On the Syrinx () in the Ancient Chariot Author(s): A. W. Verrall Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 6 (1885), pp.

364-370 Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/623406 Accessed: 08/01/2009 06:10
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364

ON THE SYRINX (ovpLy~)

ON THE SYRINX

IN THE ANCIENT (oVpe}) CHARIOT.

THE Attic Tragedians-for the use seems to have extant examples there only-several times apply the word -pet7 to the wheel of a chariot or some part of it. The passages are these:Aesch. Supp. 181:
orvplw,e ov o-,v&a-,v a:ov,/xa-o,.

Id. Sept. 205:

't\ayqtav o'vpeytyee? eXlTpoxoe.

e fclvoS O1 VTT9avrTv~ eo'aTrvT ~rrv eXpt'wrT ase ervpTyTa, Se ~ v T dvel^ cretpalo, [r,rov elpqte Tov vrpooweepevov.
o vuvfJb<)Vpra rv Tpox&v Irw^v

Soph. Electra, 720:

Eur. Tipp.1234:

Id. Iph. A. 227:

aqravra, 'vpivye~ T av_ a~o;vw T e'Ivr\ara.

o[9 ,rape,ra~Xero' 07r\o0' Trap' aurveya Tlrf\?lS'a< (Tvv

fcal

orvptyyas appJarelova.

The current explanation of the word in this application is given by Liddell and Scott thus: ' arVptTy,II., anything like a = SopaToOXv], II. 19, 387. 2. the boxor pipe; 1. a spear-case hole in the naveof a wheel,'with references selected from the

above.

This view appears to havebeen suggested by the fact that two of the passages in which the arvp^y~ in is mentioned, the axle is also mentioned. In the Sup2l1ces the crvptyeS are said tobe ' axle-driven'; in the Hippolytus the odpuplyee of thebroken

IN THE ANCIENTCHARIOT.

365

wheel 'leap up', and so do the 'pins of the axles', i.e. the pegs of wood or metal in the axle-tree by which the wheels are kept from coming off. It is obvious, however, that no decisive evidence can be obtained from these descriptions, which are consistent with many different interpretations of the term; and on consideration it is impossible to be satisfied with that which has been preferred. The first and readiest objection has been felt by the lexicographers, who have innocently endeavoured to turn it by an ambiguity. ' The box, or hole in the nave of a wheel' Which ? Was the avpyt~ according to this view a separate piece fitted in the nave of the wheel, and surrounding the axle, or was it merely the perforation of the axle ? If the former, is there any reason to suppose that archaic wheelwrights used any such complication ? If the latter, why should such a perforation have any name, as distinct from the thing perforated, the nave itself, and what could direct the choice of a name to the highly inappropriatewordco-DpelT ? The Pan's-pipe, aVpeT~ or trYp77e6?-for the word is both singular and pluralis properly a set of reeds, proportioned to give the notes of a scale, and bound together for convenience of playing,--the rudiments in fact of an organ. And even if we start from the single reed as the object for comparison, nothing could be less like a reed than the hole in a wheel-nave, or the lining, if there was such a lining, which protected it, a hole or circle which must be nearly as broad as it is deep. If we turn from the literal use of the word to the other borrowed applications, we find that they are what we should expect, and not at all like the supposed use in the case of the chariot. The (Jvpl7t is generally a long and narrow pipe, and is most frequently applied to such pipes or passages as are found in sets (see the Lex. s.v.). The hollow of the spine, for example, is arvpeT, the trunk of the elephant is orvpt:, the nostrils are rpe776e : a single plume of a wing is ~vpey, the galleries made in mining operations or for burial purposes are up^yeyet, &c. And it will be noticed that in some of these instances the resemblance to the original (rvpiyf, the musical instrument, goes beyond the mere presence of a pipe or pipes, and appears also in the variation of length. The rtpe^779e of a wing, for example, decrease in length somewhat as those of Pan do; the mine of

366

ON THESYRINX

((oVp,y$)

thebesieger is carried in aseries of rectangular turns, the far end of one gallery forward piece long, the passage from the next short, so that the plan of the whole, end of the to the near if all the galleries were supposed complete, would closely that of the Pan's-pipe. So, when Achilles, in the Iliad, resemble (19, 387), snatches his spear from the arvp~7~
7rar ' ap a eEc o'vpy 770o pwto, eoporaofag 7^ ,

' that the poet hasin view, but it is strictly not a spear-case' aspear-stand,something like that inwhich a modern Peleides keeps hisguns or hisbilliard-cues, a frame with a series of holes and a box beneath. When filled with a set of spears, which would have would naturally vary inlength, such a 8opaTo09?K7j an obvious resemblance to the crvpry7proper. Somewhat similar is the revreor'tpzy7ov }tv\ovor stocks,with its five holes for the neck, hands, and feet. Smith's Dictionaryof Antiquities apparently says nothing of the chariot-syrinx; and if any better or other explanation than that of Liddell and Scott has been proposed elsewhere, the suggestion has had noeffect on the commentators of the tragedians, who repeat the'nave-hole' theory, when they do not vary it by reading the word simply nave. Thus Dindorf, in the l.exicon Aeschyleuvttranslates it bymodiolus. But the modolus was not avpy7 but %v6': and although in the passage from Sophocles' Electra, the phrase used for the final catastrophe is consistent, if we compare (e'Opavreva~vTvyo~tz~0a %v6a0) with the supposition that the Xvorl and eXptqzrr' ael orvptTya, the crapi? were the same, we must presume, till the contrary is proved, that a difference of name indicates a difference of thing. And indeed, in the much more explicit and particular description of Euripides,
ovp~77~9
T'

evara, a TvG rpo&v wr~Zv a6vwv r'

the common explanation itself a&w ~rna--is exploded and seen to be untenable altogether. The 'pins' could and certainly would ' leap up,' when the wheel received a severe shock; but surely the very last thing to make a visible spring would be the 'box,' tightly fixed in the middle of the nave.

IN THE ANCIENT CHARIOT.

367

In truth, the extant examples of <rvptyT! in reference to tlhe us it tell what was not, are too few, chariot, though they may and not precise enough, to tell us of themselves what it was. We want a larger collection of literature, or in default of this the testimony of those who had such a collection, and could reach the stores of Alexandrine and Byzantine tradition. But the curious thing is, that we actually have such testimony, though, as far as I can discover, no notice has been taken of it; indeed, I doubt whether any one has been at the pains to translate the brief but perfectly clear passage in which it occurs. It is found in the scholia to the Medicean MS. of Aeschylus, at the second of the above-cited places, Selt. 205. It is perhaps needless to remind the reader that the Medicean scholia are to be sharply distinguished from the ignorant and, for the most part worthless, notes in the other MSS. of Aeschylus. They form in the main a very good commentary, their chief defect being the obscurity, to which the ancient editor, with nothing but his margin to write on, was often reduced by mere lack of adequate space. The particular note in question is one of the additions to the scholia by the hand known as m', a very learned and sensible hand, if one may judge from the average quality of the additions. The note is as
follows: Se etepov o-vpqy/e, ~
Ta vc :tCa'r

!~ov 'ov asker }rvp[ r'v

orepi(fepoUv

~V\ov

rov 'poyov

TO tev ,yap SOn?repaoS/v~ez,va.

avSrw, eore /e/ya,

T ee

TO

r'v /fiLcpo7epoV, k6yov

rr xovra.

were the pieces of wood which crossed from side ' The erVpTyyET to side of the wooden circumference of the wheel; named so because, one being large and the next smaller [and so on], they have a proportion resembling that of the pipes in the instrument so called.' Note that /eoov (not rO 5/e&rov, the centre,which would make nonsense of the whole) is used in the late Greek fashion almost as a preposition, equivalent to the classical &A, betweenor across. In e7repxovrc the preposition has perhaps a sense correlative to that which it has in ed,^rbepeLv. When a quality is transferred from one thing to another, which resembles it, the quality the recipient thing evreix. Or perhaps X6yov is ~Tredpeperal, merely an adverbial accusative, ' extending over it in such a way as to resemble.' The question does not affect the sense.
H.S.-,OL. VI. B B

368

THE SYRINX (vply~) ON

undoubtedly is clear that the author of this interesting and It which wheel, to the term supposed the ancientexplanation, from thing a very the to different spokebe applied, o-Spe77e? which we know. The wheel which hedescribes was not wheel with staves or cross-pieces, with spokes (Krvjufae) at all, but made inclosed by across circle the circumference, and the goingright fixed probably not into the circumference, like spokes, buton it. Therewould necessarily be two sets of such cross-pieces, to prevent the collapse of the wheel in all positions, one set across eachsurface (if Imay so say) of the wheel. In each set the longeststave (TO /67a) would be the diametrical stave, which passed over the axle. Those parallel to it, being placed at a regular proequal intervals, would of course diminish in each set of staves would gression; so that, asthe writer says,

A COIN). wrITH ARCHAIC MACEDONIAN CHARIOT, WHEEL(FROM

have a proportion resembling that of the reeds in a Pan's-pipe, and indeed would look when fixed very much like a double directions from a Pan's-pipe in which the reeds diminish in both centre one. The whole structure, therefore, the wheel so made, was appropriately called oSVpt77De, or sometimes loosely, as we see from Sophocles, fVpLye. Such a wheel, though mechanically a very poor contrivance compared with the spoke-wheel, is far easier for a clumsy workman to make, and is in fact a sort of first departure from the still more primitive solid wheel. In Greek vases and coins, we actually see representations of such wheels, so far, at least, as that the wheels have sometimes staves, not spokes. Mr. Leaf tells me that they have regularly two cross-pieces on one side and one on the other; and a

IN THE ANCIENT CHARIOT.

369

similar arrangement is shown in the coin which Professor Gardner has chosen as an illustration. Perhaps, as the workmanship improved, this number was found sufficient. It seems, however, that it would be much too weak for violent use, and it may be merely one of the eclectic devices so common in the ancient draughtsmen, a few staves being given as representative of more, for the sake of the better effect to the eye of the fewer lines. For myself, I find this explanation perfectly satisfactory, and see no reason to doubt that it descends to us from those who had not only the evidence of abundant Attic tragedy, but probably also those lost epics, especially the Theban, which of course the tragedians followed in their archaic descriptions. That the Attic poets themselves correctly understood the word could not necessarily be inferred. If the ancient bards termed the wheel o'vpe7yes,from whatever cause, the word would easily continue in poetical use, even when the wheel pictured by the writer had no -vpeyyes at all. But it is to be remembered that an epic bard does not commonly err in defect of detail; and the a priori probability that the antiquarian Euripides
knew just what a cVpl7y was, and meant his reader to know, is

certainly not diminished by the sole passage which is precise enough to afford evidence. INothing could better fit his description of Hippolytus' breaking wheel than the meaning of 'vp<ypy?es offered by the scholiast.
o'vpiTeS

rpO%ZJe7r Swv ayovev

T' avo Tv evrf\zasTa.

The weak point of the stave-wheel is just this, that in an unusual wrench the ill-adjusted weight would force the staves from the periphery to which they were fixed. They would then 'leap up' in all directions exactly as Euripides says. The spoke-wheel, on the other hand, is so strong that, as every one knows, it does not as a rule break to pieces at all in an upset, but by the breaking of the axle or otherwise comes off entire. The 'leaping' of the 'staves' is a genuine archaic touch, and Euripides knew well what he meant. Elsewhere stave-wheel,or wheel simply, will be our best translation. If it is asked why
B B 2

370 ON THE SYRINX (vvpty}) IN THE ANCIENT CHARIOT.

the sound of the Aeschylus twice attributes to the o-vpiye77e wheel, the answer is that in this, as so often, his fancy has been guided by the associations of the word. The passage in the Seven against Thebesis full of such suggestions, and indeed the whole point of it is to liken the roll of the chariots to that of a
terrible music.

A. W. VERRALL.