450 HISTORY OF THE opponent of Melanippides,* who gained a victory at Athens in 01. 94, 3. b.c. 401. § 3. It is far more important, however, to obtain a clear conception of the more recent Dithyramb in aJl its peculiarities. This we shall be better able to do by first establishing some of the main points of the question. With regard to the mode of exhibition, the Dithyrambs at Athens, during the Peloponnesian war, were still represented by choruses furnished by the ten tribes for the Dionysian festivals; consequently, the dithyrambic poets were also called Cyclic chorus-teachers : t but the more liberty they gave to the metre, the more various their rhythmical alterations, so much the more difficult was the exhibition by means of a complete chorus ; and so much the more common it became to get the Dithyramb performed by private amateurs. J The Dithyramb also en- tirely gave up the antistrophic repetition of the same metres, and moved on in rhythms which depended entirely on the humour and caprice of the poet;§ it was particularly characterized by certain runs by way of prelude, which were called am/3o/W, and which are much censured by strict judges, || but doubtless were listened to with avidity by the public in general. In this the poet had nothing to hinder him from passing from one musical note to another, or from combining various rhythms in the same poem ; so that at last all the constraints of metre seemed to vanish, and poetry in its very highest flight seemed to meet the opposite extreme of prose, as the old critics remark. At the same time the Dithyramb assumed a descriptive, or, as Aristotle says, a mimetic character.^ The natural phenomena which it described were imitated by means of tunes and rhythms, and the pantomimic ges- ticulations of the actors, (as in the antiquated Hyporcheme) ; and this was very much aided by a powerful instrumental accompaniment, which sought to represent with its loud full tones the raging elements, the voices of wild beasts, and other sounds.** With regard to the contents or subject of this dithyrambic poetry, in this it was based upon the compositions of Xenocritus, Simonides, and other old poets, who had taken subjects for the Dithyramb from the
- Athen. XIV. p. 616, E, relates, in very pretty verses, a contest between the
two poets, on the question whether Minerva had rejected the flute-accompaniment. •J- Aristoph. Birds, 1403. + Aristotle speaks of this alteration, Problem. 19, 15. Comp. Rhetor. III. 9. || * uax^a. avafiokh tu Toiriffavri xaxlar'/i : an hexameter with a peculiar synizesis. 1! This is called fiira.p>o>.h. The fragments of the dithyrambic poets consequently contain also many pieces in simple Doric rhythms.
- Plato (Resp. p. 396) alludes to this imitation of storms, roaring torrents, lowing
herds, &c, in the Dithyrambs. A parasite wittily observed of one of these storm- cVthyrambs of Timotheus, that "he had seen greater storms, than those which Timotheus made, in many a kettle of boiling water." Athen. "VIII. p. 338, A.
