Now the measures appointed by these persons, noble
Onesicrates, in reference to such songs as are to be sung
to the flutes or pipes, were distinguished by these names,
—Apothetus, Elegiac, Comarchius, Schoenion, Cepion,
Tenedius, and Trimeles (or of three parts).
To these succeeding ages added another sort, which were
called Polymnastia. But the measures set down for those
that played and sung to the harp, being the invention of
Terpander, were much more ancient than the former. To
these he gave the several appellations of Boeotian, Aeolian,
Trochaean, the Acute, Cepion, Terpandrian, and Tetraoedian.1 And Terpander made preludes to be sung to the
lyre in heroic verse. Besides, Timotheus testifies how that
the lyric nomes were anciently appropriated to epic verses.
For Timotheus merely intermixed the dithyrambic style
with the ancient nomes in heroic measure, and thus sang
them, that he might not seem to make too sudden an innovation upon the ancient music. But as for Terpander, he
seems to have been the most excellent composer to the
harp of his age, for he is recorded to have been four times
in succession a victor at the Pythian games. And certainly
he was one of the most ancient musicians in the world;
for Glaucus the Italian in his treatise of the ancient poets
and musicians asserts him to have lived before Archilochus,
affirming him to be the second next to those that first invented wind-music.
[p. 107]
1 See Rossbach and Westphal, II. 1, p. 84. (G.)
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