Barbitos

The barbiton, or barbitos ( Gr: or ; Lat. ''barbitus''), is an ancient stringed instrument related to the lyre known from Greek and Roman classics.

The Greek instrument was a bass version of the kithara, and belonged in the zither family, but in medieval times, the same name was used to refer to the '' barbat''; a different instrument that is a variety of lute.

Error in the use of names

The barbat or ''barbud'', began being translated into Latin as ''barbiton'' sometime during the late Middle Ages, a mistaken practice which has passed into English and other European languages through long misuse. The barbat is an unrelated lute-family instrument developed in Persia, whereas the barbiton (a bass kithara) was developed in Greek-speaking western Anatolia, where it was popular, and spread into the rest of the Aegean.

::Throughout this article barbiton refers to the Anatolian / Aegean instrument, and barbat is the name used to refer to the lute-family instrument from Persia.

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Since neither instrument was familiar to European musicians of the late Middle Ages – both had fallen out of use in the occident sometime between the mid-Imperial period and the end of the Roman empire – the error was neither caught nor corrected. The mistake seems to be perpetually dredged up from the earlier erroneous texts.

Descriptions of the Ancient Greek barbiton

The barbiton (bass kithara) was rare and considered exotic in the Hellenic world – only popular in Anatolia and the eastern Aegean. There are much fewer descriptions of it than the well-regarded kithara, and some depictions of it on painted vases were made by painters and sculptors who may have rarely seen one themselves, if ever. Consequently, ethno-musicologists struggle to sort out the few available texts, vase paintings, and statuary.

File:Woman Playing a Lyre (barbitos), oinochoe (wine pitcher), Greek, Attic, 490-480 BC, terracotta, red-figure technique - Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University - DSC01548.jpg, Woman playing a barbiton, Greek, Attic, 490-480 BC, terracotta, red-figure technique - Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University
File:Niobid Painter - Red-Figure Amphora with Musical Scene - Walters 482712 - Side A.jpg, Woman with barbiton, from red-figure amphora, Greece, circa 460-450 B.C. The larger instrument would play deeper notes than a smaller lyre (seen hanging above the woman).
File:Diver Paestum 32.JPG, 5th century BCE. ''Lyra'' or ''barbitos'' from the Tomb of the Diver.
File:Diver Paestum 30.JPG, 5th century BCE. ''Lyra'' or ''barbitos'' from the Tomb of the Diver.
File:Barbitos, Nordisk familjebok.png, upBarbitos in ''Nordisk familjebok'' (1904–1926). This lyre has features not seen in ancient artwork of lyres, especially the large circular soundhole.

String count

The Sicilian poet, Theocritus (xvi. 45), calls the barbitos an instrument of many strings, i.e. more than seven, which the Hellenes considered a perfect number, and matched the seven strings customary in the kithara.

Pitch

Anacreon (a native of Teos in Asia Minor) sings that his barbitos "only gives out erotic tones" – a remark which could have been metaphorical, but could also be a literal reference to the instrument's being tuned in the Greek ''harmonia'' called (''Iastian'').

Pollux calls the barbiton a ''barymite'' instrument (from , "heavy", and , "string"); both the literal and figurative meanings describing an instrument that produces very deep sounds. These would have been re-enforced by the barbiton's larger soundbox, compared to a kithara or a much smaller phorminx (folk lyre). The strings were twice as long as those of the phorminx and hence sounded about an octave lower.

Pindar (in Athen. xiv. p. 635), in the same line wherein he attributes the introduction of the instrument into Greece to Terpander, tells us one could magadize, i.e. play in two parts at an interval of an octave on the two instruments.

Popularity

Although in use in Asia Minor, Italy, Sicily, and Greece, it is evident that the barbiton never won for itself a place in the affections of ancient Greeks; it was regarded as a barbarian instrument affected by those only whose tastes in matters of art were exotic. It had fallen into disuse in the days of Aristotle, but reappeared under the Romans.
The word ''barbiton'' was frequently used for the kithara or lyre.

Summary

In spite of the few meagre shreds of authentic information extant concerning this somewhat elusive instrument, it is possible nevertheless to identify the barbiton as it was known among the Greeks and Romans. From the Greek writers we know that it was a deep toned instrument, with pitch range of at least two octaves, that had enough features in common with the lyra and kithara, to warrant their classification as a family of related instruments.

Barbat

A later, unrelated instrument, is described by the Persians and Arabs as a kind of ''rebab'' or lute, or a chelys-lyre,
It was first introduced into Europe through Asia Minor by way of Greece, and centuries later into Spain by the Moors, amongst whom it was in the 14th century known as ''al-barbet''.

At some period not yet determined, which we can but conjecture, the barbat approximated to the form of the large ''lute''. The barbat is sometimes mistakenly translated as “barbiton”, but it is not like the instrument depicted on Greek vase paintings.

The real barbat

The ''barbat'' was a variety of ''rebab'', a bass instrument, differing only in size and number of strings. This is quite in accordance with what we know of the nomenclature of musical instruments among Persians and Arabs, with whom a slight deviation in the construction of an instrument warranted a new name.

The word ''barbud'' applied to the barbiton is said to be derived
from a famous musician living at the time of Chosroes II (590–628 CE), who excelled in playing the instrument. From a later translation of part of the same author into German, specifically lists ''barbut'' (German: ''barbiton'') and ''rubāb'' (German: ''laute''), as Persian names of two distinct instruments.
The ''barbut'' and ''rubab'' thus were different instruments in Persian as late as 1874. There were only slight differences, if any, between the rebab and the lute before rebab became a bowed instrument: Before that point, both had vaulted backs, a pear-shaped body and joined neck, and gut strings, originally plucked by the fingers.

The barbat is not a Greek barbiton

The Greek barbiton, however, although it underwent many changes, retained until the end the characteristics of the instruments of the Greek kithara / lyra family, whose strings were strummed and plucked, whereas the rebab was sounded by means of the bow at the time of its introduction into Europe.

The instrument called ''barbiton'' was known in the early part of the 16th century and during the 17th century. It was a kind of theorbo or bass-lute, but with one neck only, bent back at right angles to form the head. Robert Fludd gives a detailed description of it with an illustration:

:''Inter quas instrumenta non nulla barbito simillima effinxerunt cujus modi sunt illa quae vulgo appellantur theorba, quae sonos graviores reddunt chordasque nervosas habent.''

Ordinary people called it a ''theorbo'' (''vulgo appellantur theorba''), but Fludd identified it with the instrument of classic Greece and Rome and called it a "barbiton" (''barbito''). This theorbo / barbiton had nine pairs of gut strings, each pair in unison.

Dictionaries of the 18th century follow Fludd's use of the name "barbiton". G. B. Doni mentions the barbiton, defining it in his index as ''Barbitos seu major chelys italice tiorba'', and deriving it from lyre and cithara in common with testudines, tiorbas and all tortoiseshell instruments. Claude Perrault

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