#terpander

On the City of Sparta

Everyone knows that the Ancient Greeks invented the Olympic Games; for the Greeks, though, it wasn't just running, nude wrestling and hurling the javelin that were important.  The earliest Olympic Games were religious, as well as athletic, festivals, and as such would have included some music-making.  But a distinct tradition of singing competitions grew up separately, and attracted participants from all over the Greek-dominated eastern Mediterranean.  Singer-songwriters would gather for festivals and sing their homespun songs for the benefit of a panel of judges and a live audience...The earliest recorded contest took place at Chalcis in around 700 BC, the poet Hesiod proudly penning a few lines in celebration of his winning a solo singing class there.  The Spartan city of Carneia hosted a long series of knock-out talent shows for singers accompanying themselves on the kithara, a form of lyre.  (In 670 BC one such competition was won by Terpander, a bardic musician and kithara expert who is said to have died from choking on a fig thrown by an admirer at a concert.)

@severeprincesswitch asked: “Can we have the names of the personas”