It seems that music was believed to be an integral element of the mechanism deployed by Delphi in its foreign political policy. Political and social change is thus linked directly to development in local musical culture, calling to mind Plato`s warning, articulated after Damon of Oa, that “nowhere are the modes of music changed without major change in the political conventions“. This statement should not surprise the reader accustomed to the dependency of archaic Greek society on its musical traditions for the maintaining and formulating of its ethos, historical memory and prevailing nomima. Apollo as a civic god, the ultimate source of law and customs, was at the same level a musical god, transforming Greek poleis from his high seat on the …show more content…
Now we will turn to deal with the positioning of Delphi as a multi-regional musical hub from internal perspective, based on the cross-cultural nature and the high degree of ritual prestige attached to its oracle and festivals. The predominance of Delphi in archaic Greek musical culture has been amplified early in the sixth century by the foundation, or refoundation, of the Pythian Games, the foremost musical competition of the age. Even though it surely wasn’t the only venue that attracted foreign musicians to Delphi, the Pythian Games were the first of the stephanephoroi games to exhibit musical agones, and their ritual prestige and cross-poleis visibility constitute them as an ideal vista for research, or, at least, merits further …show more content…
According to some ancient authors there was a long tradition of competitions in hymnodic lyre playing honoring Apollo on site. Pausanias states that, “The oldest contest that can be remembered and the one for which they first offered prizes was the singing of a hymn to the god”. He even names some of the early legendary winners: the Cretan Chrysothemis, Philammon, a local lyre hero, Eleuther and Thamyris himself. This list, which most probably followed Aristotle`s list of Pythionikai, is comprised of wholly legendary musicians and cannot be put to use as evidence for earlier historical musical competitions in Delphi, but could point to the very strong agonal associations that Delphi held in the minds of the