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[German version] (Λαμπροκλῆς; Lamproklês). Musician and poet of Athens, early 5th cent. BC. Among his pupils were Damon, the teacher of Pericles (Diels/Kranz 1, 382), and possibly Sophocles (Ath. 1,20e states that the latter's teacher was Lamprus; perhaps a confusion with L. [1. 315]). Ath. 11,491c cites a dithyramb fragment. The only other preserved fragment comes from a hymn to Athena (schol. Aristoph. Nub. 967). To L. is attributed the observation that the Mixolydian mode does not relate to the other keys in the manner assumed until that time [2. 223-224].…

[German version] (Τιμοκρέων/ Timokréōn). Lyricist and elegist from Ialysus in Rhodes, early 5th cent. BC, according to the Suda also a writer of the Old Comedy (for which no evidence survives, however). In Mesopotamian Susa, T. entertained the Persian king as a pentathlete and a jester (Ath. 415f-416a). It is well known that there was a feud between him and Themistocles, whom he attacks for his failure to return him to Rhodes and his lack of success at the Isthmian Games (fr. 727 PMG). This twelve-…

[German version] (Βακχυλίδης; Bakchylídēs). Author of choral lyric whose productive period was in the 5th cent. BC. B. was born in Iulis on Ceos, but the exact year of his birth remains contested. He was the grandson of an athlete by the same name, the son of a man called Meidon (Suda) or Meidylus (EM), and nephew of  Simonides [1. 130-132]. Eusebius of Caesarea stated the time of B.'s akmḗ as the 2nd year of the 78th Olympiad, doubtlessly due to B.'s most important assignment -- to praise Hieron of Syracuse's victory in the chariot race of 468 BC. In Chron. pasch., his akmḗ is set 13 years earl…

[German version] (Ἀργᾶς; Argâs). Poet and kitharist (first half of 4th cent. BC), from whom no fragments have remained. We know his name only from sources which allow one to assume a proverbially poor-quality poet: Plutarch mentions as a nickname of Demosthenes Ἀργᾶς, a poet of ‘poor and disgusting songs’ (νόμων πονηρῶν καὶ ἀργαλέων) and makes ἀργᾶς synonymous with ὄφις, serpent (Demosth. 4,8; cf. Hsch. s. v. ἀργᾶς 7013 Latte). There are some uncomplimentary references in Phaenias of Ephesus (FHG I…

[German version] (Ἑρμόλοχος; Hermólochos). Author of several lines regarding the imponderables and hopes of life. In Stob. 4,34,66 (also in Phot. Bibl. 167) he is called H. in two MSS, and Hermolaus in one MS. [1. 637] attributes this fragment to a Hermodotus and rearranges two verses; [2] maintains the attribution to H. but slightly changes the colometry. The dactyloepitritic verses show traces of the Doric in Stobaeus. Modern editors have made further conjectures with regard to the Doric elements. Robbins, Emmet (Toronto) Bibliography 1 Th. Bergk, Poetae Lyrici Graeci III, 41882 2 …

[German version] (Καστόρειον, sc. μέλος; Kastóreion mélos). A melody, named after Castor, sung by the Spartans, accompanied on the aulos, as they went off to battle. At the same time, the king started to sing the Embaterion (Plut. De musica 26,1140c; Plut. Lycurgus 22; Polyaenus, Strat. 1,10). The meter of these two martial airs was undoubtedly anapestic (Val. Max. 2,6,2). The association of Castor with horses (cf. Hom. Il. 3,237) establishes a connection between the kastoreion and the epinikion, especially on the occasion of horse competitions (Pind. Pyth. 2,69; Hyp…

[German version] (Λυκοφρονίδης; Lykophronídēs). Lyric poet, date and origin unknown. Two fragments are extant in Athenaeus, both come from the ‘Erotica’ of Clearchus [6]. Ath. 13,564a-b deals with modesty that is the basis of beauty; Ath. 15,670d-f is a poem of dedication by a shepherd who is in love; it has a slightly Doric coloration that is reminiscent of epideictic epigrams in which hunters offer up their hunting equipment (GA I 2, 34f.). The metre is idiosyncratic in both cases but is close to Ionic ( Metre). Robbins, Emmet (Toronto)

[German version] (Μεσομήδης; Mesomḗdēs). Cithara player and lyric poet from Crete, freedman of Hadrian (according to the Suda), main period of production AD 144 (according to Eusebius). Besides two poems in the Anthologia Palatina (14,63) and the Anthologia Planudea (16,323), 13 poems are transmitted by the manuscripts, four of which are provided with musical notation. They include hymns, animal fables, the description of a sponge and of a clock, as well as a poem on the manufacture of glass. There is a variety of metres, in particu…

[German version] (Ἀνακρεόντεια; Anakreónteia). A collection of poems, handed down in that manuscript of the 10th cent. AD which contains the  Anthologia Palatina. The poems were published for the first time in 1554 by Stephanus (Henri Estienne), who had seen the manuscript three years earlier in Louvain and had copied out the texts from it [1.178]. The copy made by Stephanus, today kept in Leiden, follows exactly the text of the poems in the MSS; however, his edition suppresses details which allow …

[German version] (Κλεόμαχος; Kleómachos). Kinaidographos, born in Magnesia, dates uncertain. According to Str. 14,1,41 he was a boxer who after falling in love with a kínaidos and a prostitute, whom he supported, began to write in the obscene language of the kínaidoi. Heph. Enchiridion 11,2 (= Consbruch 392,10-15) states that the Ionian acatalectic dimeter a maiore was called the Kleomacheion and that this verse form contained Molossian metre and choriambs. Hephaestion cites (as does Trichas ad loc. Consbruch 395,10) an example but neither is definitely…

[German version] (Ἀρίων; Aríōn). Lyric poet from Methymna on Lesbos. According to statements in the Suda, his akme was in Olympiad 38 (628-624 BC), and it is said there that he had been a pupil of  Alcman. Hdt. 1,23 reports that he had been the first person to compose a  dithyramb, and given it a name and performed it in Corinth. The mention in the Suda awards him the merit of being ‘the first to have put together a chorus, sung a dithyramb and to have given a name to that which the chorus sang, and to be the fi…

[German version] (Ὑβρίας; Hybrías). At the end of a collection of scholia, Ath. 695f adds a poem by H. of Crete, which ‘many consider to be a scholion ’ [1]. H. boasts of being the master of the public slaves (δεσπότας μνοΐας) and of earning a living as a soldier. The poem was formerly assumed to be a war song by a Doric nobleman, now is commonly regarded as the boasting of a man who comes from the class that he now rules [2]. A reference to the Persian Great King suggests the middle of the 6th cent. BC as terminus post quem. The two stanzas consist primarily of trochees, choriambs,and glyconics…

[German version] (Ἤριννα; Ḗrinna). Poet and author of a work known in antiquity as the ‘Distaff’ (Ἠλακάτη; Ēlakátē), a poem of 300 hexameters (Anon. Anth. Pal. 9,190,3). Eusebius indicates that her creative time was between 353 and 352 BC (= Ol. 106.4 or 107.1). The Suda, which erroneously made her into Sappho's contemporary, names several possible places of origin; the most probable being the island of Telos since she writes in Doric with the occasional Aeolism. The literary similarities with the works of  Ascl…

[German version] (Πράξιλλα/ Práxilla). Lyric poetess from Sicyon, chief date c. 451 BC. (Eusebius, Jer. Chron. Ol. 82,2). Author of hymns (747 PMG), dithyrambs (748 PMG) and skólia (749, 750 PMG). Two verses about a girl seen at a window (754 PMG) are written in the praxilleion metre, named after her; the beginning syllables can be found as inscriptions on a Boeotian vase from the middle of the 5th cent. Her treatment of myth was innovative: Dionysus was the son of Aphrodite and not Semele (752 PMG); Zeus, not Laius, kidnapped Chrysippus (7…

[English version] (Πράξιλλα). Lyrische Dichterin aus Sikyon, Hauptzeit 451 v. Chr. (Eusebios, Hier. chron. Ol. 82,2). Verfasserin von Hymnen (747 PMG), Dithyramben (748 PMG) und skólia (749, 750 PMG). Zwei Verse über ein Mädchen, das sich an einem Fenster zeigt (754 PMG), sind in dem nach der Dichterin Praxilleion genannten Metrum abgefaßt; die Anfangssilben finden sich als Inschr. auf einer boiotischen Vase aus der Mitte des 5. Jh. Ihre Behandlung des Mythos war innovativ: Dionysos war der Sohn der Aphrodite und nicht …

[English version] (Οἰνιάδης). Aulos-Spieler und Dithyrambendichter aus Theben. IG II2 3064 verzeichnet seinen Sieg im Aulos-Spiel 384/3 v.Chr. in Athen. Sein Vater Pronomos ist wahrscheinlich der berühmte aulētḗs bei Paus. 4,27,7; 9,12,5; Anth. Plan. 16,28,2. Didymos [1] nennt O. als einen von drei Dichtern, die einen Dithyrambos mit dem Titel ‘Kyklops verfaßten (840 PMG). Robbins, Emmet (Toronto) Bibliography D.A. Campbell, Greek Lyric 5, 1993, 208  H. Reimann, s.v. O., RE Suppl. 8, 369  D.F. Sutton, Dithyrambographi Graeci, 1989, 38F1.

[English version] (Ἀνακρεόντεια). Eine Sammlung von Gedichten, überliefert in jener Handschrift des 10. Jh. n. Chr., die die Anthologia Palatina enthält. Die Gedichte wurden erstmalig 1554 von Stephanus (Henri Estienne) herausgegeben, der die Hs. drei Jahre zuvor in Louvain gesehen und die Texte daraus abgeschrieben hatte [1.178]. Die Abschrift des Stephanus, heute in Leiden aufbewahrt, hält sich genau an den Text der Gedichte in der Hs., doch seine Ausgabe unterdrückt solche Einzelheiten, die kla…

[English version] (ἐμβατήριον, sc. μέλος, ἆσμα). Militärmarsch, oft gesungen, gewöhnlich von einem Auleten (Flötenspieler) gespielt, obwohl Phillis von Delos von κινήσεις ἐμβατηρίους in Verbindung mit ἀρχαίους κιθαρῳδούς spricht (Athen. 1,21f-22a). Die protokorinthische Chigi-Kanne von ca. 630 v.Chr. (Rom, Villa Giulia 22679) zeigt marschierende Krieger mit einem Auleten (vgl. Thuk. 5,70). Der Rhythmus war zweifellos anapästisch: Dion Chrys. 2,59 (PMG 856; vgl. PMG 857) zitiert einen derartigen Gesang, angeblich von Tyrtaios. Athen. 14,630f berichtet, daß die embatḗria…

[English version] (ἐπικήδειον, sc. μέλος, ᾆσμα). Zeremonieller Gesang bei der Trauer (κῆδος, kḗdos) oder der Bestattung (vgl. Pind. P. 4,112). Der Chor in Eur. Tro. 514 singt ein e.-Lied (ᾠδὰν ἐπικήδειον) über den Untergang Troias; ähnlich spricht Platon von den ἐπικήδειοι ᾠδαί berufsmäßiger Klagefrauen bei einer Bestattung. Substantivisch wird e. jedoch selten und erst spät verwendet. Ant. Autoren versuchten es von anderen Worten für “Klage” zu unterscheiden: Proklos (Phot. 321a 30-32) nennt e. einen Gesang ‘vor der Bestattung’ (ἔτι τοῦ σώματος προκειμένου; in Eur…

[English version] (Ἀρίων). Lyrischer Dichter aus Methymna auf Lesbos. Nach Aussage der Suda lag seine akmḗ in Ol. 38 (628-624 v. Chr.), und es wird dort auch gesagt, er sei ein Schüler des Alkman gewesen. Hdt. 1,23 berichtet, er sei der erste gewesen, der einen Dithyrambos komponiert, ihm einen Namen gegeben und ihn in Korinth zur Aufführung gebracht habe. Die Notiz in der Suda spricht ihm das Verdienst zu, er habe als erster ›einen Chor zusammengestellt, einen Dithyrambos gesungen und dem, was der Chor sang, …