Delphic Hymns and ancient Greek music

My first discovery of Greek musical annotations happened in 2012 when I saw the Seikilos column at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. This temporary exhibition held a copy of the Seikilos Epitaph from Copenhagen that showed ancient Greek music (see: Revealing ancient Greek music, the Seikilos Epitaph). It was presented as the oldest surviving example of musical composition in the world, dating back to between 200 BC and 100 AD. At that time, I learned that older Greek music inscriptions existed but only fragmentarily, as is the case for the Delphic Hymns. 

While the Seikilos Epitaph is the only complete song we have, the Delphic Hymns are simply the oldest surviving examples so far, dating from the 2^nd century BC. These Hymns were carved on the southern wall of the Treasury of the Athenians in Delphi. They contain hymns praising Apollo, his birth, his life, and his protection of Athens and Delphi, with music to be played on a shrill-sounding flute and a golden, sweet-sounding cithara. These hymns to Apollo were performed during the Pythian Games, a major venue for musical contests that originally focused on art and dance. 

The two inscriptions from the Treasury of the Athenians, now exhibited at the Museum of Delphi, belong to a series of about fifty similar hymns from ancient Greece. A study revealed that these songs of praise or triumph were composed for the Pythian Games of 128 BC, i.e., the ritual procession of the Athenians towards Delphi. Apollo is also hailed for his help in fighting the Galatians in 189 BC, as the Romans won the battle against these Celtic tribes in Asia Minor. 

Like the Seikilos inscriptions, the Delphic Hymns hold musical symbols for the instruments and other notations for the singing voice next to the lyrics. We owe the interpretation of these symbols to Alypius of Alexandria, a musicographer who lived in the 3^rd century AD. 

I followed the history of ancient Greek music and the reconstruction of ancient instruments, mainly the lyre/cithara and the flute, from 2016 onward, with several updates after Reconstructing ancient Greek music, an impossible task? We still find it difficult to accept that Homer's epics or the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides originally were sung partially or in their entirety.

The sounds produced by ancient instruments are a far cry from today’s music, even from what is considered classical music or medieval troubadours. Modern music is mostly loud, to be heard beyond the daily noises of traffic, airplanes, and too many people attending the open-air events with screaming amplifiers. It is hard to imagine a quiet, tranquil spot in nature where we could catch the sound of a faraway flute or a string instrument floating on the wind. The basic essence of musical notes no longer reaches us.

With new discoveries and future in-depth research, we may expect to learn more about the music played in antiquity that could have been familiar to Alexander. I hope.

[Pictures from the Delphi Archaeological Museum]

The story around Alexander’s copy of the Iliad

Throughout history, it transpires that Alexander liked to present himself as the new Achilles. His Companions jokingly said it was because he slept with Homer's Iliad under his pillow. 

Page from the Iliad found in Egypt, 
APM Amsterdam

This statement may be far-fetched, but Plutarch confirms that Alexander kept his copy of the Iliad in a jeweled casket. It was the king’s proud possession since the precious scrolls were given to him by his earlier teacher, Aristotle, who had commented on the script. 

Ironically, the luxurious box may have belonged to the Persian King Darius. After the Macedonians were victorious at the Battle of Issus, it fell into Alexander's hands, who considered it worthy to hold the scrolls of his beloved Iliad. 

What history does not provide is a detailed description of the box and what King Darius kept inside. 

It is everyone’s guess if the casket was made of wood and inlaid with precious stones, or perhaps made of gold with intricate decorations. 

As to its contents, it may well have held the translation of the ancient Persian Avesta, the sacred text of Zoroastrian belief written originally in Avestan, an old eastern Iranian language that dates back to 1400 BC. Zoroaster was the first to teach humanity the doctrines of Heaven and Hell, the Resurrection of the body, the Last Judgment, and Eternal Life. These principles spread among mankind to be picked up eventually by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Avesta must have been key to Darius’ ideology, and these ancient texts were his most prized possession. 

Zoroastrian Temple of Fire, Yazd, Iran

Nothing more is heard about Darius’ Avesta. I find it hard to believe that Alexander would have discarded these texts. The wrath of the gods was something to reckon with. Besides, he always respected people’s beliefs, and there is no reason to simply dispose of the Avesta. There were enough men in his entourage who understood and spoke Persian to recognize the content. Our history mentions Leonnatus by name when he visits the Persian Queen Mother in Issus to reassure her that her son, King Darius, was still alive, although not victorious. Alexander may well have given the Avesta texts to Queen Sisygambis, why not? 

However, some tales take a life of their own. In the first centuries of the Abbasid Empire in Persia (750-1258), it was believed that Alexander had stolen all the Persian books, which had to be translated back from Greek into Arabic to make them available to the Persians once again, who by now had adopted the Arabic script.

While in the West, the ancient world collapsed with the Fall of Rome in 476 AD, the knowledge of antiquity survived in the Eastern Roman Empire. The Abbasid Caliphs largely contributed to preserving the knowledge of the ancient Greeks.  Their work, except poetry and history, was translated initially into Syriac and later into Arabic as spoken at their court. As a result, the well-known works on geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and most of Aristotle’s oeuvre were saved.  Without the arduous efforts of their skilled translators, not even the Renaissance could have saved our Greek heritage. 

The Abbasid and Persian angle of perception of the facts was obviously different from ours, and led them to believe that Alexander had simply stolen the Persian books. Other sources argued that they were burned in Persepolis when Alexander set the Palace ablaze.

The Trojan War in the absence of Helen

Hector seated

The Trojan War, as recounted by Homer, is a beautiful love story of Paris and Helen set against the cruelty of war when Achilles dragged the dead body of Hector behind his chariot around the city. It is the kind of subject we can still recognize today. 

Recently, I had echoes of another version in which Helen never made it to Troy but stayed in Egypt instead. One of the sources was Herodotus’ book "Histories". 

At first, I dismissed the information, mostly because Homer’s account was so familiar. When Heinrich Schliemann discovered the walls of Troy and Priam’s gold treasury in the late 19^th century, the history of Troy and the Trojan War came back alive. 

Herodotus, a native of Halicarnassus, is described as ‘The Father of History’. He was an intrepid traveler, very inquisitive about foreign lands and customs. He journeyed widely around the Mediterranean, as far south as Elephantine on the first cataract of the River Nile and as far north as the Black Sea. He visited southern Italy and eventually settled in Thurii on the Gulf of Taranto. He may well have spent time in Cyrene and even in Babylon. 

Herodotus

This Greek historian lived in the 5^th century BC (he died in 425 BC), roughly three hundred years after Homer. Both men relied on the world around them and on the sources that were available to them.

During his stay in Egypt, Herodotus spoke to the priests of the Temple of the “Foreign Aphrodite”, meaning Astarte. They said that Helen arrived in Egypt with Paris after a severe storm had blown their ship off course. The couple was brought before the pharaoh in Memphis, who condemned Paris for taking Helen away from her husband, whether by force or not, and seizing treasures from Sparta. He granted Paris three days to leave the country to return to Troy,  but he kept Helen in Memphis. 

Questioning the priests further, Herodotus was informed about the Trojan War as told to them directly by Helen's husband, Menelaus. 

What happened was that after the abduction of Helen, the Greeks sent their forces to support Menelaus. The Spartan king and his delegation were received at Troy’s Palace, where they demanded the return of Helen and the stolen treasures. The Trojans responded that neither Helen nor the treasure was in their possession, but was held in Egypt instead. Obviously, the Greeks refused to believe them and laid siege to Troy. They fought each other for ten years, and all that while Helen waited in Egypt. 

When Troy fell, and there was still no trace of Helen, Menelaus sailed to Memphis. After giving the pharaoh a true account of what had happened, he was reunited with Helen, 'having suffered no evil’, and the stolen treasure was restored. 

This looks like a happy ending, but it was not. Menelaus got cross because contrary winds pinned him down in Egypt for a long time. As an offering to the gods, he took two Egyptian children, whom he offered in sacrifice. This act of disrespect turned the friendship of the Egyptians into hatred. Menelaus was pursued but managed to escape to Libya with Helen and his ships. What happened afterwards, the priests did not know. 

Herodotus was not the only one to suggest that Helen never went to Troy but stayed in Egypt during the Trojan War. 

Euripides

There was Euripides, who in 412 BC wrote his play "Helen", in which Helen is taken to Egypt by the gods. The Helen who accompanied Paris to Troy was an eidolon, a spirit-image or likeness, cursed for her infidelity by the Greeks and Trojans alike. Meanwhile, the real Helen spent the ten-year siege of Troy in Egypt! 

It is noteworthy that Euripides was born ca. 480 BC, meaning that he was 55 years old when Herodotus died in 425 BC. He definitely must have known Herodotus’ travel history and the details of his encounters. Euripides may well have given his own twist to Herodotus’ tale of Troy. 

A similar eidolon image is introduced in Stesichorus' account. This lyric poet, who lived from around 630 to 555 BC, antedates both Herodotus and Euripides. The story goes that Stesichorus was blinded because he slandered Helen, but recovered his eyesight after writing her praise. 

Helen’s eidolon image may have been introduced by Homer or Hesiod, who reached his peak in popularity around 700 BC. 

In his "Histories", Herodotus believes that Homer knew of this eidolon version keeping the real Helen in Egypt, but that he decided not to use it, preferring the more epic poetry. 

Troy walls

Interpreting this ‘eidolon’ in today’s world is very difficult. We may think that Paris believed in ghosts since, according to this story, nobody in Troy had ‘seen’ Helen. It is clear that, in antiquity, the gods played an important role in daily life. Before the outbreak of the Trojan War, Paris had built a reputation for making fair decisions, away from outside influences. For that reason, he had been appointed by Zeus to choose which of the three goddesses was the most beautiful: Athena, Aphrodite, or Hera. He elected Aphrodite, the goddess of love. In return, Aphrodite brought Helen, the most beautiful mortal, into the life of Paris, and they fell in love. The fact that Helen was already married to Menelaus, king of Sparta, and had a daughter, Hermione, did not bother Aphrodite. To alleviate the pain of Paris being separated from his beloved Helen, the goddess introduced Helen's eidolon. 

That leaves me with Alexander cherishing the Iliad to the point of keeping it at his bedside. His copy had annotations made by Aristotle, which indicates that the Iliad was well studied and discussed by both men. It is unthinkable that Aristotle was not aware of  Helen’s eidolon substitute in Troy, and this goes for Alexander as well. However, I assume that Alexander’s fascination with the Iliad was mainly because of Achilles' heroics. 

Plato, more than a philosopher

Plato is a highly fascinating figure. Not only was he a student of Socrates, but he also taught Aristotle, who, in turn, passed his knowledge on to young Alexander. 

Plato, born in 427 BC, received the best education of his time. Although we know him mainly as a philosopher, he was educated in martial arts and horse riding, besides mathematics and music, painting, and drawing. 

When about the age of twenty, he encountered Socrates teaching on the Agora of Athens, and he realized that philosophy was a more worthy goal to pursue. 

Socrates hardly wrote anything down. We know him from Plato and Xenophon, who are not always in agreement. Socrates preferred talking, or rather asking questions, to the point of embarrassing and irritating his audience. 

Plato followed his master until the Athenians executed him on the charge of impiety in 399 BC. He then left Athens and traveled to other philosophical centers, such as Megara and Syracuse in Sicily, and later to Egypt and Cyrene. He became a student of Pythagoras, Euclid, and Heraclitus, and concentrated on the religion and metaphysics of Egypt. 

Before the Museum of Alexandria was founded, the center of knowledge was in Heliopolis, where priests studied philosophy, astronomy, and theology. Many Greeks, like Homer, Pythagoras, Plato, and Solon, consulted the Library that contained the history of Egypt going back thousands of years. For us, Egypt's ancient history is lost in the mists of time… How much was (still) available in Plato’s days? Probably far more than we can imagine. 

In the 380s BC, Plato returned to Athens, where he started the Academy. The philosopher educated his followers in a shrine of olive groves, sacred to the Greek hero Academos, and called it, therefore, Academia. Plato’s school would continue to thrive till the early 6^th century AD when it was shut down by Emperor Justinian. This Byzantine emperor was determined to erase paganism for good and impose Christianity instead to regain control over the Western Roman Empire. 

Plato is best known for his Dialogues and his Letters. He contributed hugely to our Western culture and religion, although few people realize his impact on monotheistic religions like Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. He was the first philosopher to mention and underscore the soul's immortality. For that reason, his work was not destroyed but accepted by the Christian religious leaders. Plato also stressed the importance of ‘objective truth’ in order to live well. 

As a result of the recent advanced imaging diagnostic techniques to read the carbonized papyri from Herculaneum (see: Reading the papyrus scrolls from Herculaneum), scholars have discovered more details about Plato’s life, of which very little is otherwise known. By virtually realigning the bits of burnt papyrus, they were able to restore the continuity of the text and obtain more information. 

The scroll revealed that Plato was sold into slavery on the island of Aegina, south of Athens, either in 404 BC when Sparta conquered the island, or in 399 BC upon the death of Socrates. It was previously and erroneously accepted that this event took place while he resided at the court of Dionysios of Syracuse in 387 BC. 

We also learned more about the final hours of Plato. While battling a fever, he listened to flute music played by a Thracian slave girl. He was still very lucid as he had the strength to criticize the girl’s lack of rhythm. A perfectionist to the end? 

Plato died in 348/347 BC, and it is now understood that he was buried in the garden of his Academia of Athens. This is very telling since the Academy is considered the world’s first university, which he founded next to the Mouseion. 

Deciphering the papyrus scrolls is a lengthy process that may well require many more years. Who knows what more we will learn?

About Arrian’s Periplus of the Euxine Sea

Beyond doubt, Arrian is best known for his Campaigns of Alexander the Great but as I mentioned in my earlier post, What do we know about Arrian of Nicomedia, he was a prolific writer. However, most of his works have now been lost. 

Such was the case for his Periplus of the Euxine Sea, the Circumnavigation of the Black Sea, an official military report Arrian wrote in Latin to Emperor Hadrian, who had inspected the area before him. Additionally, he composed a series of informal letters to Hadrian using Greek.

[The Periplus of the Euxine Sea, ca, 130 AD. Simeon Netchev (CC BY-NC-SA)]

Although Arrian was a member of the Roman imperial administration, he also belonged to the Greek literary elite. As a native of still very Greek Bithynia in Asia Minor, Arrian grew up with this dual identity making him a true Graeco-Roman. Addressing his Greek account to the Philhellenic emperor underscores his friendly and personal relationship with Hadrian.

Arrian was very much inspired by Xenophon, a philosopher, and historian from the 4^th century BC – hence his nickname of “Second Xenophon.” In fact, Arrian picked up Xenophon’s tracks on the Black Sea at Trapezus as he led his Ten Thousand according to his Anabasis.

Arrian’s Greek version of the Periplus with its valuable information about the Black Sea region luckily survived. It dates from 131 AD, one year after he had been appointed governor of Cappadocia.

In his days, Cappadocia was a Roman frontier with forts along the coast of the Black Sea. Arrian’s duty was to protect that line of defense and the routes into the hinterland up to the Parthian Empire further east. He was also responsible for the Pontic Fleet based in Trapezus (modern Trabzon) and for protecting the grain supply from Crimea. Besides those matters about his military and diplomatic mission, Arrian outlined the navigation routes and ports of the Black Sea and concentrated on economic activities and resources.

His Periplus covers a counter-clockwise voyage around the Black Sea, made in three separate trips. During his first journey, he sailed from Trapezus to Sebastopolis. His letters to Hadrian are bundled in chapters 1 to 11 and constitute the longest and most interesting part of his Greek Periplus.

His second expedition contained in chapters 12 to 17 took him from the Bosporus to Trapezus, and the third one is covered in chapters 18 to 25 traveling from Sebastopolis to Byzantium. These two voyages may well have been undertaken by different people as the narration is less personal and less fluent.

Much of the writing focuses on the rivers, landmarks, harbors, and cities, including the distances and other relevant information for sailors and travelers alike. It also includes information regarding the local population and the safe havens. True to himself, Arrian likes to insert local stories from Greek mythology such as Jason and the Argonauts and Prometheus, and often quotes Homer.

In short, a complete traveler’s guide that may still be helpful today!

[Continue reading in Part 1]

The Tabula Chigi quoting Alexander

“Kings have knelt before my spear, and their peoples too,
how many are the embraces of the Ocean around the earth.
I am the son of Philip, by Heracles a descendant of Zeus,
and of my mother Olympias, of the race of the Aeacids.”

This inscription is in Greek as it appears on the Tabula Chigi, in which Alexander speaks in the first person. 

This Tabula Chigi is a tablet made of antique yellow marble, 15.5 x 9 cm and 1.5 cm thick, from between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD. It belongs to a series of “tabula iliaca” named after the Iliad because most of the scenes tell episodes from Homer’s book. 

[Picture from Rai Cultura, Arte]

We don’t know for whom or why these panels were created. They may have served to decorate some libraries or to disseminate a story, or they simply had a votive function. The latest opinion is that they were a kind of conversation piece for the ‘nouveaux riches’ who had no access or the skills to read literary texts. 

Another study has suggested that the Chigi iliaca were meant to be read and understood by a selected group of connoisseurs of Greek calligrams (sets of words arranged in such a way that they form a thematically related image). So far, we know twenty-two tabulae iliacae existed. Italy has the largest collection with seven tablets spread among the Capitoline Museums, the Villa Albani, the Vatican Museums in Rome, and the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. 

The Tabula Chigi was discovered in 1777 in a quarry belonging to the Chigi family. Over the years, the tablet disappeared and was known only from 19th-century illustrations. In 1928, the last member of this powerful family gave the tablet to his American wife. It was officially called lost in 2012. However, it resurfaced recently in New York and was handed over to the Italian State in the name of the last daughter of the Chigi family. It ended up in the National Roman Museum,Palazzo Massimo, in Rome.   

The tablet shows two female figures facing each other, Europa and Asia as mentioned in the inscriptions. Between them stands an altar with a relief of a cithara player, probably Apollo, flanked by two dancers, Muses or Graces. With one hand, they hold up a tondo (round relief) with various figures; and with the other hand, they hold a dish for libations and offerings. A Greek inscription fills the space between the roundel and the altar, Europa and Asia, and this is the text mentioned above. The Tabula Chigi has survived in excellent condition. 

This unique tablet has been on display during the exhibition “The instant and eternity. Between us and the ancients” together with 300 exceptional artifacts from Greek, Roman, Etruscan, Italic, medieval, modern, and contemporary civilizations. For the occasion, a section of the Baths of Diocletian, part of the National Roman Museum in Rome reopened after decades of closure. 

Getting around in the Nile Delta

Speaking of the Nile Delta, we obviously mean the embouchure of the river Nile where its waters mingle with those of the Mediterranean Sea. 

The problem, however, is to picture the ancient cities and harbors along that coastline. There are several elements to be taken into account. 

Historically, we best know the role played by Alexandria and Pelusium, situated on opposite sides of the Delta, roughly 250 kilometers apart. 

[From Pinterest]

Pelusium, about 30 kilometers south of modern Port Said, was looking to the East. This city was the entrance gate for conquerors coming from the east. Alexander entered Egypt through Pelusium, as did the Hittites and Persians before him. For the Egyptian pharaohs, it was their gateway to the lands on the eastern Mediterranean. The city played an essential role as a transit station for the goods coming from and going to the lands around the Red Sea (see: The fame of elusive Pelusium). 

Alexander founded Alexandria after he returned from visiting the oracle in Siwah. It arose on the most westerly end of the Delta, on the Canopic Branch of the Nile. The city was intentionally oriented towards Crete and Greece, creating a close trading route with its homeland.

The Greeks had already established thriving trade emporiums in the area. Best known is Naucratis, settled as early as the 7th century BC (see: Egypt, land of the free for ancient Greeks?) As mighty Egypt allowed them to operate a lucrative business, even granting them special privileges, Naucratis eventually became a melting pot of Greek and Egyptian art and culture where they lived in harmony with each other. In its heyday, it was home to at least 16,000 people who appear to have lived in high-rise buildings three to six floors high, not unlike the mud-brick houses we encounter today in Yemen. 

Archaeological research has found proof that the Canopic Branch of the Nile was navigable all the way down to the heart of the city. However, Herodotus gave us the impression that the freight from the ships arriving from the Mediterranean was to be transshipped into barges which would sail to reach Naucratis (see: An update about Naucratis). 

A look at the above map illustrates that vessels heading for the harbor of Naucratis had to sail an extra distance from the Mediterranean. Alexandria was obviously more accessible. 

[Mosaic from Madaba, Jordan, showing the Nile with Pelusium]

Another major port was Heracleion, which the ancient Egyptians called Thonis, founded back in the 8th century BC. Known more commonly as Thonis-Heracleion, the site has been discovered under ten meters of mud near modern Abukir Bay (see: Heracleion, an ancient Greek port in Egypt, and Underwater excavation at Heracleion still ongoing). The above map shows Thonis/Thanis on a more easterly branch of the Nile, closer to Pelusium. Recent excavations have exposed 64 ancient, beautifully preserved shipwrecks and more than 700 anchors. Heracleion reached its peak between the 6th and the 4th century BC. 

Halfway between Alexandria and El-Alamein, Ptolemy II Philadelphus founded Taposiris Magna around 280-270 BC. The harbor played a significant role in the trading route for the goods from the east arriving over Lake Mareotis and overland from the Cyrenaica (see: Cyrene, founded by the Greeks). Alexandria, built on the headland between the Mediterranean Sea and Lake Mareotis, claimed taxes on the goods that transited through the city until the 7th century AD at least (see: Taposiris Magna in Egypt). 

The Egyptians founded the city of Marea, as highlighted on the map, in the 7^th century BC. It actually lies on the southern shore of Lake Mareotis, modern Lake Maryut, and 45 kilometers southwest of Alexandria. Speaking of strategic locations! 

The last major city in the Nile Delta is Heliopolis, the City of the Sun, which Alexander saw in full glory with its countless temples and at least 30 towering obelisks. The sunrise over Heliopolis must have been a sight for sore eyes when the first sunrays hit the golden pyramidal point on the obelisks (see: Buried secrets of Heliopolis)! 

This religious center was a meeting place where the priests studied philosophy, astronomy, and theology. Many Greeks, like Homer, Pythagoras, Plato, and Solon, consulted the available library that contained the entire history of Egypt. This seat of learning was eventually moved to Alexandria once the city was completed. 

For centuries, every single Pharaoh made it to the sacred city of Heliopolis, where the gods would confer their power. When Alexander, who fully understood the importance of this ritual, followed suit, he was accepted by the Egyptians as their new Pharaoh.