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38-627: Early references to the Ripheans appear in the writings of the Greek choral poet Alcman (7th century BC) and the Athenian playwright Sophocles (5th century BC). Many other ancient Hellenic writers mentioned the Ripheans, including Aristotle , Hippocrates , Callimachus , Apollonius of Rhodes , and Claudius Ptolemy . Ancient Roman writers also described the Ripheans in Latin literature: Plutarch , Vergil , and Pliny

76-529: A canonical group of ancient Greek poets esteemed by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria as worthy of critical study. In the Palatine Anthology it is said that they established lyric song. They were: In most Greek sources the word melikos (from melos , "song") is used to refer to these poets, but the variant lyrikos (from lyra , " lyre ") became the regular form in both Latin (as lyricus ) and in modern languages. The ancient scholars defined

114-412: A means of describing the girls of the choruses as fashionable. One tradition, going back to Aristotle , holds that Alcman came to Sparta as a slave to the family of Agesidas (= Hagesidamus? ), by whom he was eventually emancipated because of his great skill. Aristotle reported that it was believed Alcman died from a pustulant infestation of lice ( phthiriasis ), but he may have been mistaken for

152-513: A mountain range called Rafa , which some have cautiously linked to the Ripheans. In late 15th-century western Europe, new access to Claudius Ptolemy's Geography led to many new maps of "Sarmatia," which notably featured the Riphean Mountains. In tandem with new contacts with the Grand Duchy of Moscow , Renaissance humanists and ambassadors debated the existence of the Riphean Mountains in

190-550: Is not sufficient for protection, nor intricate snake of solid gold, no, nor Lydian headband, pride of dark-eyed girls, nor the hair of Nanno, nor again godlike Areta nor Thylacis and Cleësithera; nor will you go to Aenesimbrota's and say, 'If only Astaphis were mine, if only Philylla were to look my way and Damareta and lovely Ianthemis'; no, Hagesichora guards me. I were to see whether perchance she were to love me. If only she came nearer and took my soft hand, immediately I would become her suppliant. Earlier research tended to overlook

228-687: Is the First Partheneion or Louvre-Partheneion, found in 1855 in Saqqara in Egypt by the French scholar Auguste Mariette . This Partheneion consists of 101 lines, of which more than 30 are severely damaged. It is very hard to say anything about this fragment, and scholars have debated ever since the discovery and publication about its content and the occasion on which this partheneion could have been performed. The choral lyrics of Alcman were meant to be performed within

266-651: The Doric dialect, which does not usually sound beautiful , it did not at all spoil the beauty of his songs. Alcman's songs were composed in the Doric dialect of Sparta (the so-called Laconian dialect). This is seen especially in the orthographic peculiarities of the fragments like α = η, ω = ου, η = ει, σ = θ and the use of the Doric accentuation, though it is uncertain whether these features were actually present in Alcman's original compositions or were added either by Laconian performers in

304-492: The Sirius -star) is a threat for the dawn, so the chorus tries to defeat him. In the meanwhile the chorus-members present themselves as women ready for marriage. Stehle doesn't agree with Calame about the initiation-rituals, but cannot ignore the 'erotic' language that the poem expresses. Some scholars think that the chorus was divided in two halves, who would each have their own leader; at the beginning and close of their performance,

342-590: The 2nd century BC. He says that songs of Alcman were performed during the Gymnopaedia festival (according to Athenaeus ): The chorus-leaders carry [the Thyreatic crowns] in commemoration of the victory at Thyrea at the festival, when they are also celebrating the Gymnopaedia. There are three choruses, in the front a chorus of boys, to the right a chorus of old men, and to the left a chorus of men; they dance naked and sing

380-517: The Elder , among others. Late antique and early medieval writers, like Solinus , Martianus Capella , Orosius , and Isidore of Seville , ensured the Ripheans' continued place in geographic writing during the Middle Ages . These writers often disagreed on the exact location of the mountains, and a small minority of geographers (e.g. Strabo ) doubted their existence entirely. In antiquity, the inhabitants of

418-402: The creeping-things that come from the dark earth, the beasts whose lying is upon the hillside, the generation of the bees, the monsters in the depths of the purple brine, all lie asleep, and with them the tribes of the winging birds. The poet reflects, in a poignant poem, as Antigonus of Carystus notes, how "age has made him weak and unable to whirl round with the choirs and with the dancing of

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456-526: The details are often untrustworthy. Antipater of Thessalonica wrote that poets have "many mothers" and that the continents of Europe and Asia both claimed Alcman as their son. Frequently assumed to have been born in Sardis , capital of ancient Lydia , the Suda claims that Alcman was actually a Laconian from Messoa. The compositeness of his dialect may have helped to maintain the uncertainty of his origins, but

494-400: The erotic aspect of the love of the partheneions; thus, instead of the verb translated as "guards", τηρεῖ , at the end of the first quotation, the papyrus has in fact the more explicit τείρει , "wears me out (with love)". Calame states that this homoerotic love , which is similar to the one found in the lyrics of the contemporaneous poet Sappho , matches the pederasty of the males and

532-502: The extant fragments, but especially (b) in passages where metre or theme or both are taken from the Epic, and (c) in phrases which are as a whole borrowed or imitated from the Epic... Witczak (2016) suggests that the term ἀάνθα – the first use of which is attributed to Alcman according to Hesychius of Alexandria (5th century CE) – may have been an early Doric loanword from Proto-Albanian . To judge from his larger fragments, Alcman's poetry

570-556: The first half of the sixteenth century. Some, like Maciej Miechowita and Paolo Giovio , argued that the mountains were non-existent. Others, like the ambassadors Francesco Da Collo  [ it ] and Sigismund von Herberstein , argued that the ancient Ripheans referred to the Ural Mountains , then recently explored by Muscovy. Over the course of the sixteenth century, the Ripheans gradually disappeared from western maps of eastern Europe, along with many other ancient claims about

608-486: The following conclusion about Alcman's dialect in his influential monograph (1951): (i) that the dialect of the extant fragments of Alcman is basically and preponderantly the Laconian vernacular; (ii) that there is no sufficient reason for believing that this vernacular in Alcman was contaminated by features from any alien dialect except the Epic; (iii) that features of the epic dialect are observed (a) sporadically throughout

646-414: The genre on the basis of the musical accompaniment, not the content. Thus, some types of poetry which would be included under the label " lyric poetry " in modern criticism , are excluded—namely, the elegy and iambus which were performed with flutes . The Nine Lyric Poets are traditionally divided among those who primarily composed choral verses, and those who composed monodic verses. This division

684-423: The latter half of the first partheneion portrays Hagesichora critically and emphasizes her absence, rather than praising her and emphasizing her approval. Tsantsanoglou's interpretation has not been met with mainstream acceptance in classical studies. Other scholars, among them Hutchinson and Stehle, see the First Partheneion as a song composed for a harvest ritual and not as a tribal initiation. Stehle argues that

722-504: The maidens of the Partheneion carry a plough ( φάρος , or, in the most translations, a robe, φᾶρος ) for the goddess of Dawn (Orthria). This goddess of Dawn is honoured because of the qualities she has, especially in harvest time when the Greeks harvest during dawn ( Hesiod , Works and Days, ll. 575-580: "Dawn gives out a third share of the work [that is, harvesting]"). The heat (embodied by

760-510: The maidens", unlike the cock halcyons or ceryls, for "when they grow old and weak and unable to fly, their mates carry them upon their wings": No more, O musical maidens with voices ravishing-sweet! My limbs fail:—Ah that I were but a ceryl borne on the wing Over the bloom of the wave amid fair young halcyons fleet, With a careless heart untroubled, the sea-blue bird of the Spring! Nine Lyric Poets The Nine Lyric or Melic Poets were

798-486: The many references to Lydian and Asian culture in Alcman's poetry must have played a considerable role in the tradition of Alcman's Lydian origin. Thus Alcman claims he learned his skills from the " strident partridges " ( caccabides ), a bird native to Asia Minor and not naturally found in Greece . The ancient scholars seem to refer to one particular song, in which the chorus says: "He was no rustic man, nor clumsy (not even in

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836-535: The mountains were variously called Ripheans (e.g. Pomponius Mela ) or Arimaspi (e.g. Pliny ). Geographers sometimes located the home of the legendary Hyperboreans in the inaccessible regions north of the Ripheans. While the Riphean Mountains appear only in Greek or Greek-influenced geographies, the name of the mountains has sometimes been connected by Christian theologians with Riphath , son of Gomer in Genesis 10 . The Book of Jubilees (8:12, 16, 28) also mentions

874-455: The philosopher Alcmaeon of Croton . According to Pausanias , he is buried in Sparta next to the shrine of Helen of Troy . There were six books of Alcman's choral poetry in antiquity (c. 50-60 hymns), but they were lost at the threshold of the Middle Ages , and Alcman was known only through fragmentary quotations in other Greek authors until the discovery of a papyrus in 1855(?) in a tomb near

912-611: The region. While people since the 16th century have tended to connect the Ripheans to the Ural Mountains, the original identity of the classical Ripheans remains unclear. The Alps, the Carpathians, and the Urals have all been suggested as the real-world inspiration for the Riphean Mountains. The Montes Riphaeus mountain range on the Moon is named after the Riphean Mountains. Johannes Hevelius

950-728: The second pyramid at Saqqâra in Egypt . The fragment, which is now kept at the Louvre in Paris , contains approximately 100 verses of a so-called partheneion , i.e. a song performed by a chorus of young unmarried women. In the 1960s, many more fragments were published in the collection of the Egyptian papyri found in a dig at an ancient garbage dump at Oxyrhynchus . Most of these fragments contain poems (partheneia) , but there are also other kinds of hymns among them. Pausanias says that even though Alcman used

988-464: The social, political, and religious context of Sparta . Most of the existing fragments are lines from partheneia . These hymns are sung by choruses of unmarried women, but it is unclear how the partheneia were performed. The Swiss scholar Claude Calame (1977) treats them as a type of drama by choruses of girls. He connects them with initiation rites. The girls express a deep affection for their chorus leader ( coryphaeus ): For abundance of purple

1026-417: The songs of Thaletas and Alcman and the paeans of Dionysodotus the Laconian. Regardless of the topic, Alcman's poetry has a clear, light, pleasant tone which ancient commentators have remarked upon. Details from rituals and festivals are described with care, even though the context of some of those details can no longer be understood. Alcman's language is rich with visual description. He describes

1064-457: The subsequent generations (see Hinge's opinion below) or even by Alexandrian scholars who gave the text a Doric feel using features of the contemporary, and not the ancient, Doric dialect. Apollonius Dyscolus describes Alcman as συνεχῶς αἰολίζων "constantly using the Aeolic dialect". However, the validity of this judgment is limited by the fact that it is said about the use of the digamma in

1102-603: The third-person pronoun ϝός "his/her"; it is perfectly Doric as well. Yet, many existing fragments display prosodic , morphological and phraseological features common to the Homeric language of Greek epic poetry , and even markedly Aeolic and un-Doric features (σδ = ζ, -οισα = -ουσα) which are not present in Homer itself but will pass on to all the subsequent lyric poets. This mixing of features adds complexity to any analysis of his works. The British philologist Denys Page comes to

1140-484: The two halves performed as a single group, but during most of the performance, each half would compete with the other, claiming that their leader or favorite was the best of all the girls in Sparta . There is, however, little evidence that the chorus was in fact divided. The role of the other woman of Alcman's first partheneion, Aenesimbrota, is contested; some consider her indeed a competing chorus-leader, others think that she

1178-457: The view of unskilled men?) nor Thessalian by race nor an Erysichaean shepherd: he was from lofty Sardis." Yet, given that there was a discussion, it cannot have been certain who was the third person of this fragment. Some modern scholars defend his Lydian origin on the basis of the language of some fragments or the content. However, Sardis of the 7th century BC was a cosmopolitan city. The implicit and explicit references to Lydian culture may be

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1216-592: The yellow color of a woman's hair and the golden chain she wears about her neck; the purple petals of a Kalchas blossom and the purple depths of the sea; the "bright shining" color of the windflower and the multi-colored feathers of a bird as it chews green buds from the vines. Much attention is focused on nature: ravines, mountains, flowering forests at night, the quiet sound of water lapping over seaweed. Animals and other creatures fill his lines: birds, horses, bees, lions, reptiles, even crawling insects. Asleep lie mountain-top and mountain-gully, shoulder also and ravine;

1254-552: Was an Ancient Greek choral lyric poet from Sparta . He is the earliest representative of the Alexandrian canon of the Nine Lyric Poets . He wrote six books of choral poetry, most of which is now lost; his poetry survives in quotation from other ancient authors and on fragmentary papyri discovered in Egypt. His poetry was composed in the local Doric dialect with Homeric influences. Based on his surviving fragments, his poetry

1292-456: Was an integrated part of the initiation rites . At a much later period, but probably relying on older sources, Plutarch confirms that the Spartan women were engaged in such same sex relationships. It remains open if the relationship also had a physical side and, if so, of what nature. While not denying the erotic elements of the poem, contemporary classicist Kyriakos Tsantsanoglou has argued that

1330-452: Was mostly hymns, and seems to have been composed in long stanzas made up of lines in several different meters. Alcman's dates are uncertain, but he was probably active in the late seventh century BC. The name of his mother is not known; his father may have been called either Damas or Titarus. Alcman's nationality was disputed even in antiquity. The records of the ancient authors were often deduced from biographic readings of their poetry, and

1368-544: Was normally strophic : Different metres are combined into long stanzas (9-14 lines), which are repeated several times. One popular metre is the dactylic tetrameter (in contrast to the dactylic hexameter of Homer and Hesiod ). The type of songs Alcman composed most frequently appear to be hymns, partheneia (maiden-songs Greek παρθένος "maiden"), and prooimia (preludes to recitations of epic poetry ). Much of what little exists consists of scraps and fragments, difficult to categorize. The most important fragment

1406-414: Was some sort of witch, who would supply the girls in love with magic love-elixirs like the pharmakeutria of Theocritus 's Second Idyll, and others again argue that she was the trainer of the chorus like Andaesistrota of Pindar 's Second Partheneion Alcman could have composed songs for Spartan boys as well. However, the only statement in support of this idea comes from Sosibius, a Spartan historian from

1444-541: Was the first astronomer to apply the Riphean label to a feature of the lunar landscape, but Johann Heinrich von Mädler is responsible for the current designation of the Montes Riphaeus. The Riphean geochronological period was also named after the Riphean Mountains, in reference to the Ural Mountains. Alcman Alcman ( / ˈ æ l k m ən / ; Ancient Greek : Ἀλκμάν Alkmán ; fl.  7th century BC)

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