The Humorous Origin Myth Of The Chinese 25-String Zither

In Shi Ji 28 of the Records of the Grand Historian, Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE) recorded all sorts of information about ancient Chinese mythology and religious ceremony, as well as tales about magicians and other tidbits about occult topics. Filed away among the pages of Shi Ji 28, between accounts of charismatic mystics and elaborate sacrifices, Sima Qian included a short, but entertaining, tale about the origin of a musical instrument that was reportedly popular in ancient China—the 25-string zither.

According to Sima Qian, the zither (a soundboard with numerous strings covering the length of the instrument) was present in China back before the advent of recorded history. Interestingly, the first iterations of the Chinese zither were (according to the tale) very large instruments with many strings. Yet, one specific mythical emperor would bring about a new design. The circumstances and motivations behind this innovation, however, may not be what one would expect.

The Great Emperor Fu Xi, also known as The Great Bright One, was a curious mythical entity to whom the ancient Chinese attributed the development of many innovations that led to the rise of the Chinese civilization. From animal domestication, to metalworking and even the institution of marriage and religious practices, Fu Xi was said to have taught the ancients vital skills and social structures that served as the foundation of civilized life. Fu Xi was also a patron of musicians and had among his followers a talented woman called the White Maiden, who was a virtuoso with the zither. The model of zither that she played was a large instrument with fifty strings.

During a sacrificial ceremony, or some other social gathering, Fu Xi had the White Maiden play music for the occasion.  His instructions were not specific, so the White Maiden delved into a song of her own choice. For unexplained reasons, the mythical musician decided upon a sad tune and, when her mind was made up, the White Maiden poured all of her talent into playing a song that was sure to wet the eyes of all her listeners.

Unfortunately, something went wrong. Perhaps, the White Maiden’s song did not fit the occasion, or maybe the Great Emperor Fu Xi was overwhelmed by the emotional power of the music emanating from White Maiden and her exquisite zither. For whatever reason, Fu Xi begged her to stop playing the sad song. Yet, the White Maiden (as often happens to musicians) was thoroughly entranced in her musical performance and, in spite of Fu Xi’s pleas, she was determined to bring the gloomy piece to its conclusion.

Fu Xi, however, was equally determined to end the song. According to the tale, he seized the zither from the White Maiden and, with remarkable precision, snapped the instrument lengthwise. As expected of a mythical entity of great power, it was a perfect break, splitting the wood right down the center of the soundboard. Unfortunately, Sima Qian did not record how the White Maiden responded to such a philistine move.

If the White Maiden mourned for her prized fifty-string zither, we will never know. Yet, she found some consolation in that the instrument was broken with a clean cut in the center of the soundboard, parallel to the strings. In effect, the larger zither had been snapped into two new instruments. Her song may have been rudely interrupted, but now the White Maiden had two revolutionary 25-string zithers, which apparently became the latest musical new trend.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Chinese watercolor, c. 1800s, of a woman playing a zheng (Chinese zither), and a portrait of Fu Xi from an ancient manuscript housed in Paris, on a landscape painted by Shūgetsu (1440? - 1529), all [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji) by Sima Qian, translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Fu-Xi 
• https://www.britannica.com/art/zither 
• http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Myth/personsfuxi.html 
• http://www.johnmccrady.com/level3-zitherhist.html  

Lycius—A Small Performer With A Giant Voice

When Augustus (sole rule c. 30 BCE-14 CE) took power in Rome, he extended Julius Caesar’s policy of continually hosting extravagant spectacles to keep the people happy, or at least distracted. While writing about such Augustan entertainments and performances, the Roman scholar, Suetonius (c. 70-130), mentioned a little showman who made a big impact on the Roman masses.

Lycius was a member of the equestrian order, a Roman equivalent of a knight. Even though the Senate banned the equites (members of the equestrian order) and other noblemen from being public performers, they apparently made an exception for Lycius and let him continue entertaining.

The physical description of Lycius can vary from manuscript and translator, with some saying he suffered from dwarfism, and others claiming he was a child still under two feet in height. Nevertheless, all versions agree that he was short in stature and reportedly weighed about seventeen pounds. Lycius’ size, however, was not what packed the stadiums and amphitheaters—despite his small stature, Lycius had a tremendously powerful and beautiful voice.

Written by C. Keith Hansley

Picture Attribution: (Roman mosaic from the Antiochia House of the Evil Eye. [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius, translated by Robert Graves and edited by James B. Rives. New York: Penguin Classics, 2007.
• https://spectacularantiquity.wordpress.com/case-studies/public/dwarfs-in-the-arena/ 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Augustus-Roman-emperor  

Thales of Crete—The Singer-Songwriter Allegedly Employed By Lycurgus To Brainwash Sparta

The survival of information about ancient Spartan history owes a great deal of credit to Plutarch (c. 50-120), a Greek-Roman scholar from Boeotia, Greece. In his influential series of biographies, known as the Parallel Lives, Plutarch compared and contrasted Roman and Greek figures from history, including several influential Spartans. One of Plutarch’s many subjects was Lycurgus, the man credited with founding Sparta’s iconic culture of pragmatic no-nonsense militancy. In Plutarch’s day, stories of Lycurgus were more myth than history, a reality that Plutarch freely admitted in his own writing. Nevertheless, he recounted the stories that he had collected about Lycurgus, often listing his sources and judging which versions he believed were more feasible. As many of the sources he used regarding Sparta have now been lost or damaged, modern historians rely heavily on Plutarch’s summaries.

Plutarch confessed that there were many conflicting accounts that clashed on almost every part of Lycurgus’ life.  Nevertheless, he impressively pieced together the various tales into a timeline of Lycurgus’ career and went out of his way to notify his readers where inconsistencies occurred. The first major unknown piece of information regarding Lycurgus was the time in which he was supposed to have lived. Plutarch placed Lycurgus anywhere from as early as the 9th century BCE, in the age of Homer, to as late as the 6th century BCE, when Sparta had become noticeably militant and adverse to luxury.

According to the folklore-laden tales, Lycurgus was a member of the Spartan royal family. He was apparently a king of Sparta for the short span of eight months until he abdicated in favor of his infant nephew. Not wanting to overshadow the young king, Lycurgus allegedly decided to explore the world, collecting useful information and recruiting wise minds as he waited for his nephew to mature.

The first stop on Lycurgus’ grand tour allegedly was Crete. There, he found a masterful poet, singer and songwriter named Thales. Although Lycurgus was generally opposed to such luxury and art, he found that he had much in common with Thales of Crete. Law and obedience were said to have been the most common themes portrayed by Thales in his songs, and these were ideas that meshed perfectly with Lycurgus’ vision for Sparta.

According to Plutarch, Lycurgus recruited Thales of Crete as either an employee or a disciple. Thales traveled to Sparta, where he began performing and popularizing songs about servitude, respect for authority and the achievement of communal excellence. His performances were said to have been almost supernatural in their potency, with his lyrical words and music having the ability to mellow out even the most rowdy personalities.

While Thales prepared and enthused the Spartans for the upcoming revolution in their way of life, Lycurgus reportedly continued with his travels, gathering more ideas from surrounding cultures. The various sources that Plutarch browsed disagreed on where Lycurgus traveled during this period. In addition to Crete, most sources stated that he traveled through Ionia and Anatolia. Other individual sources reported that Lycurgus may have also traveled through Libya, Iberia, Egypt and India before returning home to revolutionize Sparta.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Musicians from the Zliten mosaic, c. 200 CE, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• On Sparta (Life of Lycurgus), by Plutarch excerpted from his Parallel Lives, translated by Richard J. A. Talbert. New York: Penguin Classics, 2005.

The Last Feat Of The Warrior-Harpist, Aristonicus

By the end of 329 BCE, or the beginning of 328 BCE, Alexander the Great had conquered a large territory, spanning from Greece and Egypt in the west of his empire all the way through Persia, Parthia and Bactria in the east. Alexander’s troops were also in Sogdiana, but the region was not yet pacified. Two Persian King of Kings had already fallen, including Darius III (330 BCE) and Besus (229 BCE), but a former vassal of Persia, Spitamenes of Sogdiana, was still at large, keeping his homeland in open revolt against Alexander the Great.

Hellenistic forces rampaged through Sogdiana trying to subdue the population and capture its leader. Feeling the pressure, Spitamenes fled to the north, where he found shelter with the Massagetae tribe of Scythia. While Alexander’s forces terrorized Sogdiana, Spitamenes led his reinvigorated forces, along with Scythian reinforcements, down into Bactria, where he caught the unsuspecting garrisons off guard. In particular, Spitamenes targeted the town of Zariaspa, the place where Alexander had set up camp before renewing his campaign in Sogdiana. The city was fairly well fortified, but the garrison mostly consisted of injured or sick troops. Among the people in the town were some notable figures, most importantly Aristonicus, a talented harp player, and Peitho, the son of Sosicles. Since the town was guarded, albeit by sickly or recovering soldiers, Spitamenes decided not to attack, but he did manage to pull off an impressive theft of Zariaspa’s supply of livestock.

This was an insult that the rag-tag band in Zariaspa could not tolerate. Aristonicus and Peitho rallied the healing troops and managed to gather around eighty men fit enough to fight. With this small force, Aristonicus and Peitho marched out of the town, intending to pursue the enemy. Miraculously, the war band from Zariaspa caught up with a small detachment from Spitamenes’ army. Aristonicus and Peitho ambushed the isolated camp and actually recovered a large portion of the stolen livestock. After the victory, the Hellenistic fighters began driving the animals back toward town.

Unfortunately, Spitamenes had heard of the attack and had set up an ambush of his own somewhere along the route to Zariaspa. As Aristonicus and Peitho herded the animals home, their small force lost any semblance of order or discipline. Therefore, they were totally unprepared when they stumbled into Spitamenes’ trap. In the ensuing massacre, the majority of the Hellenistic troops were killed. According to the historian Arrian (c. 90-145+), sixty-seven of the original eighty Hellenic warriors died in the ambush. Peitho was one of the few who survived to be captured by Spitamenes, although what happened to him after his capture is uncertain. The harpist, Aristonicus, had a less fortunate fate, and was killed in battle after reportedly mounting a heroic last stand.

When word reached Alexander the Great about the battle, he was impressed by Aristonicus’ courage and resolve. In honor of the fallen warrior-harpist, Alexander the Great funded a monument in the musician’s memory. At Delphi, a bronze statue was erected, displaying Aristonicus holding a harp in one hand and clutching a spear with the other.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Parnassus or Apollo and the Muses, by Simon Vouet (1590–1649) [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Campaigns of Alexander by Arrian, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt. New York: Penguin Classics, 1971.
• Alexander the Great by Philip Freeman. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2011.
• Alexander the Great: The Story of an Ancient Life by Thomas R. Martin and Christopher W. Blackwell. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.  

Emperor Gaozu Of China Was A Singer-Songwriter

In 195 BCE, Emperor Gaozu, the founder of the Han Dynasty, was returning to his capital city of Chang’an in order to recover from an arrow wound he had received while fighting the forces of a rebel king named Qing Bu. While on the road, the emperor decided to make a detour to the region of Pei. It was a special place for Emperor Gaozu—Pei was where the emperor began his bid for power when he was still a peasant.

When he reached the city of Pei, Emperor Gaozu hosted a feast for the townspeople and gave his old friends and the city’s elders places of honor during the festivities. Between feasts, the injured Emperor Gaozu was said to have given singing lessons to a chorus of 120 local children. During the practice sessions, the emperor had the children learn a very special song. According to the historian, Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE), it was a piece allegedly composed by the emperor, himself.

At the climax of one of the feasts in Pei, the emperor reportedly was handed a lute and gave a solo performance of his song. After he completed his rendition, the emperor had the 120 children file in and accompany him for another round of the song. Sima Qian recorded (or possibly invented) a single stanza from the song, a poem about a triumphant ruler returning to his roots. The historian made no comment on the song’s melody or the emperor’s lute playing, but the people of Pei would have been wise to applaud the performance, whether it was masterful or abysmal.

Feeling gracious, Emperor Gaozu named the city of Pei as a bath-town. While the title may sound insulting to modern readers, it was actually a great honor. As a bath-town, Pei was exempt from paying taxes to the capital, although regional authorities could still collect money for local projects. Before leaving, the emperor also promoted the Marquis of Pei, Liu Pi, to the throne of Wu.

Although Emperor Gaozu was healthy enough to feast and sing in Pei, his health quickly declined after returning to the capital. On June 1, 195 BCE, Emperor Gaozu died in his grand Palace of Lasting Joy. Upon the death, Gaozu’s son, Hui, ascended to the throne. In a loving gesture to his father, Emperor Hui had all the regional rulers of China create funerary temples to the late Emperor Gaozu. The second most important of these, only bested by the capital, was the temple housed in the city of Pei. There, Emperor Hui allegedly employed the musical talents of the 120 children that Emperor Gaozu had recently instructed in singing. According to Sima Qian, Emperor Hui made the singing troupe of Pei into a lasting institution and left instructions that new singers be brought in if any of the 120 musicians decided to leave the group.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Paintings on the north wall of Xu Xianxiu's Tomb of Northern Qi Dynasty, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji) by Sima Qian, translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gaozu-emperor-of-Han-dynasty 
• http://origins.osu.edu/milestones/february-2013-liu-bang-peasant-rebel-emperor 
• http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Emperor_Gaozu_of_Han  

An Ancient Spartan Military Secret—Musical Instruments

Military order, discipline and the logistics of feeding troops were deemed so important to the Spartans that, according to Herodotus (490-425/420 BCE), the very occupations of being a military woodwind musician or an army chef were supposedly strict hereditary jobs, contained to certain families that passed the skill from one generation to the next. In short, to enter one of these two occupations, your family already had to be firmly established in those lines of work. The importance of reliable cooks, obviously, was to keep the soldiers well fed and content while they risked their lives fighting in all too persistent waves of warfare. Similarly, skilled military musicians who knew what they were doing were vital to the Spartan military, for it is thought that Spartan military maneuvering was assisted and directed with the help of musicians. Like horn musicians and percussionists that would be utilized by other militaries throughout history, the Spartans used woodwind music to keep their formations orderly.

Although Herodotus did not go into detail about what woodwind instrument the hereditary musicians were trained to use, the most common instrument of that style in the ancient Greek world was the aulos. The oldest known examples of the aulos have been found in Thessaly, dating back to around 5,000 BCE. Those incredibly old auloi were made of bone, but later aulos instruments were also made of wood, ivory and metal. Pipes made of these substances had holes precisely placed down their length to create standard musical notes, which could be achieved by blowing into the pipe through mouthpieces equipped with reeds. While the aulos could be played by simply placing one’s fingers over the holes in the flute, keys similar to those found on modern woodwind instruments were eventually added to the device. It was common (especially in Herodotus’ day) for aulos musicians to play two pipes at the same time, with the individual pipes connecting into a “V” shape, with the mouthpieces meeting at the point of the V. With two pipes active at the same time, the double aulos added the potential for musical chords and more complex melodies. One major drawback of the aulos was the significant air pressure that a musician had to create to produce a decent sound. Playing the aulos could be so tiring that some musicians used straps to support their mouths while they played.

The aulos was not only used by the Spartans to keep their military in order, but was also heavily present in many other aspects of ancient Greek life. There is evidence that they were used in festivals, parades, theatre and other social events. Birthday celebrations and funeral processions, too, could both be accompanied with music from the aulos. The aulos, and other instruments, were also associated with religion, and were often used in the worship of gods. The cult of Dionysus was particularly known to use the aulos in its ceremonies and gatherings.

 (Aulos player. Attic red-figured kylix, ca. 490 BC. From Vulci. [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Written by C. Keith Hansely.

Sources:

• From The Histories by Herodotus, translated by Aubrey De Sélincourt and revised by John Marincola (Penguin Classics, 2002). 
• https://www.britannica.com/art/aulos 
• http://www.ancient.eu/Aulos/ 
• http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Ancient/en/Music.html