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Instrumental Music in the Roman Age1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
Extract
The cultivation of instrumental music remained in a backward state among the Greeks in the fifth and fourth centuries, B.C. This was certainly not due to any want of taste for music as a whole, for no race ever valued it higher than did the Greeks. The reasons seem to have been, first, the bondage of the instrument to the voice, second, the unsettled state of the musical scale, and thirdly, the dislike of the Greeks for over-elaboration in music.
These three points are well illustrated in the Republic of Plato. In opening the discussion on the admissibility of certain modes, Socrates is made to say that a musical composition is made up of three things, the ‘words,’ the ‘harmony,’ and the ‘rhythm,’ and that the musical ‘words’ are in themselves in no way different from the words of common speech.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1907
Footnotes
1
I wish to thank the following gentlemen for their kind and valued help to me in collecting the materials for this article: M. A. Merlin, Head of the Department of Antiquities for Tunisia, for having specially had photographed for me the unpublished statuette from the Musée Alaoui, Tunis (Fig. 5) as well as for much other assistance; M. Gouvet, Director of the Museum at Susa (Sousse) for the prints used in Figures 2 and 4; and Dr. W. H. D. Rouse for supplying mo with a modern example of a pan-pipe from Smyrna.
With very few exceptions, the monuments referred to are known to me in the originals, from my visits to the museums where they are to be found.
References
2 iii. 398 D. Cf. Nettleship, , Lectures on Plato's Rep. 108 Google Scholar.
3 vii. 531 A.
4 Cf. Westphal, , Harm. u. Mel. d. Gr. 45–47 Google Scholar. Westphal's view holds the field, but it needs some faith to believe that these ear-splitting dissonances were commonly played and sung. The so-called enharmonic mode of the modern Eastern Church (Ἦχος τρίτος; cf. I. Th. Sakellarides Ἰϵρὰ Ὺμννῳδία 95) is sung like the major scale of F; and it has been supposed by Dom Gaisser (La Musique Eccl. Gr. ď après la Tradition) that the ancient enharmonic was in practice the same as this, the two quartertones being always sung together, and the double tone being divided. It is impossible now to go into this interesting theory.
5 Quoted in Plut., de Mus. 38 Google Scholar. Cf. Aristox., Harm. i. 23 Google Scholar.
6 This is stated by Ptolemy. Cf. Monro, , Modes of Ancient Gr. Mus. 111 Google Scholar. The highstrung chromatic could be played on a piano; and although Ptolemy has three kinds of diatonic scale, it would still seem that the music of his day would not have sounded utterly barbarous to our ears. A form of chromatic mode is in use in the Eastern Church, and is often heard in Romaic folk-songs: it has an austere and striking effect. A ‘soft’ diatonic is sung in some Greek churches as the second Byzantine mode; but few western listeners find much sweetness in it. We ourselves allow both the ‘just’ and the ‘tempered’ intonation; the bagpipes, I believe, are tuned to neither of these, and their effect is not always disliked.
7 iii. 399 C and Arist., D. Pol. viii. 6 Google Scholar will not allow these instruments in the training of the young.
8 Duris ap. Athen, iv. 84, 184D, where it is said that the famous flute-player Pronomus was Alcibiades' master.
9 Cf. Paus. iii. 12. 8.
10 Athenaeus xiv. 34–38. Aristotle l.c. classes together the Peotis, Barbiton, Heptagon (otherwise unknown), Triangle, and Sambuca: he calls them ἀρχαῖα ὅργανα
11 Baumeister, , Denkmäler, 1544 Google Scholar.
12 Anacr. 14(5). ψάλλω δ᾿ εἰκοσ(ἱχορδον) <ἐν χερσὶν> μάγαδιν ἔχων In fr. 13(16) he speaks of the Pectis.
13 Telestes 4 (5) (Bergk) τοἰ δ᾿ ὀξυφώνοις πηκτίδων ψαλμοῖ <ς> κρέκον Λύδιον ὔμνον
14 For other examples cf. Le Pitture Ant. ď Ercolano. v. 167. Inghirami, Pitt, di Vasi Fittili iv. cccxliii., and von Jan, Arch. Zeit. xvi. 187 Google Scholar (Pl. cxv. 14). For these instruments in general cf. an article by von Jan in Baumeister s.v. Saiteninstrumenten; and a dissertation of the same writer, Die gr. Saiteninstrumenten.
15 Cf. two similar figures in the Musée Alaoui, Tunis, (Musée du Bardo 74, 75Google Scholar; in the series Musées et Collections arch. ď; Algérie et de la Tunisie, ed. La Blanchère.)
16 Athen, xiv. 41.
17 Διἀ τὴν ἐπιβολήν
18 Harm. p. 8.
19 Pollux i v. 60. τρίχορδον δὲ ὅπερ ᾿Ασσύριοι πανδοῦραν ὠνόμαζον, ἐκείνων δ᾿ ἦν τὸ εὔρημα Where however Dindorf notes that no form of the name Pandura is found either in Assyrian or Chaldaean.
20 E.g. Isid. Orig. 3. 20.
21 9. 924. Athenaeus iv. 82 ascribes its discovery to the Troglodytes by the Red Sea.
22 ‘Pandurizavit,’ Lamprid., Hel. 32 Google Scholar.
23 Stephani, , Compte Rendu, 1881, 55 Google Scholar.
24 There is a list given by Stephani ib. Some of his examples are doubtful. The supposed Pandura on the well-known Hippolytus relief on a fine early sarcophagus in the cathedral at Girgenti, (Arch. Zeit. 1847 Google Scholar, Pl. VI.) seems to me (after close inspection) to be only an elongated lyre. The instrument on a relief in the Louvre ( Clarac, , Mus. Sculp. 119 Google Scholar, No. 47; cf. Robert, , Ant. Sark. ii. 41 Google Scholar, pl. 26 A) is also hardly a Pandura.
26 Benndorf, 126.
25a On a late relief of Orpheus and the Nymphs. Unpublished, but possibly forged.
26 Ancient Marbles in B.M. Pl. IX. Fig. 3, and p. 35.
27 Naples Museum, No. 6598.
28 Arist. l.c. also rejects the flute in education.
29 It had been perfected by Pronomus the master of Alcibiades. Paus. ix. 12. 5.
30 Helbig, , Führer, 440 Google Scholar.
31 This word occurs Epith. Laurent. 61.
32 Mus. Pio-Clem. v. 13. It is doubtful whether the Pan in the British Museum (Anc Mar. in B.M. iii. 135) is playing such an instrument. (Cf. the article in Baumeister s.v. Flöten.)
33 Pollux iv. 69 (σύριγξ) . . . ἡ μὲν οὖν καλά μων ἐστὶ συνθήκη λίνῳ καὶ κηρῷ σψνδεθεῖσα. The pan-pipe is also an attribute of Attis. Cf. the terracottas in B.C.H. xxi. 518–520. The reeds are all of the same length.
34 Cf. Ann. d. Inst. 1877, 214.
35 Gardner, P., Types of Gr. Coins, Pl. II. 42 Google Scholar. Leake, W. M., Numism. Hell. 17 Google Scholar. Head, , Hist. Num. 373 Google Scholar.
36 It appears on an Etruscan urn, Brunn, , Rilievi d. Urne Etrus. 1, Pl. 92, 3Google Scholar; cf. Bull. Inst. 1886, 1, 161.
37 Cf. Ovid, Met. i. 710 Google Scholar, disparibus calamis.
38 The pan-pipe on the glass krater in the Naples Museum (Cat. p. 91) has twelve reeds.
39 Thus the example in the Vatican ( Amelung, , Sculp, d. Vat. Mus., M. Chiaramonti 588 Google Scholar) is nearly all plaster.
40 Pollux iv. 70 τοῦτο δὲ κατὰ ἔμπαλιν ἔχων ὁ Τυρρηνὸς αὐλὸς ἀντεστραμμένῃ σύριγγι παρεοικώς χαλκὸς μέν ἐστιν ὁ κάλαμος, κάτωθεν δὲ ὑποπνεό μενος φύσαις μὲν ὁ ἐλάττων, ὕδατι δὲ ὁ μείζων ἀναθλιβομένῳ καὶ αὔραν πνεύματος ἀφιέντι. For the instruments at Naples cf. Williams, C. Abdy, Class. Rev 1902, 409 Google Scholar.
41 On the Roman organ v. Baumeister s.v. Flöten. The subject is too wide to be entered upon here.