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{{Short description|Ancient Greek musical instrument}}
{{For|the medieval European stringed instrument|Cythara}}

[[File:Goluchow Painter ARV 10 4 young cithara player (03).jpg|thumb|Young kithara player by the Goluchow Painter, Athens, {{Circa|520}} BC|322x322px]]
The '''kithara''' ({{langx|el|{{math|κιθάρα}}|kithára}}), [[Romanization of Greek|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 [[kitharode]]s. In [[modern Greek]], the word ''kithara'' has come to mean "[[guitar]]", a word which [[Etymology|etymologically]] stems from ''kithara''.<ref>{{cite web |last=Harper |first=Douglas |year=2001–2022 |title=guitar |website=Online Etymology Dictionary |url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=guitar}}</ref>

==Origin and uses==
[[File:Fresco of women listening to a private musical performance.jpg|thumb|217x217px|Ancient Roman [[fresco]] depicting women in a peristyle, listening to another woman play a kithara and [[sambuca (instrument)|sambuca]].]]
The cithara originated from [[Minoan civilization|Minoan]]-[[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenaean]] [[swan]]-neck lyres developed and used during the Aegean Bronze Age.<ref>{{harvp|Vorreiter|1975|p=94: "[T]he swan-neck lyres were the predecessors of the sacred ''kitharai'' of later times, i.e. the 6th to 3rd centuries B.C., in the Hellenic world."}}</ref> Scholars such as [[Martin Litchfield West|M.L. West]], Martha Maas, and Jane M. Snyder have made connections between the cithara and stringed instruments from ancient [[Anatolia]].<ref>{{harvnb|Maas|Snyder|1989|p=185}}.</ref>{{sfnp|West|1992}}

Whereas the basic [[Lyre|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.<ref name=Aristotle>{{cite book |author=[[Aristotle]] |title=Politics |at=1341a}}: Aristotle calls the cithara an ''organon technikon''.</ref> The cithara was played primarily to accompany dance, epic recitations, rhapsodies, odes, and lyric songs.{{sfnp|West|1992}} 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.<ref name=Aristotle/> 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.{{sfnp|West|1992}}

==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.{{sfnp|West|1992}}{{sfnp|Maas|Snyder|1989}}

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.{{sfnp|West|1992}}

==Apollo as a kitharode==
[[File:Apollo Musagetes Pio-Clementino Inv310.jpg|thumb|left|[[Apollo Citharoedus|Apollo kitharoidos]] ([[Apollo]] holding a cithara and wearing the customary [[kitharōdos]]’ robes) and [[musagetes]] (leader of the [[Muses]]). Marble, Roman artwork, 2nd century CE.|286x286px]]
The cithara is said to have been the invention of [[Apollo]], the god of music.<ref>{{cite book|author=Pausanias|author-link=Pausanias (geographer)|title=Description of Greece|at=5.14.8}}</ref> [[Apollo]] is often depicted playing a cithara instead of a lyre, often dressed in a [[kitharode]]’s formal robes. [[kitharode|''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 Museum]]s, a 2nd-century CE colossal marble statue by an unknown Roman sculptor.{{sfnp|West|1992}}

==Famous cithara players==
*[[Phrynnis]] ({{langx|grc|{{math|Φρῦνις}}}}) 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.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |title=phi |encyclopedia=[[Suda]] |at=761 |publisher=[[University of Kentucky]] |url=https://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/sol/sol-entries/phi/761 |via=uky.edu }}</ref>
* [[Athenodoros of Teos]], who played at the [[Susa weddings]] of [[Alexander the Great]]
{{multiple image
|caption_align=left |header_align=center |align=right
|image1=Utrechts-Psalter PSALM-149-PSALM-150 psalterio or lyre.jpg|width1=100|alt1=Utrecht Psalter image of cithara or lyre
|image2=Utrechts-Psalter PSALM-67 instruments cithara.jpg|width2=87|alt2=Rotta played differently
|footer= Two sketches of string instrument players (citharas, lyres or [[rotte (lyre)|rottas]]?) from the [[Utrecht Psalter]], drawn by an [[Anglo-Saxon]] artist in [[Reims]], {{circa|850 CE}}. 
}}

==Other instruments called "cithara"==
In the [[Middle Ages]], ''[[cythara]]'' was also used generically for stringed instruments, including lyres, but also including [[lute]]-like instruments.<ref name=Segerman>{{harvp|Segerman|1999|pp=79–80}}</ref>{{efn|"''Cithara'' was the Latin name for the Greek ''kithara'', a lyre-like instrument. It was often used as a generic term for 'plucked stringed instrument' by writers discussing a variety of instruments in medieval and Renaissance times, but when a player used this name for his instrument, [...] he was probably making a claim that his instrument was the one that had the magic to readily manipulate the listener's emotional states as the original kithara (with a similar large plectrum) had a reputation of doing to the ancient Greeks."<ref name=Segerman/>}}<ref name=Ciabattoni>{{harvp|Ciabattoni|2010|pp=60–61}}</ref>{{efn|"There is evidence of citharae shaped like a lute, that is with a neck and an elongated body, even before the twelfth century: the ''[[Golden Psalter of St. Gallen|Golden Psalter of St. Gall]]'' depicts King David wielding an instrument that has a broad neck, a circular pegbox (without pegs depicted), and three strings, and whose total length is three times as long as its body, which is of a circular shape. This instrument resembles a lute more than a cithara, but it is associated with David. Further evidence appears in ''The Stuttgart Psalter'' [...] This psalter contains several images of an instrument having a long neck and a narrow body with parallel sides, sloping shoulders, and a pear-shaped pegbox. In the text, next to all these miniatures, the instrument is called a cithara."<ref name=Ciabattoni/>}} The use of the name throughout the Middle Ages looked back to the original Greek cithara, and its abilities to sway people's emotions.<ref name=Segerman/>

==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,"''<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.drbo.org/lvb/chapter/21042.htm|title=Latin Vulgate Bible, Psalms Chapter 42 |website=www.drbo.org}}</ref>
which is translated in the Douay-Rheims version as
: "To thee, O God my God, I will give praise upon the harp."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.drbo.org/chapter/21042.htm |title=Douay-Rheims Bible, Psalms Chapter 42 |website=drbo.org}}</ref>
The King James version renders this verse as
: "Yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Psalms-Chapter-43/ |title=Psalms Chapter 43 KJV |website=www.kingjamesbibleonline.org}}</ref>
The cithara is also mentioned in other places in the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible, including Genesis 4:21, 1 Kings (1&nbsp;Samuel) 16:16, 1&nbsp;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.<ref>{{cite web |trans-title=Latin Vulgate Bible |title=Biblia Sacra Vulgata |lang=la |website=drbo.org |url=http://www.drbo.org/lvb/index.htm}}</ref>

The ''kaithros'' mentioned in the [[Book of Daniel]] may have been the same instrument.<ref>{{cite Grove |date=2001 |title=Kaithros |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.14601 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

==Gallery==
<gallery class="center">
File:Kitharaspieler Kreta asb 2004 PICT3430.JPG|Bronze figurine from Crete, {{circa|850 BCE}}
File:Citharoedus-bp.jpg|Kithara player by the [[Berlin Painter]] {{circa|490 BCE}}
File:Providence Painter - ARV 637 29 - Nike flying with kithara - draped youth - Wien KHM AS IV 698 - 03.jpg|[[Nike (mythology)|Nike]] flying with kithara by the [[Providence Painter]], {{Circa|480}} 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|[[Muses|Muse]] tuning two phorminges. The [[phorminx]] was an intermediate stage, as the cithara developed from the lyre. Detail from an Attic [[White-ground technique|white-ground]] cup from [[Eretria]], {{circa|465 BC}}.
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]],  {{Circa|40–30}} BC).
File:LYCIAN LEAGUE, Cragus, Hemidrachm, reverse.jpg|Cithara on the reverse of a hemidrachm from [[Cragus (Lycia)|Cragus]] ([[Lycia#Lycian League|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|Apollo's]] kithara in [[Museum of Ancient Greek Technology|Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek Technology]], Athens, Greece.
</gallery>

==See also==
{{columns-list|colwidth=15em|
* [[Ancient Greece]]
* [[Music of ancient Greece|Ancient Greek music]]
* [[Ancient Rome]]
* [[Barbiton]]
* [[Cythara]]
* [[Gittern]], an instrument whose name is derived from ''Kithara''
* [[Guitar]]
* [[Harp]]
* [[Kinnor]]
* [[Kitharode]]
* [[Lyre]]
* [[Phorminx]]
* [[Pandura]]
* [[Rotte (lyre)|Rotte]]
* [[Sitar]]
* [[Zither]]
}}

==Footnotes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{Reflist|25em}}

===Sources===
*{{cite book|last=Anderson|first=Warren D.|year=1994|title=Music and Musicians in Ancient Greece|isbn=0-8014-3083-6 |location=Ithaca, NY|publisher=Cornell University Press|url=https://archive.org/details/musicmusiciansin00ande}}
*{{cite book|last=Ciabattoni|first=Francesco|title=Dante's Journey to Polyphony|year=2010|location=Toronto, Buffalo and London|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=9781442620230|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fCT7oAEACAAJ}}
*{{cite book|last1=Maas|first1=Martha|last2=Snyder|first2=Jane McIntosh|year=1989|title=Stringed Instruments of Ancient Greece|location=New Haven, CT|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-030003686-2}}
*{{cite journal|last=Segerman|first=Ephraim|title=A Short History of the Cittern|journal=The Galpin Society Journal|volume=52|year=1999|pages=77–107|doi=10.2307/842519|jstor=842519 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/842519|url-access=subscription}}
*{{cite journal|last=Vorreiter|first=Leopold|title=The Swan-Neck Lyres of Minoan-Mycenaean Culture|journal=The Galpin Society Journal|volume=28|year=1975|pages=93–97|doi=10.2307/841575 |jstor=841575 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/841575|url-access=subscription}}
*{{cite book|last=West|first=Martin Litchfield|author-link=Martin Litchfield West|year=1992|title=Ancient Greek Music|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-814975-1}}

==Further reading==
{{Commons category|Citharas}}
*{{cite book|last=Bundrick|first=Sheramy D.|year=2005|title=Music and Image in Classical Athens|location=New York|publisher=Cambridge University Press}}
*{{cite web|last=Hagel|first=Stefan|title=Ancient Greek Music|publisher=Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften|location=Vienna, Austria|access-date=2016-10-25|url=http://www.oeaw.ac.at/kal/agm}}
*{{Cite EB1911|last=Schlesinger|first=Kathleen|author-link=Kathleen Schlesinger|wstitle=Cithara|volume=6|pages=395—397}}
* {{cite web|title=The Kithara in Ancient Greece &#124; Thematic Essay|series=Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History|publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art|access-date=2016-10-25|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/kith/hd_kith.htm}}

==External links==
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6adj7Xoo9Us Peter Pringle demonstrates how a kithara worked]
*{{cite web|url=http://www.kerylos.fr/index_en.php|title=Ensemble Kérylos}} 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.

{{Greek musical instruments}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Ancient Greek musical instruments]]
[[Category:Ancient Hebrew musical instruments]]
[[Category:Lyres]]
[[Category:Sacred musical instruments]]