The paper is the premise to S. Barbantani\u2019s contribution "Lyric for the Rulers, Lyric for the people. The transformation of some lyric subgenres in Hellenistic poetry", in E. Sistakou (ed.), "Hellenistic Lyricism. Traditions and Transformations of a Literary Mode", Trends in Classics 9.2 (2017), 339-399. It analyses how some of the main lyric genres developed in archaic and classical Greek poetry underwent transformation in the Hellenistic period, following social, political and cultural changes. The paper is exploring specifically lyric poetry produced \u201cfor the gods\u201d (hymns, esp. paeans, preserved on stone and on papyrus). Summary: I. Introduction. The Context. 1.1. Genre. 1.2. The Problem of musical notation. 1.3. Technitai...