Glaukos of Rhegion Huxley, George Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Spring 1968; 9, 1; ProQuest pg. 47

Glaukos of Rhegion 
George Huxley 

GLAUKOS OF RHEGION is one of the earliest literary historians of 
Hellas. He was born or active at about the same time as 
Demokritos, whom he reported to have been the pupil of a 

Pythagorean: Diogenes Laertios (9.38) on Demokritos remarks, TWV 

II {} ~ '~I .J.. ' \ F.'\ ~ "p A \ \ V ayopLKWV TLVOS aKovO'aL 'f'YJULV aVTOV l\aVKOS 0 YJYLVOS KaTa TOVS 

aVTOVS XPOVOVS aVT<jJ y€yov~S.l As vital evidence for early Greek lyric 
poetry and music the fragments of Glaukos well repay enquiry; 
besides, the collection in Muller (FHG 2.23-24) can be increased. So no 
apology is needed for renewed study of this interesting but obscure 
western Greek scholar. 

The book of Glaukos is variously named On Ancient Poets and Musi­
cians, or A Register (avaypacp~) of Ancient Poets2 or simply On Poets.3 It 
would be a mistake to regard any of the titles as original; Glaukos 
mentioned a poet who was by no means Hold" in his time-Emped­
okles4-and it is not quite certain that the work was exclusively con­
cerned with music and poetry rather than with literature in general. 
The mention of Demokritos suggests a wider scope than poetry and 
music, though it is worth noting that the Abderite wrote on topics 
known to have interested Glaukos-ll€pt pV{}ftwv Ka£ apftovtYJs and 
n€p£ 7TOL~O'LOS, as Jacoby pointed out.s Glaukos may well have travelled 
away from home; the De Musica (4.1132E), which calls him 0 E~ 'IraAtas 

perhaps implies that he did so, but the late fifth century dedication 
to Hermes by a Glaukias of Rhegion which Pausanias6 saw at Olympia 
can hardly be his. There is no proof that he visited Athens.7 The Lives 
of the Ten Orators, it is true, states that the book by Glaukos on poets 

1 See also E. Frank, Plato und die sogennante Pythagoreer (Halle 1923) 335-56 for the 
Pythagorean ties of Demokritos. 

II [plut.] De Musica 4 and 7 (1l32E and 1133p). 
I [plut.] Mar. 833cD. 
, Diog.Laert. 8.52. 
6 RE 7 (1912) 1418 S.V. GLAUKOS 36. 
6 Paus. 5.27.8; cf E. Loewy, Inschriften griechischer Bildhauer (Leipzig 1885) no. 33. 
? F. Jacoby suggested that he did so, in "The Date of Archilochos," CQ 35 (1941) 100 n.l. 

47 



48 GLAUKOS OF RHEGION 

was ascribed to Antiphon the orator (Mor. 833cD), but that hardly 
shows Glaukos to have been in Athens or even to have written in the 
Attic dialect. The Lives is very confused here; its source may well have 
ascribed the Il€pl. 1TO£7]TWV of Glaukos to Antiphon the sophist.8 

The merit of Glaukos' poetical history was apparent to the great 
Apollodoros of Athens, who made good use of it and mentioned the 
western scholar in his trimeters:9 

'i' \ 718' • , ,~\ £\ I 
7]V /LEV ll'.LETWVOS V£OS, E£S UE I!:'JOVp£OVS 

allTOV VEWGTI. 1TaVTEAWS €KT£G/LEVOVS 

< 0) rACXUKOS €Mk'iv CP7]G£v. 

The allusion is to the akme of Empedokles, which Apollodoros almost 
certainly synchronised with the founding of Thourioi; that is, he 
would have placed the philosopher's birth forty years before 444/3 
B.C.10 Glaukos gave the age of Demokritos (Diog.Laert. 9.38), but per­
haps only because they were coevals; we do not know that Apollo­
doros took his dating of Empedokles from Glaukos, who seems to 
have been more interested in the relative ages of poets and in the order 
of their musical discoveries than in absolute chronology. Glaukos may 
well have studied Empedokles not only as a poet but also because 
they shared an interest in musical theory; Empedokles seems at 
least to have thought about the structure and functioning of ears.ll 

The principal fragments of Glaukos' treatise are to be found in the 
Plutarch an De Musica, which reveals some of its contents, at least in 
outline. The author of the De Musica also made use of the musical 
writings of Aristoxenos and Herakleides Pontikos, but statements 
made by Glaukos can be separated from theirs. 

Glaukos took his enquiries far back in time to the heroic age, for he 
discussed Mousaios;12 but he was specially interested in the lyric and 
melic poets of the seventh century B.C., with whom most of the frag­
ments in the De Musica are concerned. Terpander, the De Musica 
remarks, was distinguished in the kitharode's art. Four successive 
victories at the Pythia are ascribed to him, and indeed he lived at a 
very ancient epoch. HAt least Glaukos from Italy shows him to have 

8 Antiphon Soph. 87 A 6, in H. Diels / W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratikerll II 
(Zurich 1964) p.337. 

9 Diog.Laert. 8.52= Apollodorus, FGrHist 244 F 32. 
10 F. Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik (Berlin 1902) 272-3. 
11 Diels, Vorsokr. 31 B 99 (=Theophr. De Sens. 9): KcfJ1iwV. aapKL\IOS 5'os. 
12 Harpokration s.v. Movaaios· ••• £lpr]KaaL /)€ 7T£P~ av-rov aMOL T£ Ka~ I'JI.avKos. 



GEORGE HUXLEY 49 

been earlier than Archilochos in a treatise of his concerning ancient 
poets and musicians; for he states that he followed upon those who 
were the first to sing to the flute" (properly a~'\6s, 'clarinet' or 'oboe'): 
7TP€(T{3UTEpOV yovv a~TOV 'ApX'A6xov a,7TocfoalvEt rAavKos 0 E~ , IraAtas EV 
uvyypafLfLaTl TtV, Tef 7TEp't. TWV apxalwv 7TOL7]TWV TE Ka't. fLOVULKWV. CP7]UL 

yap aVT<JV O€VTEPOV Y€VEuf}at fLETa TOUS 7TPWTOVS 7TOt7]UaVTas avAcp8lav 

[De Mus. 4.1132EJ. R. G. Bury proposed to change the last word to 
KLOapcp8lav,13 but that alteration is not needed. Glaukos is not arguing 
for the high antiquity of Terpander, but for the even higher priority 
of reed music over KLOapcp8la. WestphaP4 proposed to alter aVAcp8lav 

to a~A7JTtK~V here, since earlier in the De Musica (1132c) and in the 
next excerpt from Glaukos it is implied that Klonas, a successor 
of Terpander, introduced aVAcp8lav-though, continues the De Musica, 
other writers assert that a forerunner of Klonas, Ardalos of Troizen, 
was the first to have established the aulodic Muse. The second excerpt 
from Glaukos continues with Terpander and his relationship in time 

KI 'Y \ , c;:," rf" c;:, '0' "" '0 ,1..' to on as : E..,7JI\WKEVaL OE TOV .I. Ep7Tavopov fL7JPOV fLEV Ta E7T7J, p"f'EWS 
\:' , , '\ • c;:,' '0 ,1..' ,c;:, , ,1..' " c;:, , , 
OE Ta fLEI\7J. 0 ° p'f'EVS OVO€va 'f'aWETat fLEfLLfL7JfLEVOS· OVoEtS" yap 7TW 

I ". ~ , \ c;:, ~ ( , \ ~ W h 1) I' YEYEV7JTO, €L fL7J OL TWV aVl\cpOLKWV aVI\7JTLKWV estp a 7TOL7JTaL· TOVTOLS 
c;:,' "0' "0,1.. '" " T.T\ ~ \:'" ~ '\ '" ~ I OE KaT OV EV TO p"f'LKOV EPYOV EOLKE • .fi.I\Ovas 0 0 TWV aVl\cpoLKWV vOfLwv 

, • '\ '" rf" '" , "'A'I:' 7TOL7JT7JS, 0 OI\Lycp vaTEpov .I. €p7TaVOpov YEVOfLEVOS, WS fLEV pKaOES 
" rf" l' • c;:,'B 'ClQ~ '\:""" \:' I\EYOVUL, .I. EYEaT7JS 7JV, WS" OE OLWTOL, l':Y7JJJaLOS. fLETa OE .I. Ep7Tavopov 

, T.T\ ~ 'A '\ I:' 'I:' , f} "\ , c;:, , ~ Kat HI\OVaV PXtI\OX0S" 7TapaOLOOTaL YEVEa aL. al\l\OL OE TLVES TWV 

avyypacplwv ... [De Mus. 1132F-1133A]' Westphal's changes from 
a~'\cp8lavlav'\cp8LKWV to a~A7JTtK~vla~'\7JTLKWV are attractive. They entail 
that according to Glaukos, aulodia was introduced later than Terpan­
der, by Klonas, but that simple reed playing (auletic) was practised 
in very early times. In the scheme of Glaukos the archetypal avA6s­

player was Olympos the Phrygian (De Mus. 10. 1134E). Between the 
excerpts from Glaukos quoted above, the De Musica inserts a passage 
from Alexander Polyhistor (FGrHist 273 F 77), who in his treatise on 
Phrygia stated that Olympos was the first to bring KpoufLaTa to the 
Greeks. In the context KpoufLaTa would seem to be Phrygian double­
reed tunes.I5 Alexander gave the succession of a~'\6s-players (1) 
Hyagnis, (2) his son Marsyas and (3) Olympos, but there is no sign 

18 See the Teubner Moralia VI.33, edd. Ziegler and Pohlenz (1964) pA. 
a Plutarch, Ober die Musik (Breslau 1865) 68, approved by Jacoby, cp.cit. (supra n.5) 

1419-20. 
15 Cf OCD S.V. MUSIC, p.589. 

4-G.R.B.S. 



50 GLAUKOS OF RHEGION 

that Glaukos in his book went back beyond Olympos in his treatment 
of Phrygian music. 

The emphasis upon Olympos was strong in Glaukos' scheme. In De 
Muska (1133BF) we are told that according to Glaukos, Olympos in­
vented the app.&:nos v6p.os. The historian insisted also that Stesichoros 
copied Olympos (not Orpheus or Terpander or Archilochos or 
Thaletas) when he employed the app.amos v6p.os and 'TO Ka'Ta OaK'TVAOV 
Eloos, "which some say arose from the treble nome" (opOws v6p.os). 
Thaletas the Cretan, too, was indebted to Olympos (De Mus. 1134DB) 

for his use of the paion and cretic rhythm, which, claimed Glaukos, 
Archilochos, Terpander and Orpheus did not employ. But Thaletas 
did, he asserted, imitate the P.JAT} of Archilochos and enlarge them. So 
it is clear that the book of Glaukos put (I) Terpander, (2) Archilochos 
and (3) Thaletas in that chronological order. Earlier than Terpander 
were Homer, whose E7rTj, and Orpheus, whose ,.dAT}, he attempted to 
match (so Glaukos in De Mus. 1132F). The position of Olympos in this 
order is not immediately apparent, but Glaukos clearly regarded him 
as earlier than Klonas, and, so as to emphasise the antiquity of aVA6s­
playing, would have placed him earlier than Terpander too. The 
strong interest in aVA6s-playing suggests that Glaukos may have been 
a player himself; Jacoby's assertion that he was one is very attractive.16 

In this connexion we may suggest that 'TO Ka'TCt. OaK'TVAOV Eloos of 
Olympos may have referred originally to the fingering of the aVA6s, 
rather than to the metre of songs accompanied by it. The harmatios 
nomos was perhaps composed for a parade of Phrygian chariotry. As 
for the paions and cretics said by Glaukos to have been adopted from 
the music of Olympos by Thaletas, we would expect cretics to be at 
home in Crete from pre-Hellenic times; but the paian or paion is a 
closely related metre, being in effect a resolved cretic (vvv_ or _vvv 

or v - \N or vv - v for - v - ); and the cretic itself was sometimes 
classed as a form of paion, 7Tatc1v 8tayvtos. The linking of paions with 
Olympos at least suggests the possibility that the metre was of Ana­
tolian origin; but the matter is obscure, and besides, as early as the 
Homeric Hymn to the Pythian Apollo (518), the paion is associated 
with Crete, KpT}'TWV 7Tat?]OVES. So much for the views of Glaukos on 
early musical history; other passages in the De Muska-for example 
on Krexos the pupil of Olympos, on Polymnestos the famous 

11 op.cit. (supra n.7). 



GEORGE HUXLEY 51 

Kolophonian poet, or on Xenokritos of Lokroi-may be excerpts from 
the book of Glaukos, but we cannot prove that they were. 

One passage can, however, be added to the evidence about Glaukos. 
In Plato's Phaedo (lOSD) Sokrates alludes to ~ rl\avKov T'XVTJ. From the 
context the Glaukos and his craft are not identifiable-conceivably the 
ehian inventor of welding is meant. However, a scholiast in loco,17 
who draws on Aristoxenos through Lucillus Tarrhaeus,18 has a story 
about a Glaukos and a musical experiment by Hippasos the Pytha­
gorean. The musico-philosophical context and the link with Aristox­
enos entail that the Glaukos can hardly be other than our man of 
Rhegion, whose interest in two other philosophers, Empedokles and 
Demokritos, we have already noted. In the story a Hippasos is said to 
have fashioned four bronze discs in such a way that their diameters 
were equal, but their thicknesses were in the proportions: l' to 1 
(discs 1 and 2); t to 1 (discs 1 and 3); 2 to 1 (discs 1 and 4). So their 
relative thicknesses were 12(1), 9(2), S(3), 6(4). When the discs were 
struck they produced a kind of harmony (avjJ.cpwvtav TLva). Glaukos, 
having noticed the varying pitches produced by the discs, attempted 
to compose (X€LPOVPY€'iv) with them, and from the experiment there 
came the saying rl\avKov T'XVTJ. The scholiast adds that the story is 
found in the books IlEpt jJ.OVatKijS a.KpoaaEWS of Aristoxenos and Il€p;' 

BEWptas of Nikokles; it therefore goes back to a genuine Pythagorean 
tradition and is properly included in the evidence for Hippasos of 
Metapontion by Diels and Kranz.19 Hippasos flourished some time 
after Pythagoras, but, it seems, not later than ca. 450 B.C.; so he was 
older than Glaukos but could still have overlapped him in time. The 
story however does not require that Hippasos (whose enquiry is 
analogous to early Pythagorean experiments with strings of varying 
length) personally demonstrated his discs to the musical historian of 
Rhegion. The experiment suggests that Glaukos' book may well have 
included some musical theory together with literary and musical 
history. Other passages excerpted from a Glaukos or Glaukon were 
discussed by E. Hiller of Halle; 20 none of them can be proved to 
come from the man of Rhegion, but the statement ascribed to a 
Glaukos that Aeschylus adapted the Persae from the Phoenissae of 

17 Yen. T, quoted by J. Burnet, Plato's Phaedo (Oxford 1911) App. II. 

18 See Burnet, op.cit., who refers to L. Cohn, Quellen der Platoscholien(jClassPhil, Supplbd. 
13 [1883J) 836ff. 

111 Vorsokr. 18 [8] 12 (1, p.109). 
20 "Die Fragrnente des Glaukos von Rhegion," RhM N.F. 41 (1886) 398-436. 



52 GLAUKOS OF RHEGION 

Phrynichos would not have been out of place in the historian's 
remarks 7TEPI. 7TOt1JTWV.21 According to a scholium on Euripides Hecuba 
41, Polyxena, having died of wounds inflicted by Odysseus and Dio­
mede in the sack of Troy, was buried by Neoptolemos. This statement 
is said to come from the Kypriaka (or Kypria?), "as Glaukos writes," 
and would also be in place in a book JIEPI. 7TOt1JTWV, but we cannot 
confidently claim it for the man of Rhegion. 

We can now reconstruct the chronological order worked out by 
Glaukos. It is not certain that he assigned absolute dates, but the rela­
tive order was evidently argued in detail. 22 

1. Introduction of Auletic. Olympos composer of harmatios 
nomos. 

2. Introduction of Kitharodic. Mele of Orpheus. (? Earlier 
introduction of Kitharistic by Amphion or Apollo). 

3. Epe of Homer (? Mousaios mentioned as forerunner in epic 
poetry). 

4. Terpander, who drew on Orpheus and Homer (De Mus. 
1132F). 

5. Introduction of Aulodic. Klonas, a little later than Ter­
pander (1133A). 

6. Archilochos, later than Terpander and Klonas (1133A). 

7. Thaletas, who drew on both Olympos and Archilochos 
(1134DE). 

8. Stesichoros. who was later than Thaletas but did not imi­
tate him (1133F). 

Glaukos may well have made use of the book on Homer by his 
fellow townsman Theagenes of Rhegion, who is alleged to have lived 
or to have been born in the time of Kambyses23 and to have been the 
first to write 7TEPI. ·Of.L~pov.24 The Glaukon who is mentioned by plato 
(Ion 530CD) as a Homeric critic, together with Metrodoros of Lamp­
sakos and Stesimbrotos of Thasos (FGrHist 107 T 3), could well be our 
Glaukos.25 

In his contribution to Archiloque26 K. J. Dover draws attention to 

21 See G. Lanata, Poetica pre-platonica: Testimonianze e frammenti (Bibl.Stud.Sup. 43, 
Firenze 1964) pp.278f on Glaukos fr.7. 

22 See also Jacoby, "P.cit. (supra n.5) 1420. 
13 Tatian, Adv. Graecos 31. 
1& Schol. B on II. 22.67. 
25 r>'aVKWV codd., r>..avKOt; Sydenham. See further G. Lanata, op.cit. (supra n.2l) 279-281. 
IS Entretiens Hardt 10 (Geneva 1964) 193. 



GEORGE HUXLEY 53 

Ionisms in Tyrtaios and argues that the elegiac distich was an Ionian 
poetic form brought into Peloponnese by, or in the time of, that poet. 
He therefore suggests that the statement by Herakleides Pontikos27 

that elegiac poetry was composed by Klonas should be rejected; he 
rejects too the opinion, which was held by Glaukos, that Klonas was 
earlier than Archilochos. Dover believes that no poem of Tyrtaios 
need be dated earlier than 640 B.C. ;28 but if Tyrtaios was already active 
in a Messenian war ca. 665, as I have suggested,29 then Klonas, Tyr­
taios and the introduction of the Ionian elegiac distich to Peloponnese 
may all be earlier than Archilochos, who flourished about the middle 
of the seventh century B.C.30 Glaukos may well have regarded Klonas 
and Tyrtaios as slightly earlier than the Parian poet, placing them a 
little later than Terpander, who, according to Hellanikos,31 was a 
victor at the Spartan Karneia in 676. Dover makes a strong case for 
Tyrtaios having followed an Ionian model; that model need not have 
been Kallinos or Archilochos, whom we do not know to have been the 
earliest Ionian elegists. I suggest, therefore, that the order (1) Ter­
pander, (2) Klonas, (3) Archilochos, given by Glaukos was a likely one, 
but that all three poets were so close together that they may have 
overlapped in time. Tyrtaios could properly be placed between 
Klonas and Archilochos, but such chronological refinements mean 
little within a remote period of less than half a century. 

Since Glaukos insisted on the priority of av.\6s music he had to place 
Olympos as early as possible. Others, less committed, could date him 
relatively late. We find an echo of the disagreement in the Suda, 
whose entries s.v. "OAvp.mos include a Mysian av.\6s-player who lived 
before the Trojan war and a second Olympos, a Phrygian, who was a 
contemporary of Midas son of Cordios. The real Olympos may well 
have been active in the time of the great Midas king of Phrygia ca. 
700 B.C., when Anatolian influences on Hellenic civilization were 
strong. Olympos would thus be a contemporary or an elder con­
temporary of Terpander, who himself is said to have flourished KaT~ 
MtSav.32 His prehistoric forerunner of the same name is a figment, but 

27 De Mus. 113Zc: Herac1id.Pont. fr.157 Wehrli. 
28 Dover, op.cit. (supra n.26) 194 n. 
29 Early Sparta (London 1962) 57. 
30 For the date see esp. Jacoby, op.cit. (supra n.7) 97-109. 
31 FGrHist 4 F 85. 
32 See also SchmidJStahlin, Gesch.griech.Lit. I (Munich 1929) 330. Cf D. A. Campbell, 

"Flutes and Elegiac Couplets," ]HS 84 (1964) 68. 



54 GLAUKOS OF RHEGION 

a figment invented perhaps quite early; for it is alleged that Pratinas, 
who flourished ca. 480 B.C., distinguished the two Olympoi.33 If that 
is true, Glaukos cannot have invented the doublet; instead he would 
have claimed that there was but one Olympos, the Phrygian auletic 
innovator, who lived before-perhaps long before-Terpander. 

There is no reason to think that Glaukos wrote his book in verse in 
the didactic Empedoklean manner. Long ago J. N. Forkel, it is true, 
assumed that he was a poet, but there is no evidence for the assertion.34 

He may well have written in the scientific medium of his day, in 
literary Ionic, just as a near contemporary of his in the West seems to 
have done, Antiochos the Syracusan historian.3s 

THE QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY OF BELFAST 

December, 1967 

33 Fr.6 Page. See also F. Lasserre, Plutarque, de la Musique (Olten and Lausanne 1954) 
45 n.3. 

34 Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik I (Leipzig 1788) 264. 
35 I am grateful to Dr John Barron, who kindly read the manuscript of this paper.