"Alexander's Brothers?", by Ron K. Unz, The Journal of Hellenic Studies CV (1985)

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by Ron K. Unz
In The Journal of Hellenic Studies CV (1985), pp. 171-174

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NOTES '7'
derives from that employed by Winnington-lngram in
his transcription oi POslo 1413.13
In this transcription one can see that the melody
follows the contour of the pitch-accent by rising to its
highest pitch for the accented syllable.'4 If the word
before dEA7WLY is in fact OEI?IV then the pitch over its
grave-accented syllable correctly lies lower than the
accented syllable of the following word. In following
the pitch-accent contour, the melody of this inscription
resembles that ofsuch other hymns as the Delphic 2nd
cent. BC, those by Mesomedes 2nd Cent. AD, the
Seikilos inscription 1st cent. AD, the Oslo papyrus
Ist-2nd cent. AD, POxy 2436 Ist-2nd cent. AD, the
Michigan papyrus 2nd cent. AD, the Berlin paian
2nd-3rd cent. AD, and POxy 1786 3rd-4th cent.
5
That the line of music might end on the 'borrowed'
note has a striking parallel in the very dramatically and
melismatically rendered Atav at the phrase end of the
second line of the roughly contemporary Berlin tragic
fragment i'. And to the melisma Zø jumping the
entire length ofa tetrachord from 'standing' mesë Z to
'standing' ntë synëmmen6n 9, one might compare the
unaccented ultima of [v]&>o'[.tJuxov in line 2a of
POslo 1413 mess to nëtë synëmmenön, the accented
antepenult of xoPeaare in line 2 of POxy 2436 nfftë
synmmen5n [=parantë diezeugmenön] to mesë, and
several other loci. To this inscription's intraverbal
tetrachordal movement systemic modulation from E
trite synëmmen5n to N liclianos mes6n above -ov, one
might compare those in line 17 of the first Delphic
hymn rw-cv: trite hyperbolai5n to nëtCsynCmmen5n and
in line I of the Zenon papyrus aos rd8' -: trite
synëmmen6n to lichanos mes5n to trite synëmmenön.
The reason for the presence ofjust one line of musical
notation is not clear and the phenomenon is unparal
leled. One cannot assume that all subsequent lines were
to be sung to the same sequence of notes, and the notes
above the first line do not seem to be establishing a tropos
from which a musician could improvise the rest of the
hymn; they are not in scalar order, some notes seem to
be repeated, and there is no parallel for such a theoretical
scale at the introduction ofa piece of ancient Greek sung
poetry.'6 It is puzzling as well that this exortation for
the worshippers to 'sing' might be the only musically
notated word in the hymn, since very few oi the
worshippers would be able to read the music and those
present frequently would certainly have memorized the
phrase.
Despite all the perplexities and uncertainties found in
reading, analyzing, and transcribing this brief piece of
third-century votive poetry, what does become clear is
that from the third-century renascence of interest in
hygienic cults at Epidaurus there may now have been
13 Eitrem-Amundsen-Winxsingcon-Ingram n. 12 62, line 7 over
-6atsesa.
14 For the contour over an uncircumfiexed diphthong, cf. POxy
1786.3 i.&voiivrwv.
5 For the most part the pitch sung to the accented syllable stands
higher than the pitches used on the previous, unaccented syllables of
the same word. The rules for accentual corresponsion as outlined in
Pöhlmann 140 need re-examination. Cf. POxy 1786.5 dasv and
POxy 3161. 8-9.
16 Several pieces from the Anon ymus Bdkrmanni Pôhlmann nos 8,
9, ii are in ascending scalar order, but these exercises' with
instrumental notation arc not attached to any text.
found at least one example of an inscribed, musially
notated hymn to Apollo and other deities. Wemay now
have three votive musical inscriptions ranging in date
from the second century BC to the third century AD and
a musical epitaph from the first or second century AD.
The range of date for these four scone inscriptions
suggests to us that the practice of cutting musical
notation into stone can no longer be assigned only to
several flukes recovered one century ago. While all the
discoveries of new musical fragments sine the i 8905 had
been in the area of papyrology,'7 there is now at least
hope that further excavation in religious sanctuaries
might turn up more musically notated offerings more
complete and more reliably copied than this extremely
fragmentary hexameter, Hyperionian chromatic curi
osity.'8
University of Arizona
JON SOLOMON
17 PBerolin in 1918. POxy 1786 in içtaa, PZenon 59533 Ifl 1931.
POslo in 1955, POxy 2436 in i9j, PMich 2858 in 1965, PLeiden mv.
510 in 1973. and POxy 316! and 3162 in 1976.
"I would like to thank Profs Thomas J. Mathiesen of Brigham
Young University and Michael W. Haslam ofUCLA for their careful
reading ofthis paper and subsequent criticisms and suggestions. I am
grateful as well to M. Mitsos and Alcibiades N. Oikonomides for
calling the inscription to my attention.
Alexander's brothers?
Our knowledge of the early life of Alexander the
Great is based upon very slender literary evidence.
Arrian devotes only a few sentences to the years prior to
Alexander's campaigns. Plutarch's coverage of Alex
ander's youth is also very condensed, and both he and
Arrian rely almost exclusively upon pro-Alexander
sources such as Ptolemy and Aristoboulos. The books of
Curtius which deal with the early years of Alexander
have been lost, and Diodorus' coverage is as usual very
scanty. Justin's epitome of Trogus is among our longest
and most comprehensive accounts, but it is often
rhetorically unreliable and careless with details. Yet
apart from occasional flashbacks and allusions in these
sources and a few fragments of other historians, this
evidence-heavily biased, meager, and unreliable as it
is-comprises all we know concerning the first twenty
years of Alexander's life.
Naturally facts are difficult to establish when all our
extant sources are so unsatisfactory, and grotesque
distortions are relatively easy to produce. Earlier this
century, W. W. Tarn managed to create a pristine-pure
Alexander the Just by explaining away all contrary
evidence as hostile propaganda fabricated by Alex
ander's enemies to blacken his name.1
I wish to thank E. Badian and A. B. Bosworth for many valuable
discussions and helpful suggestions made during the preparation of
this paper I also wish to thank several anonymous referees for their
useful comments. Obviously, none of these persons should be held
responsible for those errors which still remain, nor for the arguments
presented. I am grateful to Harvard University, the Westinghouse
Corporation, and the Winston Churchill Foundation for their
financial support during the preparation of this paper.
The extreme nature of Tam's views is well-demonstrated by a
passage relating to the topic of this paper. In his Alexander the Great:
sources and studies ii Cambridge 1948 260-2. he accuits Alexander of
the murder of his brother Karanos by debunking' Karanos' existence,
Journal of Hellenic Studies cv 1985 171-174

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