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CRETAN ΝΟΜΟΙ: ARCHILOCHUS, FR. 232W WITHOUT HERACLIDES LEMBUS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2019

Andrea Rotstein*
Affiliation:
Tel Aviv University

Extract

Archil. fr. 232 West (= 50 Tarditi = 133 Bergk = 230 LB) reads as follows:

      νόμος δὲ Κρητικὸς διδάσκεται
      a Cretan law is taught (transl. Dilts)
That the term νόμος should be interpreted here in a legal sense has never been contested, and justly so, since its attested meanings are ‘usage, custom, legal norm, statute, law’. However, from the fifth century b.c.e. on, νόμοι are also related to music, referring to ‘melodies’ in general or, as a more technical term, to established ‘musical patterns’. The notion of distribution, of an order socially accepted as valid, seems to underlie the use of νόμος in both the legal and the musical fields.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2019 

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Footnotes

This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 169/11), as well as by the Kadar Family Award for Outstanding Research at Tel Aviv University. An EDEN (Erasmus Mundus Academic Network) scholarship made possible an inspiring research visit to the University of Bologna, Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies in the summer of 2015. I much benefited from discussion of an earlier version of this article at the 45th Conference of the Israel Society for the Promotion of Classical Studies (Bar Ilan University, 1 June 2016). I am grateful to Federico Condello, Marco Ercoles, Margalit Finkelberg, Valentina Garulli, Dwora Gilula, Andras Karpati, Sarah Olsen, Douglas Olson, Laura Swift and Rachel Zelnik-Abramowitz for their useful suggestions. Special thanks go to Jonathan Schabbi for his vital assistance with many bibliographical quests as well as proofreading. Unattributed translations are mine.

References

2 M.R. Dilts, Heraclidis Lembi Excerpta Politiarum (Durham, NC, 1971), 19.

3 LSJ s.v.; Montanari, F., The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek (Leiden, 2014)Google Scholar, s.v. For comprehensive surveys of ancient references to νόμος, see Laroche, E., Histoire de la racine NEM- en grec ancien (Paris, 1949), 163219Google Scholar and Ostwald, M., Nomos and the Beginnings of the Athenian Democracy (Oxford, 1969), 2054Google Scholar. The term νόμος does not appear again in Archilochus’ extant poems (the related νομóς for pasture-place is attested in fr. 122.7).

4 On musical νόμοι, see Barker, A., Greek Musical Writing (Cambridge, 1984), 2.249–55Google Scholar; Gostoli, A., Terpander: veterum testimonia et fragmenta (Rome, 1990), xvi–xxviii, 101–3Google Scholar; Nagy, G., Pindar's Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past (Baltimore, 1990), 87104Google Scholar; West, M.L., Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1992), 214–16Google Scholar; Barker, A., ‘Heraclides and musical history’, in Fortenbaugh, W.W. and Pender, E.E. (edd.), Heraclides of Pontus: Discussion (New Brunswick, NJ, 2009), 273–98, at 291–4Google Scholar; Power, T.C., The Culture of Kitharôidia (Washington, DC, 2010), 215–34Google Scholar; Barker, A., Ancient Greek Writers on their Musical Past: Studies in Greek Musical Historiography (Pisa, 2014)Google Scholar; Rocconi, E., ‘The music of the laws and the laws of music. Nomoi in music and legislation’, Greek and Roman Musical Studies 4 (2016), 7189, at 72–5Google Scholar. Lasserre, F., Plutarque: De la Musique (Lausanne, 1954), 22–7Google Scholar, Rutherford, I., ‘Apollo's other genre: Proclus on νόμος and his source’, CPh 90 (1995), 354–61Google Scholar and Mathiesen, T.J., Apollo's Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Lincoln, NE, and London, 1999), 5871Google Scholar focus on later sources, such as Proclus’ Chrestomatheia (ap. Phot. Bibl. 320a) and Plutarch's [On Music] (1140F).

5 Laroche (n. 3), 166–71; Ostwald (n. 3), 54.

6 One branch of the tradition (d, g, a, b) reads τινά, another (V) reads τινάς, thus ‘ridiculing someone’ or ‘ridiculing some people’ (the manuscript tradition of the Constitutions is studied by M.R. Dilts, ‘The manuscript tradition of Aelian's Varia Historia and Heraclides’ Politiae’, TAPhA 96 [1965], 57–72).

7 Medaglia, M., Note di esegesi archilochea (Rome, 1982), 70–3, at 72Google Scholar interprets διδάσκεται as ‘educate’. All modern editors keep the paradosis, except Bergk, T., Poetae Lyrici Graeci (Leipzig, 1882 4), vol. 2, fr. 133Google Scholar.

8 Bossi, F., Studi su Archiloco (Bari, 1990), 237–8Google Scholar, following B. Marzullo, ‘Archil. fr. 232 W. νόμος δὲ Κρητικὸς διδάσκεται’, MCr 10–12 (1975–7), 45–6; but see counterexamples in Medaglia (n. 7), 72 n. 11. The verb διδάσκω is not attested again in Archilochus’ extant poems.

9 Krag, N., Heraclidae Pontici De Politiis libellus cum interpretatione latina (Geneva, 1593)Google Scholar.

10 Gerber, D.E., Greek Iambic Poetry. From the Seventh to the Fifth Century BC (Cambridge, MA, 1999), 239 n. 1Google Scholar.

11 Bergk (n. 7); followed by Edmonds, J.M., Elegy and Iambus (Cambridge, MA, 1931), vol. 1Google Scholar.

12 See n. 6 above.

13 Crete and Gortyn are mentioned by Archilochus (frr. 271, 24.2).

14 Cf. ψέγει introducing Archil. frr. 19 and 122 in Arist. Rh. 1418b23–33, the fragments displaying no traces of verbal abuse. Comparison with Callimachus and Horace suggests that criticism may have also been achieved through impersonation rather than vituperation (Rotstein, A., The Idea of Iambus [Oxford, 2010], 65Google Scholar). For Archilochus as representative of invective, see Rotstein (this note), 282–318.

15 Bloch, H., ‘Herakleides Lembos and his Epitome of Aristotle's Politeiai’, TAPhA 71 (1940), 2739, at 31–7Google Scholar.

16 Polito, M., Dagli scritti di Eraclide sulle Costituzioni. Un commento storico (Naples, 2001), 199243Google Scholar analyzes the epitomizing procedures involved in the constitution of the text.

17 Polito (n. 16), 68. Poetic citations, however, may have been drawn from a secondary source (Rhodes, P.J., A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia [Oxford, 1993; first published 1981], 124Google Scholar); see n. 29 below.

18 Solon frr. 4a, 4c (Ath. pol. 5), 5 and 6 (Ath. pol. 11.2–12.1), 34, 36 and 37 (Ath. pol. 12.3); and see Hendrickson, T., ‘Poetry and biography in the Athēnaiōn Politeia: the case of Solon’, CJ 109 (2013), 119Google Scholar, with further references.

19 Rotstein, A., Literary History in the Parian Marble (Washington, DC, 2016), 95129Google Scholar.

20 The Parian section, only 35 words long, reports well-known facts about Archilochus’ death.

21 In addition, Lycurgus’ role in the transmission of the Homeric poems is mentioned in the Spartan section (10).

22 Polito (n. 16), 69.

23 Cf. Hom. Od. 8.574, Hymn. Hom. Ap. 3.175, Hes. fr. 141.17.

24 One manuscript of the Constitutions, V, transmits the senseless κλαίω θαλασσῶν, which is omitted by the manuscripts of the x family. The fragment is cited also by Strabo (14.1.40), with corruption on the same point.

25 Cf. Suda M 24, T 53, s.v. (τὰ) Μαγνήτων κακά.

26 See Mosino, F., ‘Simonide, Esopo e le mule’, QUCC 28 (1978), 93–6Google Scholar; Nicholson, N., Aristocracy and Athletics in Archaic and Classical Greece (Cambridge, 2005), 83–4Google Scholar.

27 Nachmanson, E., Der griechische Buchtitel: Einige Beobachtungen (Darmstadt, 1969)Google Scholar.

28 Citations of Solon's poetry in the Athenian Constitution are a case in point. See Lardinois, A.P.M.H., ‘Have we Solon's verses?’, in Gehrke, H.-J., Blok, J.H. and Lardinois, A.P.M.H. (edd.), Solon of Athens: New Historical and Philological Approaches (Leiden, 2006), 1533Google Scholar; Hendrickson (n. 18). Important methodological warnings derive from experimental attempts to reconstruct plots of Old Comedy from citations (Dover, K.J., ‘Foreword: Fragments’, in Harvey, D. and Wilkins, J. [edd.], The Rivals of Aristophanes [London, 2000], xviixixGoogle Scholar; Olson, S.D., ‘Athenaeus’ Aristophanes, and the problem of reconstructing lost comedies’, in Chronopoulos, S. and Orth, C. [edd.], A Fragmentary History of Greek Comedy [Heidelberg, 2015], 3565Google Scholar). Olson's assessment of Athenaeus’ quotations of Herodotus, Xenophon and Plato with the control of extant texts is particularly illuminating (S.D. Olson, ‘Athenaeus’ “fragments” of non-fragmentary prose authors and their implications’, AJPh 139 [forthcoming]).

29 Polito (n. 16), 68; Rhodes (n. 17), 124. One could argue that Aristotle had a special interest in Archilochus and that he may have known the original poem, but whether Aristotle was personally involved in the composition of the Cretan Constitution is a matter of controversy. For Aristotle's scholarly interest in Archilochus, see Rotstein (n. 14), 67–8. Archilochean quotations appear in Rh. 1418b31 (frr. 19 and 122; see n. 13 above), Pol. 1328a3 (fr. 129) and Soph. el. 166a37 (a possible variant of fr. 192). Moraitou, D., Die Äußerungen des Aristoteles über Dichter und Dichtung außerhalb der Poetik (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1994), 130–42Google Scholar gives a useful list of poetic citations in Aristotle's works.

30 See n. 4 above.

31 As in παντοίων νόμων, ‘melodies of every kind’ (Pind. Nem. 5.5). The notion of νόμοι as competitive pieces for solo performance at festivals is not attested for the fifth century b.c.e. (Barker [n. 4 (2009)] and [n. 4 (2014)]). Extensive classifications are also a later development, and the alleged early conservatism of musical νόμοι, a Platonic fiction (Barker [n. 4 (2009)], 293–4, Rocconi [n. 4]).

32 Rocconi (n. 4), 72–5 surveys the pre-Platonic use of νόμος in the musical sense.

33 Cf. Lanata, G., Poetica preplatonica. Testimonianza e frammenti (Florence, 1963), 43Google Scholar and, more hesitantly, Barker (n. 4 [2009]), 291 n. 35.

34 Campbell, D.A., Greek Lyric (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1982–93), vol. 2Google Scholar.

35 See, however, Ostwald (n. 3), 22, for the possibility that νόμος may refer here to the ‘ways’ of all birds.

36 Ar. Pax 1159–60, Av. 210, 745, Ran. 683–5 (T.J. Fleming, ‘The musical nomos in Aeschylus’ Oresteia’, CJ 72 [1977], 222–33, at 231 n. 40). See Ercoles, M., ‘Notes on the aulodic nomoi apothetos and schoinion’, Greek and Roman Musical Studies 2 (2014), 177–83, at 181CrossRefGoogle Scholar on the metaphor ‘bird call = melodic custom (νόμος)’.

37 Lanata (n. 33), 41–2.

38 Gentili, B., ‘I frr. 30 e 40 P. di Alcmane e la poetica della mimesi nella cultura greca arcaica’, in Studi filologici e storici in onore di Vittorio De Falco (Naples, 1971), 5767Google Scholar; Nagy (n. 4), 88; Rocconi (n. 4), 73.

39 Cf. Fleming (n. 36), 222; Rocconi (n. 4), 74. Based on the frequent association of νόμοι with ethnic labels, Nagy (n. 4), 88 suggests that νόμος has the general sense of ‘localized melodic idiom’.

40 Heraclides of Pontus, as transmitted by Plut. [De mus.] (1132D = Gostoli, test. 28), possibly Glaucus of Rhegium (Barker [n. 29 (2009)]).

41 Regional traditions play a role in the classification of ἁρμονίαι and τόνοι (e.g. Pl. Resp. 398–403, Plut. [De mus.] 1132D; Ath. Deipn. 625c–626a). The labels ‘Dorian’, ‘Lydian’ and ‘Phrygian’ were used for the basic scales in musical theory (Aristid. Quint. De mus. 1.9). See M.L. West, ‘The singing of Homer and the modes of early Greek music’, JHS (1981), 113–29; Barker (n. 4 [1984]), 249–55; Solomon, J., ‘Towards a history of tonoi’, Journal of Musicology 3 (1984), 242–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barker (n. 4 [2009]), 291–4; Power (n. 4), 215–34; Barker (n. 4 [2014]).

42 Corrêa, P., ‘Musical instruments and the paean in Archilochus’, Synthesis 16 (2009), 99112, at 99–100Google Scholar.

43 I have studied Archilochus’ poetic vocabulary elsewhere (A. Rotstein, ‘The poetics of Archilochus’ [MA Thesis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1997]; Archilochus and the system of genres in archaic literature’, in Wasserman, N. (ed.), Wool from the Loom: The Development of Literary Genres in Ancient Literature [Jerusalem, 2001], 2337Google Scholar, in Hebrew).

44 ‘I myself taking the lead in the Lesbian paean to the pipe's accompaniment’ (transl. Gerber), or ‘leading a paean to the Lesbian αὐλός’. Tradition supplies no parallel for either the ‘Lesbian paean’ or the ‘Lesbian αὐλός’ (Corrêa [n. 42], 103–6 with further references).

45 Lawler, L.B., ‘Krêtikôs in the Greek dance’, TAPhA 82 (1951), 6270Google Scholar; Huxley, G., ‘Cretan paiawones’, GRBS 16 (1975), 119–24Google Scholar.

46 Schol. Pind. Pyth. 2.127 (= Sosibius, FGrHist 595 F 23), Ephorus, FGrHist 70 F 147–9, Ath. Deipn. 630b, Poll. Onom. 4.99 (cf. P. Ceccarelli, ‘Naming the weapon-dance: contexts and aetiologies of the pyrrhiche’, in Πρακτικά ΙΑ΄ Διεθνούς Συνεδρίου Κλασσικών Σπουδών, Καβάλα 2430 Αυγούστου 1999. Εις μνήμην Νικολάου Α. Λιβαδάρα = 11th International Congress of Classical Studies [Athens, 2002], 2.197–215).

47 Pind. fr. 107b: ἐλαφρὸν ὄρχημ’ οἶδα ποδῶν μειγνύμεν· | Κρῆτα μὲν καλέοντι τρόπον, τὸ δ’ ὄργανον Μολοσσόν. ‘I know how to join in the light dancing of feet; | they call the style Cretan, but the instrument Molossian.’ (transl. Race, W.H., Pindar: Nemean Odes. Isthmian Odes. Fragments [Cambridge, MA, and London, 1997]Google Scholar; cf. Rutherford, I., Pindar's Paeans: A Reading of the Fragments with a Survey of the Genre [Oxford, 2001], 77–8Google Scholar).

48 ἔγειρε δὴ νῦν, Μοῦσα, Κρητικὸν μέλος (‘So then, Muse, stir up a Cretan song’, Cratinus, Trophonius, fr. 237 PCG). Transl. van Ophuijsen, J.M., Hephaistion on Metre. A Translation and Commentary (Leiden, 1987), 116Google Scholar; Ophuijsen gives ‘Cretic song’, as does Storey, I.C., Fragments of Old Comedy. Volume I: Alcaeus to Diocles (Cambridge, MA, 2011)Google Scholar. The fragment is, in fact, cited by Hephaestion (Ench. 40) to show that Cretic was an alternative name to the Paeonic, but in its original performance context the ‘Cretan μέλος’ may have well been understood as a song in a certain rhythm rather than metre. Cf. the reference to Cretan rhythms in an anonymous song: Κρησίοις ἐν ῥυθμοῖς παῖδα μέλψωμεν (‘In Cretan rhythms let us sing of the child’, PMG 967 = Dion. Hal. Comp. 25; transl. Campbell [n. 34], vol. 5).

Tradition has Thaletas of Gortyn, a native of Crete, as the inventor of the cretic rhythm (Plut. [De mus.] 1134D). A competing tradition, perhaps as early as Glaucus of Rhegium (Bartol, K., ‘How was iambic poetry performed? A question of Ps.-Plutarch's reliability (Mus. 1141A)’, Euphrosyne 20 [1992], 269–76, at 271Google Scholar) credits Archilochus with the cretic (Plut. [De mus.] 1140F–1141B). Had fr. 232 been phrased not in the third person, as it has been transmitted, but in the first, in the manner of most of Archilochus’ metapoetic statements, one would be inclined to consider our fragment as the basis for the heurema.

49 ὦ Κρητικὰς μὲν συλλέγων μονῳδίας (‘you collector of Cretan arias’, Ar. Ran. 849). Transl. Henderson, J., Aristophanes IV: Frogs, Assemblywomen, Wealth [Cambridge, MA, 2002], 141)Google Scholar.

50 Κρητικῶς οὖν τὼ πόδε καὶ σὺ κίνει (‘so you start moving your feet too, in a Cretan way’, Ar. Eccl. 1165–6).  Henderson [n. 49], 409 has ‘to a Cretan tune’.

51 Nothing rules out the possibility that the νόμος mentioned by Archilochus was meant to accompany dance, as in Ar. Av. 743–6, where νόμοι and χορεύματα are the joint result of singing. Some of Archilochus’ poems may perhaps allow to trace a tenuous Cretan connection among Enuaulos (Archil. fr. 1), attested in Linear B tablets, the paean (fr. 121), of Cretan origins according to some ancient sources, and the Cretan melody of fr. 232.

52 Barker (n. 4 [1984]), 254.