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According to Janssen (1984:21), both Euripides’ tragedy Orestes and Timotheus’ citharodic nome Persae were performed in Athens for the first time in 408/407 BCE. There are striking similarities between Euripides’ Phrygian slave’s monody in Orestes 1369–1502 and Timotheus’ Phrygian soldier’s speech in Persae 140–161:

  1. In the dramatis personae and in the situation (i.e. an armed Greek humiliates an unarmed Phrygian suppliant); 
  2. In the use of the operatic solo to narrate dramatically actual events (i.e. Helen’s murder attempt in Orestes and episodes occurred during the battle of Salamis in Persae);
  3. In the verse (cf. the astrophic arrangement, the medley of rhythms, and a perfect correspondence in language and metrical form, i.e. Ἀσιάδι φωνᾷ | βασιλέων in Orestes 1397 and  Ἀσιάδι φωνᾷ | διάτορον in Persae 147).

In light of these similarities, the relative chronology of Orestes and Persae is controversial. Bassett (1931:159–160) argued for the priority of Persae over Orestes, underlining the debt of Euripides to Timotheus in terms of musical innovations. However, as Porter (1994:201) observed correctly, the ties between Euripides’ monody and so-called "New Music" (Hagel 2010:444–452) would have been obvious even if Persae were yet to be performed, since the tragic poet himself was an active protagonist of the Athenian musical revolution. In my opinion, some disregarded musical references found in both passages may provide good clues to confirm that Timotheus’ Persae chronologically followed Euripides’ Orestes.

The Phrygian slave in Orestes 1384 mentions the μέλος or νόμος ἁρμάτειον (Plut., de mus., 1133b; Grandolini 2002), a specific melody in the Phrygian harmonia (= mode, a distinctive series of intervals in the scale; West 1992:177) characterized by a high register to which his monody has to be sung. The relationship between high register and threnodic songs emphasized by Plut., de mus., 1136c, explains the threnodic use of μέλος ἁρμάτειον in Orestes 1384. On the other hand, in Persae 150–161, the Phrygian soldier is portrayed speaking broken Greek, a linguistic attempt explicitly described as a hunt for Ἰαονα γλῶσσαν in 149, thus suggesting an association with the ἀνειμένη Ionic harmonia characterized by a low register described by Pratinas (fr. 712 Page). Hagel (2010:73) confirms that lower registers of the voice were used to perform special effects despite the high-pitched tuning of the cithara.

I argue that, after the performance of Euripides’ Orestes, a high-pitched exotic monody in the Phrygian or Lydian mode was the expected musical rendition of an Oriental Barbarian character. Timotheus counterattacked with his Phrygian soldier’s speech by hinting at the Phrygian slave’s portrayal and, at the same time, reversing it. Exempted from the conservative limits imposed by tragedy (Hagel 2010:389), the lyric poet had the chance to pursue mimesis both:

  1. Linguistically, through Secondary Foreigner Talk (Hinnenkamp 1982:40–41), i.e. by imitating a broken Ionian Greek dialect spoken by a non-native speaker (Anfosso 2021);
  2. Musically, through the choice of a low-pitched, Ionian harmonia aligned with the linguistic effort of the Phrygian soldier despite his ethnic origins, thus deliberately defying the audience’s expectations.