¹ At this point I would like to address some issues of musical terminology that often arise in connection to the instrument played by the strikers. While traditional scholars and translators still sometimes call this instrument the flute, more and more studies from different disciplines related to Classics acknowledge the findings of archaeomusicology which demonstrate that from the organological point of view the instrument is by no means a flute. Compared with modern instruments, it could be classified as a clarinet equipped with a double reed, resembling in many respects that of historical double-reed woodwinds like the shawm. Experts on ancient music recommend that aulos be used as a technical term, and suggest that the name of the instrument should be either left in its Greek original—aulos—or translated as some version of pipes, for instance double-pipes or doublepipes, with the latter version winning more and more supporters. At the same time, tibia in the Roman context, and especially with reference to Latin texts, is admissible, even if its status as a technical term on a par with aulos has not been so far convincingly argued. The same goes for tibicines with regard to Roman/Latin aulos players. For some basic information on the aulos, see West, M.L., Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1992), 1Google Scholar, 81–94; for a brief disambiguation of the terms aulos and tibia, see Moore, T., Music in Roman Comedy (Cambridge, 2012), 26Google Scholar n. 1.

² In the present consideration, I will not focus on the most frequently discussed textual difficulty which comes from Ovid's version of the story and which refers to a controversial reading of a consul's name: Claudius or Plautius, on which see S.P. Oakley, A Commentary on Livy: Books 6–10, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1997–2005), 3.678–80; Buchet, E., ‘La grève des tibicines’, BAGB 1 (2010), 174–96Google Scholar, at 175; A. Fusi, ‘Le Quinquatrus minores e l'esilio dei flautisti (Ovidio Fasti 6, 649–692)’, in G. La Bua (ed.), Vates operose dierum. Studi sui Fasti di Ovidio (Pisa, 2010), 113–36, at 124–30; de Quiroga, P.L. Barja, ‘The Quinquatrus of June, Marsyas and libertas in the Late Roman Republic’, CQ 68 (2016), 143–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 147–9.

³ The most notable studies on the ‘strike of the tibicines’ include F. Bömer, P. Ovidius Naso, Die Fasten (Heidelberg, 1958), 2.379–82; J.-M. Pailler, ‘Et les aulètes refusèrent de chanter les dieux … (Plutarque, Question Romaine 55)’, in P. Brulé and C. Vendries (edd.), Chanter les dieux. Musique et religion dans l'Antiquité grecque et romaine (Rennes, 2001), 339–48; Dupont, F., ‘Les petites Quinquatries et la grève des tibicines’, Europe. Revue littéraire mensuelle 904/905 (2004), 219–30Google Scholar; R.J. Littlewood, A Commentary on Ovid's Fasti, Book 6 (Oxford, 2006), 191–208; Fusi (n. 2), 116–23; Buchet (n. 2); Barja de Quiroga (n. 2). Quinquatrus minusculae seem a very elusive feast. The extant fasti fail to mention it, allocating the Ides of June to the festival of Jupiter and the 19th of June to Minerva: Feriae Ioui (Fasti Venusini); Ioui (Fasti Tusculani); Mineruae (Fasti Antiates Maiores); Mineruae in Auentino (Fasti Esquilini, Fasti Amitermini); on the Quinquatrus minusculae in general, see H.H. Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (London, 1981), 152–3. In his account, Ovid calls the feast Quinquatrus minores, as Quinquatrus minusculae would not fit in the verse.

⁴ For a detailed account on the discrepancies between the four main sources, see Buchet (n. 2), 174–7; Fusi (n. 2), 117–23.

⁵ Ov. Fast. 6.661–5 dulcis erat mercede labor. tempusque secutum | quod subito gratae frangeret artis opus. | adde quod aedilis, pompam qui funeris irent, | artifices solos iusserat esse decem. | exilio mutant Vrbem Tiburque recedunt.

⁶ The ambiguity regarding the reason for the strike may have several grounds: either the tale was well known and the reason did not have to be stated, or there is indeed a lacuna in the Ovidian text in the place that referred to the reason: cf. Bömer (n. 3), 2.381 and Littlewood (n. 3), 198–9; or the tibicines were stripped of some privileges granted to them as part of a magno honore (Fast. 6.658), which Ovid (just like Plut. Mor. 277E8–F4) fails to specify. The first interpretation coincides with Ovid's enigmatic treatment of the reasons for his own exile; cf. Fusi (n. 2), 134–5. On exile themes in this passage and Ovid's ambiguous attitude to his own exile, see Barja de Quiroga (n. 2), 146; A. Barchiesi, The Poet and the Prince: Ovid and Augustan Discourse (London / Berkeley / Los Angeles, 1997), 89–92.

⁷ Littlewood (n. 3), 197–8; Oakley (n. 2), 3.397.

⁸ Cf. Barja de Quiroga (n. 2), 145–6.

⁹ Ov. Fast. 6.685–6 Plautius, ut posset specie numeroque senatum | fallere, personis imperat ora tegi. For other explanations of this ambiguity, i.e. involving a conflict between Plautius and Claudius, see Fusi (n. 2), 130.

¹⁰ As Oakley (n. 2), 3.398 notes, ‘the various versions of the story are legendary in character and have little historical worth’. Dupont (n. 3), 220 comments that, even if the story of the pipers is given an appearance of a historical event, we should not perceive it according to our understanding of the term. V. Péché, ‘Collegium tibicinum Romanorum, une association de musiciens au service de la religion romaine’, in P. Brulé, C. Vendries (edd.), Chanter les dieux: Musique et religion dans l'Antiquité grecque et romaine (Rennes, 2001), 307–38, at 318 explains that the historical value of the story has been questioned on account of multiple divergences between the four versions. Other attempts at a historical embedment of the episode usually include identifying the censors linked to it; cf. n. 11 below.

¹¹ On the basis of Livy's text, the date of the episode is interpreted as 311 b.c.; see Fusi (n. 2), 118–19; Barja de Quiroga (n. 2), 146–7; Oakley (n. 2), 3.397 shies away from opting for any of the possible versions.

¹² Cf. Bömer (n. 3), 2.381; Oakley (n. 2), 3.397; Barja de Quiroga (n. 2), 147.

¹³ References to parts of the episode appear in various sources, e.g. Quint. Inst. 5.11.9; Censorinus, DN 12.2; Festus page 149 Lindsay; [Aur. Vict.] De uir. ill. 34.1, and others.

¹⁴ Oakley (n. 2), 3.398 suggests that antiquarian tradition is the source of the anecdote.

¹⁵ G. Dumézil, Mythe et épopée, vol. 3: Histoires romaines (Paris, 1973), 174–94.

¹⁶ Cf. Buchet (n. 2), 192–6.

¹⁷ On similar Vedic myth scenarios, see Dumézil (n. 15), 176–80. On the ‘return-to-order’ topos in Indo-European mythology, see R.D. Woodard, Myth, Ritual and the Warrior in Roman and Indo-European Antiquity (Cambridge, 2013), 229–33.

¹⁸ Various parts of the myth are referred to in the following sources: Hom. Il. 18.394–410; Pind. fr. 283; Pl. Resp. 378d; Paus. 1.20.3; Plut. Mor. 751D; Hyg. Fab. 166; Lib. Nar. 7; Serv. Ecl. 4.62; Suda s.v. Ἥρας δὲ δεσμοὺς ὑπὸ υἱέος, etc.; cf. G.M. Hedreen, Silens in Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painting: Myth and Performance (Ann Arbor, 1992), 13–14; A. Natale, Il riso di Hephaistos: all'origine del comico nella poesia e nell'arte dei Greci (Rome, 2008), 36–9; Fineberg, S., ‘Hephaestus on foot in the Ceramicus’, TAPhA 139 (2009), 275–324Google Scholar, at 282–6. While most of these sources refer to the expulsion of Hephaestus from the Olympus and his strained relationships with other Olympian gods, only Pausanias, Hyginus and Libanius narrate the circumstances of his return.

¹⁹ For a brief account of the analogies between the two tales, see Wysłucha, K., ‘Echoes of the rejection of the aulos in Augustan poetry’, Greek and Roman Musical Studies 7 (2019), 105–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 109–10.

²⁰ Ov. Fast. 6.667–8 quaeritur in scaena caua tibia, quaeritur aris; | ducit supremos nenia nulla toros; cf. Plut. Mor. 277F5. On the indispensability of aulos music at sacrifices, see, for example, Littlewood (n. 3), 194–5; Dupont (n. 3), 224; Pailler (n. 3), 341.

²¹ On libertas and the pipers’ return, see Barja de Quiroga (n. 2), 151–4; on the role of a freedman in the tale, see Barja de Quiroga (n. 2), 147–8; on the interconnection between Liber Pater and libertas, see F.-H. Massa-Pairault, Recherches sur l'art et l'artisanat étrusco-italiques à l’époque hellénistique (Rome, 1985), 97.

²² Ov. Fast. 6.691–2 res placuit, cultuque nouo licet Idibus uti | et canere ad ueteres uerba iocosa modos; cf. n. 58 below.

²³ Pailler (n. 3), 347–8. Valerius Maximus (2.5.4) links the topos to the aulos players themselves and not to the Roman community: quibus et honos pristinus restitutus et huiusce lusus ius est datum.

²⁴ The existence and function of the collegium tibicinum is evidenced by many inscriptions which usually take the form of collegium tibicinum qui sacris publicis praesto sunt, or similar; see Péché (n. 10), 335–6.

²⁵ Cf. n. 20 above.

²⁶ Moore, T., ‘Stinging auloi: Aristophanes, Acharnians 860–71’, Greek and Roman Musical Studies 5 (2017), 178–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 185.

²⁷ Cf. Moore (n. 26), 184–5.

²⁸ Literary depictions of multiple tibicines usually involve sumptuous, often foreign, processions and spectacles: cf. Sen. Ep. 84.10; Suet. Iul. 84.4.1; Curt. 9.10.3; Apul. Met. 11.9.23; HA Verus 8.11.2.

²⁹ Apul. Flor. 4.6–7 is igitur cum esset in tibicinio adprime nobilis, nihil aeque se laborare et animo angi et mente dicebat, quam quod monumentarii ceraulae tibicines dicerentur. Cf. Moore (n. 26), 181; A. Scheithauer, Die Welt der Auleten: Musikerkarrieren im griechischen Kulturkreis (Frankfurt am Main, 2015), 55.

³⁰ Ar. Ach. 860–6, Pax 950–5; Plaut. Stich. 723–5.

³¹ On the difference between silēnoi and satyrs, see Hedreen (n. 18), 9; Moore, M.B., ‘Hephaistos goes home: an Attic black-figured column-krater in the Metropolitan Museum’, MMJ 45 (2010), 21–54Google Scholar, at 21. For the sake of convenience, I use the more popular ‘satyrs’ instead of the more accurate silēnoi.

³² Examples of such depictions as well as studies about them abound. The most extensive collection may be found in LIMC 4.1 (Zurich and Munich, 1988), 390–401. Cf. F. Brommer, Hephaistos: der Schmiedegott in der antiken Kunst (Mainz, 1978), 10–17; Halm-Tisserant, M., ‘La représentation du retour d'Héphaïstos dans L'Olympe: iconographie traditionnelle et innovations formelles dans l'atelier de Polygnotos (440–430)’, AK 29 (1986), 8–22Google Scholar; Hedreen, G.M., ‘The return of Hephaistos, Dionysiac processional ritual and the creation of a visual narrative’, JHS 124 (2004), 38–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³³ On the musical settings of kōmoi and dithyrambs, see A. D'Angour, ‘Music and movement in the dithyramb’, in B. Kowalzig and P. Wilson (edd.), Dithyramb in Context (Oxford, 2013), 198–210, at 200–1, 206–9.

³⁴ Cf. G. Hedreen, ‘The semantics of processional dithyramb: Pindar's Second Dithyramb and Archaic Athenian vase-painting’, in B. Kowalzig and P. Wilson (edd.), Dithyramb in Context (Oxford, 2013), 171–97, at 196.

³⁵ The depictions of Marsyas as a member of the Dionysian thiasos include a fifth-century bell crater (Louvre G 421); cf. Natale (n. 18), 104–5 and C.A. Shaw, Satyric Play: The Evolution of Greek Comedy and Satyr Drama (Oxford, 2014), 102–3. On Marsyas and Dionysian overtones in the pipers’ story, see e.g. Barja de Quiroga (n. 2), 149–50, 154; Pailler (n. 3), 344–5.

³⁶ For the François Vase, see Hedreen (n. 18), 14–15; H.A. Shapiro, M. Iozzo, A. Lezzi-Hafter, The François Vase: New Perspectives (Kilchberg, 2013). The first known portrayal of the return of Hephaestus in Etruria, which is at the same time the first depiction of Dionysos, comes from a Greek sixth-century hydria; see I. Krauskopf, ‘Sethlans’, LIMC 4.1 (Zurich and Munich, 1988), 658.

³⁷ See S.D. Bundrick, Athens, Etruria, and the Many Lives of Greek Figured Pottery (Madison, 2019), 216.

³⁸ Bundrick (n. 37), 69. We should note that references to a funeral context, especially to a funeral pompa, are evoked in the story of the strike as an important performance setting for the Roman ritual aulos.

³⁹ For myths associated with Sethlans and their depictions, see N. Thomson de Grummond, Etruscan Myth, Sacred History, and Legend (Philadelphia, 2006), 133–8. The identity of the god is disclosed by inscriptions that frequently state his name in a form visually resembling On an early identification between Hephaestus and Vulcan, see D. Feeney, Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs (Cambridge, 1998), 51.

⁴⁰ E.g. black-figure panel-amphoras nos. 8 and 9 in LIMC 4.1 (Zurich and Munich, 1988), 405 (cf. Fig. 1); and a similar amphora currently in a private collection, whose images are available on https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/an-etruscan-black-figured-panel-amphora-attributed-to-the-5627965-details.aspx (accessed on 28 March 2021).

⁴¹ Cf. Thomson de Grummond (n. 39), 134. Representations of Hephaestus as a youth also occur occasionally in Attic vase-painting. For their interpretation, see Fineberg (n. 18); Seeberg, A., ‘Hephaistos rides again’, JHS 85 (1965), 102–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 105–6.

⁴² E.g. a bronze mirror from Chiusi dated to c.300–275 b.c.; cf. Thomson de Grummond (n. 39), 135; LIMC 4.1 (Zurich and Munich, 1988), 405; Brommer (n. 32), 35.

⁴³ O. Hentschel, ‘Quinquatrus’, RE 47 (1963), 1160–1. Unfortunately, his claim that Etruscan Menrva was—similarly to Athena—associated with aulos playing seems unfounded.

⁴⁴ E.g. for the Etruscan origin of the tibicines and the ludiones in the ludi scaenici, see Livy 7.2; on Etruscan sacrificial pipes, see Plin. HN 16.172; on subulo—an Etruscan word denoting the aulos player, cf. Festus page 309 Lindsay; Varro, Ling. 7.35; on sacrifices in the Augustan period accompanied by Etruscan pipers, see Verg. G. 2.193.

⁴⁵ The correspondence between the two Quinquatrus festivals is indicated by Varro (Ling. 6.17 Quinquatrus minusculae dictae Iuniae idus ab similitudine maiorum, quod tibicines tum feriati uagantur per urbem et conueniunt ad aedem Mineruae). M. Humm, ‘Spazio e tempo civici: riforma delle tribù e riforma del calendario alla fine del quarto secolo a.C.’, in C. Bruun (ed.), The Roman Middle Republic. Politics, Religion and Historiography c.400–133 b.c. (Rome, 2000), 91–119, at 114–15 points out the analogy between the two feasts on a basis of their position in the Roman ceremonial year (i.e. the Quinquatrus minusculae on a solstice in solar calendar, while the Tubilustrium—according to some interpretations, the last day of the Quinquatrus maiores—during the waning moon). On the role of the tuba in the Tubilustrium and more generally in the Etruscan context, see M. Martinelli, Religione e riti in Etruria (Rome, 2017), 269–71.

⁴⁶ Hedreen (n. 32), 41–2 argues that the myth is related to epiphanic processions in honour of Dionysos and the rituals of inversion.

⁴⁷ On the overlap between the three genres and their chronology, cf. Shaw (n. 35), 32–3. On the Dionysiac procession and its interactions with other genres, cf. E. Csapo, ‘Comedy and the pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing’, in E. Bakola, L. Prauscello, M. Telò (edd.), Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres (Cambridge and New York, 2013), 40–80, at 64–71.

⁴⁸ Hedreen (n. 32), 40–1 observes that visual representations of the return of Hephaestus pay more attention to silēnoi than would seem necessary for the sake of the narrative, pointing to their particular relationship with the Dionysian ritual. On intersections between the return of Hephaestus and the dithyramb, cf. Hedreen (n. 34), 195–6; likewise, for comedy and satyr drama, cf. Shaw (n. 35), 102–4.

⁴⁹ As G. Hedreen, ‘Myths of ritual in Athenian vase-paintings of silens’, in E. Csapo and M.C. Miller (edd.), The Origins of Theatre in Ancient Greece and Beyond: From Ritual to Drama (Cambridge and New York, 2007), 150–95, at 160–84 shows, satyrs are archetypical musicians and choral dancers. The outfits worn by aulos players (stola longa, Ov. Fast. 6.654) may be identified with a sumptuous dress of Greek musicians participating in agōnes (which, in turn, might have come from Lydia) or with costumes derived from theatrical tradition; cf. Hor. Ars P. 215; Bömer (n. 3), 2.380.

⁵⁰ Mor. 277F9–11 καὶ γύναια παρῆν ἅμα τῷ πότῳ καὶ παννυχὶς συνεκροτεῖτο παιζόντων καὶ χορευόντων.

⁵¹ T.P. Wiseman, ‘Liber: myth, drama and ideology in Republican Rome’, in C. Bruun (ed.), The Roman Middle Republic. Politics, Religion and Historiography c.400–133 b.c. (Rome, 2000), 264–99, at 283–9; id., The Roman Audience: Classical Literature as Social History (Oxford and New York, 2015), 30–1, 36–9; id., ‘Satyrs in Rome? The background to Horace's Ars Poetica’, JRS 78 (1988), 1–13; id., ‘Ovid and the stage’, in G. Herbert-Brown (ed.), Ovid's Fasti: Historical Readings at its Bimillennium (Oxford, 2002), 275–99, at 283–7.

⁵² Cf. Shaw (n. 35), 62–3.

⁵³ Cf. Shaw (n. 35), 69–70.

⁵⁴ An exception worth quoting is perhaps a fifth-century red-figure vase interpreted as depicting the banquet scene from Achaeus’ Hephaistos; cf. Wiseman (n. 51 [1988]), 8.

⁵⁵ Wiseman (n. 51 [1988]), 11–12.

⁵⁶ Fantham, E., ‘Sexual comedy in Ovid's Fasti: sources and motivation’, HSPh 87 (1983), 185–216Google Scholar, at 187, 190; Barchiesi (n. 6), 239–40; Wiseman (n. 51 [2002]), 283–7; P. Murgatroyd, Mythical and Legendary Narrative in Ovid's Fasti (Leiden, 2005), 63–95.

⁵⁷ It is still open to debate how voluntary were the exile and the return of the pipers. In Ovid's rendition of the episode, however, the pipers are unaware of the destination of their homeward journey (Fast. 6.681–2): adliciunt somnos tempus motusque merumque, | potaque se Tibur turba redire putat.

⁵⁸ The phrase uerba iocosa brings to mind, for example, the fescennina iocatio (Catull. 61.120; Hor. Epist. 2.1.45), or similar rites involving humorous exchanges not deprived of sexual innuendo, which might also have been part of the celebrations at the Liberalia, Saturnalia, Compitalia and other festivals; cf. Préaux, J.-G., ‘Ars ludicra: aux origines du théâtre latin’, AC 32 (1963), 63–77Google Scholar, at 64, 68–70; Buchet (n. 2), 195; Barja de Quiroga (n. 2), 155.

⁵⁹ Barchiesi (n. 6), 240.

⁶⁰ Cf. Barchiesi (n. 6), 242.

⁶¹ On the link between comic themes in the Fasti and the kōmos and dithyramb, see Barchiesi (n. 6), 243–6.

⁶² The dancers were part of a pompa circensis that preceded games organized by Aulus Postumius Albus in 498 or 496 b.c. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom. 7.72.11) claims that the practice of joking in the manner of satyrs was already known in the early days of Rome: δηλοῦσι δὲ καὶ αἱ τῶν θριάμβων εἴσοδοι παλαιὰν καὶ ἐπιχώριον οὖσαν Ῥωμαίοις τὴν κέρτομον καὶ σατυρικὴν παιδιάν. On the participation of satyrs in Roman and Etruscan processions, see J.-P. Thuillier, ‘Dieux grecs et jeux étrusques’, in F. Gaultier and D. Briquel (edd.), Les plus religieux des hommes. État de la recherche sur la religion étrusque. Actes du colloque international, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, 17–18–19 novembre 1992 (Paris, 1997), 373–90, at 382.

⁶³ The dating of all these occurrences remains uncertain. Epigraphic evidence provides some clues for the timeframe of the collegium tibicinum; cf. Péché (n. 10), 310, 321; cf. Vincent, A., ‘Auguste et les tibicines’, MEFRA 120 (2008), 427–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 428; A. Vincent, Jouer pour la cité: une histoire sociale et politique des musiciens professionnels de l'Occident romain (Rome, 2016), 323.

⁶⁴ On Ovid's precarious attitude towards the ‘Augustan discourse’ in the Fasti, see M. Pfaff-Reydellet, ‘Ovids Fasti: der Kaiser tritt in den öffentlichen Kalender ein’, in A. Bendlin and J. Rüpke (edd.), Römische Religion in historischen Wandel: Diskursentwicklung von Plautus bis Ovid (Stuttgart, 2009), 157–69, at 167. More generally on the ‘Augustan discourse’ and especially on Roman religion in the Fasti, see Barchiesi (n. 6), 43–4, 47–9. Fusi (n. 2), 132–4 suggests that the episode is anti-Augustan, but acknowledges that this may be due to a later edition during Ovid's exile; cf. n. 6 above.

⁶⁵ The possible links and parallels between the collegium tibicinum and Greek unions of dramatic artists called τεχνῖται τοῦ Διονύσου have not been so far explored. On the founding myths and the fictionalization of the history of the Athenian union, see Aneziri, S., Die Vereine der dionysischen Techniten im Kontext der hellenistischen Gesellschaft: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte, Organisation und Wirkung der hellenistischen Technitenvereine (Stuttgart, 2003), 26–8Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ Cf. Wiseman (n. 51 [1988]), 4.