(Gk. surinx).
Greek term for the type of instrument (Aerophone) generally referred to as Panpipes, that is, a row of hollow pipes sounded by blowing across their tops. Originally it was made from cane pipes of equal length, joined together, to produce a rectangular raft-like shape. Changes in pitch were achieved by filling part of the pipe with material such as wax (a process described in Pseudo-Aristotle’s Problems, xix.23). The Romans and Etruscans cut the pipes to their proper lengths, thus producing a wing-like shape. The cane pipes came to be replaced by wood, clay or bronze, and sometimes the instrument was made from one piece in which the holes were bored. Greek and Roman iconography shows the syrinx with from five to 13 pipes, approximately eight being the norm. The pipes were short, so the pitch was always high.
In mythology the instrument is the attribute of Pan, the half-goat, half-man god of shepherds. His father, Hermes, had been pictured with it in the Archaic period, but by the classical period it had become exclusively his. The central myth is related in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (i.689–712): Pan is pursuing the nymph Syrinx, who flees to a river and begs the nymphs there for help. She is allowed to conceal herself by taking the form of a reed-bed, from which Pan subsequently picks the reeds to fashion his pipes.
In keeping with its mythology the syrinx has always had a strongly pastoral connotation. Plato, for example, excluded it from his republic while deeming it appropriate for shepherds in the field. In the Hellenistic world it gathered other associations. It probably appears in the idolatrous orchestra described in the book of Daniel. This purports to celebrate the royal cult of Nebuchadnezzar; the orchestra is very likely based on the practice of Antiochus IV of Syria, the Seleucid ruler of the 2nd century bce. Parthian drinking horns from Nisa show the syrinx in Dionysian ceremonies at much the same date. The Romans kept the pastoral association, but in late classical times it also became important in the pantomime, together with such instruments as the tibia and kithara.
See also Greece, §I, 5(ii)(b).
SachsH
M. Wegner: Griechenland, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, ii/4 (Leipzig, 1963, 2/1970)
G. Fleischhauer: Etrurien und Rom, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, ii/5 (Leipzig, 1964, 2/1978)
H. Becker: ‘Syrinx bei Aristoxenos’, Musa – mens – musici: im Gedenken an Walther Vetter, ed. H. Wegener (Leipzig, 1969), 23–6
T.J. Mathiesen: Apollo’s Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Lincoln, NE, 1999), 222–5
JAMES W. McKINNON