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Hephaestion of Alexandria: Fragments

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These are fragments of Hephaestion of Alexandria, the Greek metrical scholar of the second century AD. They are short passages from his lost writings, including his longer work on metres, cited in Byzantine commentaries on the rhetorician Hermogenes. They report his definitions of rhythm and time, his list of nine basic metres, and his account of how one metre is related to another by the removal, addition or transposition of syllables.

Hephaestion was the leading ancient authority on Greek metre, and these citations add to what survives in his handbook. They show how his teaching continued to be used in the rhetorical schools, where rhythm in prose and verse was studied together.

About this edition. The Greek text comes from the Eulogikon open corpus of public-domain editions (standard reference: Consbruch (Teubner 1906) pp. 77–78). Every word has been analyzed with odyCy, a neural language model for Ancient Greek — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from the Liddell–Scott–Jones Greek–English Lexicon (LSJ).

Ancient Greek · Grammar & Reference
Fragments
Hephaestion of Alexandria · every word parsed
schol. in Hermog. Rh G VII 892, 10 ῥυθμὸς …, ὡς δὲ Ἀριστόξενος καὶ Ἡφαιστίων φασί, χρόνων τάξις. χρόνος δέ ἐστι μόριον ποδὸς ἢ φωνῆς μέτρον ἐλάχιστον ἢ μέτρον τι κινήσεως, καὶ ὥσπερ ἐκ χειρῶν τυχὸν καὶ ποδῶν μερῶν ὄντων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ὁ ἄνθρωπος συνίσταται, ὅς ἐστιν εἶδος, οὕτως ἐκ συνθήκης καὶ ἀναπαύσεως γίνεται ὁ ῥυθμός, ἐκ μερῶν ὄντων ἐκείνων, αὐτὸς ὥσπερ εἶδος ὤν.
77·2
schol. in Hermog. Rh G VII 983, 26 ἐν τῷ περὶ μέτρων φησὶν ὁ Ἡφαιστίων ὅτι συγγένεια γίνεται μέτρου πρὸς μέτρον τριχῶς, κατὰ ἀφαίρεσιν, κατὰ πρόσθεσιν, 〈κατὰ μετάθεσιν〉· οἷον ἐὰν ἀφέλῃς τοῦ μῆνιν ἄειδε θεά τὴν πρώτην συλλαβήν, ποιεῖς ἀντὶ δακτυλικοῦ μέτρου ἀναπαιστικόν· οὕτως οὖν καὶ τὸ ἰωνικὸν ἀπὸ μείζονος συγγενές ἐστι τῷ τροχαϊκῷ κατὰ μετάθεσιν· τοῦ γὰρ ἰωνικοῦ ἀπὸ μείζονος ἐκ μακρῶν δύο καὶ δύο βραχειῶν ὄντος, ἔξεστι μεταθεῖναι καὶ ποιῆσαι διτρόχαιον ἐκ μακρᾶς καὶ βραχείας καὶ μακρᾶς καὶ βραχείας. ἰωνι κοὶ δὲ καλοῦνται, ἐπειδὴ Ἰώνων εἰσὶν εὕρημα· μαλακὸν τὸ μέτρον καὶ τρυφερώτατον, ᾧ καὶ Σωτάδης ἐχρήσατο, ὥς φησιν Λογγῖνος.
schol. in Hermog. Rh G VII 936, 26 ἰστέον ὅτι Ἡφαι στίων φυσικὰ μέτρα γενικὰ βούλεται εἶναι ἐννέα· δακτυλικόν, ἀναπαιστικόν, ἰαμβικόν, τροχαϊκόν, ἀντι σπαστικόν, χοριαμβικόν, ἰωνικὸν ἀπὸ μείζονος, ἰωνικὸν ἀπʼ ἐλάττονος, κρητικόν· τὰ δὲ παρὰ ταῦτα καλεῖ ἀσυνάρτητα καὶ συγκεχυμένα.
78·2
schol. in Hermog. Rh G VII 982, 15 ὁ τροχαῖος τρο χαλὸν ποιεῖ τὸν λόγον, διὸ τροχαῖος καλεῖται ὁ τῶν τρεχόντων ῥυθμός, ὥς φησιν Λογγῖνος ὁ φιλολόγος, ὅθεν καὶ ἴαμβος καλεῖται ἀπὸ τοῦ ἰαμβίζειν, ὅ ἐστι λοιδορεῖν· τοῦτο δὲ ποιοῦσιν οἱ κωμικοὶ οἱ τῷ ἰάμβῳ χρησάμενοι. (ἐπεὶ οὖν καὶ οἱ τρέχοντες καὶ ὑβρίζοντες σπουδῇ τοῦτο ποιοῦσιν, οὐ δεῖ ἐν σεμνότητι χρῆσθαι τούτοις τροχαίῳ καὶ τῷ συγγενεῖ αὐτῷ ἰωνικῷ οὐδὲ ἰαμβικῷ ἐπιπολύ). *[crux: ὅθεν]*
78·3
schol. in Hermog. Rh G VII 985, 1 δεῖ οὖν ἄνευ προσθήκης καὶ ἀφαιρέσεως μεθαρμόσαι τὰ ἔπη οὕτως· ὡς ὁ πρόσθʼ ἵππων τανυσθεὶς κεῖτο καὶ δίφρου· ὁ δὲ δεύτερος κατὰ μὲν Λογγῖνόν ἐστι χοριαμβικός.
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Text: Perseus Digital Library, licensed CC BY-SA. Dictionary: Liddell, Scott & Jones (Perseus, CC BY-SA). Morphology: odyCy — machine parsing, corrected against the AGDT & PROIEL treebanks and Morpheus.
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