Active in Alexandria during the second half of the third century, Dioscorides is the author of some forty epigrams preserved in the Anthologia Palatina. Five of these epigrams are concerned with Greek playwrights: three dramatists of the archaic and classical periods, Thespis, Aeschylus and Sophocles, and two contemporary ones, Sositheus and Machon.Footnote 1 Dioscorides conceived four epigrams as two pairs (Thespis and Aeschylus, Sophocles and Sositheus) clearly marked by verbal connections, and celebrates each playwright for his original contribution to the history of Greek drama. Thespis boasts to have discovered tragedy; Aeschylus to have elevated it. The twin epigrams devoted to Sophocles and Sositheus present Sophocles as refining the satyrs and Sositheus as making them, once again, primitive. Finally, Machon is singled out for his comedies as ‘worthy remnants of ancient art (τέχνης … ἀρχαίης)’. Dioscorides’ miniature history of Greek drama, which is interesting both for its debts to the ancient tradition surrounding classical playwrights and for the light it sheds on contemporary drama, clearly smacks of archaizing sympathies. They drive Dioscorides’ selection of authors and his treatment of contemporary dramatists: both Sositheus and Machon are praised for consciously looking back to the masters of the past. My focus is on Sositheus and his ‘new’ satyr-play. After discussing the relationship that Dioscorides establishes between Sophocles’ and Sositheus’ satyrs, and reviewing scholarly interpretations of Sositheus’ innovations, I will argue that Dioscorides speaks the language of New Music. His epigram celebrates Sositheus as rejecting New Music and its trends, and as composing satyr plays that were musically old fashioned and therefore reactionary.
SOPHOCLES AND SOSITHEUS
Conceived as epitaphs, the two epigrams that Dioscorides writes for Sophocles and Sositheus are voiced by two satyrs, two brothers standing by their respective tomb. Here are their texts:Footnote 2
‘O man, this is the tomb of Sophocles, which I, a holy servant, received as a holy trust from the Muses. He brought me from Phlius, when I was still tramping the threshing board, turned me, who had been wooden, into a golden figure, and clothed me in a fine purple cloak. When he died, I arrested my nimbly dancing foot here.’ ‘Lucky you to have gotten such an excellent post! But from which play does the mask of a mourning maiden in your hands come?’ ‘Whether it pleases you to say Antigone or Electra, you would not be mistaken, for both are supreme.’
And I guard the body of Sositheus, just as in the city another of my brothers guards that of Sophocles, I, Scirtus the red-bearded. For he won the ivy worthy of the satyrs of Phlius, I swear by the dancing-circles! I had already been reared in newfangled ways, but he led me back to my ancestors’ memory by bringing me back to old ways. And once again I imposed the masculine rhythm upon the Dorian Muse, drawn to his great voice [……….] new creation of Sositheus’ adventurous mind.
Dioscorides reduces the history of Greek satyr play to three figures, Pratinas, Sophocles and Sositheus. Pratinas lurks behind the mention of his hometown, Phlius, from which Sophocles reportedly took the satyrs and to which Sositheus reportedly brought them back. The satyr standing by Sophocles’ tomb claims that Sophocles ‘changed me, who had been wooden, into a golden figure, and clothed me in a fine purple cloak (λεπτὴν … ἁλουργίδα, 5)’. These lines have often been taken at face value, as recording that Sophocles introduced, or was supposed to have introduced, ‘a fine purple cloak’ as a satyric costume. The supporting evidence, however, is weak. According to the biographic tradition, Sophocles did not introduce new costumes but two accessories, the ‘crooked staff’ and the ‘white boots’. Nothing associates Sophocles with either the silens wearing a purple or scarlet cloak during the Great Procession in Alexandria described by Callixeinus, or with the ‘purple mantle’ mentioned by Pollux when describing satyric costume.Footnote 3 That Sophocles’ satyrs stood out for their sophisticated dance-steps—the satyr's foot is ‘nimbly dancing’ (εὔθετον ὀρχηστὴν … πόδα, 6)—is just as debatable. The best-known satyr play by Sophocles, Ichneutai, which circulated in Hellenistic Alexandria before being preserved, at least in part, by three papyri found in Oxyrhynchus, has one or possibly all the satyrs ‘double squatting’. Pollux associates this kind of dance with the kômos and qualifies it as ‘lewd’. Another fragment from this play features another technical term related to dance, ῥικνοῦσθαι (F 316). Its preserving source, Photius, glosses it as ‘to bend over, become crooked by bending one's hip in intercourse or dancing’; according to Pollux, this dance figure consists in a ‘vulgar rotation of the hips’.Footnote 4
Dioscorides’ picture of Sophocles’ refined satyr is indebted to the critical tradition surrounding Sophocles and his tragedies. The satyr, who holds two tragic masks in his hands, Electra and Antigone, speaks like Aristotle. Frozen on his spot, he arrested his foot after Sophocles’ death just like, in Aristotle's view of dramatic history, ‘after undergoing many changes, tragedy stopped evolving (ἐπαύσατο)’, a claim that Aristotle makes right before detailing Aeschylus’ and Sophocles’ innovations.Footnote 5 That Sophocles’ Antigone and Electra are ‘supreme’ (ἄκρον, 10) also recalls ancient judgements on Sophocles’ playwriting that are ultimately based on Sophocles’ competitive record in classical Athens.Footnote 6 The grammarian Carystius took care to point out that Sophocles ‘never came last’ (Vit. Soph. 8), and other funerary epigrams devoted to Sophocles duly broadcast his extraordinary success. Simias writes that Sophocles was ‘often (πολλάκις) crowned by the winding Acharnian ivy, in the orchestra and on the stage’; Erycius urges the ‘ivy of the theatre (σκηνίτης … κισσός)’ to cover ‘forever’ Sophocles’ tomb as to provide a perpetual wreath for his head.Footnote 7 In the epigram reportedly inscribed on Sophocles’ tomb, Lobon celebrates Sophocles’ entire career as ‘taking first prize in the tragic art' (πρωτεῖα λαβόντα | τῇ τραγικῇ τέχνῃ). Note also that Lobon addresses Sophocles as a ‘most holy figure' (σχῆμα τὸ σεμνότατον), which recalls the ‘golden figure’ (χρύσεον σχῆμα, 4) of Dioscorides’ satyr.Footnote 8 Dioscorides’ familiarity with the critical tradition surrounding classical tragedians is otherwise evident from the epigram that he writes for Aeschylus. A series of parallels indicates that Dioscorides celebrates Aeschylus by resorting to Aristophanes’ Frogs. Dioscorides claims that Aeschylus ‘elevated' (ἐξύψωσεν) tragedy; Aristophanes’ chorus calls him ‘the first among the Greeks to have built lofty words (πυργώσας ῥήματα σεμνά)’. Behind Dioscorides’ Aeschylus as the poet ‘who carved letters not finely chiselled' (ὁ μὴ σμιλευτὰ χαράξας γράμματα) lies Aristophanes’ Euripides and his polished expressions, ‘the shavings from the chisel’ (σμιλεύματα). Dioscorides addresses Aeschylus as ‘the cleverest mouth’ (στόμα πάντων | δεξιόν): he is ‘clever’ like the poet for whom Dionysus is looking in Frogs.Footnote 9
Drawing on the tradition that makes Sophocles embody tragic perfection, Dioscorides gives him a ‘golden’ satyr that he juxtaposes to Sositheus’ satyr. To this effect, he also sets Sophocles’ tomb ‘in the city’ (ἐν ἄστει) (1), that is, in Athens, although for an author active in Egypt ‘the city’ par excellence is Alexandria.Footnote 10 The location of Sophocles’ tomb, which is put in the mouth of the satyr standing by Sositheus’ tomb, suggests that Sositheus is buried in the country. Note also that the former has a ‘nimbly dancing foot’ (6), while the latter is called Scirtus, the ‘one who leaps’ (3).Footnote 11 Sophocles’ satyr speaks of a ‘fine purple cloak’ (5), Sositheus’ mentions a ‘masculine rhythm’ (8). The contrast between the two denies the conclusion that Sositheus ‘is praised as an imitator of Sophocles’.Footnote 12 Rather, both poets are singled out as having brought onto the genre two radically opposite innovations: Sophocles polished the satyrs, Sositheus reversed the process. Sophocles’ satyr is as urban as Sositheus’ is rustic.
SOSITHEUS AND HIS INNOVATIONS
Despite the little that survives of his works, Sositheus was important enough to receive his own entry in the Suda. His native hometown was a matter of contention—the Suda names three cities, Syracuse, Athens or ‘most probably’ Alexandria Troas—but he was clearly active in Alexandria. Along with Alexander Aetolus and Lycophron of Chalcis, among others, Sositheus belonged to the Pleiad, the circle of tragedians active at the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus II, king of Egypt from 283 to 246. Only one of his plays can be reasonably reconstructed at least in its major lines, Daphnis or Lityerses, which is generally considered to be a satyr play rather than a tragedy.Footnote 13 The scholiast to Theocritus’ Idylls records that Sositheus dealt with the love-story between Daphnis and a nymph, Thalia, and other sources provide what are likely to be the details of the play. Daphnis’ sweetheart was held captive at the court of the Phrygian king Lityerses, who forced all strangers into a reaping contest only to defeat and eventually kill them. In a twist of fortunes comparable to that of Euripides’ Alcestis, Heracles came around, defeated Lityerses and restored the nymph to Daphnis.Footnote 14 We hear of two additional plays by Sositheus: Crotus, from which Stobaeus cites a few, unrevealing lines, and the so-called Cleanthes-drama mentioned by Diogenes Laertius in his biography of Cleanthes, the head of the Stoic school from 263 to 232. Diogenes Laertius relates Cleanthes’ reaction to this play as it was being staged in the theatre: ‘when Sositheus uttered the line, “those whom Cleanthes’ folly drives off like oxen”, Cleanthes remained unmoved.’ The audience drove Sositheus off the stage and applauded the philosopher, who later accepted Sositheus’ apology ‘for his insult’ (ἐπὶ τῇ λοιδορίᾳ, Diog. Laert. 7.173). As featuring personal abuse, Sositheus’ Cleanthes-drama is rightly considered alongside two later satyr plays including similar attacks, Python's Agen, which mocked Alexander's treasurer Harpalus, and Lycophron's Menedemus, which made fun of the philosopher that names the play.Footnote 15
Why exactly did Sositheus’ satyr play stand out as to deserve Dioscorides’ praise? The interpretation that has gained most favour has Sositheus react to the ‘evolution’ of the satyr play, and specifically to its assimilation of the motifs typical of Old Comedy. It downplays the evidence provided by the Cleanthes-drama by claiming that Sositheus ‘was actually much more famous for a different kind of drama’, and therefore assumes that Dioscorides chose to celebrate only a specific portion of Sositheus’ production.Footnote 16 This line of argument is also often combined with what we know about Sositheus’ Daphnis or Lityerses and its rural setting, which is assumedly in contrast with the ‘urbanized’ satyrs of later satyr play. It is unclear to me whether post-classical satyr drama distinctively moved away from the wilderness of its earlier counterpart, but it is misleading to draw into this picture the silens dressed in purple or scarlet cloaks that follow the satyrs during the Great Procession in honour of Dionysus at the festival of the Ptolemaia in Alexandria. Since they are taking part in a procession and not in a theatrical performance, they have nothing to tell us about contemporary satyr play or satyr play in general.Footnote 17
The obvious starting point to reconstruct Sositheus’ ‘new’ satyr play is Dioscorides’ text. Despite the regrettable loss of the beginning of the second last line,Footnote 18 the satyr who stands by Sositheus’ tomb makes two key points. First, he claims that, by the time of Sositheus, he ‘had already been reared in newfangled ways (ἐν καινοῖς … ἤθεσιν)’ (5). Then, he tells us how Sositheus ‘brought [him] back to old ways (ἀναρχαΐσας)’: ‘once again (πάλιν), I imposed the masculine rhythm (τὸν ἄρσενα ῥυθμόν) upon the Doric Muse’ (6–8). The ‘masculine rhythm’ reacts against the ‘newfangled ways’ that, according to the satyr, mark earlier satyr plays, and both of them open a window on the musical trends of later satyr play in general and of Sositheus’ satyr play in particular. Webster already noted that Dioscorides is here referring to the musical element of Sositheus’ satyr plays,Footnote 19 but these lines have never been read against what we know about the so-called New Music, a style of musical performance that came to the forefront between 430 and 380. New Music was characterized, among other things, by the rejection of traditional metres and rhythmic patterns such as strophic responsion: it experimented with rhythms and melodies, paralleled the growth of technical specialization and was key to the rise of aulos-players as star performers.Footnote 20 Associated with figures such as Timotheus, Melanippides, Euripides and Agathon, New Music found its earliest expressions in the dithyramb and left traces in extant tragedy and comedy. Popular with audiences and rejected by generations of ancient critics, it was consistently singled out as both novel and feminine.
DIOSCORIDES AND THE LANGUAGE OF NEW MUSIC
New Music is a modern but not inappropriate name for a trend that made ‘new’ one of its buzzwords.Footnote 21 The practitioners of New Music repeatedly styled themselves as innovators, self-consciously advertised their innovations and defiantly paraded their songs as unconventional. In his most famous work, Persians, Timotheus confronts his detractors, the Spartan critics, and uses their attacks to proclaim his poetics: the Spartans reproach Timotheus for dishonouring ‘the Old Muse’ with his ‘new hymns’ (νέοις ὕμνοις). Elsewhere, he gives us the most radical manifesto for New Musicians’ claims to novelty: ‘I do not sing the ancient songs for my newfangled ones (καινὰ … ἀμά) are better […] Let the Muse of old go away!’Footnote 22 Note here Timotheus’ use of the adjective καινός to qualify his song: unlike νέος, which generally implies ‘newness in time’, καινός stands for ‘newness in kind’.Footnote 23 Timotheus styles his songs not as ‘the latest’ but as ‘newfangled’. Euripides, who pioneered rather than simply embraced New Music, provides another example. Calling upon the Muse, which is in itself unparalleled in tragedy, the chorus of Trojan Women solicits ‘a funeral dirge of newfangled hymns (καινῶν ὕμνων)’, a rare example of a metapoetic statement in tragedy.Footnote 24 Aristophanes, who adopted New Musical practices while making fun of its practitioners, brings onto the stage Cinesias singing highfaluting verses and barely gives him the time to announce why he is visiting the new city of ‘Cloudcuckooland’: ‘with fearless mind and body, in pursuit of a new path (νέαν ἐφέπων) …’. Although constantly interrupted by an impatient Peisetaerus, Cinesias sings about being a bird, soaring high and fetching ‘newfangled preludes’ (καινὰς … ἀναβολάς).Footnote 25
What made New Musicians’ compositions innovative was, among other things, their variegated, complex and intricate quality—poikilia, in a word. This is the term that New Musicians use, or refer to, when describing their poetic activities: the lyre played by Orpheus, whom Timotheus proclaims to be his ancestor, is ‘of dappled music’ (ποικιλόμουσον); for Telestes, the art of aulos-playing is ‘quick-fluttering’ (αἰολοπτέρυγον) and ‘of quick-moving forms’ (αἰολομόρφοις). Drawn from the world of nature and craft, the word poikilia ‘was always mutable, used to describe whatever aspect of his artificiality a poet (or his critic) wished to call attention to, be it diction, metre, melody, or accompaniment’.Footnote 26 Like novelty, poikilia was a ‘critical term’ that New Musicians provided to their own critics: drawing from New Musicians’ self-presentation, generations of ancient writers turned their own words against them.Footnote 27 Pseudo-Plutarch's On Music, a work that systematically draws on earlier authors, probably best exemplifies this point (1135C): ‘Crexus, Timotheus and Philoxenus, and other poets of the same period, displayed more vulgarity and a thirst for novelty (φορτικώτεροι καὶ φιλόκαινοι), and pursued the popular and what is now called the “commercial” style. The result was that music limited to a few strings, simple and dignified in character (ὀλιγοχορδίαν τε καὶ τὴν ἁπλότητα καὶ σεμνότητα), went quite out of fashion.’ Pseudo-Plutarch and his sources belong to the well-established tradition that presents New Music as a regrettable break in the ‘good old music’ and the ultimate responsible for the demise of music in general. Aristotle talks of a musical revolution brought about by the ‘base spectator’, and, before him, Plato elaborated on the good music of bygone times. In what is the locus classicus for the decline of music in the classical period, Plato speaks of a time when music was divided into classes and styles, with fixed and distinct genres all properly classified and used. It was only later that ignorant poets started mixing them, catering to the taste of equally ignorant audiences.Footnote 28
New Music's novelty, or otherness, was also expressed in gendered terms. The best example is Aristophanes’ Agathon in Thesmophoriazusae. Agathon walks onto the stage with a white beardless mask, dressed in women's clothes and with no visible stage phallus. Aristophanes has Agathon explain his effeminate appearances, which are mocked by In-law, in apparently contradictory terms: first, he dwells on the kind of poetry that he is composing and later he mentions a direct link between poetry and a poet's character.Footnote 29 Agathon's languid body is a visible and tangible expression of his topic and style, and his ‘softness’, which was grist to the mill of comedy, became a staple in the way in which later authors describe him.Footnote 30 Ancient sources agree in labelling New Music ‘of effeminate character’ or ‘of more effeminate character’; Aristoxenus wished to reverse the process by ‘trying to make masculine (ἀναρρωννύναι) the female music (θηλυνομένην … τὴν μουσικήν)’ of his day.Footnote 31 New Music's gendered connotations have a firm ideological basis in what is generally called the ‘ethos theory of music’ and is often attached to the name of Damon, one of Pericles’ advisers. According to this theory, music impacts and shapes the character of its listeners: having different characters, virtues and vices, different modes variously influence the human soul. This belief also led to the development of theoretical principles explaining the psychagogic and therefore educational and civic power of music.Footnote 32
In Damon's view, the gender of modes is determined by the gender of the notes that they contain, male or female, that is lower or higher. Ancient sources name several different modes, but repeatedly brand only one as manly, the Dorian.Footnote 33 For Plato, this is ‘the only Greek mode’, appropriate for ‘a brave man’ facing the battlefield and all kinds of hardships. Plato is quick to reject a number of modes, ‘the dirge-like modes’, as ‘useless even to respectable women, let alone men’. Aristotle gives us what was the current opinion on the Dorian mode, ‘all agree that the Dorian mode is the most steadfast and that it has an especially manly character (ἦθος ἀνδρεῖον)’.Footnote 34 Heraclides Ponticus, who comments on both the ‘manliness (τὸ ἀνδρῶδες) and magnificence’ of this mode, adds that it is ‘neither elaborate nor complex’ (οὔτε δὲ ποικίλον οὔτε πολύτροπον). Another critic of New Music, Aristoxenus, favourably lists Pindar and Bacchylides, among others, as practitioners of the old style of Dorian music.Footnote 35 Associated with manliness and simplicity, this mode contrasts with New Musical practice.
A reference to this mode probably lies behind Dioscorides’ ‘Dorian Muse’. Rather than simply standing for ‘drama’ or ‘satyr play’ more specifically, this expression may be musically and ideologically charged. It serves to paint Sositheus’ musical reform in strong terms. The ‘Dorian Muse’ to whom Sositheus’ satyr injects ‘once again a masculine rhythm’ is already the domain of manliness. In a process that smacks of both eagerness and force (the rare verb εἰσορμάω conveys both senses), Sositheus’ satyr seems to achieve the impossible. Scholarly discussions of Dioscorides’ epigram routinely note that Dioscorides’ ‘Dorian Muse’ finds a parallel in the Pratinas fragment preserved by Athenaeus. Athenaeus, who defines this text a hyporchēma, records it after three fragments by Melanippides and Telestes, and dates it to ‘when hireling aulos-players and choruses were taking over the dancing-places’.Footnote 36 This composition is a virulent attack delivered by a chorus who vindicates the priority of their song, ‘the tune dapple-winged (ποικιλόπτερον μέλος) like a swan’, over the aulos and the aulos player, ‘the one who blows likes a dappled toad (φρυνεοῦ ποικίλου)’. The chorus reclaims Dionysus for themselves and gets ready to perform: ‘listen to my Dorian sung-dance (Δώριον χορείαν)!’ Dioscorides may be celebrating Sositheus as a Hellenistic Pratinas by recalling a line by Pratinas, or, most likely, a line that he thought to be by Pratinas. The author, date and even the genre of this fragment are all controversial, but what is relevant to my argument about Sositheus’ musical innovations is that Pratinas’ fragment, too, has been placed within the debate surrounding New Music. The metrical and linguistic features of this song, along with its subject-matter, point to the late fifth century and make this text a pastiche of conservative views on musical practices.Footnote 37
NEW MUSIC, HELLENISTIC POETS AND THE SATYRS
Dioscorides’ epigrams engage with both contemporary views on poetry and contemporary theatrical practice. As noted above, Dioscorides celebrates Aeschylus and his grandeur by borrowing lines and images from Aristophanes’ Frogs. His literary landscape makes no room for Euripides, yet Dioscorides describes Sophocles by recalling, once again, Aristophanes’ Frogs and specifically Aristophanes’ treatment of Euripides. Sophocles’ satyr wears a ‘purple cloak’ which is ‘fine’ (λεπτὴν … ἁλουργίδα, 5). This is the same term that Aristophanes applies to Euripides in Frogs: the chorus foresees that Euripides ‘will refine away by talk’ (καταλεπτολογήσει) Aeschylus’ poetry, and Euripides boasts to have put tragedy on a diet.Footnote 38 Aristophanes’ dichotomy between ‘fat’ and ‘thin’ was to play a significant role in Hellenistic poetic and rhetorical theory; to the Alexandrians, λεπτός was a ‘word of programmatic significance’.Footnote 39 In the Aetia prologue, Callimachus has Apollo instruct the incipient poet to ‘keep the Muse slender (λεπταλέην)’: Aristophanes decided for the old-fashioned Aeschylus, but Callimachus goes for the modern by aligning himself with Euripides (whom Aristophanes does treat as a New Musician).Footnote 40 Callimachus gestures again to Euripides later on: his wish for a rejuvenating process for both himself and his poetry recalls the second stasimon of Euripides’ Heracles, an ode that reconciles Apollo and Dionysus. Prauscello places this passage within a larger discussion of Callimachus’ reception of New Music; Acosta-Hughes and Stephens further explore the points of contact between Callimachus’ poetry and New Musical features emphasizing, above all, polyeideia and mimetic practice.Footnote 41 Lycophron's Alexandra, too, offers interesting material for the survival of New Music in Hellenistic poetry: the practice of ‘blending’ disparate images that marks New Musical compositions accounts for much of Lycophron's complex and sophisticated imagery.Footnote 42 By celebrating a poet who rejects New Music, Dioscorides runs counter to the favourable reception of New Music that I have been tracing. By selecting Sositheus as worthy of praise and by celebrating the grandeur of Aeschylus’ poetry, Dioscorides sets himself against Callimachus’ view on poetry.
Dioscorides’ epigram for Sositheus is not an isolated source for the reception of New Music in the satyr play. What modern scholars call New Music was known as ‘theatre music’ (σκηνική or θεατρική) in antiquity; it affected all theatrical genres.Footnote 43 The two best-preserved satyr plays by Sophocles, Inachus and Ichneutai, can be read as variously responding to New Music and its trends. Inachus apparently staged a contest between a singing Argus and Hermes who played the syrinx, or most likely just pretended to play the syrinx while a virtuoso aulos-player provided the sound. In Ichneutai, Hermes discovers the lyre and plays it for the first time, captivating and confounding the satyrs. The modern musical style, the new kitharôidia and its virtuoso performers that fascinated contemporary audiences may all provide the subtext of this scene.Footnote 44 The satyr play adopted, evoked and even debated New Musical trends. This is suggested by a fragment that Athenaeus cites as belonging to the satyr play Heracles (ἐν Ἡρακλεῖ σατυρικῷ) by one of the stars of fourth-century theatre, Astydamas:Footnote 45
A clever poet should provide his audience with a variegated feast that resembles an elegant dinner, so everyone eats and drinks whatever he likes before he leaves, and the musical dressing is not a single one.
Written in a metre typically found in the parabasis of Old Comedy, the Eupolidean, these lines are routinely quoted as an example of metatheatricality in the satyr play and as evidence for the inclusion of comic elements in the later satyr play.Footnote 46 That this fragment is specifically about music, however, is rarely noted.Footnote 47 The speaking character, which the metre suggests to be the chorus, comments on the musical features marking the work of a ‘clever poet’: rather than being monotonous, they should be as complex as a ‘variegated feast’ (ποικίλην εὐωχίαν). By favouring poikilia in musical matters, Astydamas’ satyrs are taking a position in the debate surrounding New Music. Here too, Plato provides an apt response, which is, of course, a conservative one: in a passage that mingles food and music, he rejects variety in both of them. After likening foods—the ‘Syracusan table’, the ‘Sicilian variety of relish’ and ‘Attic pastries’—to ‘music made in the panharmonic mode and in all kinds of rhythms (ἐν τῷ παναρμονίῳ καὶ ἐν πᾶσι ῥυθμοῖς)’, Plato's Socrates blames poikilia for corrupting souls by engendering licentiousness and for ruining bodies by engendering disease.Footnote 48
New Music and the works of its classical pioneers continued to entertain audiences well after the heyday of the New Musical revolution. In a fragment dated to the late fourth or early third century, Aristoxenus refers to New Music as ‘popular’, blaming it on the barbarization of theatre.Footnote 49 Polybius, who writes in the second century, claims that his compatriots learned by heart the nomoi of both Timotheus and Philoxenus during their childhood. In 170, Cretan cities honoured a foreign ambassador who, to the delight of his hosts, performed Timotheus in the theatre, ‘as befits a cultivated man’.Footnote 50 Finally, at least some of the Euripidean tragedies most heavily characterized by New Musical trends can also be traced on later stages; Orestes and Trojan Women, for instance, provided virtuoso actors with attractive roles that continued to draw public audiences.Footnote 51 New Music's continued appeal across time and place may explain why Dioscorides refers to ‘Sositheus’ risk-taking (φιλοκινδύνῳ) mind’. Sositheus’ newly refashioned satyr play ran against what was still a very popular trend.
