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text:sacadas_poems

Lyra Graeca Volume II. Translated by Edmonds, J M. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1922.

Sacadas: Poems

Pausanias Description of Greece [on Mount Helicon] : The poets or persons otherwise eminent in music who have been accorded statues are these. Thamyris is represented as he was when he had gone blind, holding a broken lyre, Arion of Methymna is seated on a dolphin, Sacadas of Argos is portrayed, by a sculptor who did not understand Pindar's Prelude in his honour, as a flute-player no bigger than his flutes, Hesiod sits with his lyre upon his lap, etc.


Plutarch Music [on flute-sung NomesJ : There is another ancient Nome called Cradias, which Hipponax declares to have been played by Mimnermus. For in the earliest times the singers to the flute sang elegiac verse set to music. This is made clear by the Panathenaic register of the winners of the musical contest. Sacadas of Argos also, who is mentioned by Pindar, was a composer of tunes and elegiac poems set to tunes, and at the same time was a great flute-player with three Pythian victories to his name. It seems that of the three 'modes' employed by Polymnastus and Sacadas, the Dorian, the Phrygian, and the Lydian, Sacadas taught his chorus to sing successive strophes composed by him in each, and in that order the Nome in question being called the Three-Part owing to these changes of 'mode.' However, according to the register of poets at Sicyon, the inventor of this Nome was Clonas. The first establishment of music at Sparta was due to Terpander. The second is best ascribed to Thaletas, Xenodamus, Xenocritus, Polvmnastus and Sacadas of Argos. These were the men who introduced the Dances of Naked Youths at Sparta, the Provings in Arcadia, and the Garment-Songs as they are called at Argos. Thaletas, Xenodamus, and Xenocritus were composers of Paeans, Polymnastus of the Orthian or High-pitched Songs, and Sacadas of Elegiac.


Pausanias Description of Greece [on the Pythian Games] : In the 3rd year of the 48th Olympiad . . .^ the victors proclaimed were a Cephallenian named Melampus for lyre-song, Echembrotus the Arcadian for flute-song, and Sacadas of Argos for flute-playing. The same Sacadas was also victor in the two succeeding Pythiads.


The Same [on Olympis] : Next to Pyrrhus is a carved slab bearing the representation of a little man with flutes. This is the man who won Pythian victories after Sacadas of Argos. For Sacadas won the competition instituted by the Amphictyons before it was a crown-contest and twice after the change had been made. . . .


Plutarch Music 12 ; There is something to be said too in the matter of rhythms . . . Polymnastus, who followed Terpander, employed new rhythms as well as his, but preserved throughout the same beautiful style ; and the like is true of Thaletas and Sacadas, who showed powers of invention in the rhythmic art without exceeding the limits of the beautiful style they inherited.


Pollux Vocabulary : The Nomes of Olympus and Marsyas are the Phrygian and the Lydian, that of Sacadas the Pythian, those of Euius the Cyclic, and those of Olympus (the younger?) Epitymbidian or Over-the-Grace.


The Same : The Pythian Flute-Nome has five parts, the Trial, the Challenge, the Iambics, the Spondaics, and the Dance of Triumph. It is a representation (in music) of the fight between Apollo and the Serpent. In the Trial Apollo looks about him to see if the place is suitable for the struggle, in the Challenge he calls the Serpent to come on, in the Iambics he fights him. The Iambics include passages for the trumpet and one to be played through the teeth, this representing the gnashing of the Serpent when he is pierced with the arrows. The Spondaics depict the victory of the God, and in the last of the five parts he dances triumphant.


Pausanias Description of Greece [on Argos] : A little aside from the road to the Gymnasium called Cylarabis and the gate there, stands the tomb of Sacadas, who was the first to perform the Pythian tune at Delphi, and appears to have put an end to the old feud between Apollo and the flute-players which had persisted ever since the day of his contest with the Silenus Marsyas.

The Same [on the founding of Messene by Epameinondas] : That day was devoted to sacrifices and prayers. On the following days they began to build the wall round the city, and houses and temples within it. The work was done to the accompaniment of no music but that of Boeotian and Argive flutes, and there was keen competition between the melodies of Sacadas and those of Pronomus.


Hesychius Glossary : Sacadeion :— a kind of musical instrument.


Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner : If you are asked the names of the warriors who were shut up in the Wooden Horse you will perhaps be able to give one or two and even these you will hardly get from Stesichorus' account, but rather from the Taking of Troy of Sacadas the Argive, who gives a very long list.

text/sacadas_poems.txt · Last modified: 2014/01/15 12:00 by 127.0.0.1