Polychordia and the Fourth-Century Greek Lyre

Abstract

A few fragments of poetry from the fifth century B.C.; reports from later Greek and Roman writers that mention instruments that are many-stringed (polychordai) or have nine, ten, eleven, or more than strings; and Christian-era lists of inventors of new strings: these have led scholars to assume that in the late classical period-during the lifetimes of Euripides and Plato74 Greek lyres and kitharas acquired additional strings, the number gradually increasing from the traditional seven to eleven or twelve by the late fifth century.' If such a change in the design of these instruments took place during this period, as has been generally believed, it is a sign not only of stylistic changes in Greek music (which we know took place in the late fifth and early fourth centuries), but possibly also of a new stage in the growth of the Greek musical system. But did such a change take place? Since Plato's diatribes against new trends in music make it clear that the period was one of artistic