucian, who cites v. 1 (de lapsu 6) says that it was known to everybody,' and Max. Tyr. 13. 229, also citing v. 1, testifies that it was still sung in the time of Commodus. 1. That Hygieia is a relatively late personification is clear from the fact that she was not regarded by mythology as a traditionary figure. Sim. xxx. and Skol. vi. do not admit the personification. Tрeoßlora: unless the poet here claims a fictitious antiquity for Hygieia, the epithet means 'most august,' not 'most ancient." Aristeides 1. 22, it is true, says ̓Αθηναίαν οἱ πρέσβιστοι καὶ Ὑγιείας Αθηνᾶς βωμὸν ἱδρύσαντο, but he is speaking of Athena Hygieia. An Orphic poet (Stob. Ecl. Phys. 1. 2. 31) has, pardonably, Tpeoßloras Deâs 'Tyielas μειλιχοδώρου. μετὰ σοῦ: cf. Theokr. 16. 108 τί γὰρ Χαρίτων ἀγαπητὸν | ἀνθρώποις ἀπάνευθεν ; ἀεὶ Χαρίτεσσιν ἅμ ̓ εἴην. μ. σεῦ and μ. σeto 1. 7 (Sim. 95) follow μ. eio Hes. Theogon. 392, the oldest example of u. with the singular, which occurs only four or five times before Sophokles (Mommsen). Homer and Pind. use μ. only with the plural. See on Sa. xxiv. 4. Stes. viii. is a doubtful example.-2. σúvolkos: see on Sa. xxviii. and cf. Sim. i. 6 Olkéтav. With the two prayers cf. Eur. Frag. 897 συνείην . . . ναίοιμι.—3 f. This is the earliest trace of the tendency to attribute blessings to Hygieia. Asklepios and Hygieia_are oἱ δύο σωτῆρες θεοί, οἳ τὴν γῆν ἅπασαν σῴζουσι (Aristeides 1. 397). Late poets call Hygieia dyλabdwpos, depóλβιος, μήτηρ πάντων. πλούτου: Orphic Hymn 68. 9 οὔτε γὰρ ὀλβοδότης Πλοῦτος γλυκερὸς θαλίῃσιν, οὔτε γέρων πολύμοχθος ἄτερ σέο γίνεται ἀνήρ. Health and wealth are combined in πλουOvyleta Aristoph. Vesp. 677. xápis: Sim. xxx.-4. Cf. loodaiμwv Baoiλeús Aisch. Persai 633, loo0eos Tupavvis Eur. Troad. 1169. 5. Hesych. glosses ἕρκεσιν with δικτύοις ( cast-net”). ἄρκυς is a stake-net. Cf. Ibyk. ii. 3.-6. Cf. Kritias 2. 21 T TEPπνοτάτην θεῶν θνητοῖς Υγίειαν, carm. pop. 47. 23 σὺν τερπνοτάτῃ ὑγιείᾳ. ἀμπνοά: μοχθῶν ἀμπνοάν Pind. Ο. 8. 7.8. τέθαλε: perhaps this word should end 1. 7. Távтa is omitted in the inscription. õapos: vulg. čap, and so Boeckh, and Schneidewin, who explains instar veris, quod Gratiae reddunt pulchrum, affulgent (cf. Hor. 4. 5. 6). This use of cap may suit late poetry (Χαρίτων ἐξαπόλωλεν ἔαρ Anth. Ρal. 7. 599, Πόθων ἔαρ ib. 7. 29, μvwv čap ib. 7. 12). Bergk read capi, Crusius ỏápois. We find the sing. oapos, of Jason's speech, Pind. Pyth. 4. 137, but the plur. is usual, as čapoi vuμpâv Kallim. 5. 66. The Graces are the sources of delight, Pind. Ol. 14. 5. With λάμπει ὄαρος cf. niteat oratio Cic. Fin. 4. 3. 5, and see on Bacch. xiii. 12. It is to be noted that the paian does not contain the refrain in Ilatáv, which Athen. 15. 696 E regards as the sign-mark of the genuine paian.—Metre: dact.-epitrite. Note the dissyllabic anacruses, and the ithyphallic at the close of v. 6, not at the close of the strophe as often in the drama. LIKYMNIOS. THIS dithyrambic poet came from Chios to Athens, where he studied rhetoric under Gorgias. Like some others he combined rhetoric with poetry. His treatise on the art of rhetoric contained technical expressions (roupwols, ȧжожλávnσis etc.) that savoured of the dithyramb. Aristotle censured them as 'empty and frivolous' because they lacked distinctness. Cf. Plato Phaidros 267 c. One of Likymnios' teachings was that a name derives its beauty or its deformity partly from the sound and partly from the meaning. His dithyrambs were suited for reading and not for representation. I. Sextus Emp. 11. 49. Likymnios' conception of Hygieia is highly singular, at least for the classical age. Before the Roman period she was regarded as a maiden, and it is not until Orphic Hymn 67. 7 that she is called the wife of Asklepios, and μтеρ ȧπávтwv (68. 2). Wilamowitz Isyllos 192 thinks the artistic type was originally that of a matron, as in the case of the Eirene of Kephisodotos. See Roscher 1. 2781. A curious parallel in cult is 'Αθηνᾶ Μήτηρ Paus. 5. 3. 2. The relation of Hygieia to Apollo is obscure. Is she his daughter, as Asklepios is his son? Theon Progymn. 9 says εἴ τις φαίη τὴν Ὑγ. ̓Απόλλωνος εἶναι θυγατέρα.—3. Cf. ὥρης yeλwons Chairemon 14. 11, øpǹv åyéλaσтos Aisch. Frag. 290.4 ff. It is uncertain whether Sextus has wrongly attributed these lines to L., whether L. borrowed them from Ariphron or vice versa, or whether both poets took them from some common source, e.g. the paians in honour of Asklepios sung at Athens on the eighth of Elaphebolion, a day sacred to the god of healing. Hymns to the allegorical daughter of Asklepios may have been popular at Athens whose tutelary goddess herself bore the title vylea. (For the similarity between the two poems, compare the opening of the Throstle and Nightingale and Spring and Love Song.) Rossbach argues that the regular form of the dactylo-epitrites of L. proves his priority to Ariphron, and thinks that nothing is lost at the beginning of v. I (anap.-iamb. proöde as in Pind.; cf. Nem. 10. 1). Perhaps the poem of L. contained a reference to virtue (Plut. de virt. mor. 10). Plut. has ll. 4, 5 in mind in de frat. amore 2, but does not state whether he is quoting Ariphron or Likymnios. |