Glossary

A place where word-end is less frequent than at ⁝.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 19

A change of speaker within a line or scheme.

Source: West 1987, p. ix

In a scheme, regular word-end (a caesura).

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 19

The end (or beginning) of a strophe.

Source: West 1987, p. ix

Marks two passages that correspond metrically (strophe ~ antistrophe).

Source: West 1987, p. ix

This site’s sign for a caesura or a boundary between cola inside a scheme, where West writes | or ⁝ and :.

Source: West 1987, p. ix (for | ⁝ :); the sign ¦ is this site’s own, explained on the Notation tab

Anaclasis; the side of the siglum it stands on shows whether the double short has moved forward or back (¨gl, gl¨).

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 34

An anceps position, which a long or a short may fill.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 5

Anaclasis in ionics: 2io÷ (the anacreontic), ÷3io, 3io÷.

Source: West 1987, p. x

A superior c (or d) after a siglum marks choriambic (or dactylic) expansion, repeated as many times as the numeral says: glᶜ, gl²ᵈ, ph³ᵈ.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 34

A long position in a scheme, or a long syllable in a scansion.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 5

The end (or beginning) of a period; Lourenço adds ᴴ or ᴮ to say whether hiatus or brevis in longo shows it.

Source: West 1987, p. ix; Lourenço 2011, pp. 13–15

Word-end avoided between the two positions it joins.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 25

A place where word-end is frequent (more often than at :); in the hexameter scheme it marks the alternative places of the caesura.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 19

A suppressed position: after an, da, e, io, tr it marks catalexis; with iambic metra syncopation (∧ia, ia∧, ∧ia∧); ∧∧ after dactyls a blunt ending.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 5, 7, 38, 52

Lourenço’s sign for brevis in longo.

Source: Lourenço 2011, pp. 13–15

Word-end one position later than the colon-end, as in ¨gl ∫ dod.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 42

The beginning or end of a composition (in Lourenço, the beginning of a stanza or lyric sequence).

Source: West 1987, p. ix; Lourenço 2011, pp. 13–15

A short position, or a short syllable.

Source: West 1987, p. ix

A position normally short, sometimes long, as in the dochmius kaibelianus × — ⏒ — ⏑ —.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix–x, 47, 56

A position normally filled by a long, sometimes by a short, as the link-syllable of dactylo-epitrite (D ⏓ e). West puts the normal quantity below.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 43

Two short positions before a princeps that one long may replace.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 6

A princeps that may be filled by two shorts.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 6

Two shorts filling a princeps, as in the resolved cretic — ⏑ ⏖; touching a siglum (cr⏖, gl⏖) it means the first or last position is resolved.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix–x, 6, 55

A long of three morae, equal to — ⏑; ⌊ is the triseme equal to ⏑ —. West notes these angles were the signs of the ancient rhythmicians.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 7

A long of four morae, equal to — —.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 75

Two positions of which at least one must be long: the aeolic base as West writes it once both-short is avoided.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 33, 44

Said of a verse or colon whose last metron is complete, not shortened by catalexis. Example: the iambic trimeter × — ⏑ — × — ⏑ — × — ⏑ —, whose three metra are all complete.

Source: West 1987, p. 5

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

The one syllable of a word that stands out. In classical Greek it stood out by a higher pitch of the voice, not by stress; the high pitch fell on a single mora, so a long vowel could be high on its first half (the circumflex) or its second (the acute). The marks were first written at Alexandria about 200 BC. Example: λόγος (logos) “word”, high on λό-; δῶρον (dōron) “gift”, high on the first half of ω, then falling.

Source: Allen 1968, pp. 106, 114–115; Smyth 1920, p. 37 (§ 151); Probert 2006, pp. 8, 57–59

See: Accent and morae › A pitch accent · Accent and morae › Morae

“Headless”: lacking the first syllable of the usual form; a telesillean can be described as an acephalous glyconic. Battezzato uses the word of an aeolic colon whose base is reduced to one syllable.

Source: West 1987, p. 85; Battezzato 2009, p. 134

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Attic deme, home of Timodemus, the victor of Pindar’s Nemean 2; the chorus of Aristophanes’ Acharnians are its men.

See: Pindar › Nemean 2 · Aristophanes › Chorus and song

The accent mark ά, a high pitch on the syllable; a word is oxytone when it carries the acute on its last syllable, paroxytone on the next-to-last. Paroxytone line-ends are favoured in some later verse.

Source: Devine and Stephens 1994, p. 152; West 1987, pp. 71, 82

See: Accent and morae › The three marks · Accent: pitch or stress? › Evidence

Siglum for the adonean, — ⏑ ⏑ — ×. See adonean.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 33

King of Pherae, subject of the skolion attributed to Praxilla (“take to heart the tale of Admetus”).

See: Praxilla › Transmission · Praxilla › Praxilleia and skolion

The short colon — ⏑ ⏑ — × (siglum ad), a catalectic dodrans, which ends the Sapphic stanza. D’Angour connects the name with the ritual cry for Adonis; some teaching books call it the “adonic”.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 33; D’Angour 2022, p. 136

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary · Aeolic › Lesbian stanzas

Aeacus (Aiakos), whose descendants, the Aeacids, include Achilles and Ajax; Bacchylides’ Ode 13 gives them more than sixty lines, Pindar’s Nemean 5 five.

Source: Jebb 1905, p. 216

See: Bacchylides › Ode 13 · Homer › Iliad · 16.155–167 (the wolves simile)

Author of the Varia historia, which says Corinna beat Pindar five times.

See: Corinna › Life

The family of fixed-syllable cola built round the choriamb — ⏑ ⏑ — and usually opened by a free base: glyconic, pherecratean, hipponactean and their relatives, used by Sappho and Alcaeus and taken over by Anacreon, Pindar and the dramatists.

Source: West 1987, pp. 29–35

See: Aeolic › Base and choriamb

The two free positions that open some aeolic cola, a survival of the free verse-opening of inherited verse: × × in Sappho and Alcaeus (both short is rare), ○ ○ later, with the first position resolvable in Pindar.

Source: West 1987, pp. 6, 33, 44; Battezzato 2009, p. 134

See: Aeolic › Base and choriamb

Dale’s name for the ambiguity of cola built only of longs and double shorts, which could be heard as aeolic or as ionic; she argues that Sophocles meant Philoctetes 710 (phᶜ) to be heard as aeolic.

Source: Dale 1968, pp. 143–144 and p. 144 n. 1

See: Lyric in drama › Worked example

Called the Clouds’ father in the parabasis ode of Aristophanes’ Clouds, where he is summoned in a run of dactyls.

Source: Dale 1968, p. 135

See: Aristophanes › Clouds · 563–606 (parabasis, ode and antode)

Callimachus’ elegiac poem in four books on the origins of cults and customs; the poems for Berenice that frame its last two books may also have circulated separately (disputed).

Source: Barbantani 2009, p. 308 with n. 42

See: Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Transmission

A stop released straight into a fricative made at the same place, as English ch [tʃ] or the ts of cats. Allen thinks ζ was an affricate [dz] when the Greeks took over the alphabet, but had become [zd] in classical Attic; the ττ of Attic and the σσ of other dialects also passed through an affricate stage. Example: ζ in Ζεύς (Zeus), said [zd] in classical Attic.

Source: Allen 1968, pp. 53–58

See: Sounds › Consonants

Late fifth-century tragedian of the New Music, who began the use of embolima, songs not written for one particular place in one play.

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Speech and song · Timotheus and the New Music › Life

The two leading girls praised by the chorus in Alcman’s Partheneion; the hagesichorean is named after Hagesichora.

Source: Power 2022, p. 247; Krummen 2009, pp. 191–192

See: Alcman › Songs and language · Alcman › Partheneion

The formal debate of Old Comedy, one of its set pieces, often in tetrameters.

Source: Seidensticker 2005, p. 42

See: Aristophanes › Plays and dates

Alcaeus’ stanza, three periods on the pattern aaA: two identical periods (pe ⁝ dod) and a longer third; Sappho uses it too. Example: the second line of Alcaeus fr. 332, πώνην, ἐπεὶ δὴ κάτθανε Μύρσιλος (pōnēn, epei dē katthane Myrsilos), “drink, since Myrsilus is dead”, — — ⏑ — — ⁝ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ×, on the scheme × — ⏑ — × ⁝ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ —.

Source: West 1987, p. 34; Battezzato 2021, p. 128; Alcaeus fr. 332.2

See: Aeolic › Lesbian stanzas · Alcaeus › Metres

Euripides’ play of 438 BC, performed fourth in place of a satyr play and combining tragic and satyric elements.

Source: Easterling 1997, p. 353; Gregory 2005, p. 258

See: Euripides › Plays and dates

Athenian politician for whose Olympic victory of 416 BC Euripides wrote an epinician.

Source: Nicholson 2022, p. 57

The early fifth-century Macedonian king for whom Bacchylides wrote a sympotic encomium (fr. 20B).

See: Bacchylides › Life and works

The Ptolemies’ capital in Egypt, with the Museum and Library where scholars edited and catalogued the poets.

Source: Reynolds and Wilson 1991, pp. 6–7

See: How the texts reached us › Alexandria

Made with the tongue against the ridge just behind the upper teeth, as English t, d, n, s are. Greek ρ was an alveolar trill; τ δ θ ν were probably dentals instead. Example: the rolled ρ of πατρός (patros) “of a father” [r].

Source: Allen 1968, pp. 14, 39

See: Sounds › IPA chart

Late Aristoxenian writer, perhaps of the fourth century AD, whose tables of the vocal and instrumental signs for every key and genus are the main key to the ancient notation.

Source: West 1992, pp. 5, 254; Anderson 1994, p. 203

See: Notation › Two sign systems

An ancient life of Pindar, which tells on the authority of Chamaeleon and Ister that bees built a honeycomb on his lips.

See: Pindar › Life

In drama, an exchange in song between an actor and the chorus, or a dialogue mixing sung and spoken lines; Battezzato prefers it as the general term to kommos, which is used above all of a shared lament. Example: Agamemnon 1136–55, where Cassandra sings and the chorus answers her.

Source: Battezzato 2005, p. 152; Easterling 1997, p. 158 n. 14

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Siglum for an anapaestic metron (an∧: with catalexis, … ⏑ ⏑ — —), ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ —. See anapaest.

Source: West 1987, p. ix

A swap of quantities at a fixed place in a colon, ⏑ — standing for — ⏑ or the reverse, as when ⏑ ⏑ — — ⏑ ⏑ — — becomes the anacreontic ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — ⏑ — —; West writes it ¨ beside the siglum (÷ in ionics).

Source: West 1987, pp. ix–x, 8; D’Angour 2022, p. 134; Landels 1999, c. pp. 119–121

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary · Ionic › The metron · Rhythm › A musician's view

Short poems written in Anacreon’s manner and largely in anacreontics from the Hellenistic period into Byzantine times; the later ones favour paroxytone line-ends.

Source: West 1987, pp. 71, 73–74; Budelmann 2009, pp. 227–239

See: Ionic › Later ionic · Anacreon › Transmission

The colon ⏑ ⏑ — ⏒ — ⏑ — —, an ionic dimeter with anaclasis (2io÷), named after Anacreon; the most widely used and longest-lived ionic verse, still written in Byzantine times.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 33, 73–74, 85; D’Angour 2022, p. 137

See: Ionic › The metron · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

In the musical metric of the nineteenth century, a syllable that stands before the first full foot of a verse, “preliminary” to it; Jebb marks it ⁝ in his analyses of Sophocles’ lyrics.

Source: Jebb 1891, pp. lv–lvii

See: Sophocles › Antigone · 781–800 (third stasimon, Eros)

Named in Sappho fr. 16, the Anactoria poem.

See: Sappho › Fr. 16 (Οἰ μὲν ἰππήων…)

Iambic poet who, like Hipponax, wrote choliambs.

Source: West 1987, p. 30

See: Hipponax, Semonides and the iambographers › Life · Iambic › The choliamb and other variants

The foot ⏑ ⏑ —; the anapaestic metron (siglum an) is ⏔ ⏕ ⏔ ⏕, used for the recited “marching” anapaests of choral entrances and exits and for sung lament.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 29, 85; Battezzato 2009, p. 131

See: Anapaestic › Marching anapaests · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

‘Turning back’: a two-syllable preposition takes its accent on the first syllable, ἄπο (apo), πάρα (para), πέρι (peri), instead of ἀπό, παρά, περί, when it follows its noun or verb or stands for a compound verb (ἔπι (epi) = ἔπεστι (epesti), “is upon, is there”). This is the older, inherited accent.

Source: Devine and Stephens 1994, pp. 364–365

See: Accent and morae › Enclitics and proclitics

A position (×) that may be filled by a long or a short syllable. Not the same thing as a syllable of doubtful quantity; an anceps next to another anceps or next to a short shows that a period ends there.

Source: West 1987, pp. 5, 12–13, 37; Battezzato 2009, p. 131

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Euripides’ tragedy, 425 BC?; also the name of Hector’s wife, whose wedding Sappho fr. 44 describes.

Source: Easterling 1997, p. 353

See: Euripides › Plays and dates · Sappho › Fr. 44 (Ἔκτωρ καὶ συνέταιροι…)

Epigrammatist who makes Anacreon admit that his poetry now lives in books.

See: Anacreon › Poetry and reputation

Epigrammatist whose canon of nine women poets, earthly counterparts of the nine Muses (A.P. 9.26), names Praxilla, Nossis and the others.

Source: Natoli et al. 2022, pp. 120–121, 178–179

See: Anyte › Life · Praxilla › Life

The repetition of a strophe in exactly corresponding metre; strophe and antistrophe form a pair in choral song and drama. Example: Agamemnon 1146–55 repeats the metre of 1136–45.

Source: West 1987, p. 4

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Stanzas and responsion · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

In the parabasis of Old Comedy, the sung stanza that answers the ode in responsion; ode and antode are each followed by an equal block of spoken trochaic tetrameters, the epirrhema and antepirrhema (Clouds 563–74 ~ 595–606).

Source: West 1987, p. 51 and n. 4; Dale 1968, p. 135

See: Aristophanes › Clouds · 563–606 (parabasis, ode and antode) · Lyric in drama › Comedy

The cutting off of a short vowel at the end of a word before a consonant (ἀποκοπή, apokopē, “cutting off”), found in poetry and in dialect inscriptions; the leftover consonant is often assimilated to the next one. Example: Homer’s ἄν, κάτ, πάρ for ἀνά, κατά, παρά; κὰπ πεδίον (kap pedion) “through the plain” for κατὰ πεδίον.

Source: Smyth 1920, p. 24 (§ 75 D)

See: Lesbian Aeolic › Features

A word that cannot stand on its own in the verse: prepositives (the article, prepositions, καί (kai) and others) belong with the next word, postpositives (enclitics, γάρ (gar), δέ (de) and others) with the word before, which matters for caesura and the metrical laws.

Source: West 1987, p. 9 with n. 2

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary · Introduction to Greek metre › Feet, metra, cola, periods

Siglum for the aristophanean, — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — —. See aristophanean.

Source: West 1987, p. ix

Hellenistic poet of the Phaenomena, a hexameter poem on the stars that opens with a proem to Zeus; Callimachus’ Epigram 27 praises its Hesiodic manner and calls him “the man from Soli”. His hexameters keep Naeke’s and Hilberg’s Laws in the passage scanned here.

Source: Clayman 2022, p. 420; West 1987, p. 78; Maas 1962, p. 62

See: Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Aratus, Phaenomena · 1–18 (proem to Zeus) · Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Aratus, Phaenomena · Callimachus, Ep. 27 (on Aratus)

The verse ⏔ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — —.

Source: West 1987, p. 85

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

King of Macedon who drew Euripides, Agathon and Timotheus to his court in the last decade of the fifth century; Euripides’ Archelaus was written for him.

Source: Gregory 2005, p. 253; Csapo and Wilson 2009, p. 280

See: Euripides › Plays and dates · Timotheus and the New Music › Life

Of the kind Archilochus composed: the couplings of dactylic and iambic cola in one verse that the Hellenistic epigrammatists took up.

Source: Hephaestion, Ench. 15.1–8

See: Dactylo-epitrite › Usage · Archilochus › Poetry and reputation

The war god; Melinno hails Rome as his daughter.

See: Melinno › Hymn to Rome

Byzantine scholar whose library, like Photius’ reading, contained little poetry.

Source: Reynolds and Wilson 1991, pp. 63, 65

See: How the texts reached us › Byzantium

City of the Argolid, Agamemnon’s kingdom in Aeschylus.

See: Aeschylus › Agamemnon · 1–39 (the Watchman)

Poet of Methymna on Lesbos who composed choral songs in Corinth and Italy; with Terpander one of the first exponents of choral song at Sparta.

Source: de Kreij 2022, p. 144

See: Doric of choral lyric › Features · Doric of choral lyric › Layers and metre

Alexandrian scholar and librarian who edited Alcaeus and probably Anacreon and commented on Alcman, Pindar and Bacchylides; he used the metre to correct Pindar’s text.

Source: Phillips 2022, p. 120; Reynolds and Wilson 1991, pp. 8–9

See: How the texts reached us › Alexandria · How the texts reached us › Colometry

Writer on music of the second or third century AD who describes a third kind of voice, between speech and song.

See: Accent: pitch or stress? › Evidence · Scales and harmoniai › Harmoniai and ethos

Grammarian whose work, with that of Didymus and Theon, lies behind the medieval scholia.

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Ancient metricians

The colon — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — — (siglum ar), the catalectic form of ¨gl.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 33

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Alexandrian scholar and librarian (mid-third to second century BC), credited with the colometry of the lyric poets and with editions of Pindar, Alcaeus and probably Sappho; he wrote a supplement to Callimachus’ Pinakes. He divided Bacchylides’ text into strophes and short verses by responsion and by the pauses that hiatus and brevis in longo show, and put Olympian 1 at the head of Pindar’s odes.

Source: Reynolds and Wilson 1991, pp. 4–5, 15; Tribulato 2021, p. 143; Barbantani 2009, p. 299; Maehler 2004, p. 14; Brown 2022, p. 337

See: How the texts reached us › Alexandria · How the texts reached us › Colometry

Strictly the up-beat, the part of a foot marked with a dot in ancient musical texts, as opposed to the thesis; modern books have also used the two words the other way round. D’Angour reports a view linking them with a change of pitch.

Source: West 1987, p. 85; D’Angour 2022, p. 139 with n. 6

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary · Rhythm › Arsis and thesis

The goddess of hunting, angry in the parodos of the Agamemnon; Timotheus wrote a hymn to her for the Ephesians.

See: Aeschylus › Agamemnon · 104–39 (parodos) · Timotheus and the New Music › Life

A glyconic with choriambic expansion, ○ ○ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⁝ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — (glᶜ); the greater asclepiad has the choriamb twice (gl²ᶜ). Dawe calls Antigone 787~797, × — — ⏑ ⏑ — — ⏑ ⏑ — —, a catalectic minor asclepiad; Lourenço names it a pherecratean with choriambic expansion (phᶜ).

Source: West 1987, p. 85; Battezzato 2009, p. 135; Lourenço 2011, p. 113 n. 245

See: Aeolic › Expansion · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Hellenistic epigrammatist who praised Erinna’s short poem as a match for Homer (A.P. 7.11).

Source: Natoli et al. 2022, p. 86

See: Erinna › Life

Hesiod’s village, to which his father moved from Cyme (Works and Days 633–640).

See: Hesiod › Works and Days · 633–662 (Ascra; the voyage to Chalcis)

The west coast of modern Turkey, home of the Ionian and East Aeolic Greeks.

See: Lesbian Aeolic › Sappho's dialect · Anacreon › Life

Asopichos of Orchomenos, son of Kleodamos, for whose victory in the boys’ stadion Pindar wrote Olympian 14.

Source: Race 1997a, p. 209

See: Pindar › Olympian 14

Corinna’s poem on the daughters of the river Asopus and the prophet’s answer (PMG 654 col. iii), in polyschematist glyconic stanzas, on the Berlin papyrus.

Source: Gentili and Lomiento 2001, pp. 7–8

See: Corinna › The Asopids (654 iii) · 22–51 (the prophet’s answer)

A sound with a puff of breath, [h]. The aspirated stops φ θ χ were [pʰ tʰ kʰ], p t k followed by breath, much as English p t k at the start of pot, top, cat said with emphasis; the grammarians called them δασέα (dasea) “rough” and π τ κ ψιλά (psila) “smooth”. The rough breathing (h) is an aspirate too. Example: πόρος (poros) [póros] “passage” beside φόρος (phoros) [pʰóros] “tribute”.

Source: Allen 1968, pp. 12, 16, 26; Smyth 1920, p. 11 (§ 16 a)

See: Sounds › Consonants

φ, θ, χ in classical Greek: p, t, k followed by a puff of breath, single consonants, not the fricatives f, th, ch of Modern Greek, which they became in the Roman and Byzantine periods.

Source: Allen 1968, pp. 16–26

See: Sounds › Consonants

The change of a sound to make it more like its neighbour. Final ν took on the place of the consonant that followed: ἐν πόλει (en polei) “in the city” was said, and on inscriptions often written, ἐμ πόλει, and ἐν κύκλῳ as ἐγ κύκλῳ [eŋ kýklɔː]. Example inside a word: ἐμμένω (emmenō) “I abide by”, from ἐν + μένω.

Source: Allen 1968, pp. 31–32; Smyth 1920, p. 24 (§ 77)

See: Sounds › Consonants

Not divided into responding strophes; astrophic, polymetric songs, changing from one metre to another, mark the New Music and the late monodies of Euripides. Timotheus was remembered above all for giving up strophic responsion; the words then never had to fit a melody fixed in advance.

Source: West 1987, pp. 62, 66; D’Angour 2022, p. 138; Csapo and Wilson 2009, p. 284

See: Lyric in drama › Polymetry · Euripides › Actors' song

Hector’s infant son, who shrinks from his father’s nodding crest in Iliad 6.466–481.

See: Homer › Iliad · 6.466–481 (Hector and Astyanax)

For Hephaestion, two cola that cannot be joined into one unit but are used together as a single line; for West, two periods written as one line, as in some epodes of Archilochus. Example: Archilochus fr. 191.1, a dactylic tetrameter and an ithyphallic in one line (4da ¦ ith).

Source: Hephaestion, Ench. 15.1; West 1987, p. 32

See: Lyric Stanzas › Asynarteta · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

The goddess of crafts and of Athens, named in many poems here (the Distaff of Theocritus’ Idyll 28 is her gift).

See: Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Theocritus, Idyll 28

Author of the Deipnosophistae (“Sophists at Dinner”), which quotes much lost poetry, including Xenophanes fr. 2 and the Attic skolia, whose name he explains from the order of singing. (The Athenaeus of the Delphic paean of 127 BC is a different man.)

Source: Natoli et al. 2022, p. 177

See: Anacreon › The ball and Artemon (Athenaeus) · Praxilla › Attic skolia (anonymous) · Accent: pitch or stress? › Melody

Father of Agamemnon and Menelaus, the “sons of Atreus” of the Iliad and the Agamemnon.

See: Epic Ionic › Metrical consequences · Aeschylus › Agamemnon · 104–39 (parodos)

A girl named in Sappho’s poems (“I loved you, Atthis, once, long ago”).

See: Sappho › Fr. 96 (νῦν δὲ Λύδαισιν…) · Lesbian Aeolic › Corpus and imitators

A short vowel kept short before a stop + liquid or nasal (πλ, τρ, κν …), because the whole group begins the next syllable; normal in Attic speech and so in the spoken verse of drama, above all comedy, while earlier poetry mostly makes the syllable long. With γμ, γν, δμ, δν it never happens, and with βλ, γλ only rarely. Example: τέκνα (tekna) “children”, scanned te-kna ⏑ ⏑ as well as tek-na — ⏑; πατρός (patros) as πα-τρός.

Source: West 1987, pp. 16–17; Allen 1968, pp. 100–102; Smyth 1920, p. 35 (§ 145)

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Prosody: consonants · Overview › How dialect affects metre

Harbour town named in several poems here: the omen at Aulis in the Agamemnon parodos, a Boeotian town in the Catalogue of Ships, and the port from which Hesiod sailed to Chalcis.

See: Aeschylus › Agamemnon · 160–75 (Hymn to Zeus) · Hesiod › Works and Days · 633–662 (Ascra; the voyage to Chalcis)

A lost play of Euripides; Athenaeus quotes Xenophanes fr. 2, on the honours paid to athletes, as the source of a passage in it.

Source: Athenaeus 10.413f–414c (ed. Kaibel)

See: The elegists: Callinus, Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Solon, Theognis, Xenophanes › Xenophanes fr. 2

Siglum for Battezzato’s siglum for the baccheus, ⏑ — —. See baccheus.

Source: Battezzato 2009, p. 134

The foot ⏑ — —; in lyric iambics it is the syncopated metron ia∧. Hephaestion counts it among the five-time feet; Battezzato (siglum ba) treats it as a catalectic iamb.

Source: West 1987, p. 52; Hephaestion, Ench. 3.2; Battezzato 2009, p. 134

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

A word with no accent on its last syllable: every paroxytone, proparoxytone and properispomenon. The Greek βαρύτονος (barytonos) means “low-toned”. Example: λόγος (logos) “word”, accented on its first syllable, is barytone.

Source: Smyth 1920, p. 38

See: Accent and morae › The three marks

The man whom Delphi’s oracle, in Pindar’s Pythian 4, proclaims as the settler of Libya.

See: Pindar › Pythian 4

Erinna’s childhood friend, who died soon after her wedding, mourned in the Distaff and two epigrams.

See: Erinna › Life · Erinna › Epigrams

The modern equivalents for the Greek note-signs, fixed by Bellermann and Fortlage in 1847 so that the key written with the plain signs needs no sharps or flats: the vocal sign C is written as a, the a below middle c. The editors agree it sets everything about a minor third too high; Hagel would transcribe a fourth lower.

Source: Hagel 2009, pp. 9, 452–453; Pöhlmann and West 2001, p. 7; West 1992, p. 255

See: Music theory › Notation · Notation › Two sign systems

Julia Balbilla’s Aeolic epigrams in elegiac couplets carved on the Colossus of Memnon in November AD 130, numbered after A. and É. Bernand’s edition of the inscriptions on the colossus.

Source: Tribulato 2021, pp. 143, 145

See: Julia Balbilla › Inscription 30 · Julia Balbilla › Inscription 31

Two short positions before a princeps that may be replaced by one long syllable, treated as a single unit and written ⏔; used of the dactylic hexameter and the anapaest.

Source: West 1987, p. 6; Battezzato 2009, p. 131

See: Dactylic: the hexameter › Scheme

A position that takes either two shorts or a single syllable of either length, found in Stesichorus and Bacchylides; West draws it .

Source: West 1987, pp. 37, 46

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

An ending … ⏑ — on a long (in dactylic runs written ∧∧), as opposed to a pendant ending … ⏑ — ×.

Source: West 1987, pp. 6, 38

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Region of central Greece, home of Pindar and Corinna; the Boeotians head the Catalogue of Ships in Iliad 2.

See: Doric of choral lyric › Corinna · Corinna › Life · Homer › Iliad · 2.484–510 (invocation; Catalogue)

Hellenistic poet of Cyzicus who boasted of inventing the catalectic iambic octameter.

Source: West 1987, p. 76

See: Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Life · Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Metres

The sign written over (or, with a capital, before) a vowel that begins a word. The rough breathing ῾ (spiritus asper) means an [h] before the vowel; the smooth breathing ᾿ (spiritus lenis) means none. Every initial υ and ρ has the rough breathing. In metre the [h] does not count as a consonant. Example: ὅρος (horos) “boundary” beside ὄρος (oros) “mountain”.

Source: Smyth 1920, pp. 9–10 (§§ 9–14); Allen 1968, pp. 50–53; West 1987, p. 12 n. 1

See: First steps › Letters and sounds

A short final syllable standing where the rhythm needs a long, at the end of a period; the pause that follows makes up the missing time. Lourenço marks it ∩. Example: Pindar, Pythian 12.3 ends ὦ ἄνα (ō ana), its last syllable -να short in a long position.

Source: West 1987, p. 4

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Feet, metra, cola, periods · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

A place in the line where poets avoid ending a word, the opposite of a caesura, marked ⁀ over the two positions; Hermann’s Bridge, Porson’s Law and Havet’s Law are bridges. Example: in the hexameter — ⏔ | — ⏔ | — ⏔ | — ⏑⁀⏑ | — ⏑ ⏑ | — ×, no word ends between the two shorts of the fourth foot (Hermann’s Bridge).

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 21, 25, 28, 90; Battezzato 2009, p. 132

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Feet, metra, cola, periods · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Cult names of Dionysus, in the Bacchae and the Dionysiaca.

See: Euripides › Bacchae · 64–169 (parodos)

Two poems of Sappho published in 2014 from P.GC inv. 105 and P.Sapph.Obbink, the Brothers Poem and the Cypris Poem.

Source: Finglass 2021, pp. 232–242

See: Sappho › Papyri

Word-end after the fourth foot of the hexameter when its biceps is two shorts, a frequent and favoured break, named from its use in pastoral (bucolic) poetry. Example: Theocritus 1.1 Ἁδύ τι τὸ ψιθύρισμα καὶ ἁ πίτυς | αἰπόλε τήνα (Hady ti to psithyrisma kai ha pitys | aipole tēna).

Source: West 1987, p. 21

See: Dactylic: the hexameter › Scheme · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Sculptor attacked in Hipponax’s iambics (“I’ll hit Bupalus in the eye”).

See: Hipponax, Semonides and the iambographers › Poetry

Of the Greek Middle Ages, when the classical texts were copied, selected and annotated (and some lost) before reaching the West.

See: How the texts reached us › Byzantium

The city (later Constantinople) and its empire, where the classical texts were copied in the Middle Ages; home of Moero.

See: How the texts reached us › Byzantium · Moero of Byzantium › Life

Founder of Thebes; the Oedipus Tyrannus opens with “Children, young brood of ancient Cadmus”.

See: Sophocles › Oedipus Tyrannus · 1–77 (the opening scene) · Overview › How dialect affects metre

A regular word-end inside a period (| in a scheme). In the hexameter’s third foot it is masculine (after the long) or feminine (after the first short); penthemimeral and hephthemimeral caesurae fall after the third and fourth princeps. Example: Iliad 1.1 μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ | Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος (mēnin aeide theā | Pēlēïadeō Achilēos), a penthemimeral caesura after θεά.

Source: West 1987, pp. 4, 19, 87–88; Battezzato 2009, p. 132

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Feet, metra, cola, periods · Dactylic: the hexameter › Scheme

A papyrus codex of Menander found in 1905 (first edition 1907), with large parts of several plays.

Source: Allinson 1921, Introduction

See: How the texts reached us › Discoveries · Menander › Plays and papyri

Grammarian of the third or second century BC who wrote a commentary on Sappho and Alcaeus.

See: Overview › Editions and orthography

The shortening of the last metron of a colon or period by one or two syllables, which marks the close (∧ after the siglum); Hephaestion distinguishes catalectic, brachycatalectic and hypercatalectic endings. Example: the lekythion — ⏑ — × — ⏑ — is a trochaic dimeter with its last position cut off (2tr∧).

Source: West 1987, p. 5; D’Angour 2022, pp. 134–135; Hephaestion, Ench. 4.1–4

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Roman poet; Sappho fragments were printed in Muretus’ edition of Catullus.

See: Sappho › Editions

A hundredth of an equal-tempered semitone, so that the octave has 1,200: the modern unit, introduced by A. J. Ellis, for comparing intervals by addition. The Greek fifth is 702 cents, the fourth 498, the 9:8 tone 204 and the leimma 90.

Source: West 1992, pp. 11–12; Nowacki 2020, p. 171

See: Music theory › Intervals · Music theory › Tone and semitone

Hellenistic poet who invented a stichic “meliamb”.

Source: Morrison 2022, p. 396 n. 35

See: Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Lyric

Siglum for the choriamb, — ⏑ ⏑ —. See choriamb.

Source: West 1987, p. ix

City on Euboea to which Hesiod made his one voyage, from Aulis, to compete at the games for Amphidamas, where he won a tripod with a song (Works and Days 650–659). In the Agamemnon the fleet lies at Aulis across from Chalcis; Lycophron of Chalcis is said to have edited comedy at Alexandria.

See: Hesiod › Works and Days · 633–662 (Ascra; the voyage to Chalcis)

Peripatetic writer, a contemporary of Aristotle, who wrote on Alcman and Pindar. Hadjimichael lists his monographs On Anacreon, On Sappho, On Lasus, On Simonides, On Pindar and On Stesichorus, and finds no treatise of his on Alcman named by Athenaeus.

Source: Hadjimichael 2020, pp. 159, 175

See: Alcman › Life · Pindar › Life · How the texts reached us › Six stages · Sappho › Before Alexandria

Brothers of Sappho named by the Suda (with Eurygius).

See: Sappho › Life

The centaur, who prophesies in Pindar’s Pythian 9; also the title of Pherecrates’ comedy that mocked Timotheus.

See: Timotheus and the New Music › Life

Grammarian who wrote a commentary on Hephaestion’s handbook.

Source: West 2018, pp. 372–373

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Ancient metricians

The “lame” or “limping” iambic trimeter (or trochaic tetrameter) of Hipponax and Ananius, with a long syllable in the next-to-last position where a short is expected; taken up by Callimachus and Herodas. Example: Hipponax fr. 120 ends … τὸν ὀφθαλμόν (ton ophthalmon), with -θαλ- long in the next-to-last position.

Source: West 1987, pp. 30, 82; Battezzato 2009, p. 137

See: Iambic › The choliamb and other variants · Hipponax, Semonides and the iambographers › Metres: choliamb

An older name for the trochee, — ⏑. In Jebb’s terms a glyconic is one “cyclic” dactyl and three chorees, a pherecratic the same with one choree fewer.

Source: Jebb 1891, pp. lv–lvii

See: Sophocles › Antigone · 781–800 (third stasimon, Eros)

At Athens, the citizen who paid for and equipped a chorus. In Dorian states, the word could mean the leader who trained and led the chorus.

See: Performance › Chorus and dance

Choral dance and song together; Battezzato cites Oedipus Tyrannus 895–896, where the chorus asks why it should dance if such deeds are honoured, for tragic choruses that question their own choreia.

Source: Battezzato 2005, p. 165; Burian 1997, p. 182

See: Sophocles › Oedipus Tyrannus · 883–910 (second stasimon, second pair) · Sophocles › Oedipus Tyrannus · 863–82 (second stasimon)

The four-syllable unit — ⏑ ⏑ — (siglum ch), the core of the aeolic cola; choriambic expansion repeats it inside a colon (glᶜ).

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 34, 86; D’Angour 2022, p. 137

See: Aeolic › Base and choriamb · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

A name used in more than one sense. West notes that it is often given to the wilamowitzian (the anaclastic glyconic ○ ○ — × — ⏑ ⏑ —). Dale uses it of dimeters closed by a choriamb: her type B has a first metron of free form, — × — × — ⏑ ⏑ —, as in the lines for the Sun in the Clouds parabasis ode.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 86; Dale 1968, p. 147 n. 1

See: Aristophanes › Clouds · 563–606 (parabasis, ode and antode) · Sophocles › Antigone · 781–800 (third stasimon, Eros)

The repetition of an internal — ⏑ ⏑ — (choriambic, marked ᶜ) or — ⏑ ⏑ (dactylic, marked ᵈ) inside an aeolic colon, once or more: glᶜ, gl²ᵈ, ph³ᵈ.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 34

See: Aeolic › Expansion

Proclus’ handbook of literature, cited for the date of Semonides.

Source: Lennartz 2022, p. 213 with n. 37

See: Hipponax, Semonides and the iambographers › Life

Roman orator, first printed in 1465; his De republica was recovered from a palimpsest by Angelo Mai.

Source: Reynolds and Wilson 1991, pp. 193–195

See: How the texts reached us › Printing · How the texts reached us › Discoveries

Dithyrambic poet of the New Music, whom Aristophanes’ Birds shows floating among the clouds in search of inspiration.

Source: LeVen 2022, p. 364; Csapo and Wilson 2009, p. 282

See: Timotheus and the New Music › Life · Aristophanes › Chorus and song

The accent mark ᾶ, a rise and fall on a long vowel or diphthong; in the musical documents usually set to a falling figure.

Source: Devine and Stephens 1994, p. 152; Cosgrove and Meyer 2006, p. 66

See: Accent and morae › The three marks · Accent: pitch or stress? › Melody

Itsumi’s three groups of the stanza-forms of Pindar’s non-dactylo-epitrite odes: Class I aeolic (Nemean 2), Class II freer dactylo-epitrite, Class III “amalgamated”, the two metres fused in long verses with long single-short runs (Olympian 1, Olympian 14), which he thinks the most characteristically Pindaric.

Source: Itsumi 2009, pp. 103–110; Itsumi 2009, pp. 141, 280, 360

See: Pindar › The other half · Pindar › Olympian 14

A closing cadence that rounds off a stanza: Maehler hears the shortened D of the eighth verse of Bacchylides 20 slowing the rhythm like a clausula, and Hendry describes Bacchylides 2 as iambic with priapean clausulae.

Source: Maehler 2004, p. 16; Hendry 1994, introduction

See: Bacchylides › Ode 20 · Lyric Stanzas › Worked example

Athenian politician; in Aristophanes’ Wasps, Philocleon turns Alcaeus’ warning about Pittacus against him.

See: Alcaeus › Life · Aristophanes › Life

A hymn that calls gods to come; Dale’s description of the parabasis ode and antode of the Clouds, which summon twelve gods, each group in its own rhythm.

Source: Dale 1968, p. 135

See: Aristophanes › Clouds · 563–606 (parabasis, ode and antode)

A short word with no accent of its own, said together with a neighbouring word: an enclitic leans on the word before it, a proclitic on the word after it. Example: ἄνθρωπός τις (anthrōpos tis) “some person”, with the enclitic τις; ἐν οἴκῳ (en oikōi) “at home”, with the proclitic ἐν.

Source: Probert 2006, pp. 69–70; Smyth 1920, pp. 41–42 (§§ 179, 181)

See: Accent and morae › Enclitics and proclitics

A very short colon, such as the penthemimer × — ⏑ — ×.

Source: West 1987, pp. 86, 88

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

A metrical phrase of up to about twelve syllables, recognisable because the same shape recurs elsewhere; the building block of lyric periods. D’Angour puts the usual size at five to eight syllables. Example: the adonean — ⏑ ⏑ — × that closes each Sapphic stanza, as in Sappho 1.4 πότνια, θῦμον (potnia, thȳmon).

Source: West 1987, p. 4; D’Angour 2022, p. 133

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Feet, metra, cola, periods · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Ionian city, home of Mimnermus (or Smyrna), Nicander and Phoenix.

See: The elegists: Callinus, Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Solon, Theognis, Xenophanes › Elegy and its poets

The lengthening of a vowel when a following consonant was lost; the dialects differ in the result (Ionic ξεῖνος (xeinos), Lesbian ξένος (xenos), both “stranger, guest”, with gemination elsewhere), which can change a syllable’s quantity.

Source: de Kreij 2022, pp. 143–146; Tribulato 2021, p. 136

See: Epic Ionic › Features · Lesbian Aeolic › Features

An interval whose two notes go well together, sounded at once or one after the other. Greek theory admitted only three concords, the fourth (4:3), the fifth (3:2) and the octave (2:1), with their compounds; every other interval, the thirds included, was a discord, usable in melody but not as a frame.

Source: West 1992, pp. 9, 160; Landels 1999, c. p. 93

See: Music theory › Intervals

A correction proposed by an editor where the transmitted text seems wrong; metre has been a guide to emendation since the Alexandrians.

Source: Reynolds and Wilson 1991, pp. 8–9, 15; Kovacs 2005, pp. 388–389

See: How the texts reached us › Colometry

The two ways of joining tetrachords: conjunct when they share a note (seven notes, a seventh), disjunct when a tone separates them (eight notes, an octave). The separating tone is itself called the disjunction.

Source: Landels 1999, c. p. 89; West 1992, pp. 160–161

See: Music theory › Joining tetrachords

Two or more consonants side by side, as στ, μβρ, κλ. Normally the first consonant of a cluster goes with the syllable before, which is then closed and heavy (λεκ-τός); but a stop followed by a liquid or nasal may go whole to the next syllable and leave the syllable before light. Example: ἄστρον (astron) “star”, ἀσ-τρον, with heavy ἀσ-; πατρός (patros) “of a father”, read πα-τρός or πατ-ρός.

Source: Allen 1968, pp. 98, 100–101; Smyth 1920, p. 35 (§§ 140, 144–145)

See: Sounds › Syllables and quantity · Introduction to Greek metre › Prosody: consonants

The Aristotelian treatise that transmits Solon’s iambic fr. 36 entire.

See: Hipponax, Semonides and the iambographers › Poetry · The elegists: Callinus, Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Solon, Theognis, Xenophanes › Solon · frr. 4.1–10, 5, 6

Corinna’s poem on the singing contest of the mountains Helicon and Cithaeron (PMG 654 col. i), in strict ionics.

See: Corinna › 654 i: the mountains’ contest · Corinna › Metres: ionics, hexameter

W. S. Allen’s name for the unit of the Greek pitch accent: the high tone together with the fall that follows it, on one syllable (the circumflex) or on two (an acute and the next syllable). No more than one short vowel may follow it, which accounts for the limits on where the accent can stand.

Source: Allen 1968, pp. 114–116

See: Accent: pitch or stress? › Contonation · Accent and morae › Where the accent stands

One long syllable filling the two short positions of a biceps, as when a dactyl becomes a spondee; the Lesbians’ normal Aeolic metres do not allow it (Sappho’s epic-style hexameters, fr. 105, do). Some teaching books call this “resolution”, which West reserves for the reverse. Example: in Iliad 1.7 … ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν (anax andrōn) the one long syllable ἀν- fills a biceps.

Source: West 1987, pp. 2, 6, 32, 35; Battezzato 2009, p. 131; Natoli et al. 2022, p. 337

See: Dactylic: the hexameter › Contraction · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

The merging of two vowels, or a vowel and a diphthong, in neighbouring syllables of one word into a single long vowel or diphthong. A vowel made this way is always long. Attic contracts more than Ionic, which often leaves the vowels apart. Not the same as the metrical contraction of two shorts into one long. Example: ἐφίλεε (ephilee) becomes ἐφίλει (ephilei) “he loved”; πλόος (ploos) becomes πλοῦς (plous) “voyage”.

Source: Smyth 1920, pp. 9, 19, 21 (§§ 6, 48); West 1987, p. 10

See: Sounds › Vowels · Epic Ionic › Features

Doric city where choral lyric may first have emerged, with Eumelus, and where Arion composed.

See: Doric of choral lyric › Features · Doric of choral lyric › Layers and metre

Shortening (Latin correptio): a syllable scanned short that could count as long. In epic correption a long vowel or diphthong at the end of a word is short before a word beginning with a vowel (epic, elegy, some lyric); in Attic correption a short vowel stays in a short syllable before a stop + liquid, the whole group beginning the next syllable (Attic speech and drama). Examples: Odyssey 1.1 ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε (andra moi ennepe), μοι short before ἔννεπε; Frogs 510 ἀνέβραττεν (anebratten), νε short before βρ.

Source: West 1987, pp. 14, 16–17; Allen 1968, pp. 91, 100–102; D’Angour 2022, p. 134

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Prosody: vowels · Introduction to Greek metre › Prosody: consonants · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Siglum for the cretic, — ⏑ —. See cretic.

Source: West 1987, p. ix

The merging of two vowels across a word-boundary into one syllable, especially when the spelling shows it, as κἀτέρωτα (katerōta) for καὶ ἀτέρωτα (kai aterōta); one kind of synecphonesis.

Source: West 1987, pp. 15, 86

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Prosody: vowels · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

A comic verse, ¨gl | gl¨∧: — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏒ — ⏑ — | ○ ○ — × — ⏑ —.

Source: West 1987, p. 86

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Poet of Old Comedy, with Eupolis and Aristophanes one of its leading three; his Archilochoi is cited by Hephaestion.

Source: Seidensticker 2005, p. 39

See: Aristophanes › Life · Archilochus › Poetry and reputation

Plato’s dialogue on names, evidence for the pitch accent (the name Δίφιλος (Diphilos) spoken with the middle syllable low).

See: Accent: pitch or stress? › Evidence

Name of a king in several tragedies here (Euripides’ Medea; Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus and Antigone); in the Antigone the chorus’s hymn to Eros (781–800) follows his quarrel with his son Haemon.

See: Sophocles › Antigone · 781–800 (third stasimon, Eros)

Island home of Andromachus, Mesomedes and Musurus, and of the Dictaean hymn.

See: Andromachus: the theriac poem (in Galen) › Andromachus · How the texts reached us › Printing

The five-time metron — ⏑ — (siglum cr), whose longs may be resolved into the paeons; not to be confused with the ‘spurious’ cretic of syncopated iambics, ∧ia.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 39, 52, 55; Battezzato 2009, p. 131

See: Cretic and paeonic › The cretic and the paeons · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Athenian praised by Anacreon, grandfather of the oligarch of the same name.

See: Anacreon › Life

Divine beings named in Cithaeron’s song in Corinna.

See: Corinna › Date

The sixth-century anthology of epigrams by Agathias and his circle, whose hexameters return to a far stricter technique.

Source: West 1987, p. 81

See: Nonnus › Nonnus · The elegiac couplet › Rules and later refinements

In ancient rhythmic theory, a ⏑ ⏑ — (or — ⏑ ⏑) in which the long took less than its full two units of time. The nineteenth-century musical metric used it too: for Jebb a glyconic is one “cyclic” dactyl and three chorees.

Source: West 1987, p. 38; Jebb 1891, pp. lv–lvii

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary · Sophocles › Antigone · 781–800 (third stasimon, Eros)

Place-name in two poems here: the Aeolian Cyme that Hesiod’s father left for Ascra (Works and Days 636), and the Cyme of Pythian 1, under which, with Sicily and Etna, Typhos lies.

See: Hesiod › Works and Days · 633–662 (Ascra; the voyage to Chalcis) · Pindar › Pythian 1

The young man to whom Theognis addresses his elegies.

Middle c in the octave notation used in these transcriptions. The octaves are labelled C–B, c–b, c′–b′ and c″–b″.

Source: West 1992, p. 12

See: Overview › Reading an edition

Maas’s sigla for the units of dactylo-epitrite: d — ⏑ ⏑ —, D — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — (D² and D³ longer), e — ⏑ —, E — ⏑ — × — ⏑ — (e∧ — —); joined by link-syllables, as in D ⏓ e. See dactylo-epitrite.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 43; Battezzato 2009, p. 141

See: Dactylo-epitrite › The elements

Siglum for a dactyl (da∧: dactyls with catalexis, ending — ×; da∧∧ ending —), — ⏑ ⏑. See dactyl.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 38

The foot — ⏑ ⏑ (siglum da), named from the Greek for “finger”; verse is dactylic when it runs in such units or when cola like — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — dominate.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 34, 86; D’Angour 2022, p. 132

See: Dactylic: the hexameter › Scheme · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

A lyric colon of five dactyls (5da), not the elegiac “pentameter”. Dale notes that Aeschylus often sets one as the next-to-last colon of an iambic stanza, before the closing lekythion, as at Agamemnon 165 and 173.

Source: Dale 1968, p. 84; Lourenço 2011, p. 67 n. 137

See: Aeschylus › Agamemnon · 160–75 (Hymn to Zeus)

Davies and Finglass’s name for the first of Stesichorus’ two kinds of metre (the other is dactylo-epitrite). The Geryoneis is of this kind: Pitotto analyses its strophe as anapaests, West as dactyls; both count the same positions.

Source: Kelly 2022, p. 45 n. 49; Pitotto 2024, pp. 19–20; West 1987, pp. 37–38

See: Stesichorus and Ibycus › Geryoneis

The metre built from the dactylic units d and D and the iambo-trochaic e and E, joined by a usually long link-syllable (D ⏓ e); the Dorian metre of Pindar and Bacchylides. The name is modern (nineteenth century), the sigla are Maas’s.

Source: West 1987, p. 43; Battezzato 2009, p. 141

See: Dactylo-epitrite › The elements · Pindar › Metres: D/e

Athenian musical theorist of the mid fifth century, associate of Pericles, who held that modes and rhythms shape character and that the state should regulate them; Plato’s source for the doctrine of ethos, though his own writings are lost.

Source: West 1992, pp. 246–247; Nowacki 2020, pp. 15–16

See: Scales and harmoniai › Harmoniai and ethos · Overview › Mousikē

The dawn goddess (Eos), “golden-armed Dawn” in Bacchylides’ Ode 5.

Galen’s treatise on antidotes, in which he copies Andromachus’ theriac poem in full (1.6).

See: Andromachus: the theriac poem (in Galen) › Andromachus

Athenaeus’ “Sophists at Dinner” (c. AD 200), a vast miscellany that quotes much lost poetry (Anacreon, Semonides, Xenophanes, Menander, the Attic skolia); cited from Kaibel’s edition.

See: Anacreon › The ball and Artemon (Athenaeus) · The elegists: Callinus, Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Solon, Theognis, Xenophanes › Xenophanes fr. 1 · Praxilla › Attic skolia (anonymous)

Island for whose great festival Bacchylides wrote ode 17.

See: Bacchylides › Life and works

Schoolmaster at Thessalonica about 1305–1320, the first Byzantine to understand the metres of classical poetry and use them in editing, sometimes well, often by inserting stopgap words.

See: How the texts reached us › Byzantium · Aeschylus › Manuscripts

Athenian orator, first printed by Aldus in 1502–1504 with Sophocles and Euripides; his speech On the False Embassy (19.255) preserves Solon’s elegy fr. 4.

Source: Reynolds and Wilson 1991, pp. 156–157

See: How the texts reached us › Printing · The elegists: Callinus, Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Solon, Theognis, Xenophanes › Solon · fr. 4.11–39 (Eunomia)

Made with the tip of the tongue against the upper teeth: τ [t], δ [d], θ [tʰ] and ν [n]. Allen argues that these were true dentals, as in French, rather than the alveolars of English t, d, n. Example: τόξον (toxon) “bow”, δῶρον (dōron) “gift”, θεός (theos) “god”.

Source: West 1987, p. 11; Smyth 1920, p. 11 (§§ 16, 19); Allen 1968, pp. 14, 31

See: Sounds › IPA chart · Sounds › Consonants

Word-end that coincides with the end of a metron or colon; Battezzato uses it of word-end between two metra. Example: the fixed word-end in the middle of the elegiac pentameter, — ⏔ — ⏔ — | — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ —, where the first hemiepes ends.

Source: West 1987, p. 86; Battezzato 2009, p. 132

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Feet, metra, cola, periods · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

The two dots written over ι or υ (ϊ, ϋ) to show that it does not form a diphthong with the vowel before it, so that the two are said in separate syllables (διαίρεσις, diairesis, “separation”). Not the same as the metrical diaeresis, word-end at the end of a metron. Example: προΐστημι (proïstēmi) “I set before”, with ο and ι apart; νηΐ (nēï) “to a ship”.

Source: Smyth 1920, p. 9 (§ 8)

See: Sounds › Diphthongs and digraphs

“Division”: sounding the octave harmonic of a lyre or kithara string by touching its midpoint lightly as the plectrum strikes. Landels, who tested it on a monochord, argues that it could double a seven-stringed instrument’s range and may explain the octave marks of the notation; his hypothesis.

Source: Landels 1999, c. pp. 61–62

See: Instruments › Ranges and pitch

An ionic hymn of the fourth or third century BC from Crete, an example of ionic in religious use.

See: Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Life · Ionic › Later ionic

Grammarian whose commentaries, with those of Aristonicus and Theon, lie behind the medieval scholia.

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Ancient metricians · Pindar › Transmission

A step smaller than a semitone, above all the enharmonic quarter-tone; for Philolaus it was a semitone. The word may first have been the pipers’ term for “letting through” a little air from a finger-hole.

Source: Nowacki 2020, p. 172; Landels 1999, c. pp. 35, 87, 90; Hagel 2009, pp. 443–444

See: Music theory › Tone and semitone · Music theory › Tetrachord

The letter ϝ, the sound w, lost in Ionic and Attic before Homer’s text was fixed but kept in some dialects; many Homeric words, above all in formulae, scan as if it were still there, which explains apparent hiatus and lengthening. Example: ἄναξ (anax) “lord” was once ϝάναξ (wanax); so in Iliad 1.7 Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν (Atreïdēs te anax andrōn) the τε is not elided before it.

Source: West 1987, pp. 22–23; Kiparsky 2018, p. 116; Smyth 1920, p. 8 (§ 3 D); Allen 1968, pp. 45–47

See: Epic Ionic › Features · Dactylic: the hexameter › Prosody of epic

Two letters written for one sound. In classical Attic ει and ου were often digraphs for single long vowels, [eː] and [oː] (later [uː]), not diphthongs: the grammars’ “spurious diphthongs”. Example: ει in εἶναι (einai) “to be”, from older ἔσναι, a long [eː]; ου in πλοῦς (plous) “voyage”, contracted from πλόος (ploos).

Source: Allen 1968, pp. 67–68, 72–73; Smyth 1920, p. 9 (§ 6)

See: Sounds › Vowels

A run of two metra (a trimeter has three, a tetrameter four); a numeral before a siglum gives the count, as 2ia, 4da.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 5

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Feet, metra, cola, periods

Biographer of the philosophers, the source of some quoted verse.

See: The elegists: Callinus, Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Solon, Theognis, Xenophanes › Xenophanes fr. 1

Critic whose On Literary Composition quotes Sappho’s Hymn to Aphrodite and describes the pitch range of the word accent; he reports the colometry credited to Aristophanes of Byzantium.

Source: Reynolds and Wilson 1991, pp. 4–5; Finglass 2021, pp. 247–248

See: Accent: pitch or stress? › Evidence · How the texts reached us › Colometry

Two vowels said in one syllable, the voice gliding from the first to the second, which is ι or υ (δίφθογγος, diphthongos, “having two sounds”). Every diphthong is long: it counts two morae, like a long vowel, so a syllable that contains one is heavy. Example: αι in παῖς (pais) “child” [ai], like English high [haɪ]; οι in οἶκος (oikos) “house”, like toy [tɔɪ]; αυ in αὐτός (autos) “self”, like how [haʊ].

Source: Smyth 1920, p. 9 (§ 5); Allen 1968, pp. 75–77, 81

See: Sounds › Diphthongs and digraphs

A note of two time-units, marked in the scores by a bar above the pitch sign; the tetraseme and pentaseme of the treatises occur in no score.

Source: West 1992, p. 266; Anderson 1994, pp. 205–206

See: Notation › Rhythmic signs

The colon ⏒ — — ⏒ — (siglum δ), basically ⏑ — — ⏑ —, any long resolvable and either short ‘dragged’ into a long; the rhythm of high agitation in tragedy. The name means “askew”.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 56; D’Angour 2022, p. 134; Battezzato 2009, p. 142

See: Dochmiac › The dochmius · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

A rare variant of the dochmius, × — ⏒ — ⏑ — (siglum kδ).

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 46, 56

See: Dochmiac › The dochmius · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Siglum for the dodrans (dod¨, the reversed dodrans ○ ○ — ⏑ ⏑ —), — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ —. See dodrans.

Source: West 1987, p. ix

The colon — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — (siglum dod), “three quarters” of a glyconic; the reversed dodrans (dod¨) is ○ ○ — ⏑ ⏑ —. Dale calls the two dodrans A and B. Itsumi writes the reversed dodrans — ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — (rdod), its second position short in nearly all of Pindar, and builds the aeolic phrases from these two six-position units with or without a base.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 33, 86; Itsumi 2009, p. 24

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary · Pindar › The other half

(1) One of the letters ζ, ξ, ψ, each standing for two consonants: ζ [zd], ξ [ks], ψ [ps]. (2) A consonant written twice (ππ, λλ, σσ) and said long, as in English hip-pocket. Either kind closes the syllable before it, which is then heavy. Example: ἔξω (exō) “outside”, with heavy ἐξ- because ξ is [ks]; ἵππος (hippos) “horse”, ἱπ-πος, with a heavy first syllable.

Source: Smyth 1920, p. 11 (§ 21); West 1987, p. 12 n. 1; Allen 1968, pp. 10, 53–57

See: Sounds › Syllables and quantity

Joining two cola so that a word runs one syllable past the boundary between them; word-end then comes one position later than the colon-end. West marks it ∫.

Source: West 1987, pp. ix, 42, 86

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

In Ranieri’s model of the Greek accent, borrowed from Japanese, the drop to a low pitch on the mora after the accented high one, with the successive highs of a sentence stepping lower towards its end.

Source: Ranieri 2021, pp. 26–27

See: Pronunciation systems › Lucian · Pitch and prominence › Pitch without stress

The gradual lowering of the accent peaks through a phrase; catathesis is the step down after each full accent. In the Delphic hymns each accent is set on average just over a semitone below the one before, and the melody is set higher again at the start of a new phrase.

Source: Devine and Stephens 1994, pp. 435–436, 441–442, 450

See: Accent and morae › A pitch accent

A long syllable admitted in a position that is normally short, as in the dochmius (σ’ ἀμ- at Agamemnon 1145); hence West’s ⏒ for “usually short”. In aeolic a dodrans may end with a dragged close, — ⏑ ⏑ — — —, which Sophocles and Euripides occasionally use (Antigone 786).

Source: West 1987, pp. 56, 59, 86

See: Dochmiac › The dochmius · Lyric in drama › Worked example · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Itsumi’s name for the method West took over from Snell: following how each sequence grows out of the one before and calling a variant a “mutant” of its source colon. Itsumi grants its merits but finds that it cannot show which forms are usual, and adds explicit rules for dividing verses into phrases; Kiparsky uses “dynamic approach” of Itsumi’s own book, in the opposite sense.

Source: Itsumi 2009, pp. 3–7; Kiparsky 2018, p. 84

See: Pindar › The other half

Menander’s comedy, the only one complete, from a papyrus codex (P.Bodmer 4).

See: Menander › Plays and papyri · How the texts reached us › Discoveries

Itsumi’s single-short phrases: e (— ⏑ —), its prolonged forms e², e³, e⁵, and the headless ∧e (⏑ —). Long runs of them, round a double-short core, make the “single-short movement” of Olympian 1.

Source: Itsumi 2009, pp. xii–xiii, 141–146

See: Pindar › Olympian 1 · Pindar › Olympian 14

Aristophanes’ comedy of 393/2 (or 391) BC in which women disguised as men pack the Assembly.

Source: Easterling 1997, p. 354; Swift 2022, p. 386

See: Aristophanes › Plays and dates

Stobaeus’ fifth-century anthology of excerpts, which preserves Melinno’s hymn and many lines of elegy and iambus.

See: Melinno › Transmission · The elegists: Callinus, Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Solon, Theognis, Xenophanes › Transmission

The first printed edition of a text, usually little more than a copy of whatever manuscript the printer had.

See: How the texts reached us › Printing

Where almost all papyri have been found; Greek was read there into the seventh century AD.

See: How the texts reached us › Discoveries

Tragedies by Sophocles (c. 413 BC?) and Euripides (before 415 BC?); Euripides’ Electra was left out of the Aldine edition and first printed by Vettori in 1545. Electra is also a singer in the great lament of the Libation Bearers.

Source: Easterling 1997, p. 353; Scodel 2005, p. 234

See: Sophocles › Plays and dates · Euripides › Plays and dates

A dactylic hexameter followed by a pentameter (two hemiepes); the oldest Greek stanza in continuous use, from Archilochus to the epigrams of late antiquity. Example: Callimachus, Epigram 1.1–2, ξεῖνος Ἀταρνείτης τις ἀνήρετο Πιττακὸν οὕτω / τὸν Μυτιληναῖον, παῖδα τὸν Ὑρράδιον (xeinos Atarneitēs tis anēreto Pittakon houtō / ton Mytilēnaion, paida ton Hyrradion), “A stranger from Atarneus once put this question to Pittacus, / the man of Mytilene, son of Hyrrhas”: a hexameter, then a pentameter.

Source: West 1987, p. 24; Bartol 2022, p. 221; Callimachus, Ep. 1.1–2

See: The elegiac couplet › Scheme · The elegists: Callinus, Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Solon, Theognis, Xenophanes › Metres

The sequence — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — × — ⏑ — × (D × e ×), the reverse of the iambelegus.

Source: West 1987, p. 86

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Maas’s word for what West calls a position; Battezzato, writing in Maas’s terms, counts five kinds: long, short, anceps, biceps and the indifferent final element.

Source: West 1987, p. 86; Battezzato 2009, p. 131

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

The loss of a short vowel at the end of a word before a word beginning with a vowel; Sophocles and comedy even elide across the end of the line. Example: Sappho 1.1 Ποικιλόθρον’ ἀθανάτ’ Ἀφρόδιτα (Poikilothron’ athanat’ Aphrodita), with two final vowels elided.

Source: West 1987, pp. 13–14, 27

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Prosody: vowels · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Choral songs not written for one particular place in one play, introduced by Agathon.

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Speech and song

Hephaestion’s “Handbook on Metres” (second century AD), which defines quantity, feet and the metres and quotes lines of many lost poets as examples; cited on this site by chapter and section from Consbruch’s edition (1906).

Source: Prauscello 2021, p. 221

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Ancient metricians

A short word with no accent of its own that leans on the word before it, its host: τις (tis) “someone”, τε (te) “and”, the unemphatic μου (mou) “of me”, σε (se) “you” and others. The two are accented as one word, so the host may gain a second accent: ἄνθρωπός τις (anthrōpos tis), “some person”.

Source: Probert 2006, pp. 69–70; Smyth 1920, pp. 42–43

See: Accent and morae › Enclitics and proclitics

A song of praise for a person, such as Bacchylides’ encomium for Alexander of Macedon (fr. 20B).

Source: Maehler 2004, p. 10

See: Bacchylides › Life and works · Bacchylides › Occasions

The running on of a sentence from one line into the next; Prauscello shows that in Theocritus’ Idyll 29 it happens only after odd-numbered lines, recreating the Lesbian distichs. Example: Callimachus, Epigram 1.1–2, … ἀνήρετο Πιττακὸν οὕτω / τὸν Μυτιληναῖον (… anēreto Pittakon houtō / ton Mytilēnaion), “put this question to Pittacus, / the man of Mytilene”: the phrase runs on into the next line.

Source: Morrison 2022, pp. 397–398; Callimachus, Ep. 1.1–2

See: Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Lyric

Siglum for the enneasyllable, × — × — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ —. See enneasyllable.

Source: West 1987, p. x

The nine-syllable colon × — × — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — (siglum enn), in effect a glyconic with an extra syllable at the front.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 87

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

An ancient name, used of rhythms built on × — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — (×) and similar dactylic cola; modern scholars give it no single sense. Battezzato’s enoplion is × — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — ×.

Source: West 1987, p. 87; Battezzato 2009, pp. 137, 141

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

“Song sung over” someone or something: an incantation. The magical papyri use the word for their verse charms, and a charm may call itself a “perfect incantation”.

Source: Preisendanz 1931, pp. 145, 151

The shortening of a long vowel or diphthong at the end of a word before a word that begins with a vowel, so that its syllable counts as short; usual in epic, elegy and some lyric, and almost confined to double-short rhythm. With a diphthong the second half is said as a glide into the next vowel. Example: Odyssey 1.1 ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε (andra moi ennepe), with μοι short before ἔ-; Odyssey 1.2 πλάγχθη ἐπεί (plankhthē epei), with -θη short.

Source: West 1987, p. 14; Allen 1968, pp. 78, 91

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Prosody: vowels · Dactylic: the hexameter › Prosody of epic

The early epics on the Trojan War besides Homer’s; Stesichorus told some of the same stories (his Sack of Troy, Iliou Persis) in long dactylic triads.

See: Stesichorus and Ibycus › Stesichorus

Comic poet who neglected the caesura of the trochaic tetrameter that Menander keeps.

See: Trochaic › The tetrameter catalectic

An inscribed hymn whose ending, with the Song of Seikilos, is the only post-classical verse with syncopation.

Source: West 1987, p. 71

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Rhythm and music · Later and Hellenistic metres › Hellenistic book lyric

Callimachus’ short poems in elegiac couplets. They are numbered differently by editors: Epigram 27, on Aratus, is 27 in Wilamowitz and Clayman, 29 in Mair, 56 Gow–Page and A.P. 9.507.

Source: Clayman 2022, p. 420

See: Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Callimachus, Epigrams · Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Aratus, Phaenomena · Callimachus, Ep. 27 (on Aratus)

Battezzato’s name for an exchange that mixes song and spoken verse, as when Cassandra sings two lines and speaks two trimeters in each stanza of Agamemnon 1136–1155; in Aeschylus an actor’s lyric is always part of such an exchange with the chorus.

Source: Battezzato 2005, p. 153

See: Dochmiac › Second example

In the parabasis of Old Comedy, a sung strophe and antistrophe each followed by a block of sixteen or twenty recited trochaic tetrameters. Example: the parabasis of Clouds, ode and antode at 563–74 ~ 595–606.

Source: West 1987, p. 51

See: Lyric in drama › Comedy · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

The four-syllable foot — ⏑ — — (and its variants, four in Hephaestion according to where the short falls); the word gives the second half of “dactylo-epitrite”.

Source: West 1987, p. 87; Hephaestion, Ench. 3.3; Battezzato 2009, p. 141

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

(1) In the Ionian epodes of Archilochus and Hipponax, the shorter line that follows a longer one; (2) in triadic song, the third stanza, of a different shape, after strophe and antistrophe. Example of (1): Archilochus fr. 191, whose second line, × — ⏑ — × ¦ — ⏑ — ⏑ — —, is shorter than the first.

Source: West 1987, pp. 31, 36; Battezzato 2009, p. 137; Lennartz 2022, p. 208

See: Lyric Stanzas › Triadic structure

One of the first librarians of Alexandria.

Source: Reynolds and Wilson 1991, p. 7

See: How the texts reached us › Alexandria

Manuel Chrysoloras’ Greek grammar, which in 1471 became the first Greek grammar to be printed.

See: How the texts reached us › Renaissance

A monostrophic paean to Asclepius in dactylic metre, inscribed at Erythrae in the early fourth century; Rutherford has raised the possibility that it is by Sophocles.

See: Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Lyric · Sophocles › Plays and dates

The character a harmonia, rhythm or genus was believed to impart to the hearer: the doctrine of Damon, Plato and Aristotle, mocked already in a papyrus of about 390 BC and denied by the Epicureans.

Source: West 1992, pp. 246–253; Nowacki 2020, pp. 11–16

See: Scales and harmoniai › Harmoniai and ethos

Fifth-century writer on the colometry of fifteen plays, named as a possible compiler of the school selection of tragedies.

Source: Reynolds and Wilson 1991, pp. 53–54

See: How the texts reached us › Byzantium

Early poet of Corinth with whom choral lyric may first have emerged.

See: Doric of choral lyric › Features

Last play of the Oresteia (458 BC).

Source: Easterling 1997, p. 352

See: Aeschylus › Plays and dates

“Good Order”: the title of Tyrtaeus’ elegiac poem on the Spartan constitution, cited by Aristotle and Strabo, and the name given to Solon’s elegy fr. 4 on the ruin of the city and on good order, which Demosthenes had read out to a jury; in Bacchylides’ Ode 15 Eunomia stands with Dike and Themis.

Source: Gerber 1999a, pp. 112–117; Demosthenes 19.255 (ed. Butcher)

See: The elegists: Callinus, Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Solon, Theognis, Xenophanes › Solon · fr. 4.11–39 (Eunomia) · Bacchylides › Ode 15

A comic verse (Clouds 518–562 and many fragments) of two anaclastic glyconics, the second catalectic: gl¨ ⁝ gl¨∧ ‖. Dale notes that its first metron never takes the iambic form × — ⏑ —, which the choriambic dimeters of the parabasis ode that follows (Clouds 571 ~ 603) do admit.

Source: West 1987, p. 50; Dale 1968, p. 147 n. 1

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary · Aristophanes › Clouds · 563–606 (parabasis, ode and antode)

Poet of Old Comedy, one of its leading three with Cratinus and Aristophanes.

Source: Seidensticker 2005, p. 39

See: Aristophanes › Life · Lyric in drama › Comedy

Chronographer who dated Sappho by Alyattes, a generation earlier than Herodotus’ dating.

Source: Kivilo 2021, p. 20

See: Sappho › Life

In the accent, the fall of the voice from a high pitch back to low: on the syllable after an acute, or within the one long syllable that carries a circumflex. Allen takes the idea from the Indian grammarians’ svarita. Example: on the Seikilos stone the second syllable of ὅλως (holōs) “at all” falls after the high first; λυποῦ (lypou) “grieve” has rise and fall on its last syllable.

Source: Allen 1968, pp. 111–112, 114

See: Accent: pitch or stress? › Contonation · Accent and morae › Morae

A sequence that begins — ⏑ is falling; one that begins × — ⏑ or ⏑ ⏑ — is rising.

Source: West 1987, p. 6

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

The Open Greek and Latin project’s collection (CC BY-SA 4.0) that supplies Hephaestion’s Enchiridion and related texts, from Consbruch’s edition.

Source: Bibliography, Texts and tools

See: Bibliography and licences › Texts and tools

The division of a comedy into five distinct episodes, seen in Menander and in Plautus and Terence; fifth-century tragedy had no such rule.

See: Menander › Plays and papyri

Where Chrysoloras began regular Greek lectures in 1397; its Laurentian library holds Laur. 32.9.

See: How the texts reached us › Renaissance

The ancient unit of two to four syllables (iamb, dactyl, spondee and the rest), each with its number of time-units; in iambic, trochaic and anapaestic verse two feet make a metron. West uses foot-names only to point to a place in a line. Example: μῆνιν ἄ- (mēnin a-), — ⏑ ⏑, the first foot of the Iliad, a dactyl.

Source: West 1987, p. 5; Hephaestion, Ench. 3.1–3; D’Angour 2022, p. 134

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Feet, metra, cola, periods · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

A band of frequencies that the mouth and throat reinforce in a vowel; the first two formants, set by the height and backness of the tongue and the rounding of the lips, are what distinguish [i] from [a] or [u], and what the vowel chart maps.

Source: Devine and Stephens 1994, pp. 1–20; Allen 1968, pp. 3–4

See: Sounds › Mouth and vowels · Sound lab

In Parry’s definition, a group of words regularly used under the same metrical conditions to express a given idea; the formulae of oral epic fit the cola of the hexameter and preserve old forms. Example: ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν Ἀγαμέμνων (anax andrōn Agamemnōn), “lord of men, Agamemnon”, which fills the line from the caesura after the third-foot trochee to the end.

Source: Nagy 1990, pp. 18, 31; West 1987, pp. 19, 22–23; Clark 2004, pp. 121–124

See: Homer › Formula and metre · Epic Ionic › Features

A poem or piece of a poem that survives only in part, on papyrus or quoted by a later author; fragments are numbered by the edition cited, with its initial (V, LP, PMG, W).

Source: Swift (ed.) 2022, pp. x–xi

See: Bibliography and licences › Texts and tools

Itsumi’s name for the second metre of Pindar’s non-dactylo-epitrite odes: built like dactylo-epitrite from e (— ⏑ —), d (— ⏑ ⏑ —) and their longer forms, but with d rather than D as the basic double-short unit, fewer link-syllables and shorter verses.

Source: Itsumi 2009, pp. 21–23

See: Pindar › The other half

The number of vibrations a sounding string or column of air makes in one second, counted in hertz (Hz). The faster the vibration, the higher the note; pitch does not change with loudness.

Source: West 1992, p. 8; Landels 1999, c. pp. 136, 145–147

See: Music theory › Pitch

A consonant made by narrowing the airway so that the breath rubs through with a hiss or buzz (Smyth’s “spirant”). Classical Attic had only one, σ [s]. Later φ θ χ became the fricatives [f θ x], and β δ γ [v ð ɣ], as in Modern Greek; in the fifth and fourth centuries BC they were still stops. Example: σ in σοφός (sophos) “wise” [s]; Modern Greek φ θ χ in φως, θεός, χέρι: [f θ x].

Source: West 1987, p. 11; Smyth 1920, p. 11 (§ 17); Allen 1968, pp. 16, 20–22, 29–30, 43

See: Sounds › Consonants · Pronunciation systems › Byzantine and Modern

The rate at which the vocal folds vibrate, measured in hertz and heard as pitch; the physical quantity behind the Greek pitch accent, and the trace a sound analyser draws for it. Loudness (intensity) and duration are the other two dimensions of prominence.

Source: Devine and Stephens 1994, pp. 204–208; Probert 2006, pp. 55–57

See: Pitch and prominence › Hearing pitch as stress · Sound lab

Meleager’s anthology of epigrams (first century BC), into which he wove the women poets: “the sweet maiden-skinned crocus of Erinna”.

See: Erinna › Life · Nossis › Transmission

Doubling of a consonant, as in Lesbian ἔμμι (emmi) “I am” and κλεννός (klennos) “famous”, where other dialects lengthen the vowel instead: Attic εἰμί (eimi), κλεινός (kleinos).

Source: Tribulato 2021, pp. 136–138; de Kreij 2022, pp. 144–146

See: Lesbian Aeolic › Features · Doric of choral lyric › Features

One of the three ways of placing the two moving notes of a tetrachord: diatonic (semitone, tone, tone), chromatic (two semitones and a minor third) and enharmonic (two quarter-tones and a ditone). Classical serious music was mostly enharmonic; Roman-period scores are almost all diatonic.

Source: West 1992, pp. 162–166; Anderson 1994, p. 198

See: Scales and harmoniai › Tetrachords and genera · Music theory › Tetrachord

Byzantine poet of the seventh century whose trimeter is the end of the story of the classical trimeter.

See: Attic of drama › Koinē and accent

The monster whose death Stesichorus’ Geryoneis tells: in fr. 19 Heracles’ arrow, dipped in the Hydra’s poison, splits one of his heads, and his neck droops like a poppy.

Source: Pitotto 2024, p. 36

See: Stesichorus and Ibycus › Geryoneis

The monstrous enemies of the gods; Dionysus fights them in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca.

See: Nonnus › Nonnus

Siglum for the glyconic (¨gl and gl¨ its anaclastic forms, — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — ⏑ — and ○ ○ — × — ⏑ ⏑ —), ○ ○ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ —. See glyconic.

Source: West 1987, p. x

The movement of the tongue from one vowel towards another inside a single syllable, which is what makes a diphthong; also the brief [j] or [w] into which the second half of a diphthong runs before another vowel. Example: αυ in αὐτός (autos) “self” glides from [a] towards [u], like English how [haʊ]; before a vowel οι was said [ojj], as in English toy yacht, so the first syllable of τοιοῦτος (toioutos) “such” is heavy, unless the glide is reduced, as drama often allows.

Source: Allen 1968, pp. 76–79, 90

See: Sounds › Diphthongs and digraphs

Siglum for Battezzato’s siglum for the glyconic; likewise pher (pherecratean), hipp (hipponactean), cho (choriamb), wil (wilamowitzianus), with expansion written glycᶜʰᵒ, glycᵈᵃ. See glyconic.

Source: Battezzato 2009, pp. 134–136

The central aeolic colon ○ ○ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — (siglum gl; × × in Sappho and Alcaeus), with anaclastic forms ¨gl and gl¨; Hephaestion files it under the antispastic metres.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 33; Battezzato 2009, p. 134; Hephaestion, Ench. 10.2

See: Aeolic › Base and choriamb · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Snake-haired monsters; Pentheus is called one of their race in the Bacchae’s fourth stasimon.

See: Euripides › Bacchae · 977–1023 (fourth stasimon)

A numbering of Hellenistic epigrams after the edition of Gow and Page: Callimachus’ Epigram 27 on Aratus is 56 Gow–Page.

Source: Clayman 2022, p. 420

See: Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Aratus, Phaenomena · Callimachus, Ep. 27 (on Aratus)

Chantraine’s grammar of Homer, to which West refers for the full list of words with initial digamma.

Source: West 1987, p. 22

See: Dactylic: the hexameter › Prosody of epic

The accent mark ὰ written for an acute on a final syllable before another word; for Devine and Stephens a lowered high pitch, neither unaccented nor fully accented.

Source: Devine and Stephens 1994, pp. 152, 181–182

See: Accent and morae › The three marks

Christian writer of the fourth century AD in whom the stress accent first reaches literary verse.

Source: Devine and Stephens 1994, p. 215

See: Accent: pitch or stress? › Metre

Lydian king (680–644 BC) mentioned by Archilochus (fr. 19), which helps date him; also the subject of a Hellenistic papyrus drama.

Source: Lennartz 2022, p. 209 n. 13

See: Archilochus › Life · Attic of drama › Later Attic

The god of the dead and his realm, into which Aristophanes’ Frogs goes.

See: Aristophanes › Plays and dates

Roman emperor at whose court Mesomedes and Julia Balbilla worked.

See: Julia Balbilla › Life · Attic of drama › Koinē and accent

Siglum for the hagesichorean (hag¨, anaclastic, × — × — ⏑ ⏑ — —), × — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — —. See hagesichorean.

Source: West 1987, p. x

The aeolic colon × — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — — (siglum hag), one syllable longer than the telesillean; named after Hagesichora of Alcman’s Partheneion. West named it; Dale called it a “choriambic enoplian”, and Lourenço finds its family, aeolic or enoplian, ambiguous; three cola of Antigone 781–800 are hagesichoreans.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 33; Lourenço 2011, p. 100 with n. 215

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary · Lyric in drama › Worked example

Itsumi’s terms for what may stand before his aeolic units, the dodrans and reversed dodrans: a single anceps (half-base: × + dodrans is the telesillean) or two positions ○ ○ (full base: ○ ○ + dodrans is the glyconic).

Source: Itsumi 2009, pp. xii, 24

See: Pindar › The other half

A tuning or scale of the lyre, the ancient “mode” (Dorian, Lydian, Mixolydian and others); Sappho and Terpander were said to have used the mournful Mixolydian.

Source: Battezzato 2021, pp. 129–130; D’Angour 2022, pp. 140–141

See: Sappho › Music · Introduction to Greek metre › Rhythm and music · Scales and harmoniai › Harmoniai and ethos · Music theory › Species and harmoniai

The rule corresponding to Porson’s for the opening of the trochaic tetrameter. West says Porson discovered it too; Maas credits it to L. Havet (1886).

Source: West 1987, p. 28; Maas 1962, p. 35

See: Trochaic › The tetrameter catalectic · Introduction to Greek metre › Feet, metra, cola, periods

Lyric iambics whose ancipitia are long, — — ⏑ —, so that they move like the epitrites of dactylo-epitrite; Dale’s example is Oedipus Tyrannus 889–891, where lyric iambics usually keep the anceps short.

Source: Dale 1968, pp. 84, 184

See: Sophocles › Oedipus Tyrannus · 883–910 (second stasimon, second pair)

Terms for long and short syllables that Allen takes from the ancient Indian grammarians, keeping long and short for vowels: a syllable is heavy if it has a long vowel or diphthong or is closed by a consonant, light if it ends in a short vowel. A closed syllable is heavy without its vowel becoming long. Example: in ἄνδρα (andra) “man” the first syllable ἀν- is heavy though its α is short, because ν closes it; in λόγος (logos) both syllables are light.

Source: Allen 1968, pp. 97–98; West 1987, pp. 12–13

See: Sounds › Syllables and quantity · Introduction to Greek metre › Quantity

Callimachus’ short hexameter epic, still read in twelfth-century Byzantium by Michael Choniates and since lost.

See: Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Transmission

Euripides’ tragedy, before 423 BC?

Source: Easterling 1997, p. 353

See: Euripides › Plays and dates

Metrician of the early Roman empire whose commentary on the metres of Aristophanes is partly preserved in the scholia.

Source: Reynolds and Wilson 1991, pp. 45, 77; West 2018, pp. 372–373

See: How the texts reached us › Byzantium · Aristophanes › Manuscripts

The age of the Alexandrian scholars and book-poets (Callimachus, Theocritus) from the third century BC, who refined the stichic metres and invented new ones.

Source: West 1987, pp. 76–82

See: Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Life · Later and Hellenistic metres › Hellenistic book lyric

The strait by Troy; Mytilene fought Athens for Sigeum there in Alcaeus’ time.

See: Alcaeus › Politics

The colon — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — (D in dactylo-epitrite), “half an epic line”; the pentameter is two of them.

Source: West 1987, pp. 24, 87; Battezzato 2009, p. 137

See: The elegiac couplet › Scheme · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

An eleven-syllable line; Hephaestion’s “Sapphic hendecasyllable” is the first line of the Sapphic stanza, which he analyses as a trochaic pair, a choriamb and an iambic close. Example: Sappho 1.1 Ποικιλόθρον’ ἀθανάτ’ Ἀφρόδιτα (Poikilothron’ athanat’ Aphrodita), eleven syllables, — ⏑ — × — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — ×.

Source: Hephaestion, Ench. 14.1; D’Angour 2022, p. 134

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary · Aeolic › Lesbian stanzas

The habit, proposed by Henning (Henninius) in 1684 after Vossius, of stressing Greek by the Latin rule, on a heavy penult or else on the antepenult, regardless of the written accent; it became the practice of Britain, the Netherlands and their former colonies.

Source: Allen 1968, pp. 135–136; Probert 2006, pp. 100–101

See: Pronunciation systems › Erasmian · Sounds › Reading aloud

Metrician of the second century AD, author of the Enchiridion (“Handbook on Metres”), On Signs and On Poems, which define the terms of metre and quote lines of many lost poets as examples.

Source: Prauscello 2021, p. 221; Battezzato 2009, p. 137 n. 12

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Ancient metricians

Itsumi’s name for the aeolic phrase × — ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ —, a single anceps before the reversed dodrans; West’s anaclastic telesillean (tl¨).

Source: Itsumi 2009, pp. xii, 24; West 1987, p. x

See: Pindar › The other half · Pindar › Nemean 4

Wife of Zeus, to whom Nossis dedicates a robe in one of her epigrams.

See: Nossis › Epigrams

In the hexameter, no word-end between the two shorts of the fourth biceps (a postpositive counts with the word before it). Breaches: about once in 550 lines of Homer (West); about once in 390 lines (Maas, who credits G. Hermann, 1805). Callimachus and Nonnus keep it always; Maas notes a few exceptions in Aratus, each after a monosyllabic postpositive.

Source: West 1987, p. 21; D’Alessio 2009, p. 123 n. 31; Maas 1962, pp. 60, 62

See: Dactylic: the hexameter › Scheme · Introduction to Greek metre › Feet, metra, cola, periods · Later and Hellenistic metres › Worked example

The messenger god, subject of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes and of Sophocles’ Ichneutae, and invoked by Hipponax.

See: Hipponax, Semonides and the iambographers › Poetry · Sophocles › Plays and dates

Town in Egypt from which come Corinna’s Berlin papyrus (P.Berol. 13284) and PGM XXIIa, two leaves of a fourth- or fifth-century notebook of Homeric lines for healing.

Source: Preisendanz 1931, pp. 146–147

See: Corinna › Transmission

Historian of the fifth century BC who linked Sappho with Amasis and Croesus; his phrase for oracles given in verse, ἐν ἑξαμέτρῳ τόνῳ (1.47), recurs in a magical papyrus (PGM III).

Source: Kivilo 2021, p. 20; Preisendanz 1928, pp. 50–51

See: Sappho › Life

An accompaniment that departs from the sung line with notes of its own. Whether the Greek aulos and lyre did this, or doubled the voice in unison, is disputed: West reads the instrumental notes of the Orestes papyrus as sounding against the voice, Anderson holds unison the norm.

Source: West 1992, pp. 205–207; Anderson 1994, p. 181

See: Melody and accent › Orestes · Instruments › The aulos

Siglum for the dactylic hexameter (in Lourenço 2011 an “aeolic hexasyllable” oo — ⏑ ⏑ —), — ⏕ — ⏕ — ⏕ — ⏕ — ⏑ ⏑ — ×. See hexameter.

Source: West 1987, p. x; Lourenço 2011, pp. 13–15

Siglum for the hipponactean (¨hi, hi¨ anaclastic), ○ ○ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — —. See hipponactean.

Source: West 1987, p. x

Two vowels meeting across a word-break, each keeping its full value, with no elision or merging; in verse that otherwise avoids it, a sign of period-end. Example: Pindar, Pythian 12.3 ὦ ἄνα (ō ana), where ὦ keeps its full length before a vowel.

Source: West 1987, pp. 15, 36; Battezzato 2009, p. 131

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Prosody: vowels · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

The length of an α, ι or υ in a closed syllable, which the metre cannot show because the syllable is long either way; it is known from spelling, related words, the accent or the grammarians.

Source: Allen 1968, pp. 86–88

See: Sounds › Vowels

In the strict hexameter of Callimachus and Nonnus, word-end never follows a contracted second biceps; the companion of Naeke’s Law, first hinted at by J. Hilberg (1879). Homer breaks it freely (Iliad 2.484, 6.466; Works and Days 635, 648), and West notes that in Homer such word-end is frequent only after the first biceps. Example: Iliad 2.484, ἔσπετε νῦν μοι, Μοῦσαι (espete nyn moi, Mousai), “tell me now, Muses”: the second foot νῦν μοι is — —, and a word ends with it.

Source: Maas 1962, p. 62; West 1987, p. 20

See: Epic Ionic › Metrical consequences · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary · Homer › Iliad · 6.466–481 (Hector and Astyanax)

Son of Pisistratus who invited Anacreon and Simonides to Athens.

See: Anacreon › Life · Bacchylides › Life and works

Euripides’ tragedy of 428 BC (the revised version), which won first prize; it has the first lyric monodies for an actor.

Source: Easterling 1997, p. 353; Battezzato 2005, p. 153

See: Euripides › Plays and dates · Euripides › Actors' song

The aeolic colon ○ ○ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — — (siglum hi), one syllable longer than the glyconic.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 33; Battezzato 2009, p. 134

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

The “sons of Homer”, singers who, as Nemean 2 opens, begin their songs from Zeus, as Timodemus begins his victories at Nemea.

See: Pindar › Nemean 2

Roman lyric poet for whom Alcaeus mattered around 25 BC; the Plantin Horace of 1566 was the first book to use sigla.

See: Alcaeus › Life · How the texts reached us › Printing

A form that looks Aeolic (or Doric) but that comparative linguistics shows to be impossible, created by ancient editors regularising the dialect. Example: φίλημμι (philēmmi), “I love”, at Sappho fr. 58.15, formed by false analogy with ἔμμι (emmi), the genuine Lesbian for “I am”.

Source: de Kreij 2022, pp. 143, 147–149

See: Overview › Editions and orthography · Lesbian Aeolic › Features

A phrase split by another word, usually the verb, as in καινὸν ἀγγέλλεις ἔπος (kainon angelleis epos), “new is the word you bring”, where the verb splits καινὸν … ἔπος, “new word”. The word put first is usually the emphatic one.

Source: Devine and Stephens 1994, pp. 483–484; Clyde 1857, p. 171

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Feet, metra, cola, periods

Said of a colon one or two syllables longer than its normal form. Example: Corinna’s ionic poem PMG 654 i, five dimeters ⏑ ⏑ — — ⏑ ⏑ — — and a hypercatalectic close.

Source: West 1987, p. 5; Hephaestion, Ench. 4.4

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

A slur drawn under two or three pitch signs to show that they belong to one syllable; the older scores doubled the vowel instead.

Source: West 1992, pp. 267–268; Anderson 1994, p. 207

See: Notation › Rhythmic signs

A variant of the dochmius, — ⏑ — ⏑ — (siglum hδ).

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 46, 56

See: Dochmiac › The dochmius · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

A dancing song; one of the genres of Bacchylides and Pindar named by the ancient editions.

Source: Maehler 2004, p. 10

See: Bacchylides › Life and works · Pindar › Transmission

A lost tragedy of Euripides known from a papyrus (P.Oxy. 852).

See: Euripides › Plays and dates · How the texts reached us › Discoveries

Siglum for the hypodochmius, — ⏑ — ⏑ —. See hypodochmius.

Source: West 1987, p. x

Siglum for an iambic metron; ∧ia, ia∧, ∧ia∧ are its syncopated forms — ⏑ —, ⏑ — —, — —, × — ⏑ —. See iamb.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 7, 52

The foot ⏑ —; the iambic metron (siglum ia) is × — ⏑ —, with syncopated forms ∧ia, ia∧, ∧ia∧. The iambic trimeter is the line of Archilochus and of dramatic dialogue.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 5, 87; Battezzato 2009, p. 131

See: Iambic › The trimeter · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

The sequence × — ⏑ — × — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — (× e × D), used in Archilochus’ epodes.

Source: West 1987, p. 87

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary · Lyric Stanzas › Asynarteta

Callimachus’ book of thirteen iambic poems reviving the spirit of Hipponax (Iambus 1 brings him back from the dead), mostly choliambic, some in Doric.

Source: West 1987, p. 82; Barbantani 2009, p. 309

See: Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Transmission

Name for Anacreon’s verses that join expanded anaclastic glyconics to iambic metra, such as ¨glᶜ ia; with an iambic dimeter added they form his strophes. Lourenço’s iambo-choriambic dimeter, × — ⏑ — — ⏑ ⏑ —, is common in Euripides among aeolic cola (Antigone 781, 785); Dale notes that comic lyric uses iambo-choriambic more than the elaborate aeolic types, and that it passes easily into aeolic (Clouds 563–74).

Source: West 1987, p. 40; Lourenço 2011, p. 115; Dale 1968, pp. 135, 147

See: Anacreon › Metres · Aeolic › Anacreon and Pindar · Sophocles › Antigone · 781–800 (third stasimon, Eros) · Aristophanes › Clouds · 563–606 (parabasis, ode and antode)

The genre of Archilochus, Semonides and Hipponax, in iambic, trochaic and epodic verse and in Ionic, part of the same Ionian tradition as epic and elegy; Callimachus revived it in his Iambi.

Source: West 1987, pp. 3, 82; D’Alessio 2009, pp. 120, 123

See: Hipponax, Semonides and the iambographers › Poetry

The colon — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — (dodᵈ), prominent in Ibycus.

Source: West 1987, p. 38

See: Stesichorus and Ibycus › Ibycus' metres · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Sophocles’ satyr play on Apollo’s search for the cattle stolen by Hermes, recovered from P.Oxy. 1174 (ed. A. S. Hunt, 1912).

Source: Reynolds and Wilson 1991, p. 196

See: Sophocles › Plays and dates · How the texts reached us › Discoveries

An old term for the beat of a verse; West thinks it harmless if it means only the beat, misleading if it suggests a stress strong enough to lengthen a syllable. Little used in Greek metrics today. Allen used it of a stress on the strong position of the foot, where heavy, stressable syllables stand (disputed).

Source: West 1987, pp. 87–88; Allen 1968, pp. 105, 120–122

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary · Accent: pitch or stress? › Stress and ictus

Battezzato’s name for the final element before a pause, which may be long or short at will and which he keeps apart from anceps; Hephaestion already calls the last syllable of every metre ἀδιάφορος (adiaphoros), “indifferent”.

Source: Battezzato 2009, p. 131 with n. 2; Hephaestion, Ench. 4.5

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

The alphabet of the International Phonetic Association, one sign for each speech sound, arranged in a chart by place and manner of articulation for consonants and by tongue position and lip rounding for vowels; the site writes sounds in it between square brackets.

Source: International Phonetic Association, IPA chart (revised to 2015; 2020 printing); Allen 1968, pp. 1–9

See: Sounds › IPA chart · Sounds › Mouth and vowels

Lines added to a text after its author, often detected by breaches of metrical rules, as at Iphigenia in Aulis 1578–1614.

Source: Kovacs 2005, pp. 388–389

See: Euripides › Transmission

The distance in pitch between two notes. Aristoxenus treated it as a magnitude judged by ear, the Pythagoreans as a ratio of string lengths.

Source: Landels 1999, c. pp. 88, 132

See: Music theory › Intervals · Scales and harmoniai › Aristoxenus and the Pythagoreans

Siglum for an ionic metron (io∧ ⏑ ⏑ —; 2io÷ the anacreontic), ⏑ ⏑ — —. See ionic.

Source: West 1987, p. x

Captive princess in Sophocles’ Women of Trachis; Ἰόλη ’καλεῖτο (Iolē ’kaleito), “she was called Iole”, for Ἰόλη ἐκαλεῖτο, is West’s example of prodelision.

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Prosody: vowels

Euripides’ tragedy, not dated in the sources; Ion’s monody shows the Doric colouring of tragic song.

Source: Battezzato 2005, p. 149

See: Euripides › Plays and dates · Attic of drama › Lyric parts

Writer whose anecdotes lie behind the ancient Life of Aeschylus.

See: Aeschylus › Life · Sophocles › Life

The Greek coast and islands of Asia Minor, where epic, elegy and iambus took their Ionic form.

The metron ⏑ ⏑ — — (siglum io), Hephaestion’s ionic “from the lesser” (a minore); the rarer ionic a maiore is — — ⏑ ⏑. With anaclasis it gives the anacreontic.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 33, 88; D’Angour 2022, p. 137; Hephaestion, Ench. 3.3

See: Ionic › The metron · Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

The small ι written under α, η, ω (ᾳ, ῃ, ῳ) in the long diphthongs; with capitals, and in many papyri and editions, it stands on the line instead (adscript), as in ΤΗΙ ΩΙΔΗΙ. It was no longer said by the second century BC and often no longer written from about 100 BC; writing it under the line is a medieval habit. Example: τῇ ᾠδῇ (tēi ōidēi) “to the song”.

Source: Smyth 1920, p. 9 (§ 5); Allen 1968, pp. 80–83

See: Sounds › Diphthongs and digraphs

Euripides’ last tragedy, produced after his death; its transmitted ending (1578–1629) breaks Porson’s Law and other rules and is judged an interpolation.

Source: Kovacs 2005, pp. 388–389

See: Euripides › Plays and dates

“Broken-hipped”: a choliamb in which the fourth syllable from the end is long as well as the next-to-last; Callimachus avoids it.

Source: West 1987, pp. 30, 82

See: Iambic › The choliamb and other variants · Hipponax, Semonides and the iambographers › Metres: choliamb

Pindar’s odes for victors at the Isthmian games near Corinth, the last of his four books.

See: Pindar › Victory odes

The drift of ει, η, υ, οι and υι to the sound [i], completed in Byzantine Greek, so that ἡμεῖς (hēmeis) “we” and ὑμεῖς (hymeis) “you” sound alike; the chief difference between the ancient vowels and the modern ones.

Source: Horrocks 2010, pp. 160–169, 274; Ranieri 2021, pp. 3–4; Allen 1968, pp. 65–66, 74

See: Pronunciation systems › Byzantine and Modern · Pronunciation systems › Comparison

Where the western Greeks lived (Ibycus, Nossis, Stesichorus) and where Greek texts came in the Renaissance.

See: How the texts reached us › Renaissance · Stesichorus and Ibycus › Ibycus

Siglum for the ithyphallic, — ⏑ — ⏑ — —. See ithyphallic.

Source: West 1987, p. x

The colon — ⏑ — ⏑ — — (siglum ith), the catalectic lekythion; for Hephaestion a brachycatalectic trochaic dimeter.

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 31, 52; Hephaestion, Ench. 6.3

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

The child the nightingale laments (“Itys, Itys”), to whom the chorus compares Cassandra’s cries in Agamemnon 1142–1145.

See: Dochmiac › Second example

Leader of the Argonauts, whose desertion of Medea drives Euripides’ play; Pelias is named in the Nurse’s prologue. The proem of Apollonius’ Argonautica tells how Pelias, warned against a man with one sandal, sent him for the golden fleece in the Argo, and Pindar’s Pythian 4 tells his story at epic length.

Source: Race 1997a, p. 264

See: Euripides › Medea · 1–48 (prologue) · Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Apollonius, Argonautica · Pindar › Pythian 4

The queen of Oedipus Tyrannus; after she has mocked the oracles the chorus sings the second stasimon (863–910).

See: Sophocles › Oedipus Tyrannus · 863–82 (second stasimon) · Sophocles › Oedipus Tyrannus · 883–910 (second stasimon, second pair)

Twelfth-century scholar who still read some Callimachus and Hipponax now lost.

See: How the texts reached us › Byzantium · Callimachus, Theocritus and Hellenistic poets › Transmission

Author of the Kestoi, finished about AD 225; a papyrus page of its eighteenth book (PGM XXIII) has a magical invocation in hexameters worked into Odysseus’ consultation of the dead.

Source: Preisendanz 1931, p. 150

A “bend” in a melody: a modulation out of the tuning in which it began. Comic poets used the word for the changes associated with the New Music.

Source: West 1992, pp. 356–372

See: Performance › The New Music

Julius Africanus’ miscellany, finished about AD 225; a papyrus page of book 18 (PGM XXIII) has a hexameter invocation of the dead inserted into Odyssey 11.

Source: Preisendanz 1931, p. 150

Aristophanes’ comedy of 424 BC.

Source: Easterling 1997, p. 353

See: Aristophanes › Plays and dates

A lament sung by actor and chorus together (Aristotle’s term); see amoibaion.

Source: Battezzato 2005, p. 152; Easterling 1997, p. 158 n. 14

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary

Kronos (Cronos), named in Pindar’s Olympian 1 and Pythian 4; in the opening of Nonnus’ Dionysiaca Zeus is “the son of Cronos”.

See: Pindar › Olympian 1 · Later and Hellenistic metres › Worked example

An aulos-player’s shoe fitted with a clapper. The player used it to beat time for a chorus with the foot.

Source: West 1992, pp. 123–124; Anderson 1994, pp. 185–186

See: Instruments › Percussion · Rhythm › Arsis and thesis

“Art-language”: a poetic dialect learnt from the tradition rather than spoken, such as Homer’s mixture of Ionic and Aeolic or the Doric of choral lyric.

Source: West 1987, pp. 57, 60; Kelly 2022, p. 34

See: Homer › Formula and metre

Siglum for the dochmius kaibelianus, × — ⏒ — ⏑ —. See dochmius kaibelianus.

Source: West 1987, p. x

Made with the lips. Greek π [p], β [b], φ [pʰ] and μ [m] are bilabial, made with both lips; a labiodental, made with the lower lip against the upper teeth, is the [f] or [v] into which φ and β later turned. Example: πόρος (poros) “passage”, βίος (bios) “life”, φόρος (phoros) “tribute”, μῆνις (mēnis) “wrath”.

Source: West 1987, p. 11; Smyth 1920, p. 11 (§§ 16, 19); Allen 1968, pp. 21, 31

See: Sounds › IPA chart · Sounds › Consonants

The Doric of Laconia (Sparta), the local base of Alcman’s language.

See: Doric of choral lyric › Features · Alcman › Songs and language

Figures of the Theban saga: Laius, Oedipus’ father (title of Aeschylus’ lost play), whose oracles the chorus of Oedipus Tyrannus fears are failing (906–907); Eteocles and Polynices, his sons, in the Seven against Thebes.

See: Aeschylus › Plays and dates

Late sixth-century musician to whom LeVen, following D’Angour, traces the “tradition of innovations” behind the New Music.

See: Timotheus and the New Music › Reception

The tenth-century Florence manuscript of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Apollonius, the chief witness for Aeschylus and Sophocles.

Source: Reynolds and Wilson 1991, p. 66

See: How the texts reached us › Byzantium · Aeschylus › Manuscripts

The rules that limit how far from the end of a Greek word the accent can stand. An acute stands no further back than the antepenult, a circumflex no further back than the penult. If the last vowel is long, no accent stands on the antepenult and no circumflex on the penult. Example: ἄνθρωπος (anthrōpos), “human being”, but genitive ἀνθρώπου (anthrōpou).

Source: Probert 2006, p. 60; Smyth 1920, pp. 37, 39

See: Accent and morae › Where the accent stands

Plato’s last dialogue, the first source for the legend that Tyrtaeus came from Athens.

Dutch university city whose library holds the manuscript in which the Homeric Hymn to Demeter was found.

See: How the texts reached us › Discoveries

The signs editors use in printing papyri, such as a dot under a letter read with doubt.

In the scores, a lambda-shaped sign for a rest of one unit, or for the prolongation of the note before it; in Pythagorean theory, the remainder 256:243 left when two tones are taken from a fourth.

Source: West 1992, pp. 235, 266–267; Psaroudakes 2018, pp. 125–126

See: Notation › Rhythmic signs · Scales and harmoniai › Aristoxenus and the Pythagoreans · Music theory › Tone and semitone

The colon — ⏑ — ⏒ — ⏑ — (siglum lk), a catalectic trochaic dimeter, in West’s terms a syncopated iambic metron and a full one (∧ia ia); the name comes from Aristophanes’ joke ληκύθιον ἀπώλεσεν (lēkythion apōlesen, “lost his little oil-flask”) in the Frogs. Dale notes that Aeschylus, more than his successors, ends a stanza with a lekythion, often after a penultimate colon in another metre (Agamemnon 160–75).

Source: West 1987, pp. x, 32, 52; Hephaestion, Ench. 6.2; D’Angour 2022, p. 133; Dale 1968, pp. 83–84

See: Introduction to Greek metre › Glossary · Aeschylus › Agamemnon · 160–75 (Hymn to Zeus)

A short final syllable ending in a consonant such as ν, treated as long before a following vowel as if the consonant closed it; in Homer it falls nearly always in the princeps, often just before the masculine caesura (Iliad 2.500, 504, 507; Works and Days 651).

Source: West 1987, pp. 18, 22; West 2018, p. 371

See: Homer › Iliad · 2.484–510 (invocation; Catalogue) · Hesiod › Works and Days · 633–662 (Ascra; the voyage to Chalcis)