1. Introduction

The lyre is considered the “national” musical instrument of the ancient Greeks. It is the most important, respectable and known of all the instruments. The lyre was also named 'chelys' (tortoise), because its sound box was made from the shell of a tortoise (or imitated it). The term "lyra" is probably a loan from a non Indo-European language of the Mediterranean. It should be noted that in sources it is abusively used to describe other instruments of the greater family of the lyre (such as the guitar, the forminx and the barbitos). On the other hand, the terms "lyrizein" (play the lyre) and "lyrists" are found only in early sources, whereas in classical sources the similar terms "kitharizein" and "kitharistes" are used for the lyre too.

2. Origin-Myths

The lyre appears on Greek art towards the end of the 8th century BC, whereas it is documented with a greater frequency from the 6th century BC onwards. The earliest references to the lyre in Greek sources date back to the 7th century BC. References in literature similarly become more frequent from the 6th century BC onwards. The Greeks claimed a Greek origin for the most important of their musical instruments. The myth attributes the invention of the lyre to Hermes at Kyllene of Arcadia.¹ A mischievous new-born baby, Hermes jumps from his cradle, gets out of the cave where he dwells with his mother Maia, finds a tortoise, slaughters it and turns its shell into the sound box of the first lyre. He tests it and begins to play and sing. When the same night he steals cows from the heard of his brother Apollo and the former comes to find him, Hermes produces and shows his lyre; Apollo is thrilled and to appease him Hermes offers the lyre to him.

Apollo is often characterized as “eulyros” in Greek poetry and his musical instrument is determined as a lyre, although in most of the relative representations on vases the god holds a guitar. Hermes taught the art of the lyre to Orpheus too. Orpheus perfected the lyre by adding to the seven-string lyre two more chords, so the number would be equal to that of the nine Muses. When Orpheus played his lyre and sang, fish jumped out of the water enchanted and beasts came close tamed. Rivers stopped flowing, rocks and trees moved from the earth and followed him. After the murder of Orpheus his lyre fell into the sea and floated until Lesvos, where, according to a tradition, was found by fishermen who brought it to the famous singer Terpandros. The gods finally turned Orpheus' lyre into a constellation in order too commemorate the musician through the ages.

The first lyre player of the world, Amphion, who, like Orpheus, enchanted with his music living creatures and inanimate objects, also learned his art from Hermes (or Zeus). Thus they say he had built the famous fortification walls of Thebes. Just by playing his lyre and singing, he enchanted stones, moved them to place and put them together. Thebes became a seven-gate city in analogy to the seven strings of his lyre.² This is because allegedly Amphion added to the old four-string lyre three new strings. Orpheus taught the art of lyre to the Thracian singer Thamyras and to the Argian lyre player Linos or, according to another view, Linos taught Orpheus but also Amphion. Much of the improvements on the lyre are attributed to the musicians of Asia Minor. Thus the five-string lyre is invented by the Lydian Torrebos, the seven-string lyre by the Lesbian Terpandros, the ten-string lyre by the Colophonian Istiaios and finally the eleven-string and the twelve-string lyre by the Milesian Timotheos.

3. Form and function of the lyre

In accordance to the myth of the construction of the lyre by Hermes, and as attested by preserved examples and relative representations, the shell of a tortoise was used as a sound box. This is a particular kind of tortoise with an elongated shell, which, in a fully developed animal, can reach up to 25-30 centimetres. This species is found in Greece and rarely anywhere else, something which could be an indication for the Greek origin of the instrument. The sound box could, of course, be made from wood, but even then it imitated a shell, with the attachment of thin leaves from the outside of the tortoise’s shell or from ivory.

The arms of the lyre were fixed in each side in the inner part of the shell and came out through the exit points of the back legs of the tortoise (the shell was used upside-down). They were made from wild-goat horns or from wood which was formed to the shape of horns. They were inclined towards the inside and towards the front. On their upper part and at the point were they came closer the arms were bridged with a perpendicular wooden rod, the so-called zygon. On the concave side of the sound box a membrane of ox hide was stretched. At approximately the middle of the membrane a rectangular or ovoid hole was opened, whereas at its lower part a metal, Π-shaped attachment was fixed, the so-called “chordotonon” (or vater). Near the opening of the membrane a reed attachment was placed, the “donax” or “magada”. Strings were made from intestines or tendons, or from flax or cannabis. They were tied into a knot on the chordotonon, crossed over the donax, which operated as the saddle of modern stringed instruments, i.e. it isolated the vibrating parts of the strings and reached up to the zygon. There the were wrapped around the “kollopes” or “kollabous”, keys of rectangular or oval cutting initially of leather and later of wood, metal or ivory, which operated like the modern “striftaria”: by turning them each time accordingly they would stretch or loosen the strings.

Strings were usually played with a key, a wooden, ivory, bone or metal stem with a heart or frustum-shaped end. Often in representations it appears tied to the "pechys". The lyre was usually played with the right hand, often with a key, but also with the fingers. The special term “krouein” was used for playing with a key, whereas for playing with the fingers the term “psallein” was used. The “krouein” method produced a clear, strong and crystal sound, the “psallein” method a softer sound. It is assumed that “psallein” accompanied the voice at the same or an octave higher, whereas the“krouein”, stronger and capable of covering the voice, was mainly applied in introductory and interposed themes. The left hand apparently stopped the strings’ vibration, but also tried to play with the fingers however. How exactly functions were distributed amongst the two fingers is unclear.

The guitarist usually played seated, but in some cases he could be lying on a couch, standing or walking. He held the lyre in a slanting position (inclined in 45 degrees or more) or even in an upright position, and slightly bending towards the front, firmly placing it between his legs or between his left thigh and arm, sometimes with the help of a strap, the telamon, which was tied on to the forearm of the lyre and passed from his left hand. In the rare occasions when he played standing the lyre was placed under the left armpit or hang by the "telamon" from the neck.

Strings were of the same height, but had a different thickness and gave a different sound each. Their number varied according to the age and ranged from 3 until 12, but in the Classical period it was 7. The primitive lyre apparently had 4 or even 3 strings. During the 8th/7th centuries BC, Terpandros invented the lyre with the seven strings but also the space of the eighth (“diapason”), taking the third off (the third note over and under the seven-note harmony) and adding the "nete", i.e. the eighth.³ The closest string to the guitarist was called "hypate" (supreme) and it was the lowest, whereas the more distanced to him was called "nete" and was the highest. The strings next to them were in respect the "parhypate" and the "paranete". The middle of the seven strings was called "mese". Between the parhypate and the mese was the "lichagos", between the middle and the paranete was the "trite" (third; the Greeks counted the strings in a downward series). Thus the names of the chords in the seven-string system were as follows: hypate, parhypate, lichagos, mese, trite, paranete, nete. The thumb stroke the hypate (and virtually every one of the first 4 chords), the indicator the lichagos, the small the nete and the paranete. During the 6th century BC Pythagoras added an eighth string between the mese and the paramese,⁴ creating an eight-note harmony from two adjoined four-strings (E-D-C-B and A-G-F-E or E-F-G-A and B-C-D-E).

Moreover, since the 5th century BC lyres with more strings were used along with the dominant seven-string lyre; with nine strings, an invention of Profrastos or Theophrastus from Pieria,⁵ with ten strings, an invention of Istiaios from Colophon,⁶ with eleven strings, an invention of Timotheos from Miletus,⁷ and with twelve strings, also an invention of Timotheos⁸ or of the dithyramb composer Melanippides from Melos (5th century BC)⁹.

The way the lyre was tuned cannot be determined with precision. We cannot say whether by turning the kollopes they would correct the tonal height of every string or whether in certain occasions some strings were tuned into a new height in order to produce more harmonies. In the last case the lyre would be tuned differently each time a different harmony was to be played.

The question which has been posed and still remains is how the basic seven-chord classical lyre could produce the complicated music compositions we infer from the sources that guitarists of the Classical era played, something impossible, if we assume that only the seven open strings were used. The most prevalent of the older theories suggests that the usual toning was in five tones (E-G-A-B-D, not necessarily in this order). The initial three-string would have contained E-A-E, to which later D and G were added. The missing F and C, the half-notes or the quarters of the note are speculated that they were produced by pressing and stretching the next lower string (note). Similarly, with a system of pressing the strings they would manage to play in a higher position (higher in a short space), but also in a third position, twice higher in the same space. According to this theory, the seven strings of the lyre could produce up to 21 different notes.¹⁰ One of the more recent theories assumes the technique of the “dialepse”, during which harmonies, like in the modern harp, are produced. The left hand softly touches the middle of the string and immediately leaves it after the stroking of the key. Thus the two halves of the string are vibrated each in the frequency of an octave over an open string. With this technique playing in a space of two or more octaves is automatically allowed.¹¹

4. Types of lyre

In the wider family of the lyre, instruments with strings of the same height but of different thickness and sound also belonged. They were mainly different in terms of the manufacture method of the sound box and the extent of its height. The two basic categories were the lyre and the guitar. The guitar was more complicated and precisely constructed, with a single, thick body built entirely out of wood. Its sound box was usually square or even round (the Homeric forminx or kitharis of the bards), its pechys were broad, straight or usually curved with decorative grooves, which on approximately the height of the zygos turned up into an upright angle. The whole size and weight of the guitar was much greater than that of the lyre. Its sound also was of greater volume and echo. It was the instrument of the professionals and of the Pan-Hellenic games. Some kinds of guitar can be traced back to the 3rd millennium in the art of Mesopotamia but also of Egypt and from the 2nd millennium BC in the Minoan and Mycenaean art. This is the only stringed instrument the use of which is attested in Greece from the Minoan and Mycenaean times.

The main variation of the lyre was the "barbitos". Their main difference is located at the height and the inclination of their arms, at the length of their strings but also at the colour of their sound. A variation of the lyre was known as the lyre or guitar of Thamyras (in vase-paintings it is held by the mythical bard) or as the Thracian lyre or guitar (obviously due to the origin of Thamyras). It had a wooden sound box which looked like the sound box of the guitar, with a flat base but a semi-circular top. Its forearms were thin, appear to have been incorporated into the body like the ones of the lyre, but they were bow-shaped and on the height of the zygos they converged and turned up into an upright angle, like the arms of the barbitos or the guitar.

5. The position of the lyre in the life of the Greeks

In mythical representations more or less Apollo and mainly the Muses, Hermes, Eros, Orpheus and other mythical musicians, Tithonos, Paris, the Dioscouroi, the Satyrs and the Maenads, Hercules, Theseus are associated with the lyre. The myth for the lyre of Orpheus underlines the special meaning this instrument had for the Greek musical creation. From the scenes of everyday life the lyre is seen in representations of symposiums, kommos (feast), marriage, in the hands of women in their private rooms (“gynaikeion”), students and teachers in school scenes, of adolescents playing or holding their lyres and talking with men at the gymnasium or the palaistra (they are interpreted as lovers during their erotic approach by their mates, the lyre is presented as an emblem of their age and education).

Due to its simple construction and function but also its clear, noble and masculine sound, the lyre was the main instrument of the musical education of the Greek teenagers.¹² The great Athenian philosopher and theoretician of music Damon (around 430 BC) maintained that the practice in singing and playing the lyre cultivated a feeling of courage, moderation and justice to the adolescents.¹³ Above any ennoblement of the soul lyre playing as a basic part of the elementary education of the youths aimed in securing the continuation of the widely favoured habit of the recitation of poetry as a song, accompanied by music. The low-tone hearing of the lyre made it suitable for playing in closed spaces. It was seen mostly in the hands of amateurs (every educated person was expected to know how to play the lyre) than in the hands of professionals, like the guitar, which, due to its complexity and its strong sound was suitable for open, official festivals. Although the lyre was the best escort to the human voice, the guitar remains the main instrument of concerts until the Late Antiquity as a solo instrument or as the escort of a monody or a chore song.