Cithara

The kithara (), Latinized as cithara, was an ancient Greek musical instrument in the yoke lutes family. It was a seven-stringed professional version of the lyre, which was regarded as a rustic, or folk instrument, appropriate for teaching music to beginners. As opposed to the simpler lyre, the cithara was primarily used by professional musicians, called kitharodes. In modern Greek, the word ''kithara'' has come to mean "guitar", a word which etymologically stems from ''kithara''.

Origin and uses

The cithara originated from Minoan- Mycenaean swan-neck lyres developed and used during the Aegean Bronze Age. Scholars such as M.L. West, Martha Maas, and Jane M. Snyder have made connections between the cithara and stringed instruments from ancient Anatolia.

Whereas the basic lyra was widely used as a teaching instrument in boys’ schools, the cithara was a virtuoso's instrument and generally known as requiring a great deal of skill.: Aristotle calls the cithara an ''organon technikon''. The cithara was played primarily to accompany dance, epic recitations, rhapsodies, odes, and lyric songs. It was also played solo at the receptions, banquets, national games, and trials of skill. Aristotle said that these string instruments were not for educational purposes but for pleasure only. It was played by strumming the strings with a stiff plectrum made of dried leather, held in the right hand with elbow outstretched and palm bent inwards. The strings with undesired notes were damped with the straightened fingers of the left hand.

Construction

The cithara had a deep, wooden sound box composed of two resonating tables, either flat or slightly arched, connected by ribs or sides of equal width. At the top, its strings were knotted around the crossbar or yoke (''zugon'') or to rings threaded over the bar, or wound around pegs. The other ends of the strings were secured to a tail-piece after passing over a flat bridge, or the tail-piece and bridge were combined.

Most vase paintings show citharas with seven strings, in agreement with ancient authors, but those same authors also mention that occasionally an especially skillful kitharode would use more than the conventional seven strings.

Apollo as a kitharode

The cithara is said to have been the invention of Apollo, the god of music. Apollo is often depicted playing a cithara instead of a lyre, often dressed in a kitharode’s formal robes. ''Kitharoidos'', or ''Citharoedus'', is an epithet given to Apollo, which means "lyre-singer" or "one who sings to the lyre".

An '' Apollo Citharoedus'' or ''Apollo Citharede'', is the term for a type of statue or other image of Apollo with a cithara. Among the best-known examples is the Apollo Citharoedus at the Vatican Museums, a 2nd-century CE colossal marble statue by an unknown Roman sculptor.

Famous cithara players

* Phrynnis () of Lesbos: The ''Suda'' mentions that Phrynnis was the first to play the cithara at Athens and won at the Panathenaea; by cithara is probably meant the new 12-stringed instrument invented by Melanippides of Melos.
* Athenodoros of Teos, who played at the Susa weddings of Alexander the Great

Other instruments called "cithara"

In the Middle Ages, ''cythara'' was also used generically for stringed instruments, including lyres, but also including lute-like instruments. The use of the name throughout the Middle Ages looked back to the original Greek cithara, and its abilities to sway people's emotions.

Biblical references

An instrument called the '' kinnor'' is mentioned a number of times in the Bible, generally translated into English as "harp" or "psaltery", but historically rendered as "cithara". Psalm 42 in the Latin Vulgate (Psalm 43 in other versions), says,
: ''"Confitebor tibi in cithara, Deus, Deus meus,"''
which is translated in the Douay-Rheims version as
: "To thee, O God my God, I will give praise upon the harp."
The King James version renders this verse as
: "Yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God."
The cithara is also mentioned in other places in the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible, including Genesis 4:21, 1 Kings (1 Samuel) 16:16, 1 Paralipomenon (1 Chronicles) 25:3, Job 30:31, Psalms 32:2, Psalms 56:9, Psalms 70:22, Psalms 80:3, Psalms 91:4, Psalms 97:5, Psalms 107:3, Psalms 146:7, Psalms 150:3, Isaiah 5:12, Isaiah 16:11, 1 Machabees 3:45, and 1 Corinthians 14:7.

The ''kaithros'' mentioned in the Book of Daniel may have been the same instrument.

Gallery

File:Kitharaspieler Kreta asb 2004 PICT3430.JPG, Bronze figurine from Crete,
File:Citharoedus-bp.jpg, Kithara player by the Berlin Painter
File:Providence Painter - ARV 637 29 - Nike flying with kithara - draped youth - Wien KHM AS IV 698 - 03.jpg, Nike flying with kithara by the Providence Painter, BC
File:Achilles Painter - ARV 997 155 - two Muses on mount Helikon - München AS SCH 80 - 13 (cropped for Kithara).jpg, Kithara player 445–435 BC from vase, painting by the Achilles Painter
File:Muse lyre Louvre CA482.jpg, Muse tuning two phorminges. The phorminx was an intermediate stage, as the cithara developed from the lyre. Detail from an Attic white-ground cup from Eretria, .
File:Relief slab depicting Apollo, Marsyas, a Scythian (4th cent. B.C.), National Archaeological Museum of Athens (21 June 2018).jpg, Apollo and Marsyas, 4th century BC
File:P. Fannius Synistor anagoria links.JPG, A Roman representation of a woman playing the ''cithara'' ( Villa Boscoreale, BC).
File:LYCIAN LEAGUE, Cragus, Hemidrachm, reverse.jpg, Cithara on the reverse of a hemidrachm from Cragus ( Lycian League).
File:Wall painting - Apollon seated with cithara - Rome (Palatine - house of Augustus) - Roma AdP 379982.jpg, Apollo Kitharoidos. Painted plaster, Roman artwork from the Augustan period.
File:Wall painting - concert - Herculaneum (ins or II - palaestra) - Napoli MAN 9021 (cropped for lyre).jpg, 1st century AD, Herculaneum. Woman playing kithara; 2 straps are visible that holds the instrument up while she uses both hands to play (one blue, one yellow).
File:Orpheus2.jpg, Orpheus Mosaic in Rottweil
File:Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, RA, OM - Sappho and Alcaeus - Walters 37159.jpg, Alcaeus of Mytilene playing a cithara while Sappho listens in '' Sappho and Alcaeus'' by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1881; The Walters Art Museum).
File:George Lawrence Bulleid, 1905 - Girl with lute.jpg, ''Girl with Lute'' by George Lawrence Bulleid, 1905
File:A modern reconstruction of an ancient Greek kithara, in Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek Technology.jpg, A reconstruction of the so-called Apollo's kithara in Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek Technology, Athens, Greece.

See also

Footnotes

References

Sources

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Further reading

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External links

Peter Pringle demonstrates how a kithara worked
* A music group directed by scholar Annie Bélis, dedicated to the recreation of ancient Greek and Roman music and playing instruments rebuilt on archaeological reference. In its recording ''D'Euripide aux premiers chretiens: musique de l'antiquité grecque et romaine'', the band plays both Roman and Greek kitharas.

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Ancient Greek musical instruments
Ancient Hebrew musical instruments
Lyres
Sacred musical instruments