imitating the tones of word accents in the melodies of songs, Ancient Greek resembles many living Asian and African languages that have tonal accents. The Ancient Greek accent was a melodic or pitch accent. In Ancient Greek, one of the final three syllables of each word carries an accent. Each syllable contains a vowel with one or two vocalic morae, and one mora in a word is accented; the accented mora is pronounced at a higher pitch than other morae. The accent cannot come more than three syllables from the end of the word. If the last syllable (Further examples of ancient Greek music can be found in the articles Delphic Hymns and Mesomedes.) As can be seen, the accented syllable of a word generally has the highest note within that word, although sometimes the syllables preceding or following the accent are also high. When the accent is a circumflex, the music often shows a fall from a higher note to a lower one within the syllable itself, exactly as described by Dionysius of Halicarnassus; examples are the words Μουσῶν Mousôn 'of the Muses' and εὐμενεῖς eumeneîs 'favourable' in the prayer illustrated above. However, sometimes there is no fall within the accented syllable, but the circumflex is set to a single note, as in τερπνῶν terpnôn 'delightful' or Λατοῦς Latoûs 'of Leto' above. If the accent is a grave, there is often no rise in pitch, or else only a small one, as in σοφὲ sophè above. In this practice of closely imitating the tones of word accents in the melodies of songs, Ancient Greek resembles many living Asian and African languages that have tonal accents. For this reason, the American scholars A.M. Devine and Laurence Stephens have argued that the rises and falls found in Greek music probably give a reasonably good indication of what happened when the words were spoken. It seems, however, that the music did not always follow the accent exactly. Dionysius of Halicarnassus gives an example from the music written by Euripides for his play Orestes. In the lines which in our modern editions are written as σῖγα, σῖγα, λεπτὸν ἴχνος ἀρβύλας // τίθετε, μὴ κτυπεῖτ᾽ (sîga, sîga, leptòn íkhnos arbúlas // títhete, mḕ ktupeît᾽) 'Quietly, quietly! Place the tread of your shoe lightly, don't make a noise!', Dionysius reports that in the first three words and the last there was no raised pitch, while in both ἀρβύλας arbúlas 'of the shoe' and τίθετε títhete 'place' there was a low note followed by two high ones, despite the accent on the first syllable of τίθετε títhete. However, although the fragments of earlier music sometimes show a mismatch, the Delphic hymns in particular appear to show a very close relationship between the music and the word accents, with all but three of the 180 analysable words… Tonal…