Alcman's Poetry Analysis

Conclusions
As I noticed above, the re-performance of Alcman’s partheneia continued until the 2nd century B.C. in Sparta. Alcman’s poetry never stopped to be of an oral kind, thus to be composed-in-performance at least in his hometown. The tradition of partheneia also continued, as we can see from the work of Hellenistic women poets and from Hellenistic partheneia that are classified as Lyrica Adespota. As we observed, Hellenistic women poets did not imitate Alcman’s poetry. The allusions in his work, as it regards women epigrammatists, may even be coincidental. Corinna, on the other hand, alludes to a whole genre (partheneia) of which the works of Alcman are its most well-known expression. Alcman’s text during this period is mostly an oral

We encounter the names of Aristophanes, Aristarchus and of his pupils (Chairis and Pamphilius) in Scholia A and B of 1 PMGF. According to the commentator, these Alexandrian scholars proposed different writings, thus they tried to restore Alcman’s text (Aristarchus, Chairis and Pamphilius). Aristarchus is mentioned as an authority for the origin of Alcman’s horses mentioned in 1 PMGF. The commentator informs us that Aristophanes of Byzantium, based on the origin of these horses, believed Alcman to be a Lydian. The papyri of Alcman reveal that the 1st-2nd century B.C. copyists were able to use, and that they were interested into using, signs to highlight useful elements for the melodious reading of these songs. It can be assumed that the music accompanying these compositions was not completely lost to them. The hypomnemata in which they were based seem to have been the work of Alexandrian scholars, such as Pamphilus and Didymus, which is what contemporary scholars believe. They also inform us that by the 2nd century A. C. there were at least two different copies (or ameliorated editions) of the Alexandrian edition that any scholar could advise and, what is more, collate. Names of the 1st century B.C. scholars point to Alexandria. Tyrranion, who is mentioned as an authority on Alcman, was the teacher of Strabo, who later quoted fragments of Alcman’s songs. Leonidas

An educated guess would have been that the text from which the commentator, who mentions the different writings coming from Aristarchus and his pupils but not from Aristophanes, copies from Aristophanes of Byzantium, but there are no decisive clues. The Alexandrians seem to consider Alcman probably a Lydian, and thus not a strictly epichoric poet. Even Didymus mentions one of his lines as an example of the Doric (ὁ Δωριεῖς λᾶδὀς φασιν), and not of the Laconic dialect. Another interesting element is that some of them seem to consider Alcman a composer of wedding-songs. This testimonium seems rather isolated, if we do not consider that Theocritus used as one of his models for a wedding-song Alcman’s