FIFTH EDITIONwy Music in Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome PRELUDE Americas, as opposed to the musics of many Eastern and other cultures—begins with the ancient civilizations of the Near East and Mediterranean regions, particularly ancient Greece and Rome. Like many ele- ‘ments of European and American culture such as philosophy, literature, visual arts, and government, Western music has tangible connections to these early civilizations, links that go back more than three thousand years. We acknowl- edge these connections when we design our Supreme Court and other civie buildings to look like ancient Greek temples, when we talk about platonic love, and when we build bridges supported by Roman arches. Unlike the surviving statues and architectural ruins of antiquity, how- ever, the musical works themselves have vanished, except for about forty- five Greek songs and hymns (praise songs). But knowledge of Greco-Roman musical heritage was transmitted to modern civilization through written descriptions and through images that survived in painting or sculpture, on vases, buildings, tombs, and other artifacts from the ancient world. This evidence suggests that ancient Greek music has much in common with Western music. Then, as now, music was used in religious ceremonies, as popular enter- tainment, and as accompaniment to drama. Greek music theory—especially its ideas concerning pitch—was passed on to the Romans and became the basis for ‘Western music theory. During the first and second centuries, when the Roman Empire was in its heyday, cultivated people were supposed to be educated in music, just as they were expected to know Greek and Latin. Many of the emper- ors were patrons of music, and one—Nero—even aspired to personal fame as amusician. With the decline of the Roman Empire, the intellectual musical heritage of ancient Greece and Rome was transmitted to the West, if incompletely and imperfectly, through the early Christian Church, specifically in the writings of the Church Fathers and other scholars who studied and preserved this enor- ‘mous body of information about musie and other subjects. As the publie rituals and musical practices of the early Church spread from Jerusalem to Asia Minor and westward into Africa and Europe, they picked up musical elements from. different areas of the Mediterranean region. At first there was little standardi- zation but as the prestige of the Roman emperor declined, the importance of the Ti history of Western musie—that is, the art music of Europe and the 5 CHAPTER OUTLINE Prelude is Music in Ancient Greek Life and Thought 16 Roman Music, 200 B.C.E.~500 C.F. 20 The Early Christian Church: Musical Thought 20 ‘The Early Christian Church: Musical Practice 22 Postlude 25 CHAPTER REPERTORY Epitaph of Seikilos (first century c.£.) 16Extant Greek music Ful\] [Concise 5] Figure 1.1 Atombstele {from Aydin, near Tralles, ‘Asia Minor (now Turkey) Ie bears an epitaph, a kind of scolion, or drinking song, with pitch and rhythmic notation, iden- tified in the first lines as being by Seikitos, probably first century Ct, See the transcription in NAIM x (National Musew Classical and Nea Antiquities, Inventory No. 4892) 16 S 1 Musicin Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome Roman bishop (eventually, the pope) increased, and Christians began to acknow- edge the authority of Rome in matters of faith and doctrine. This Roman domi- nance gradually led to the regulation and standardization of the Christian liturgy, or public worship service, and eventually (in the seventh and eighth, centuries) fostered the organization of a repertory of melodies for singing sacred texts now known as Gregorian chant. Music in Ancient Greek Life and Thought In Greek mythology, music had a divine origin: its inventors and earliest prac- titioners were gods and demigods such as Apollo, Amphion, and Orpheus, and their musie had magical powers. People thought it could heal sickness, purify the body and mind, and work miracles. In the Hebrew Scriptures, similar pow- ers were attributed to music: we may recall the stories of David euring Saul’s madness by playing the harp (1 Sam. 16:14-23) or of the trumpet blasts and shouting that toppled the walls of Jericho (Josh. 6:12~20). Most of the approximately forty-five surviving examples of ancient Greek music come from relatively late periods. Among them is the Epitaph of Seikilos, a brief song from about the first century c-r., inscribed on a tombstone (see Figure 1.1 and its transcription in NAWM 1). From this and similar exam- ples, and from what was written about Greek music, we may deduce a elose correspondence between theory and practice. Greek music was primarily monophonie~that is, melody without harmony or counterpoint—but instru- ments often embellished the melody while a soloist or an ensemble sang it, thus creating heterophony (simultaneous performance of a melody in differ- ent ways by two or more parts). Greek music, moreover, was almost entirely improvised. Its melody and rhythm were intimately linked to the sound and meter of Greek poetry. Despite some similarities between Greek and early Christian musical practice, we have no evidence of any continuity in musical repertory from the earlier culture to the later one. By contrast, Greek philosophy and theory pro- foundly affected musical thought in western Europe in the Middle Ages. From the ancient writers, we know much more about Greek musical thought than about the music itself, Philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle wrote about the nature of musie, its place in the cosmos, its effects on people, and its proper uses in human society. In both the philosophy and the science of music, the Greeks achieved insights and established principles that have sur- vived to this day. Here we will discuss only those that were most characteris tic of, and important for, the later history of Western music. We will also discover that the word music had a much wider meaning to the Greeks than it has today, The close union between music and poetry is one measure of the Greeks’ broad conception of musie. For them, the two were practically synonymous. Plato, for example, held that song (melos) was made up of speech, rhythm, and harmony (which he defined as an agreeable succession of pitches in a melody). “Lyric” poetry meant poetry sung to the lyre; the original Greek word for “trag- edy" incorporates the noun odé, “the art of singing.” Many other words that designated different kinds of poetry, such as hymn, were musical terms. In the Epitaph of Seikilos, the musical rhytlms of each line of the poem follow the text rthythins very closely. And if we knew the correct pronunciation of the ancientMusic in Ancient Greek Lifeand Thought @ 1 A Closer Look Ancient Greek Musi Kithara and Aulos ‘rom earliest times, music played an integral role in religious ceremonies. The lyre was asso- ciated with the cult of Apollo, god of light, proph- ecy, and the arts, especially music and poetry. It ‘was used to accompany dancing, singing, or recita- tion of epic poetry such as Homer's liad and Odys- sey; to provide music for weddings; and to play for recreation, The lyre and its larger counterpart, the kithara (Figure 1.2), had five to seven strings (later as many as eleven) that were plucked. Another instrument, the aulos, was characteristically used in the worship of Dionysus, god of fertility and wine; hence its presence in the drinking scene in Figure 13. A single- or double-reed instrument sometimes incorrectly identified asa flute, it often appears with twin pipes. Itwas also used in theatri- cal performances of the great Greek tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides created for the Dionysian festivals in Athens. These plays have choruses and other musical sections that com- bined or alternated with the sounds of the aulos. From the sixth century .c.t. or even earlier, both the lyre and the aulos were independent solo instruments. In fact, learning to play the lyre was a core element of the education of Athenian youth, both male and female. Contests of kithara and aulos players as well as festivals of instrumental and vocal music hecame increasingly popular. When instrumental music grew more independ- ent, the number of virtuosos multiplied and the music itself turned more complex. Alarmed by this trend, the philosopher Aristotle warned against too much professional training in general ‘music education. A reaction against technical vir~ tuosity and musical complexity set in, and by the beginning of the Christian era Greek music as well as its theory were simplified Figure 1.2 Akitharode singing to his own accompaniment on the kithara. His left hand, which supports the instrument with a sling (not visible) is damping some of the strings, while his right hand has apparently Just swept overall the strings with a plectrum. A professional musician like this one wore a tong, flowing robe and a mantle. The Berlin Painter (2), detail from an Attic red-figured amphora, ca. 490 .c.. (Qfetropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1056 (36.171.38)) Figure 1.3 Woman playing the double aulos in a drinking scene. Usually a single-reed but sometimes a double-reed instrument, the aulos was typically played in pairs. Here the player seems to {finger identical notes on both pipes. Oltos (2), Attic red-figured drinking cup, (rehivo Po . 0 Arqueologica Nacional, Madrid)‘Music and ethos Theory of imitation | ‘Music in education Greek music theory Music and number 18 S 1 Musicin Ancient Gree and Early Christian Rome Greek verses, we might well discover that the contours of the melody match the rising and falling inflections of the words Greek philosophers believed that music could influence ethos, one’s ethical character or way of being and behaving. In the Pythagorean view that the same ‘mathematical laws governing music operate throughout the cosmos in both the visible and invisible world, even the human soul was a composite whose parts were kept in harmony by numerical relationships. Music, then, could penetrate the soul and restore (or shatter) its inner harmony in the same way that harmo- nia determined the orderly motion of the planets. And the legendary musicians of mythology, it was believed, owed their ability to sway human beings as well as nature to this transforming power of music. Closely related to the concept of ethos is Aristotle's theory of imitation, which explains how music affects behavior (see Vignette, page 19). Music, he writes in the Polities (ca. 330 n.©.1.), imitates (that is, represents) the passions or states of the soul, such as gentleness, anger, courage, temperance, and their ‘opposites. Music that imitates a certain passion also arouses that passion in the listener and thereby influences a person's ethos. Habitual listening to music that stirs up ignoble passions, for example, may warp a person's character. whereas the right kind of music tends to fashion a person of good character. Aristotle argues, for example, that those being trained to govern should avoid melodies expressing softness and indolence and should listen instead to melo- dies that imitate courage and similar virtues. Both Plato and Aristotle believed that a public system of education stressing gymnastics to discipline the body and music to discipline the mind could create the “right” kind of person. In his Republic, written about 380 8.c.£., Plato insists that these two educational components must be balanced: too much music makes a man effeminate or neurotic, while too much athletics makes him uncivilized, violent, and ignorant. Plato recommends the use of two modes (tyles of melody) —Dorian and Phrygian—because they foster the passions of temperance and courage. He excludes other modes from his ideal republic and deplores current styles that rely on too many notes, on scales that are too complex, and on the mixing of incompatible genres, rhythms, and instru- ments. He disapproves of changing established musical conventions, saying that lawlessness in art and education inevitably leads to poor manners and anarchy in society. In contrast, Aristotle is less restrictive than Plato about particular modes and rhythms. He holds that music can be used for amusement and intellectual enjoyment as well as for education, But he also believes that music is powerful enough, especially in combination with drama, to arouse certain emotions (like pity and fear) in people and so relieve or purge them of those same emotions cathartically. In limiting the kinds of musie they would allow in the ideal society, Plato and Aristotle showed their appreciation of the great power music held over people’ intellectual and emotional well-being. In later centuries, the Church Fathers also warned regularly against certain kinds of music, Nor is the issue dead. In more recent times, guardians of morality have expressed concern about the kinds of musie (and pictures, lyrics, and performances) to which young people are exposed, and ragtime, jazz, rock, punk, rap, and hip-hop were all initially condemned for these very reasons. Our modern system of music theory and its vocabulary derives largely from ancient Greek musical thought. Greek theorists, from Pythagoras (ca. 580 ca. 500 8.6.8.) to Aristides Quintilianus nine hundred years later, not only dis covered numerical relationships among pitches, but also developed systematic descriptions of the elements of music and the patterns of musical composition.Music in Ancient Greek Lifeand Thought @ 19 For Pythagoras and his followers, numbers were the key to the universe, and music was inseparable from numbers. Rhythms were ordered by numbers, as was poetic meter, because each note or syllable was some multiple of a primary duration. Pythagoras is credited with discovering that the octave, fifth, and fourth, long recognized as consonances, are generated by the simplest possible numeric ratios. For example, when a vibrating string is divided into segments, one twice as long as the other (expressed by the ratio 2:1), an octave results; gayields a fifth; and 4:3, a fourth. The Greek discipline of harmonics, or the study of matters concerning pitch, laid the foundation for modern concepts such as notes, intervals, scales, and modes. These were first explored and defined by Greek writers, including Aris- toxenus around 320 8.c.e. (Harmonic Elements) and Cleonides, who lived some five or six hundred years later. Intervals, such as tones, semitones, and ditones (thirds), were combined into scales, Certain intervals, such asthe fourth, fifth, and octave, were recognized as consonant. The scale’s principal building block was the tetrachord, made up of four notes spanning the interval of a fourth. Theorists recognized three kinds, or genera, of tetrachord: diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic, the last involving intervals smaller than a semitone. Such var- iety allowed for a broad range of expression and many different nuances within melodies, Because musical rhythms and sounds were ordered by numbers, they were thought to exemplify the general concept of harmonia, the unification of parts into an orderly whole. Through this concept—flexible enough to encompass Harmonic Elements Tetrachords ST bs Imitati ‘Music’ importance in ancient Greek culture is evi- things are well stated by those who have studied dent in contemporary books about society, such as this form of education, as they derive the evidence Aristotle's Politics. Aristotle believed that music for their theories from the actual facts of experi- could imitate and thus directly affect character and ence. And the same holds good about the rhythms behavior, and, therefore, should play an important also, for some have a more stable and others a role in education. ‘more emotional ethos, and of the latter some are more vulgar in their emotional effects and others s ‘more liberal, From these considerations therefore [Melodies] contain in themselves imitations of _ itis plain that music has the power of producing a ethoses; and this is manifest, for even in the nature of the harmoniai {modes or styles of music} there are differences, so that people when hearing ‘them are affected differently and have not the same feelings in regard to each of them, but listen to some in a more mournful and restrained state, for instance the so-called Mixolydian, and to oth- ers in a softer state of mind, for instance the ‘relaxed harmoniai, but ina midway state and with the greatest composure to another, as the Dorian alone of the harmoniai seems to act, while the Phrygian makes men divinely suffused; for these certain effect on the ethos of the soul, and ifithas the power to do this, it is clear that the young must be directed to musie and must he educated in it ‘Also education in music is well adapted to the youthful nature; for the young owing to their youth cannot endure anything not sweetened by pleasure, and music is by nature a thing that has a pleasant sweetness. ‘Aine Polis 8.5 trans. Harvis Rackham; in Oliver Strunk td, Source Reading in Muse History, rev. ed. by Leo Trier (WewrYork Norton, 1998), v0.1, p. 29.20% 1 Musicin Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome Rome's decline Church Fathers mathematical proportions or the structure of society as well as musical intervals—Greek writers perceived music as a reflection of the order of the entire universe (see In Context, page 24). Early Christian writers about music transmitted some of these Greek con- cepts to the Middle Ages in their original form. Other concepts were poorly understood and survived only after being adapted to the musical practice of Gregorian chant. Still others were forgotten altogether until their rediscovery by the great Renaissance humanist scholars of the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- turies (ee Chapter 6). Roman Music, 200 B.C.E—500 C.E. ‘The Romans took much of their musical culture from Greece, especially after the Greek islands became a Roman province in 146 8.c.r. As in Greece, lyric poetry was often sung. Music was part of most public ceremonies and played an important role in religious rites, military events, theatrical performances, private entertainment, and education. During the great days of the Roman Empire in the first and second centuries cx., art, architecture, music, philosophy, and other aspects of Greek culture were imported to Rome and other cities. Ancient writers tell of famous virtuo- sos, large choruses and orchestras, and grand musie festivals and competi- tions. But with the economic decline of the empire in the third and fourth centuries, production of music on the large and expensive scale of earlier days ceased, leaving almost no traces on later European developments. By the fifth century, the Roman Empire, which had for atime imposed peace on most of western Europe and on large parts of Africa and Asia as well, declined in wealth and strength. Unable to defend itself against invaders from the north and east, it was too large and weak to continue. The common civiliza~ tion it had fostered throughout Europe splintered into fragments that would take many centuries to regroup and emerge as modern nations (compare maps, pages 33 and 112). The Early Christian Church: Musical Thought Asthe Roman Empire declined, however, the Christian Church gained influ- ence, becoming the main—and, often, the only—unifying force and channel of culture in Europe until the tenth century. With the help of the Church Fathers, highly influential Christian writers and scholars who interpreted the Bible and set down some guiding principles, the Church took over Rome's mission of civilizing and unifying the peoples under its sway. Writing in Greek (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Saint Basil, and Saint John Chrysos- tom in the third and fourth centuries) or in Latin (Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, and Saint Jerome in the fourth and early fifth centuries), they saw in music the power to inspire divine thoughts and to influence, for good or evil, the character of its listeners (a version of the Greek concept of ethos) ‘When the last Roman emperor finally left the throne in 476 o.8. after @ terrible century of wars and invasions, the power of the papacy was already well established.‘The Early Christian Church: Musical Thought @ 21 Philosophers and church leaders of the early Middle Ages disdained the idea Dangers of music. that musie might he enjoyed solely for its play of sounds, something we now take for granted. Without denying that the sound of music could be pleasurable, they held to the Platonic principle that beautiful things exist to remind us of divine and perfect beauty, not to inspire self-centered enjoyment or seduce our senses. ‘This view forms the basis for many of the pronouncements against music made by some Church Fathers (and, later, by some theologians of the Protestant Reformation; see Chapter 8). Others, however, not only defended pagan art, lit- erature, and music, but found themselves so deeply affected by these arts that they actually worried about taking pleasure in listening to musie, even in church, Saint Augustine (354~430 c.£.) expresses this concern ina well-known passage from his Confessions (see Vignette, below). The music theory and philosophy of the ancient world—or whatever could still be found after the collapse of the Roman Empire and the invasions from the north—were gathered, summarized, modified, and transmitted to the West during the early Christian era, most notably by the writers Martianus Capella and Boethius. In his widely read treatise The Marriage of Mercury and Philology (early fifth century), Martianus described the seven liberal arts: grammar, dialectic (ogic), rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and harmonies (music). The first three, the verbal arts, came to be called the trivium (three paths), while the last four, the mathematical disciplines, were called the quadrivium (four paths) by Boethius. Music was part of the Quadrivium because its precise numeric relationships seemed to furnish the key to explaining the universe, the har- mony of the entire cosmos. Boethius (ca. 480-ca. 524), depicted in Figure 1.4, was the most revered authority on music in the Middle Ages: his De institutione musica (The Funda mentals of Music; see A Closer Look, page 22), widely copied and cited for the next thousand years, treats sounding musie as a science of numbers because numerical relationships and proportions determine intervals, consonances, scales, and tuning. Boethius compiled the book from Greek sources, mainly a long treatise by Nicomachus and the first book of Ptolemy's Harmonics. Although medieval readers may not have realized how much Boethius borrowed from other authors (a standard practice at the time), they understood that his state- ments were based on Greek mathematies and music theory. Transmission of Greek music theory Mariianus Capella Boethius this practice. Thus I waver between the peril of pleasure and the benefit of my experience; but Jam inclined, while not maintaining an irrevoca- ble position, to endorse the custom of singing in church so that weaker souls might rise to astate of Augustine is one of the most significant thinkers in the history of Christianity and Western philosophy: His Confessions are often considered the first modern autobiography. In the passage below, he expresses the tension between music's abilities to heighten devotion and to seduce with pleasure. s then I recall the tears that I shed at the song of the Church in the first days of my recov- ered faith, and even now as | am moved not by the song but by the things which are sung—when chanted with fluent voice and completely appro- priate melody —I acknowledge the great benefit of devotion by indulging their ears. Yet when it hap- pens that | am moved more by the song than by what is sung, I confess sinning grievously, and Iwould prefer not to hear the singer at such times. See now my condition! Saint Augustine, Confessions 10:33, trans. James W. MeKinnon, in Oliver Strunk, ed, Souree Readings in Music History, rev. ed. by Leo Treitler (New York: Norton, 1998), vol. 2, p. 22.22S) 1 Musicin Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome Closer Look Bocthius's Fundamentals I the opening chapters of De institutione musica, ‘the most original part of the treatise, Boethius divides music into three types. The first is the inaudible musica mundana (cosmic music), the numerical relations controlling the movement of the planets, the changing of the seasons, and the combination of elements. The second is musica humana, which harmonizes and unifies the body and soul and their parts. Last is musica instru- mentalis, audible music produced by instruments and voices, which exemplifies the same principles of order as the other types of music, especially in the numerical ratios ofits musical intervals. Because music could influence character and morals, Boethius assigned it an important place in the education of the young, both in its own right and san introduction to more advanced philosophical | studies, In placing musica insirumentalis—the art of ‘music as we commonly understand it now—in the third and presumably lowest category, Boethius indicated that, like his predecessors, he saw music primarily asa science, the discipline of examining the diversity of high and low sounds by means of reason and the senses, and only secondarily as a practice. Therefore, the true musician is not the singer or someone who makes up songs by instinct without understanding the nature of the medium, but rather the theorist and critic, who can use rea~ son to make discoveries and judgments about the essence and the art of music. Figure 1.4 An early twelfth-century drawing with fan- ciful portrayals of Boethius and Pythagoras, above, and Plato and Nicomachus, below. Boethius measures out notes on a monochord, a string stretched over a long ‘wooden box with a movable bridge to vary the sound- ing length of the string. Pythagoras strikes bells with hammers. The others were revered as authorities on (ly permission ofthe Syndics of Cambridge University Library England) i t t The Early Christian Church: Musical Practice Greek legacy During their first two or three centuries, Christian communities incorporated, features of Greek music and the music of other cultures bordering on the east- ern Mediterranean Sea into their observances. However, early church leaders saw music as the servant of religion, and they rejected the idea of cultivating music purely for enjoyment. They also disapproved of the forms and types of music connected with great publie spectacles such as festivals, competitions, and dramatic performances, as well as the musie of more intimate socialThe Early Christian Church: Musical Practice @ 23 occasions. It was not that they disliked music itself; rather, they wanted to wean converts away from anything associated with their pagan past. For this reason, the entire tradition of Christian musie for over a thousand years was one of unaccompanied singing. Ghristianity sprang from Jewish roots, and some elements of Christian Judaic heritage observances derive from Jewish traditions, chiefly the chanting of Scripture and the singing of psalms, poems of praise from the Old Testament Book of Psalms. We find parallels between the Jewish temple service and the Christian Mass of later centuries (described in Chapter 2): both centered on sacrifice—in the temple, literally in the form of burnt offerings, and in the Mass, symboli- cally in the form of bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ. Both tradi- Christian observances tions relied on vocal music in worship services, the playing of musical instruments having been banned as a sign of mourning after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 «.z. The Mass also commemorates the Last Supper that, Jesus shared with his disciples and thus imitates the festive Jewish Passover Seder, which was accompanied by psalm-singing. Singing psalms assigned to certain days eventually became a central element in all Christian observances. As the early Church spread from Jerusalem to Asia Minor, North Africa, and Psalms and hymns Europe, it absorbed other musical influences. For example, the monasteries and churches of Syria were important in the development of psalmsinging and the use of strophic devotional songs, orhymns. The singing of devotional songs was the earliest recorded musical activity of Jesus and his followers (Matthew 26:30: Mark 14:26). Both psalms and other types of praise songs traveled from Syria by way of Byzantium (in Asia Minor) to Milan (Italy) and other Western centers, In 395 ¢-z. the political unity of the ancient world was formally divided into Eastern churches Eastern and Western Empires, with capitals at Byzantium and Rome, followed eventually by a theological rift between Eastern and Western churches. ‘The Western church became the Roman Catholic Church and the bishop of Rome was known as the pope. The city of Byzantium (later Constantinople, now Istanbul), at the crossroads between Europe and Asia Minor, remained the capital of the Eastern Empire for more than a thousand years, until its eapture by the Turks in 1453. During much of this time, Byzantium, located on the northern rim of the Mediterranean Sea, flourished as a cultural center that blended elements of Western, African, and Eastern civilizations. From the Byz- antine church, ancestor of the present-day Orthodox churches, missionaries took their Greek rites north to the Slavs, resulting in the establishment of the Russian and other Slavic Orthodox churches. But in the absence of a strong central authority, the various Christian churches of the Eastern Empire devel- oped different liturgies. Byzantine musical practices left their mark on Western chant, particularly in the classification of the repertory into eight modes, or melody types, and in a number of hymns borrowed by the West between the sixth and ninth centuries In the West, the diffusion of the Latin liturgy and its music occurred inthe Western churches fifth and sixth centuries, with the texts remaining more stable than the melo- dies. As in the East, local churches were relatively independent at first. Although they shared a large area of common practice, each Western region probably received the Roman heritage, including the Latin liturgy, in a some- what different form, These original differences, combined with local varia~ tions, eventually produced several distinct Western liturgies and bodies of liturgical music between the fifth and eighth centuries, Peoples who inhabited what is now Italy, France, and Germany developed their own repertory of melo- Chant dialects dies for singing sacred texts in Latin, We call these melodies chants, and the24 Ss 1 Music in Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome as In Context Sounding and Silent Harmony: Music and Astronomy Figure 1.5 Venus Playing a Psaltery, folio 42v of the fourteenth-century astrological treatise Liber astrologiae. ‘Seated on an elaborate throne, the goddess is plucking a psaltery. On the left isa fiddle, on the right acittern. ‘From liber stooge. Courtesy The British Library, Sloane 3983.0.420) yr many thinkers of the ancient world, music was closely connected to astronomy because ‘mathematics dominated the study of both subjects. In fact, Pythagoras (fl. 530 n.c.r.), who recognized the numerical relationships that govern musical intervals, is famous for his discovery of specific mathematical laws such as the familiar Pythago- rean theorem. Ptolemy (second century c.r.), the most systematic of the ancient Greek theorists of music, wasalso the leadingastronomer ofantiquity. Numerical proportions were thought to underlie the systems both of musical intervals and of the heavenly bodies, and certain modes and notes were believed to correspond to particular planets, their distances from each other, and their move- ment in the heavens. Plato gave this idea poetic form in his myth of “the music of the sphere (Republic 10.617), the unheard music produced by the harmonious relationships among the planets as they revolved around the earth, In the Middle Ages, music was defined as the discipline that deals with numbers in their relationship to sounds. Medieval Christian phi- losophers from Saint Augustine (354-430 ¢.t,) to Saint Thomas Aquinas (ea. 1225-1274) believed that a knowledge of proportion and number was essential to understanding God’s universe. Seen as one of the seven liberal arts, music was grouped with the mathematical and speculative sciences in the quadrivium, the path of learning that led to the contemplation of philosophy. In this curriculum, music had a place of honor next to astronomy because, through numerical analo- gies and ratios, it could help explain connections between things perceived by the senses (such as sound), things knowable only through reason and speculation (such as the movement of heav- enly bodies), and things that could never be known because they belonged to the realm of the divine (such as the mysteries of the human soul). So the numerical relationships that regulated both music and astronomy provided the founda~ tion for knowledge about the order and system of the entire universe. Pythagorean and Platonic ideas about cosmic harmony and music of the spheres prevailed during the Renaissance and persist even into the modern era. Along the way, these ideas strongly influenced astronomers, physicians, architects, and poets, including Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton, In addition, astronomy and music had close ties to astrology, which has maintained considerable appeal since antiquity, despite arousing the suspicion of Christian philoso phers and theologians through the ages and the derision of scientists and other rationalists today. Boethius's popular notions about musica mundana and musica humana (see A Closer Look, page 22), which affirmed Greek theories about the relationship between the music of the spheres and music's influence on human character and morals, left the door wide open for astrology in the Middle Ages; then, as now, astrologers interpreted the influence of the heavenly bodies on human affairs. In astrological symbolism, the planets Venus and Mercury hold particular sway over the musical attributes of humans; for this reason, medieval and Renaissance depie- tions of Venus often include musical instru- ments (ee Figure 1.5).Postade @ 2g leo outs abs music festival ca, 320 ca. Ist cont, competition at Aristoxenus, Epitoph of Seiklos Pythian games Harmonic Elements (NAWM 1) Musical Events 80088.