LIBRARY OF

WELLESLEY COLLEGE

PRESENTED BY
Prof, K. H. Horsford

THE MODES
OF

ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC

MONRO

Bonbon

HENRY FROWDE
Oxford University Press Warehouse

Amen Corner,

E.G.

glen? ^orft

MACMILLAN &

CO., 66,

FIFTH AVENUF.

The Modes
of

Ancient Greek Music

BY

D.

B.

MONRO,

M.A.

PROVOST OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD

HONORARY DOCTOR OF LETTERS

IN

THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1894

'fA^'

Opfovb

PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

;^

n.

DEDICATED
TO THE

PROVOST AND FELLOWS

OF TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

^LV0(TVVr]9

VKa

PREFACE
The

present essay

the sequel of an article on

is

Greek music which the author contributed

Smith's

of

edition

Antiquities (London,
article

the

nature

of

noticed,

from

Dictionary of Greek

the

ancient

views

and Roman

Musica).

In

that

the

art.

Modes was

musical

and some reasons w^ere given

the

briefly

for dissenting

now

maintained by Westphal, and

very generally accepted.

subject would have taken

new

controversy regarding

1890-91,

long-standing

to the

full

discussion

of the

up more space than was

then at the author's disposal, and he accordingly pro-

posed

to the

Delegates of the Clarendon Press to treat

the question in a separate form.

them
is

for

He

has

now

to

thank

undertaking the publication of a work which

necessarily addressed to a very limited circle.

The

progress of the work has been more than once

delayed by the accession of materials.

Much of it
was written before the author had the opportunity of
studying two very interesting documents first made
known in the course of last year in the Bulletin de
correspondance helleniqiie and the Philologus^

viz.

the

PREFACE.

so-called Seikelos inscription from Tralles,

ment of the

Orestes of Euripides.

was

surprise

in

and a frag-

But a much greater

The book was nearly ready

November, when the newspapers

store.

for publication last

reported that the

French scholars engaged

vating on the site

of Delphi had found several pieces

of musical notation, in particular a

dating from the third century

b. c.

in exca-

hymn to Apollo
As the known

remains of Greek music were either miserabty

brief,

or so late as hardly to belong to classical antiquity,

was thought best

new

to

it

wait for the publication of the

The French School of Athens must

material.

be congratulated upon the good fortune which

has

attended their enterprise, and also upon the excellent

form

which

in

its

results

have been placed, within a

comparatively short time, at the service of students.

The

writer of these pages,

stood,

had especial reason

will

it

be readily under-

be interested

to

in

the

announcement of a discovery which might give an

entirely
will

new complexion

be for the reader

thesis

of the

to

to the

whole argument.

It

determine whether the main

book has gained or

by the new

lost

evidence.

Mr. Hubert Parry prefaces his suggestive treatment

of

Greek music by some remarks on the

the subject.
'

that

'

It

still

a large portion

seems

possible,'

of what

difficulty of

he observes,

has passed

domain of "well-authenticated fact"

is

into

the

complete mis-

apprehension, as Greek scholars have not time for a

thorough study of music up

to

to the standard required

judge securely of the matters

in

question,

and

PREFACE.

xi

musicians as a rule are not extremely intimate with

Greek
writer,

(The Art of Music,

'

who

To

p. 24).

has no claim to the

title

founded.

If

his

present

of musician, the

scepticism expressed in these words

well

the

interpretation

appears to be
of the

ancient

texts furnishes musicians like Mr. Parry with a some-

what more trustworthy basis

Greek music
attained.

as

an

art,

his

for

their

object

criticism

will

be

of

fully

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introductory.

I.

PAGE

Musical forms called

or rpoVot

apfioviaL

Statement of the question.

2.

The terms Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, &c

The Authorities.

3.

Aristoxenus

Plato Aristotle Heraclides

Ponticus the

Aristotelian Problems

The Early Poets.

4.

Pratinas

Telestes Aristophanes
5.

Plato.

....

The Laches

The

apixovlai in

The

three Hellenic

the Republic
6.

Heraclides Ponticus.

apfioviai

the Phrygian

and Lydian the

Hypo-dorian, &c
7.

The

dpfiovlai in

9
Aristotle

The

Politics.

the Politics
8.

12

The Aristotelian Problems.

Hypo-dorian and Hypo-phrygian

9.

The

dpfiovia of

The

TovoL

14

The Rhetoric.

oratory

15
10.

or keys

Aristoxenus.

16


CONTENTS.

xiv

PAGE

Names of

II.

The

prefix

Hypo

the term tovos

Platonic

19

Plutarch s Dialogue on Music.

12.

The

keys.

modes LydianMixo-lydian and Syntono-

........

the Mixo-lydian
rovo^ and dpixovia

lydian

Modes employed on

13.

Modes on wind-instruments

the keys of Sacadas

octave

on

20

different instruments.

the water-organ

on

the

cithara on the flute

27
Recapitulation.

14,

Equivalence of dpixovia and

The Systems of Greek music.

15.

The musical System

16.

The

28

tovos

30

(ava-Trjixa e/A/xeXe?)

T/ie

scale in Aristotle

17.

standard Octachord System.

and Aristoxenus

31

Earlier Heptachord Scales.

Seven-stringed scales in the Problems

Nicomachus

33

The Perfect System.

18.

Perfect Systems Aristoxenus

enlargement of the scale Timotheus Pronomus

The Greater and Lesser

the

Proslambanomenos the Hyperhypate

19.

Relation

upixoviai

20.

as a

the

35

of System and Key.

..........

The standard System and

The Mese

'

modes

'

the multiplicity of

40

Tonality of the Greek musical scale.

key-note the close on the Hypate

dpxrj in

the Metaphysics
21.

42

The Species of a

The seven Species {a-xvf^aTa,

with the Modes

cUr])

of the

Scale.

Octave connexion
47


CONTENTS.

XV
PAGE

The Scales as

22.

treated by Aristoxenus.

Advance made by Aristoxenus diagrams of the Enharmonic genus reference in Plato's Republic Aristides

Quintihanus

the Philebiis
The Seven

23.

Aristoxenus

....

branches

poetry kinds of

of lyrical

62

ethos

The Ethos of

26.

Ethos depending on pitch

on

the

Genera and Species.

....

the genus

The Musical Notation.

27.

instrumental notes

original

form and date

...

Ptolemy s Scheme of Modes.

29.

30.

Beats in

Scales of the Lyre

on the lyre

on

and

the cithara

81

Ciihara.

....

(viz. rpirai,

TrapvTrurat, \vdia, virepTpona, laa-Tiaiokiala)

32.

78

Nomenclature by Position.

Aristoxenus in the Aristotelian Problems

31.

scales

67

75

Reduction of the Modes to seven nomenclature according

to value and according to position

The

66

Traces of the Species in the Notation.

28.

Westphal's theory

The term

58

The Ethos of Music.

25.

Regions of the voice

The

56

Relation of the Species to the Keys.

names Dorian,

&c. treatment of musical scales

Aristoxenus Species in the different genera

of the
in

Species.

the Introductio Harmonica

24.

Use

48

Tporroi,

83

Remains of Greek Music.

of Dionysius and Mesomedes instrumental

passages in the Anonymus Mr. Ramsay's inscription
melody and accent fragment of the Orestes

The hymns

...

33.

The

six

Modes

Modes of

87

Aristides Quintilianus.

of Plato's Republic

94

CONTENTS.

xvi

PAGE

Credibility

34.

of Aristides Quintilianus.

Date of Aristides genuineness of his scales

35.

Evidence for Scales of different

species.

the Dorian
the
or common species
Mixo-lydian the Phrygian and the Hypo-phrygian
Aristotle on Dorian and Phrygian the dithyramb

The Hypo-dorian

95

loi

importance of genus and key only change in

Ptolemy's time in the direction of the mediaeval Tones

108

36.

Conclusion.

Earl}''

37,

Speech and Song.

accent relation of musical

Epilogue

and
Musical nature of Greek
ordinary utterance agreement of melody and accent in
the Seikelos inscription rhythm of music and of prose
the stress accent {ictus) music influenced by lanthe
words and melody want of harmony
guage

113

non-diatonic scales

Appendix.
Table

I.

Scales of the seven oldest Keys, with the species

of the

Table

II.

same name

The

fifteen

Keys

130"

Music of the 0r^5/^5 of Euripides

Musical part of the Seikelos inscription

The hymns

127

128

recently discovered at Delphi

133
:

the changes of genus

to Apollo - the scale
and key the 'mode' identical with the modern Minor
the other fragments the agreement of melody and

Hymn

accent

Index of passages discussed or referred to

....

134

142

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK

MUSIC.

The modes
us,

I.

Introductory.

of ancient

Greek music are of interest

to

not only as the forms under which the Fine Art of

Music was developed by a people of extraordinary

artistic capability, but also on account of the peculiar
ethical influence ascribed to them by the greatest ancient
It appears from a well-known passage
philosophers.
in the Republic of Plato, as well as from many other
references, that in ancient Greece there were certain
kinds or forms of music, which were known by national
or tribal names Dorian, Ionian, Phrygian, Lydian and

the like

that each of these

was believed

to

be capable,

not only of expressing particular emotions, but of reacting on the sensibility in such a way as to exercise

and specific influence in the formation of

character: and consequently that the choice, among
these varieties, of the musical forms to be admitted into
the education of the state, was a matter of the most
a powerful

serious practical concern.

we

If

on a question of

this kind

are inclined to distrust the imaginative temper of

'

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

Plato

we have

only to turn to the discussion of the same

we

subject in the Politics of Aristotle, and

shall find the

some important

Platonic view criticised in

details,

but

main as being beyond controversy.

The word apiiovta, harmony/ applied to these forms
of music by Plato and Aristotle, means literally fitting
or adjustment,' hence the tuning of a series of notes
on any principle, the formation of a scale or gamut/
Other ancient writers use the word t/ootto?, whence
the Latin modus and our mood or mode,' generally
employed in this sense by English scholars. The word
'mode' is open to the objection that in modern music
it has a meaning which assumes just what it is our
treated in the

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

present business to prove or disprove about the

'

modes

'

Greek music. The word harmony,' however, is

still more misleading, and on the whole it seems best
to abide by the estabHshed use of 'mode' as a transof

'

lation of ap/iouia, trusting that

when
when

the

word has
simply

it

its

context will

the

modern

distinctively

denotes

musical

scale

show

sense,

of

and

some

particular kind.

The rhythm of music is also recognized by both Plato

and Aristotle as an important element in its moral
value.
On this part of the subject, however, we have
much less material for a judgement. Plato goes on to
the rhythms after he has done with the modes, and
lays down the principle that they must not be complex
or varied, but must be the rhythms of a sober and brave
life.
But he confesses that he cannot tell which these
are {nola Sk noiov ^lov fiLiirjfj.aTa ovk )(co Xeyeip), and
leaves the matter for future inquiry ^
*

Plato,

Rgp.

PovXivffofxfda,

p.

rivfs

400
t

dWd

ravra

dveXfvOepias

Kal

/^eV,

^v

vPpecus

b'

kyw, Kal ^uerd AdfxoDVOs

fiavias

TTpinovaai Pdaas, Kal Tivas rots evavriois XeinTeou pvOfiovs.

Kal dWrjs KaKias

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION.

2.

What

Statement of the question.

then are the musical forms to which Plato and

And what

Aristotle ascribe this remarkable efficacy?

is

the source of their influence on

human emotion and

character ?

There are two obvious relations in which the scales

employed in any system of music may stand to each
other.
They may be related as two ke3^s of the same
mode in modern music that is to say, we may have to
do with a scale consisting of a fixed succession of intervals, which may vary in pitch may be transposed,' as
we say, from one pitch or key to another. Or the scales
may differ as the Major mode differs from the Minor,
namely in the order in which the intervals follow each
other.
In modern music we have these two modes,
and each of them may be in any one of twelve keys.
It is evidently possible, also, that a name such as Dorian
or Lydian might denote a particular mode taken in a
:

'

particular

key that

the scale so called should possess

a definite pitch as well as a definite series of intervals.

According

among

to the

theory which appears

now

to pre-

Greek music, these famous

names had a double application. There was a Dorian

vail

mode

students of

mode and
This is the view set forth
by Boeckh in the treatise which may be said to have
laid the foundations of our knowledge of Greek music
{De Metris Pindaric lib. III. cc. vii-xii). It is expounded,
along with much subsidiary speculation, in the successive
volumes which we owe to the fertile pen of Westphal
and it has been adopted in the learned and excellent
as well as a Dorian key, a Phrygian

a Phrygian key, and so on.

Histoire

et

Theorie

de

la

Musique de

B 2

I'Anttquite

of

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK

MUSIC.

M. Gevaert. According to these high authorities the

Greeks had a system of keys {royoi), and also a system
of modes {dp/iouLai), the former being based solely upon
difference of pitch, the latter upon the form or species
(ef^o?) of the octave scale, that is to say, upon the order
of the intervals which compose it.
'

'

The Authorities.

3.

The

sources

of

systematic treatises
to us

knowledge are the various

upon music which have come down
our

from Greek antiquity, together with incidental

in other authors, chiefly poets and philo-

references
sophers.

Of

the systematic or

'

technical

'

writers the

and most important is Aristoxenus, a pupil of

His treatise on Harmonics {apfiovLKri) has
Aristotle.
reached us in a fragmentary condition, but may be
earliest

some extent from

supplemented

to

same

Among

school.

later

works of the

the incidental notices of music

the most considerable are the passages in the Republic

and the Politics already referred to. To these we have

add a few other references in Plato and Aristotle;
a long fragment from the Platonic philosopher Hera-

to

some interesting quotations

a number of detached observations

clides Ponticus, containing

from

earlier poets

collected in the nineteenth section of the Aristotelian

Problems] and one or two notices preserved in lexicographical works, such as the Onomasticon of Pollux.

In these groups of authorities the scholars above

mentioned find the double use which they believe to
have been made of the names Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian
and the rest. In Aristoxenus they recognise that these
names are applied to a series of keys {tovol), which
In Plato and Aristotle they find
differed in pitch only.

THE

'APMONIAI.

same names applied

the

to scales called apiioviai,

and

these scales, they maintain, differed primarily in the

order of their intervals.

that there

shall

was no such double use

endeavour
:

show-

to

that in the earlier

periods of Greek music the scales

whether

use,

in

called TovoL or dp/xoPLaL, differed primarily in pitch

that

down

the statements of ancient authors about them,

to

and including Aristoxenus, agree as closely as there is

reason to expect and that the passages on which the
opposite view is based all of them drawn from com:

paratively late writers

ancient scales at

either

all,

post-classical times of

of musical

art.

do not

relate

to these

emergence

or point to the

in

some new forms or tendencies

propose

in

any case

to adhere as

closely as possible to a chronological treatment of the

evidence which
it

is at

our command, and

hope

probable that the difficulties of the question

to

make

may be

best dealt with on this method.

4.

The

The Early Poets.

earhest of the passages

now

in question

comes

from the poet Pratinas, a contemporary of Aeschylus.

It is quoted by HeracHdes Ponticus, in the course of
a long fragment preserved by Athenaeus (xiv. cc. 19-21,
p.

624 c62.6 a).

/utTyre

The words

are

(jvvtovov 6ta)Ke pjre rav aveifxivav

'ladrt jxovo-av,

akXa rav ixiaaav

apovpav atoAtfe rw

ve(av

/xeAet.

'Follow neither a highly-strung music nor the lowpitched Ionian, but turning over the middle plough-land
be an Aeolian in your melody.' Westphal takes the

with avvrovov as well as with di^eifiivav, and

were two kinds of Ionian, a 'highlythere
infers that

word

'lao-Ti'

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

Strung

But

and a relaxed or low-pitched.

*

'

'

this is not

required by the words, and seems less natural than the

interpretation

which

have given.

All that the passage

composer had
one (or more) of
the choice of at least three scales
which the pitch was high {o-wrouos); another of low
pitch {dvei/jLeuT}), which was called Ionian
and a third,
intermediate between the others, and known as Aeolian.
Later in the same passage we are told that Pratinas
spoke of the 'Aeolian harmony^ (TrpeTret tol irda-Lv
proves

is

that in the time of Pratinas a

:

doLSoXaPpoLKTaLS AloXk dpiiovta).

And

the term

is

also

found, with the epithet Meep-sounding,* in a passage

quoted from the

poet,

hymn

to

Demeter of a contemporary

Lasus of Hermione (Athen.

Adfjiarpa fxikiro)

Kopav re

vpvoiV avdyoav AloXib

With regard
Heraclides

(/.

to
c.)

the

xiv.

KXvfjLivoto

624

e)

aXo^ov MeAt)3otar,

apa jSapvjSpopov appovCav.

Phrygian

quotes an

and

Lydian

scales

interesting passage

from

which their introduction is

was said to have followed
Pelops from Asia Minor to the Peloponnesus

Telestes of Selinus,

in

ascribed to the colony that

irpcoTOL

Tiapa Kparrjpas ^EXXtjvcov kv avXoXs

avvoirabol YliXoiros parpos opeias ^pvyiov aeicrav

vopov

Tol 6' 6^vcf)(avoLs Ti-qKTLhodV \lraXpoLS KpiKov

Avhiov vpvov.

'The comrades of Pelops were the

first

who

beside

the Grecian cups sang with the flute {avXos) the Phrygian

measure of the Great Mother and these again by shrillvoiced notes of the pedis sounded a Lydian hymn.'
The epithet o^vcpoavos is worth notice in connexion with
other evidence of the high pitch of the music known as
;

Lydian.

THE 'APMONIAl
The Lydian mode

is

PLATO.

mentioned by Pindar, Nein.

yXvKa.a koX roh^ avTLKa

^v(f)aiV

Avbia avv app-ovia piXos

The Dorian
at the
11.

is

4.

(f)6pfXLy^

TT(f)L\r}ixivov.

made

the subject of an elaborate jest

expense of Cleon

45

Knights of Aristophanes,

in the

985-996

aWa

Kal to5' eyco ye ^aD/xafco ttJs ioixovaCas

avTov'
T7]v

(f)aal

Acoptcrrt

aW-qv

5'

yap avrbv
{jlovtjv

7rat6ej ot ^vv(f>OLTO}v

ot

evapjJi6TT(r6aL

ovK kOiXeiv

Xa^elv

ovTos ov hvvarai [xaOeiv

kvpav,

r\v

fXT]

AoipoboK-qcrTL.

Plato,

5.

Following the order of time,

the Republic

in

ttjv

aiiayeiv KeXeveiv, wj appLOviav 6 ttols

opyiadivT

passage

dafjio,

Kara rbv KtOapLaTip

(p.

we come

398),

next to the

where Socrates

is

endeavouring to determine the kinds of music to be

for the use of his future 'guardians,' in
accordance with the general principles which are to

admitted

govern their education. First among these principles

is the condemnation of all undue expression of grief.
What modes of music (apfiovcaL)/ he asks, are plaintive
(OprjucoSeL^)?' 'The Mixo-lydian' Glaucon replies, 'and
'

'

the Syntono-lydian, and such-like.'

Socrates excludes.

'

But

again,

These accordingly

drunkenness and

sloth-

fulness are no less forbidden to the guardians; which

of the

o-vfLTTOTLKai)?'

those which

remain
not

are soft and convivial (/xaXa/ca/ re koI

modes

'

know

'

lofiiafi'

says

Glaucon, 'and Lydian,

are called slack (xc^Xapai).'

'Which then

Seemingly Dorian and Phrygian.'

the modes,' says Socrates,

that will imitate the tones

enduring danger or

'

'

do

me one
brave man

but leave

and accents of a

distress, fighting

with constancy


'

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

and also one fitted for the work of
heard by the gods, for the successful
persuasion or exhortation of men, and generally for the
sober enjoyment of ease and prosperity/ Two such
modes, one for Courage and one for Temperance, are
declared by Glaucon to be found in the Dorian and the

against fortune:

peace, for prayer

In the Laches

Phrygian.

(p.

i88) there

reference in which a similar view

is

is

consonant

'

man

harmony,' by which his

reason

to

'a

a passing
Plato

expressed.

speaking of the character of a brave

metaphorically a

is

as being

life

made

is

Dorian harmony,' he adds

playing upon the musical sense of the word

'not

an

Ionian, certainly not a Phrygian or a Lydian, but that

one which only

ovK

is

Se ovSe <t>pv'yL(TTL qvSe AvSlcttl, aXX'

^lacTTL, oLOfiaL

fiSvT]

truly Hellenic' (arex^^oo? Acopia-TL,

The

'EWrjVLKrj kcTTLv apjiovLo).

may be due
Laches

is

opinion.

passages
in his

The

dW

rj

rrep

exclusion of Phrygian

to the fact that the virtue discussed in the

courage; but

it is

agreement with

in

Aristotle's

The absence of Aeolian from both the Platonic

seems to show that it had gone out of use

time (but cp. p.

ii).

point of view from

which Plato professes

to

determine the right modes to be used in his ideal

education appears clearly in the passage of the Republic.

The modes
pitch.
The
is

first

shown by

lydian

is

rejected are those

Syntono-lydian

'

which are high

in

high-strung Lydian

The Mixofrom Aristotle and

The second group which he condemns

its

name

similar, as

other writers.
that of the

or

to

we

be of

this class.

shall see

Thus

it is

on the

profoundly Hellenic principle of choosing the

mean

is

'

slack

'

or low-pitched.

between opposite extremes

Dorian and Phrygian pitch.
principle

was not a new

that

he approves of the

The

one, for

it

application of this

had been already

THE 'APMONIAl
down by

laid

HERACLIDES

Pratinas

PONTICUS.

avvrovov

fMrJTe

8lcok

j9

rav

fi-qTe

dueifievav.

The

three chapters which Aristotle devotes to a dis-

cussion of the use of music in the state (Politics

cc.

5-7),

and

which he reviews and

in

Platonic treatment of the

entirely to bear out

same

subject, will

now

the view

taken.

say

to

be found
also

It is

supported by the commentary of Plutarch,

logue on Music (cc. 15-17), of which we

something

viii.

criticises the

in his dia-

shall

have

Meanwhile, following

hereafter.

the chronological order of our authorities,

we come

next to the fragment of Heraclides Ponticus already

mentioned (Athen.

xiv. p.

624^-626 a).

Heraclides Ponticus.

6.

by Heraclides Ponticus
belonging to
(dpfxauLai),
modes
is that there are three
the three Greek races Dorian, Aeohan, Ionian. The

The

chief doctrine maintained

Phrygian and Lydian,

name

of

mode

KaXelaOaL

rrju

or

'

in his view,

harmony

'

had no right

(ovS'

^pvyiou, KaOdirep ovSe

apjiovCav
Tr]v

to the

(p-qa-l

AvSlov).

Selu

The

three which he recognized had each a marked ethos.

The Dorian

reflected the military traditions

of Sparta.

The

and temper

Aeolian, which Heraclides identified

with the Hypo-dorian of his own time, answered to the

national character of the Thessalians, which was bold

and gay, somewhat overweening and self-indulgent, but

hospitable and chivalrous. Some said that it was called
Hypo-dorian because it was below the Dorian on the
but Heraclides thinks that the name
merely expressed likeness to the Dorian character

avXos or flute;

(Acoptov fxeu avTTju ov vo/XL^eLy,

The

Trpocre/jLCpeprj be ttco?

kKeivrj).

Ionian, again, was harsh and severe, expressive of

rl^

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

lo

the unkindly disposition fostered amid the pride and

Herachdes

material welfare of Miletus.

say that
'

it

harmony/ but a strange aberration

musical scale {rponov Si riva

He

ixovlas).

is

inclined to

was not properly a distinct musical scale or

in the

form of the

Oav/jLaorrov o-^rniaros

goes on to protest against those

not appreciate differences of kind (ray

/car'

ap-

who do

dBos Siacpopd?),

and are guided only by the high or low pitch of the

notes

rcou

(rfj

make

they

(pOSyycoi/

o^vrrjTL

kol ^apvT-qrL)

H3^per-mixolydian, and

so that

another again

that the Hyperabove that.

I do not see/ he adds,
phrygian has a distinct ethos and yet some say that
they have discovered a new mode (appoyia), the Hypo'

'

But a mode ought

phrygian.

or emotional character {etSo?

to

have a

distinct

'^x^lv tjOovs

rj

moral

irdBovs), as

was in use in the time of Simonides

and Pindar, but went out of fashion again.' The
Phrygian and Lydian, as we have seen, were said to
have been brought to the Peloponnesus by the followers

the Locrian, which

of Pelops.

The

tone as well

makes

it

as the substance

of this extract

evident that the opinions of Heraclides on

questions of theoretical music must be accepted with

considerable reserve.

The

notion that the

Phrygian

and Lydian scales were 'barbarous' and opposed to

Hellenic ethos was apparently common enough, though
largely due (as we may gather from several indications)

But no one, except Heraclides,

deny them the name of apixovta. The
division into Dorian, Aeolian and Ionian must

to national prejudice.

goes so

far as to

fthreefold
[also

be arbitrary.

It is to

be observed that Heraclides

obtains his Aeolian by identifying the Aeolian of Pratinas

and other early poets with the mode called Hypo-dorian

in his

own

time.

The

circumstance that Plato mentions

THE '/1PM0/VM/ HERACLIDES PONTICUS.

(il

Hypo- dorian suggests rather

neither Aeolian nor

that

Aeolian had gone out of use before Hypo-dorian came

The conjecture of Boeckh that Ionian was the
in.

same
is

as the later Hypo-phrygian [De Metr. Pind.

open

to a similar objection.

at least as old as Pratinas,

was a novelty

in the

The

Ionian

iii.

8)

mode was

whereas the Hypo-phrygian

time of Heraclides.

The

protest

which Heraclides makes against classifying modes

merely according to their pitch is chiefly valuable as
proving that the modes were as a matter of fact usually
It is far from proving
classified from that point of view.
that there was any other principle which Heraclides
wished

to

for example, as difference in the

adopt such,

intervals employed,

ences of kind

'

(tol^

or in their succession.

Kar

e?5o? Scacpopd?)

His

'differ-

are not necessarily

to be explained from the technical use of d8o9 for the

species of the octave. What he complains of seems
to be the multiplication of modes Hyper-mixolydian,
'

'

Hyper-phrygian,

Hypo-phrygian beyond the

legiti-

{e.g.)
mate requirements of the art. The
high-pitched and plaintive: what more can the
is
Hyper-mixolydian be? The Hypo-phrygian is a new
mode Herachdes denies it a distinctive ethos. His

Mixo-lydian

view seems to be that the number of modes should not

be greater than the number of varieties in temper or
But there is
emotion of which music is capable.
pitch as the
regard
not
did
he
that
nothing to show
chief element, or one of the chief elements, of musical
expression.

The absence

of the

name Hypo-lydian, taken with

the description of Hypo-dorian as

would

'

below the Dorian,*

indicate that the Hypo-dorian of Heraclides

was

not the later mode of that name, but was a semitone

below the Dorian, in the place afterwards occupied by

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

This

the Hypo-lydian.

by Aristoxenus

the writers

of view of

confirmed, as

Aristotle

7.

Of

is

we

shall see,

(p. i8).

the

who

the

Politics.

deal with music from the point

layman,

cultivated

Aristotle

is

un-

doubtedly the most instructive. The chapters in his

Politics which treat of music in its relation to the state
and to morality go much more deeply than Plato does

grounds of the influence which musical forms

Moreover, Aristotle's
exert upon temper and feeling.

into the

scope

is

wider, not being confined to the education of

the young;
faithful

and

treatment

his

is

reflexion of the ordinary

He

sentiment.

begins {PoL

viii.

evidently a

more

Greek notions and

5, p. 1340 a 38) by

agreeing with Plato as to the great importance of the

Musical forms, he holds,
subject for practical politics.
are not
tion,

mere symbols

(o-q/ieTa),

acting through associa-

but are an actual copy or reflex of the forms of

moral temper (er

and this
r)Oa>p)
;

Se
is

roh

ixiXea-iv

avroT?

ka-ri iiLjirjiiara rcov

the ground of the different moral

modes (dpfjLouLai). By
Mixo-j^dia^ we are
the
by
some
moved to a plaintive and depressed temper {SLartOeo-dat
by others, such
68vpTLKcoTp(o^ KOL (rvpeo-TrjKOTco? fxaWov)
as those which are called the relaxed (dueifieuaL), we are
disposed to softness of mind (/^aXa/ccorepco? rrjv Sidvoiav). The Dorian, again, is the only one under whose
influence men are in a middle and settled mood (/zeVwy
while the Phrygian makes
KOL KaOeo-TTjKOTO)? /xaXicTTa)

influence exercised

by

different

of them, especially

'

'

'

them excited

{kvOovcnacrrLKovs).

In a later chapter {Pol.

32), he returns to the subject of the

Phrygian. Socrates, he thinks, ought not to have left
it with the Dorian, especially since he condemned the

viii.

7, p.

1342 a

THE

'/1PA10////1/ ARISTOTLE.

13

which has the same character among

instruments as the Phrygian among modes, both being
The Dorian, as all agree, is
orgiastic and emotional.
the most steadfast (o-rao-i/zcwrarTy), and has most of the
ethos of courage and, as compared with other modes, it
has the character which Aristotle himself regards as the
[avXos),

flute

universal criterion of excellence, viz. that of being the

mean between

Aristotle, therefore,

opposite excesses.

understood Plato to have approved the

the Phrygian as representing the mean
and
Dorian
in respect of pitch, while other modes were either too

certainly

He

high or too low.

the

'

goes on to defend the use of

that they furnish a

relaxed modes on the ground

'

music that

is

still

within the powers of those whose

who therefore are not

voice has failed from age, and

able to sing the high-pitched

modes

[oToi^

roT^ dTreLprjKoa-L

xpouou ov paSiov fSeiu ras crvvTovovs appLOvtas, dXXa

ra9 dueLfiiva? tj (f)V(TL9 vTro^aXXeL toIs: ttjXlkovtols:). In
Slo,

this

passage the meaning of the words avvTovos and

dpLfxij/o? is

especially clear.

In the same discussion (c. 6), Aristotle refers

distinction between music that is ethical, music
to action,

suited

and music that inspires religious excitement

(ra fiev rjOiKa, ra Se npaKTiKa, ra

last of

to the

these kinds serves as a

'

evSovcnacrTLKd).

S'

purification

'

The

(KdOapa-i?).

calmed by giving it vent and the

morbid condition of the ethos is met by music of high
pitch and exceptional colour (rcoi/ dp/iouto^y TrapeK^da-eLs

The

excitement

is

'

'

Kol tS)v fieXcov TO,

avvxova kol napaKexpcocrfieua).

In a different connexion {PoL

dealing with the opinion that
are

ultimately

reducible

to

all

iv.

3,

p.

1290 a

20),

forms of government

two,

viz.

oligarchy and

democracy, Aristotle compares the view of some who

held that there are properly only two musical modes.

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

Dorian and Phrygian, the other scales being mere
Rather, he says, there is in
varieties of these two.
each case a right form, or two right forms at most,

from which the rest are declensions (Trape/c/Sao-ei?), on

one side to 'high-pitched' and imperious oligarchies,
on the other to relaxed and soft forms of popular
'

government

{oXL-yapxtKa?

Sea-TTOTLKcoTepa^,

This

is

ra?

iilv

'

ras

Platonic doctrine of two right

mean between high and

keys, holding the

Kal

o-vi/roucorepa?

aveifikvas Kal /jLaXaKoi? SrjfioTLKas).

8'

obviously the

low.

The Aristotelian Problems.

8.

Some

'

'

modes are
collection which

further notices of the dp/ioviaL or

contained in the so-called Problems,

probably not the work of Aristotle himself, but

can hardly be later than the Aristotelian age. What

is

modes

is

clearly of the period before

the reform of Aristoxenus.

In one place (Probl. xix.

is

said in

of the

it

question is asked why the Hypo-dorian and.

Hypo-phrygian are not used in the chorus of tragedy.
One answer is that the Hypo-phr3^gian has the ethos
of action (rjOo? exet TTpaKTLKou), and that the Hypo-dorian
is the expression of a lofty and unshaken character;

48) the

both

of

these

things

proper

being

to

heroic

the

stage, but not to the chorus,

personages on the

which

represents the average spectator, and takes no part in

the action.
that of

Hence

the music suited to the chorus

emotion venting

description which

the exciting and

contrary
especially

(the

fits

itself in

the other modes, but least of

orgiastic

writer

passive complaint

adds)

Hypo-phrygian.
the

passive

expressed by the Mixo-lydian.

is

On

attitude

all

the
is_

The view

THE 'APMON/Al

ARISTOTLE.

here taken of the Hypo-dorian evidently agrees with

HeracHdes Ponticus [supra^ p. lo).

The relation which Plato assumes between high
pitch and the excitement of passion, and again between
lowness of pitch and 'softness* or self-indulgence
that of

kol

(liaXaKia
xix.

soft

The word

'

the keys of music.

may be found

1403 b

in

the

Problems,
rjpefjLalo?

since a deep note

is

exciting, &c.*

is

The Rhetoric.
times in Aristotle

occurs several

t6vo^

with the sense of

p.

k.t.X.

and calm, and a high note

9.

use

recognized

is

papijs ^66yyo<s /xaXa/co? kol

8e o^vs klutjtlkoSj

ka-TLv,

dpyia),

eirel Se 6 jjikv

49

pitch,'

The
in a

but

is

not applied by him to

nearest approach to such a

passage of the Rhetoric

(iii.

i,

27).

Speaking of the

rise of acting {vTroKpta-L^),

which was

originally the business of the poet himself, but had

grown into a distinct art, capable of theoretical as well

as practical treatment, he observes that a similar art

Such an art would lay
might be formed for oratory.
'

down

rules directing

how

use the voice so as to

it should be loud,

to

suit each variety of feeling, when

when

low,

keys,

when

when

case.
viz.

and

how

to

use the

the pitch of the voice should be high or low

or middle (kuI
fiia-r],

intermediate

sc. (p(oufi)

ohv o^eia Kal ^apeta Kal

and the rhythms, which to use for each

ttco?
;

tol? tovols,

For there are three things which men study,

quantity (i.e. loudness of sound), tune, and

rhythm

(rpia

yap

ea-n nepl

fiiyeOo?, dpfiovia, pvBfios)'

wv

(tkottovctl,

The passage is

showing the value which Aristotle

element of

effect.

And

set

ravra

S'

karl

interesting as

upon

pitch as an

the use of apixovia in reference


THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK

i6

to the pitch of the voice,

Tovos, is especially

and as virtually equivalent

worthy of

to

note.

Aristoxenus,

ID.

Our

MUSIC.

next source of information

is

the technical writer

Aristoxenus, a contemporary and pupil of Aristotle.

Of his many works on

the subject of music three books

only have survived, bearing the

title

apfioviKa o-TOLx^Ta

^.

In the treatment adopted by Aristoxenus the chapter

on keys follows the chapter on systems (o-va-rrjfiaTa).

By a ava-TTjfia he means a scale consisting of a certain
'

'

succession of intervals
notes

whose relative

may vary

pitch

in

other words, a series of

determined.

is

in absolute pitch,

and the

simply the different degrees of pitch

system

is

taken (tov9 tovovs

fieX(p8LTaL).

given

it

is

When

k(f)

Siv

at

Such

a system

touol or ke3^s are

which a particular

ridi/ieya

the system and the

ta

o-vcrrrj/iaTa

key are both

evident that the whole series of notes

is

determined.

Aristoxenus

is

Greek music.
to

the chief authority on the

In this department he

is

keys of

considered

have done for Greece what Bach's Wohltemperirtes

Clavier did for modern Europe.

It is true that the
scheme of keys which later writers ascribe to him
^

It is

foreign to our purpose to discuss the critical problems presented by

Of the three extant books the first is obviously

a distinct treatise, and should probably be entitled irepl apxfiiv. The other
two books will then bear the old title ap/xoviKo. aroixfia. They deal with the
the text of Aristoxenus.

same

subjects, for the

most

part, as the first

book, and in the same order,

a species of repetition of which there are well-known instances in the

Aristotelian writings.
The conclusion is abrupt, and some important topics

seems an exaggeration, however, to describe Wie Harmonics

mere collection of excerpts, which is the view taken by
Marquard {Die harmonischen Fragniente des Aristoxenus, pp. 359-393). See
Westphals Hamtonik iind Melopoie der Qriechen (p. 41, ed. 1863), and the
reply to Marquard in his Anstoxenus von Tarentipp. 165-172).
are omitted.

It

of Aristoxenus as a

THE KEYS.
is

17

not given in the Harmonics which

we have

but

we

some respects more

valuable,

namely, a vivid account of the state of things

in respect

find

there what

is

in

of tonality which he observed in the music of his time.

'No

one,' says

Aristoxenus

(p.

us a word about the keys, either

arrived at (rlva rpoirov

view

number

their

is

XrjTrriou),

to

37 Meib.), 'has told

how they are to be

or from what point of

be determined.

Musicians

much as
month. The

the different

assign the place of the keys very

cities

regulate the days of the

for example, will

be found counting a day as the tenth

of the month, while with the Athenians

and in some other place the eighth.

on music

{apiiovLKot)

lowest key, the

Corinthians,

it

is

Some

the

fifth,

authorities

say that the Hypo-dorian

is

the

Mixo-lydian a semitone higher, the

Dorian again a semitone higher, the Phr3^gian a tone

above the Dorian, and similarly the Lydian a tone above
Others add the Hypo-phr3^gian flute
the Phrygian.
[i.e. the scale of the flute so called] at the lower end
of the Hst.

Others, again, looking to the holes of the

flute {irpos rrjy rcou avXcou Tpv-n-qa-Lv pXeirovres), separate

the three lowest keys, viz. the Hypo-phrygian,

Hypo-

and Dorian, by the interval of three-quarters of

Sieo-^a-Lv), but the Phrygian from the Dorian
{rpLo-l
a tone
by a tone, the Lydian from the Phrygian again by
three-quarters of a tone, and the Mixo-lydian from the

dorian,

Lydian by a
the interval

But as to what determines

between one key and another they have
like interval.

told us nothing.'

be seen that (with one marked exception) there

was agreement about the order of the keys in respect
of pitch, and that some at least had reduced the intervals
to the succession of tones and semitones which characThe exception is the Mixoterises the diatonic scale.
It will

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

i8

which some

lydian,

ranked immediately below the

Westphal

Dorian, others above the Lydian.

some words

of

this

attributes

strange discrepancy to the accidental displacing

this

may

be,

in the

of Aristoxenus

However

^.

plain that in the time of Aristoxenus

is

it

MSS.

progress had been made towards the

scheme of keys which was afterwards connected with
This may be represented by the following
his name.
table, in which for the sake of comparison the later
Hypo-lydian and Hypo-dorian are added in brackets
considerable

Mixo-lydian

semitone

tone

<

tone

<

Lydian
I

Phrygian

Dorian

semitone

tone

tone

<

Hypo-dorian [Hypo-lydian]

Hypo-phrygian

[Hypo-dorian]

Harm.

fiiv

p. 37, 19 Meib. ovtoj yap

rdv 'TTToSwpiov rwv

Si rfixiTOvio) Tov AupioVf tov Se Acupiov rovo) rbv

rbv Avbtov Tp(v

transfer the

Toi/a;.

words

rwv

ol fxev

dpfioviKuiv keyovffi

tovqjv, rjixiroviw e o^vrcpov

^pvyiov

Westphal {Harmonik

TjfxiTovio).

^apirarov

tovtov rov Mi^ oXvSiov, tovtov

ojaavTOJs de Kal tov ^pvyiov

unci Melopot'e, p.

165)

would

Mt^oXvSiov to the end of the sentence, and insert

The

6^vTpov before tov Awpiov.

necessity for this insertion

shows

that

Westphal's transposition is not in itself an easy one. The only reason for it
is the difficulty of supposing that there could have been so great a difference
As to this, however, see p. 23 (note).
in the pitch of the Mixo-lydian scale.
The words tov 'Tno<ppvyiov av\6v have also been condemned by Westphal
(^Aristoxenus, p. 453).

Twv avXSjv

Trpbs TTjv

iTOVTfs

as

ovSev

He

points out the curious contradiction

Tpvir-qaiv l3\iiTcvT(s

(Ip-qKacTiv.

Westphal suggests,

it

But

was

and the complaint

if irpbs tt]v

PXeTrovres

between

t< 5' lo'Tt Trpos b /3A.6-

was

a marginal gloss,

doubtless a gloss on avXov, and

if so,

avXov

is

presumably sound. Since the avXos was especially a Phrygian instrument,

and regularly associated with the Phrygian mode (as we know from Aristotle,
see p. 13% nothing is more probable than that there was a variety of flute
called Hypo-phrygian, because tuned so as to yield the Hypo-phrygian key,
either by itself or as a modulation from the Phrygian.

THE KEYS.

19

In this scheme the important feature

that

which
marks it as an advance on the others referred to by
Aristoxenus is the conformity which it exhibits with

The

the diatonic scale.

result

of this conformity

is

that the keys stand in a certain relation to each other.

Taking any two, we

to them.

So

arbitrary, or

find that certain notes are

common

long as the intervals of pitch were quite

were

practically irrational quantities, such

as three-quarters of a tone, no such relation could exist.

It

now became possible to pass from one key to

another,

employ modulation (ixeraPoXri) as a source of

This new system had evidently made
effect.
some progress when Aristoxenus wrote, though it was
not perfected, and had not passed into general use.

i.e.

to

musical

II.

Names

of Keys

{vtto-).

point that deserves special notice at this place

is

the use of the prefix Hypo- {vtto-) in the names of keys.

In the final Aristoxenean system Hypo- implies that
a key is lower by the interval of a Fourth than the key
This convention served
to whose name it is prefixed.
to bring out the special relation between the two keys,
viz. to

show

that they are related (to use

modern

lan-

guage) as the keys of a tonic and dominant.

in question there is only one
In the

scheme of keys now

Hypophrygian, the most recently introduced. It must have

been on the analogy of this name that the term Hypodorian was shifted from the key immediately below the
Dorian to the new key a Fourth below it, and that
the new term Hypo-lydian was given to the old Hypoinstance of this use

of Hypo-, namely in the

dorian in accordance with

Lydian.

its

similar relation to the

In the time of Aristoxenus, then, this technical

c 2

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK

20
\

MUSIC.

sense of Hypo- had not yet been established, but was

coming

into use.

employment
denote a key

led naturally to the

It

of Hyper- in the inverse sense, viz. to

a Fourth higher (the key of the sub-dominant). By

further steps, of which there is no record, the Greek

musicians arrived at the idea of a key for every semitone in the octave
of thirteen

keys,

and thus was formed the system

to Aristoxenus by later

ascribed

(See the scheme

writers.

at

the end of this book,

Table II.) Whether in fact it was entirely his work

may be doubted. In any case he had formed a clear
conception the want of which he noted in his predecessors of the principles on which a theoretically
complete scheme of keys should be constructed.
In the discussions to which we have been referring,

Aristoxenus invariably employs the word rovos

in the

The word apyiovia in his writings is

Enharmonic genus (ykvos kvapfiovLov), the
genus of music which made use of the Enharmonic
sense of 'key.'
equivalent to

'

'

Thus he never speaks, as Plato

Dorian (or Phrygian or Lydian)
but only of the tovol so named. There is

diesis or quarter-tone.

and Aristotle
apiiovta^

do, of the

indeed one passage in which certain octave scales are

said

by Aristoxenus

this,

as will be shown,

wise explained (see

12.

to

have been called

is

a use which

apiiovLai

is to

but

be other-

p. 54).

Plutarch's Dialogue

ojt

Music.

After the time of Aristoxenus the technical writers

on music make Httle or no use of the term apfiovta.

Their word for key is tovo^ and the octachord scales
which are distinguished by the succession of their
'

intervals are called

'

'

species of the octave

'

{dS-q rod Sia

'APMONIA and TONOI.

The modes

naa-oov).

were

21

of the classical period, however,

antiquarian and philosophic

and authors who treated them from this point
of view naturally kept up the old designation. A good
specimen of the writings of this class has survived in
the dialogus de musicd of Plutarch.
Like most productions of the time, it is mainly a compilation from
still

of

objects

interest,

works now lost. Much of it comes from Arisand there is therefore a special fitness in
dealing with it in this place, by way of supplement
to the arguments drawn directly from the Aristoxenean
earlier

toxenus,

Harmonics.

The

following

are

the chief

passages

bearing on the subject of our enquiry

(i)

In

interest

cc.

15-17

on

the

we

find

commentary of some

treatment

Platonic

of the

modes.

Plutarch is dwelhng on the superiority of the older

and simpler music, and appeals to the opinion of Plato.
The Lydian mode {apfjLovLo) Plato objects to because
Indeed it
it is high (o^era) and suited to lamentation.
is said to have been originally devised for that purpose
for Aristoxenus tells us, in his first book on Music, that
Olympus first employed the Lydian mode on the flute
*

in a dirge {knLKriSeLov avXrja-aL AvSicttl)

over the Python.

But some say that Melanippides began this kind of

music.

And

Pindar

paeans says that the Lydian

in his

by Anthippus in an
But
others say that
ode on the marriage of Niobe.
Torrhebus first used that mode, as Dionysius the
Iambus relates.*
'The Mixo-lydian, too, is pathetic and suitable to

mode

(apfjLouia)

tragedy.

was

And

first

Aristoxenus

the inventor of the

the tragic poets

brought

says that

Sappho was

Mixo-lydian, and that from her

learned

the Dorian, since that

in

it.

mode

They combined

it

with

gives grandeur and dignity,

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

22

and the other pathos, and these are the two elements
of tragedy. But in his Historical Treacise on Music
{[(TTopLKa rfj9 dpfjLOPLa? vTTo/iurj/iaTa) he says that Pytho-

was

clides the flute-player

the discoverer of

And

it.

Lamprocles the Athenian, perceiving

that in it the disjunctive tone (^ia^eu^i?) is not where it
was generally supposed to be, but is at the upper
Lysis says that

end of the scale, made the form of it to be that of the

octave from Paramese to Hypate Hypaton {tolovtov
avrrjs dnepyda-aa-OaL rb crxVH'^ ^^^^

Moreover,

vTrdrrjv vnarSdv).

Lydian

it

^^^

irapafiia-qs eiri

said that the relaxed

is

which

AvSlo-tl),

{kTraveLpLiv-qv

'^^

is

the opposite

of the Mixo-lydian, being similar to the Ionian {wapa7rXr)(TLav ovcrav rfj 'IdSi), was invented by Damon the
Athenian.'

'These modes then, the

one

plaintive,

the other

relaxed {kKXeXviievq)^ Plato properly rejected, and chose

the Dorian, as befitting warlike and temperate men.'

In this passage the

XvSLo-Ti) of

Plato

is

'

high-pitched Lydian

called simply Lydian.

every reason to suppose that

it

is

{^wrovo-

'

There

mode

the

Lydian by Aristotle and Heraclides Ponticus ^

so,

is

of

it

An

'lojviKrjf

(x^Xapd) by

slack

called

AvSiajL

inaucLfjLiur]

is

to

him Plutarch's

be identified with the

objection to this identification has been based on the

Onom.

iv.

78

ical

later

words

of

dpfiovia fieu avArjTiKTj Acupiari, ^pvyiari, Av8ios koi

Kal avvTOVos Av^iarl 'qv''Av6iviros k^fvpe.

or at least of the latter part of

in Plutarch.

called
If this

follows almost of necessity that the Lydian

Plato,

Pollux,

is

is

it,

The agreement with

The source

of this statement,

evidently the same as that of the notice

Plato's

list

makes

it

probable that this

source was some comment on the passage in the Republic. If so, it can
hardly be doubted that Pollux gives the original terms, the Platonic Avhiari
and 'XvvTovoXvbiaTi, and consequently that the later Lydian is not to be found
in his AuStoj
is

no

(which is a relaxed mode), but in his ovvtovos Avhiari. There

supposing that the mode was called ovvtovos merely in

difficulty in

contrast to the other.

'

"APMONIA and TONOI,

The

Hypo-lydian.

for (as

difficulty:

Hypo-lydian
Aristoxenus

not

is

the

however,

point,

we have
the

in

key

seen,
list

which

Hypo-lydian being known to

23

is

p.

name

the

18),

keys given by

of

was
him as

not free from

ultimately

called

the Hypo-dorian.

however, the confusion in the nomenclature of the

If,

keys was as great as Aristoxenus himself describes, such

a contradiction as this cannot be taken to prove much \

The

statement that the

relaxed Lydian

'

was the

opposite of the Mixo-lydian, and similar to the Ionian,

has given rise to

we

much

naturally ask, can a

'opposite'
think that

language.

or

speculation.

key or a mode be

'similar'

to

is

evidently a

The

relaxed

it

Mixo-lydian because

In what sense,

it is

another?

said to

be

venture

to

mere paraphrase of
opposed
is

Lydian
at the

Plato's

the

to

other end of the scale

and it is similar to the Ionian because the

two are classed together (as xaXapai) by Plato.
in pitch;

The

Mixo-lydian,

according

to

was

Aristoxenus,

employed by the tragic poets in close union with the

Dorian mode [Xa^ovras o-v^^v^at rfj AcopLo-Ti). The
fact that the Mixo-lydian was just a Fourth higher than
the Dorian must have made the transition from the one
As Aristo the other a natural and melodious one.
toxenus suggested, it would be especially used to
the passage from grandeur and dignity to pathos

mark
which

is

the chief characteristic of tragedy

(17

fJLeu

ro

slack
1 It seems not impossible that this difficulty with regard
to the
Lydian and Hypo-lydian may be connected with the contradiction in the
statement of Aristoxenus about the schemes of keys in his time p. i8).
According to that account, if the text is sound, some musicians placed the
Mixo-lydian a semitone below the Dorian the Hypo-dorian being again
a semitone lower. In this scheme, then, the Mixo-lydian held the place
The conjecture may perhaps be hazarded, that
of the later Hypo-lydian.
this lower Mixo-lydian somehow represents Plato's 'slack Lydian,' and
'

'

eventually passed into the Hypo-lydian.

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

24

fieyaXoTT penes kol d^LCOfjLaTLKov aTroSLScocTLP,

TLKou,

/le/jLLKTai

Se

Slcc

noticing that this relation obtained in the

who

musicians
to the

the form of the flute

It

Se to TraOr]It

worth

is

scheme of the

did not arrange the keys according

diatonic scale, but in

PXeirovTes).

rj

Tpay(p8ia).

tovtcou

may

(0/

some way suggested by

rrpb? ttjv tS)v avXcou rpvTrrjcnu

therefore

been established before the

had been settled.

be supposed

to

relative pitch of other

have
keys

So far the passage of Plutarch goes to confirm the

view of the Platonic modes according to which they
were distinguished chiefly, if not wholly, by difference
of pitch. We come now, however, to a statement
which apparently tends in the opposite direction, viz.
that a certain Lamprocles of Athens noticed that in
the Mixo-lydian

was

at

mode

the upper

the Disjunctive

end

of the scale

Tone
{eirt

{Sid^ev^Ls)

rb 6^v),

and

reformed the scale accordingly. This must refer to

an octave scale of the form bed efg a h, consisting of
the two tetrachords h-e and e-a, and the tone a-h.

Such an octave may or may not be

key:

it is

in the Mixo-lydian

certainly of the Mixo-lydian species (p. 57).

In estimating the value of this piece of evidence

necessary to remark, in the

first place,

it

is

that the authority

no longer that of Aristoxenus, but of a certain Lysis,

whom nothing else seems to be known. That he
was later than Aristoxenus is made probable by his
is

of

way

of

describing the

Mixo-lydian

octave,

viz.

by

reference to the notes in the Perfect System by which

it

is

exemplified (Hypate Hypaton to Paramese).

Aristoxenus, as

we

shall

see

octave (from Hypate to Nete)

(p.

31),

is

comparatively early,

In

primitive

the only scale the

is

But even if
worth observing

notes of which are mentioned by name.

the notice

the

it

is

'APMONIA AND TONOI.

the

that

Mixo-lydian

Lam-

ascribed to

thus

scale

25

procles consists of two tetrachords of the normal type,

viz.

with the semitone or ttvkvov at the lower end of

the scale (Diatonic

difference

is

that

efg

a,

primitive standard octave

disjunct {e-a b-e).

Enharmonic
(e

e)

the

This, however,

provided for by the tetrachord

is

e"^

f a). The

they are conjunct, whereas

is

the

in

tetrachords are

a variety which

Synemmenon

in the

Perfect System, and which may have been allowed

In any
in the less complete scales of earlier times.

case the existence of a scale of this particular form

does not prove that the octaves of other species were

recognised in the same way.

(2)

In another passage

(c.

6)

ancient music of the cithara that

by

perfect simplicity.

It

change the mode

for in the
rhythm

to

called

'Nomes'

proper pitch

(r?)^^

Plutarch says of the

it

was characterised

was not allowed, he

(fieracpepeLi^ tcc?

primitive

(i/6/xoi)

lyrical

olKeiav rdo-Lv).

the

compositions

preserved in

they

tells us,

apixovlas) or

each

Here the word

its

rdcns

by dpfiouLai Plutarch (or the older author

was quoting) meant particular keys. This
he
whom
from
is fully confirmed by the use of 761^09 in a passage a
little further on (c. 8), where Plutarch gives an account
of an innovation in this matter made by Sacadas of

indicates that

There being three keys (touol) in

590 B. c).
the time of Polymnastus and Sacadas, viz. the Dorian,
Phrygian and Lydian, it is said that Sacadas composed
a strophe in each of these keys, and taught the chorus

Argos

(fl.

'

to sing them, the first in the Dorian, the

second

in the

Phrygian, and the third in the Lydian key: and this

composition was called the "three-part Nome" {1^6/109
rpLfiep^s)

phal's

on account of the change of

Harmonik vmd Melopoie

key.'

In West-

(ed. 1863, p. 76, cp. p. 62)

'

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

26

he explains

this notice of the ancient

modes

observing that the word rovos

Tonarte7i)y

is

improperly for what the technical writers

Tov

call

efi^oy

In a somewhat similar passage of the same

work

Slol Traactiv.

(3)

19) Plutarch is

(c.

{apfxovLaL,

there used

contending that the fewness of the

notes in the scales used by the early musicians did not

from ignorance, but was characteristic of their

and necessary to its peculiar ethos. Among other
points he notices that the tetrachord Hypaton was not
used in Dorian music {h rols AcopLois), and this, he says,
was not because they did not know of that tetrachord
for they used it in other keys (tSvol)
but they left it
out in the Dorian key for the sake of preserving its
ethos, the beauty of which they valued {Sia Sr) rrjv rod
arise

art,

r]Sov9

(pvXaKr]v

dcpijpovu

Here

tov AcopLov touov,

Westphal

TLjxodVTes

KaXov

avTov).

p. 476)

has to take tovos to

(in his

language Tonart^ not Transpositionsscald).

in the
it

is

view of those

again

who

{Aristoxenus,

apjiovia or

'

mode
For

distinguish app.ovia from tovo's

upon which the ethos of music dePlutarch himself had just been saying (in c. 17)

the appLovta

pends.

that Plato preferred the

its

mean

to

Dorian apiiovia on account of

grave and elevated character

ttoXv to

{kirel

kcTTLv kv TTJ AcopLo-TL, TavTTji^ 7rpovTL/jLTj(Tu).

On

<re/j,u6u

the Other

hand the usual sense of tSuo? is supported by the consideration that the want of the tetrachord Hypaton
would affect the pitch of the scale rather than the succession of
It

its

seems

intervals.

to follow

from a comparison of these three

passages that Plutarch was not aware of any difference

of

meaning between the words

any

has been supposed to

topo?

and

apfiovla,

or

Greek music such as

be conveyed by these words.

distinction in the scales of

'aphonia and tonoi.

Another synonym of

rbvos

6)

which becomes very

music is the word

common

in

TpQTTos

In the course of the passage of Plutarch

^.

the later writers on

already referred to {De Mus.

c.

17)

is

it

applied to the

Dorian mode, which Plutarch has just called apuovla.

As rpoTTos is always used in the later writers of the
keys (touol) of Aristoxenus, this may be added to the
places in which app^ovia has the

13.

In

the

Modes employed on

anonymous

Bellermann^

(c.

28),

different Instruments.

treatise

we

same meaning.

find

on music published by
the following

statement

regarding the use of the modes or keys in the scales of

different instruments
*

The Phrygian mode

{apuovia) has the

first

place

on wind-instruments: witness the first discoverers

Marsyas, Hyagnis, Olympus who were Phrygians.
Players on the water-organ (vSpavXai) use only six

modes

Hyper-lydian,

viz.

(tpottol),

Ly-

Hyper-ionian,

Phrygian, Hypo-lydian, Hypo-phrygian. Players

on the cithara tune their instrument to these four,

dian,

Hyper-ionian, Lydian, Hypo-lydian, Ionian. FIute.-_

players employ seven, viz. Hyper-aeolian, Hyper-ionian,

viz.

Hypo-lydian, Lydian, Phrygian, Ionian, Hypo-phrygian.

Musicians who concern themselves with orchestic
(choral music) use

seven, viz. Hyper-dorian, Lydian,

:

Aristides Quintilianus uses rpoiros as the regular word for key ' e.g.
So Alypius
in p. 136 1/ Trj Twv TpoTTQJv, ovs KOI Tovovs eKa\ecafj.ev, tKOiad.
ovras trevrfKai(p. 2 Meib.) SicXeiv eh tovs Xeyofievovs rpoirovs re KOi tovovs,
^

'

SeKa rov

apiO^jLov.

Also Bacchius in his catechism

rpoirovs aSovres rivas qdovci

(p.

AvSioVy ^pvyiov, Awpiov.

12 Meib.)
ol

01

rovs rpeis

5e Toiis kirra Tivas

Mi^oXvdiov, AvSiov, ^pvyiov, Acupiov, "XiroKvSiov, 'Tirocppvyiov, 'TiroSdipiov, tovtqjv

irows kariv o^vrepos;

iKaarov rpoTtov
2

rj

6 Mi^oXvdios, ic.t.X.

tovov.

Anonymi scriptio

Cp. Dionys. Hal.

And Gaudentius
De Comp.

de Musica (Berlin, 1841).

Verb.

c.

(p.

19.

ai,

1.

2) fcaO'

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

28

Phrygian, Dorian, Hypo-lydian, Hypo-phrygian, Hypodorian.

In this passage

it

is

evident that

we have

to

do with

keys of the scheme attributed to Aristoxenus, including

the two (Hyper-aeohan and Hyper-lydian) which

were

The number
said to have been added after his time.
of scales mentioned is sufficient to prove that the reference is not to the seven species of the octave. Yet
the word apixovia is used of these keys, and with it,
seemingly as an equivalent, the word

rpoTro?.

78) gives a somewhat different

Kal apixovla
account of the modes used on the flute

Pollux {07tom.

iv.

fikv

avXr)TLKr]

AcopLdTL,

(TvvTovos AvSl(ttI

fjv

<t>pvyLcrTL,

AvSlos

"kvOLTTTTos e^evpe.

Kal

But

'Icdvlkyi,

Kal

this statement,

as has been already pointed out (p. 22),

is

a piece of

and therefore takes no notice of the

more recent keys, as Hyper-aeolian and Hyper-ionian,
or even Hypo-phrygian (unless that is the Ionian of
The absence of Dorian from the list given
Pollux).
by the Anonymus is curious but it seems that at that
time it was equally unknown to the cithara and the
antiquarian learning,

There is therefore no reason to think

two lists are framed with reference to different
That is to say, apfjLovia in Pollux has the same
things.
meaning as apfxovia in the Anonymus, and is equivalent

water-organ.
that the

to TOVOS-

14.

Recapitulation

ap^iovta

and

tSuo?.

The inquiry has now reached a stage at which we

may stop to consider what result has been reached,
especially in regard to the

words

dpfjLouLa

and

r6i^o9

question whether the two

denote two sets of musical

forms, or are merely two different

names

for the

same

"APMONIA AND TONOI,

thing.

by

The

29

appears to be supported

latter alternative

several considerations.

1.

various passages, especially in Plato and

From

Aristotle,

has been shown that the modes anciently

it

called apixovtaL differed in pitch,

in pitch

was regarded

who

The

list

that this difference

as the chief source of the peculiar

modes.

ethical character of the

2.

and

of apixovtaL as gathered from the writers

treat of them, viz. Plato, Aristotle,

Ponticus,

substantially the

is

same

and Heraclides

as the hst of tovol

and moreover, there

between the two lists which

described by Aristoxenus

(p. 18)

an agreement in detail
cannot be purely accidental. Thus Heraclides says
that certain people had found out a new apixovla, the

is

Hypo-phrygian

and Aristoxenus speaks of the Hypo-

phrygian rovos as a comparatively

new

one.

Again, the

account which Aristoxenus gives of the Hypo-dorian

Tovos as a key immediately below the Dorian agrees
with what Heraclides says of the Hypo-dorian apixovla,

and also with the mention of Hypo-dorian and Hypophrygian (but

Problems.
list

not Hypo-lydian) in

Once more,

oirovoi in Aristoxenus

the rule:

is

name

since the

the

Aristotelian

the absence of Ionian from the

an exception which proves

of the

Ionian apiiovia

similarly absent from Aristotle.

3. The usage of the words apiiovta and tovos

is

is

never

such as to suggest that they refer to different things.

In the earlier writers, down to and including Aristotle,
In Aristoxenus and his
apjxovta is used, never tovos.
school

we

find tovos,

not dpfiovia.

The few

and

in later writers Tponos, but

writers (such as Plutarch)

who

use both TOVOS and apjxovla do not observe any consistent

Those who (like Westphal)
distinction between them.
believe that

there

was a

distinction,

are

obliged to

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK

30

admit that apjxovta

is

MUSIC.

occasionally used for rovos and

conversely.

names such as Dorian, Phrygian,

were applied to two sets of things
Lydian and
so distinct from each other, and at the same time so
important in the practice of music, as what we now call
modes and keys, it is incredible that there should be
no trace of the double usage. Yet our authors show no
sense even of possible ambiguity. Indeed, they seem
to prefer, in referring to modes or keys, to use the
If a series of

4.

the rest

adverbial forms ScopiaTi,

TO, Soopia, TO, (ppvyLu,

&c.,

whether mode or

'

'

'

15.

Modes

where

or the neuter

&c.,

there

is

nothing to

show

key,' apjiovia or rovosy is intended.

The Systems of Greek Mttsic.

The arguments
national

(ppvyLcrrt,

in favour of identifying the primitive

with the tovol or keys

{apiiovtaL)

may

be reinforced by some considerations drawn from the

history and use of another ancient term, namely
(TV(TTriiia.

A System

{(Tvarrj/ia) is

defined by the

writers as a group or complex

v(ov

rj

Greek

of intervals (to

eVo9 Siaa-T-qfidrcov crvyKeifjievoi/ Ps. EucL).

any three or more notes whose

to say,

technical
e/c

nXeio-

That

is

relative pitch

may be regarded

as forming a particular
such as might be used in
the same melody, they are said to form a musical

is

fixed

System.

System
theory

it

If the notes are

(a-va-TrjfjLa

is

nised in

The

As

a matter of abstract

evident that there are very

tions of intervals

System.

e/x/xeXly).

which

in

this

many combina-

sense form a musical

however, the variety of systems recogthe theory of Greek music was strictly limited.
In

fact,

notion of a small

number

of scales, of a par-

THE SYSTEMS.
ticular

31

compass, available for the use of the musician,

by the ancient lyre, with its

number
of strings. The word
conventional
and
fixed
for string (x^p^) came to be used with the general
sense of a note of music and in this way the several
naturally suggested

was

names

strings of the lyre gave their

to the notes of the

Greek gamuts
The Standard Octachord System.

16.

In the age of the great melic poets the lyre had no

more than seven strings but the octave was completed
:

which we have accurate inforwhich is assumed as matter of

common knowledge in the Aristotelian Problems and
the Harmonics of Aristoxenus consists of eight notes,
named as follows from their place on the lyre

in the earliest times of

The

mation.

Nete

[y^drr]

Paranete
Trite

scale

vtitt], lit.

(irapayriTr},

{rpLTrj^ i.e.

Paramese

Mese

or

i/^io-T],

'

Hypate

'

our

or

i.e.

'

highest

').

').

string).
Trapd/iea-o?,

middle string

Lichanos [\Lxav6sy

Parhypate

lowest,'

next to Nete

'

third

{irapafxiarr]

'

'

next to

Mese ').

').

'forefinger' string).

{TrapviraTr)).

{viraTr],

lit.

'

uppermost,' our

'

lowest

').

be seen that the conventional sense of high

and low in the words viraTT] and veaTrj was the reverse
It will

of the

modern usage.

musical scale formed by these eight notes conof two tetrachords or scales of four notes, and a

The
sists
^

This

is

especially evident in the case of the Lichanos

as

was observed

by Aristides Quintilianus, who says (p. 10 Meib.) at ml tw yivei \ixavol

Trpo<T7]yopever}aav, dfiojvvfxcus rw irXrjTTOVTi SaKTvXw rfiv r)xov<yo.v avras x^P^^
But Trite also is doubtless originally the third string rather
ovofxaaeeiffai.
:

'

'

than the

third note.'

32

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK

MUSIC.

major tone. The lower of the tetrachords consists of

the notes from Hypate to Mese, the higher of those
from Paramese to Nete the interval between Mese
and Paramese being the so-called Disjunctive Tone
:

Within each tetrachord the inGenus {ykvos). Thus the four

the
upon
depend
tervals
notes just mentioned Hypate, Mese, Paramese, Nete
are the same for every genus, and accordingly are
called the 'standing' or 'immoveable' notes {(pOSyyot
StaCevKTLKo?).

{rovos

laroores, ccklutjtol),

while the others vary with the genus,

and are therefore

'

moveable

'

{(pepo/xepoL).

In the ordinary Diatonic genus the intervals of the

tetrachords are, in the ascending order, semitone + tone

+ tone

i.e.

Parhypate

is

a semitone above Hypate, and

Lichanos a tone above Parhypate. In the Enharmonic

genus the intervals are two successive quarter-tones
conse(Sleo-l^) followed by a ditone or major Third
:

quently Parhypate is only a quarter of a tone above

Hypate, and Lichanos again a quarter of a tone above
Parhypate. The group of three notes separated in this
way by small intervals (viz. two successive quarterIf we use an asterisk to
tones) is called a ttvkvSv,

denote that a note

is

raised a quarter of a tone, these

two scales may be represented

modern

in

notation as

follows

Enharmonic.
Ndte

Diatonic.
e

Nete

Paranete

Trite

Paramese

Mese
Lichanos
Parhypate
Hypate

g
f

.%

I
^

-o

I
^

M^""
\

Paramese
Mese

Lichanos

"

Parhypate
Hypate

'^^^^^

Paranete

THE SYSTEMS.
In the Chromatic genus and

of an

intermediate

its

33

varieties the division

The

kind.

interval between
Lichanos and Mese is more than one tone, but less
than two and the two other intervals, as in the enharIS

monic, are equal.

The most
contrast to
is

characteristic

those of the

feature

of

this

scale,

in

modern Major and Minor,

the place of the small intervals (semitone or ttvkvov)^

which are always the lowest intervals of a tetrachord.

It is hardly necessary to quote passages from Aristotle
and Aristoxenus to show that this is the succession of
intervals

assumed by them.
Problems

in the Aristotelian

while Hypate

difficult to sing,

is

between them

only a diesis

Again

The

question

why

is

asked

Parhypate

is

easy, although there

is

(xix. 4),

{KairoL

iKarepas).

SUo-is

(Probl. xix. 47), speaking of the old heptachord

scale, the writer

says that the Paramese w^as

left out,

and consequently the Mese became the lowest note

of the upper ttvkvov, i. e. the group of close
notes
consisting of Mese, Trite, and Paranete.
Similarly
Aristoxenus {Harm. p. 23) observes that the 'space'
'

of the Lichanos,

the limit within which

i.e.

the different genera,

Parhypate

is

only a

'

is

a tone

diesis, for

it

varies in

while the space of the

it is

never nearer Hypate

than a diesis or further off than a semitone.

17.

Earlier Heptachord Scales.

Regarding the
preceded

this

our information

octave

somewhat obscure.
is

seven-stringed

earlier

The

which
scanty and

scales
is

chief notice on the subject

the following passage of the Aristotelian Problems

Probl. xix. 47 hia

apixovias

ti]v

viraTriv

TL
dAA.'

ol

ap^aioi k'nToyophovs tiolovvt^s

ov

t'I]v

vr\Tr]v

KaTikmov

t)

tcls

ov ttjv


THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

34/

{leg.

viraT-qv

akka

vi]Tr]v),

vvv

r-qv

a(pj]povv Koi TO Tovioiov bLdaTr][jLa

Tov

7rt

TO o^v TTVKVOv' bid

Kttl [xicTTjv

KaXovixivr]v

irapafjiia-rjv

exp&vro 6e

Trj

kayaTri

jbteVry

avTTjv 7:pO(Tr}y6pV(rap' \rj]

oTi rfv TOV fxev avo) TTpa)(^6phov reXevrri, tov be kclto) ap\ri, kol

picov etx^ Aoyoi^

'Why

t6v(^ tG>v oLKpcav

ancient

did the

seven-stringed

include

scales

Hypate but not Nete ? Or should we say that the note

omitted was not Nete, but the present Paramese and the

The Mese,

interval of a tone (t.e. the disjunctive tone)?

was the lowest note of the upper ttvkvov whence the

name fxea-q, because it was the end of the upper tetrachord
and beginning of the lower one, and was in pitch the

then,

middle between the extremes/

This clearly implies two conjunct tetrachords

e

f g

a%

In another place [Probl. xix. 32) the question

why the
oKTclo,

interval of the octave

as the Fourth

is

called

is Sia Tea-o-dpcov^

ha

is

asked,

-n-acrcov,

the Fifth

not

8l

Slo, TreuTe.

The answer suggested

is that there were anciently seven

and that Terpander left out the Trite and added
the Nete. That is to say, Terpander increased the compass of the scale from the ancient two tetrachords to
a full Octave
but he did not increase the number of
Thus he produced a scale like the
strings to eight.
standard octave, but with one note wanting; so that

strings,

the term

Sl

Among
may

oktoo

was

inappropriate.

who

later writers

7rpo9 dfKpoTepa kv rfj iTrra^opSca

and

p.

20

TTJ

fiio-rj

e/c

we

Sia reacrdpcDv

Kara to TraXaiov

TOLvvv dpy^aLOTpoirco Xvpa, TovTecrTL

\6pS(t), KaTOL (Tvva(j)r]v

It

confirm this account

notice Nicomachus, p. 7 Meib.

SLeo-Tcoa'a
Trj

eVra-

8vo T^Tpa^6p8()V avuea-Tcoa-r] k.t.X.

appears then that

two kinds of seven-stringed

THE PERFECT SYSTEM.

35

were known, at least by tradition viz. (i) a scale

composed of two conjunct tetrachords, and therefore
of a compass less than an octave by one tone and
scales

a scale of the compass of an octave, but wanting

a note, viz. the note above Mese.
The existence of
(2)

this

incomplete scale

interesting as a testimony to

is

the force of the tradition which limited the

number

of

reXetou)

is

strings to seven.

The term

System.

77?^ Perfect

18.

Perfect

System

(a-va-rrj/xa

'

applied by the technical writers to a scale which is

evidently formed by successive additions to the hepta-

chord and octachord scales explained in the preceding

It may be described as a combination of two

chapter.

scales, called the

The Greater
consists

Greater and Lesser Perfect System.

Perfect

of two

System

(<TV(TT7]fia

reXeiou fiel^ov)

formed from the primitive

octachord System by adding a tetrachord at each end
of the scale. The new notes are named hke those of
octaves

the adjoining tetrachord of the original octave, but with

name of the
Thus below the
the

tetrachord added by

way

of distinction.

original Hypate we have a new tetrachord Hypaton {TerpdxopSou vnarcov), the notes of which
are accordingly called Hypate Hypaton, Parhypate

Hypaton, and Lichanos Hypaton and similarly above

Nete we have a tetrachord Hyperbolaion. Finally the
:

octave

downwards from Mese

is

completed by the addi-

tion of a note appropriately called

Proslambanomenos.
System (o-va-rrjfxa reXeiou iXaaaov)
is apparently based upon the ancient heptachord which
consisted of two conjunct' tetrachords meeting in the
Mese. This scale was extended downwards in the
D 2

The Lesser

Perfect

'

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

3^

same way

as the Greater

System, and thus became

a scale of three tetrachords and a tone.

These two Systems together constitute the Perfect

and 'unmodulating' System {a-var-qfia reXetou dfierdfioXov), which may be represented in modern notation ^
as follows

^letrachord
^ ^^ u

Nete Hyperbolaion
.
r)
-.^TT
u
raranete
Hyperbolaion
Trite Hyperbolaion
Nete Diezeugmenon

Paranete Diezeugmenon

Diezeugmenon
Diezeugmenon
Paramese
d Nete Synemmenon
^

g
f

Trite

Tetrachord

'

W
i-K

^.-^

-n

-r

-^-^

1 rite

Synemmenon
c
Synemmenon

raranete

>.

>^

\
\

letrachord

_,

Synemmenon
-^

Mese

Lichanos Meson

Tetrachord

Parhypate Meson

Meson

Hypate Meson

Lichanos Hypaton

Parhypate Hypaton

Hypate Hypaton
Proslambanomenos

No

Tetrachord

Hypaton

System is given by
no trace in his writings of
an extension of the standard scale beyond the limits
of the original octave.
In one place indeed {Harm.
account of the

Aristoxenus, and there

p. 8,

'

first

is

12 Meib.) Aristoxenus promises to treat of Sys-

and among them of the perfect System (nepi re

dXXcou kol tov reXeiov).
But we cannot assume that

tems,
rcou

Perfect

'

'

The correspondence between ancient and modern musical notation was

determined in a satisfactory way by Bellermann (Die Tonleitern und

Mustknoten der

Griecheii),

and Fortlage

'^Das musicalische

System der Griechen).

THE PERFECT SYSTEM.

'"'37 ^

the phrase here had the technical sense which

More probably

in later writers.

it

it

bore

meant simply the

octave scale, in contrast to the tetrachord and penta-

chord

sense

in

which

Quintilianus, p. 11 Meib.

it

is

by Aristides

used

avuTjjjLfiei^cou

Se eKXrjOr) to

oXov

on tS> 7rpoKLjj.eu<x> reXei'o) rw fJ-ixP'- l^^^V^ a-vvfjirrai, 'the whole scale was called conjunct because it
is conjoined to the complete scale that reaches up to
Mese' {i.e. the octave extending from Proslambanomenos to Mese). So p. 16 Kal a /lep avToou earl riXeia,
(Tvarrj/jLa

8' ov,

Xop8ov.

dreXfj fiv TeTpdxop8ov,7revTdyop8ov,TeXeLOv 8e oktu-

This

is

a use of reXeio? which

is

likely

enough

The word was doubtto have come from Aristoxenus.

less applied in each period to the most complete scale
which musical theory had then recognised.
Little is known of the steps by which this enlargement of the Greek scale was brought about. We shall
not be

wrong

conjecturing that

in

with the advance

made from time

it

was connected

to time in the

form

and compass of musical instruments \ Along with the

lyre, which kept its primitive simplicity as the instrument of education and everyday use, the Greeks had
the cithara {KiOdpa), an enlarged and improved lyre,
which, to judge from the representations on ancient
monuments, was generally seen in the hands of pro-

The development of the

increase, of which we have

fessional players {KL0apcp8oL).

cithara showed itself in the

good evidence even before the time of Plato, in the
number of the strings. The poet Ion, the contemporary
of Sophocles, was the author of an epigram on a certain
1

This observation was made by ancient writers, ^.^. by Adrastus (Perisecond cent, a.d.): kTTrjv^rjfx^vTjs Se ttjs fxovaiKTJsttal^

patetic philosopher of the

km to
iroXvxopdojv Kal iroXvcpduyyoJV 'yeyovorojv dpydv<uv rev Trpo(T\i](p67)voi Kai
^apv ml enl to o^v tois rrpovirdpxovcnv oktw (pOoyyoLS dWov; irXdovai, ofiojs fc.T.\.
(Theon Smyrn.

c.

6).

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

38

seems

ten-Stringed lyre, which

have had a scale

to

closely approaching that of the Lesser Perfect

little

later

we

System ^

hear of the comic poet Pherecrates

attacking the musician Timotheus for various innovations

tending to the loss

of primitive

particular the use of twelve

strings

simplicity, in

According

2.

to

by Pausanias, the Spartans conin his cithara he had added

because
Timotheus
demned
a tradition mentioned

four strings to the ancient seven.

ment was hung up

The

offending instru-

in the Scias (the place of

meeting

Spartan assembly), and apparently was seen

of the

there by Pausanias himself (Pans.

12, 8).

iii.

A similar or still more rapid development took place

The flute-player Pronomus of
in the flute (avXos).
to
have been one of the instrucsaid
was
who
Thebes,
tors of Alcibiades, invented a flute on which it was
possible to play in

all

the modes.

'

Up

to his time,'

had three
forms of flute with one they played Dorian music
a different set of flutes served for the Phrygian mode
and the so-called Lydian was played on
{apixovLo)
says Pausanias

(ix.

12,

5),

'flute-players

another

kind

devised flutes

fitted for

melodies different in
^

The epigram

is

Pronomus was

again.

the

first

who

every sort of mode, and played

mode on

the

same

flute.'

The

quoted in the pseudo-Euclidean Inttvductio, p. 19 (Meib.)

Xvpa {i.e. in a poem on the subject of the ten-stringed

6 56 {sc/loiv) kv 5(Kax6p5a)

lyre):
Trjv bfKaPafiova ra^iv ex^^'^^

Ta? avjjupQjvovaas
irplv fxiv

a'

dpfJLOvias TpioSovs'

eTTTarovov ipaXXov 5id riaaapa TrdvTfs

"EWrjvcs, anaviav pLovaav deipdfifvoi.

of music that are in concord must be the three conjunct
tetrachords that can be formed with ten notes (b c d e / g a b") c d).
This is the scale of the Lesser Perfect System before the addition of the
'

The

ways

triple

'

Proslambanomenos.
2

Pherecrates

x^'-P^'" fr-

(quoted by Plut. de Mus.

on the subject, such as

to refer to the other traditions

{Harm.

p.

35 and Boethius.
j

c.

30).

we

It is

find in

needless

Nicomachus

THE PERFECT SYSTEM.

use of the

new

became general, since in

was the instrument most distin-

invention soon

Plato's time the flute

guished by the multiplicity of

TL 8i

avXoTTOLovs

39

its

notes

cp.

avXrjTa^ 7rapaSe^L eh

rj

rrji/

Rep.

p.

ttoXlv

399
rj

ov

may have had the invention of Pronomus in mind when he wrote these words.
With regard to the order in which the new notes
TovTo TToXvxopSoTaroi^

Plato

obtained a place in the schemes of theoretical musicians

we have no

The name

trustworthy information.

Xafjil3au6fXuo?,

-rrpoa--

applied to the lowest note of the Perfect

was the last new

Plutarch in his work on the

System, points to a time

addition to the scale.

Timaeits of Plato

(Trepi

r^?

when

it

h Tifiatco

y^v^oyovlas) speaks

of the Proslambanomenos as having been added in comparatively recent times

Xa/i^avofievou

Td^apT9 TO

The

fiev

ancients

1029

c ol 8e i^ecorepoL top npocr777?

oXov BidcrT-q^a 8h

Perfect

rest of the
'

(p.

8La(f)epovTa

roi/cp

[tovs iraXatovs

vTvdTrjS
810,

ewl

Tracrcov

to

kiroi-qa-av).

System he ascribes
icrfxeu

uyrara?

fieu

to 'the

8vo, TpeT?

vrjTas, fJLLav 8e fiia-qv Kal fiiav Trapa/xeo-rji/ TiOeiievovs).

earlier addition

perhaps the

first

made

papv

8e

An

to the primitive

octave was a note called Hyperhypate, which was

a tone below the old Hypate, in the place afterwards
occupied on the Diatonic scale by Lichanos Hypaton.
It naturally disappeared when the tetrachord Hypaton
only mentioned by one author,
Theon Smyrnaeus, cc. 35-36^).
by
Thrasyllus (quoted

came

into use.

The term

Smyrnaeus

It is

virepviraTT]

had

all

but disappeared from the text of Theon

having been corrupted

in the edition of Bullialdus (Paris, 1644),

every place except one (p. 141, 3). It has been

(Teubner, Leipzig, 1878). The
word occurs also in Aristides Quintilianus (p. 10 Meib.\ where the plural
vnepviroLTai is used for the notes below Hypate, and in Boethius {Mus. i. 20).
dieCfvytxivrj
It may be worth noticing also that Thrasyllus uses the words
and vnfp^okala in the sense of vtjtt] SieC^vyixvojv and vtjttj virepfioKaiwv (Theon

into

virdrr]

or

restored from

Smyrn.

I.e.).

irapviraTr] in

MSS.

in the edition of Hiller

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

40

The

notes of the Perfect S^^stem, with the intervals

of the scale which they formed, are fully set out in the

two

under the name of the geometer

the Introdiidio Harmonica and the Sectio

treatises that pass

Euclid, viz.

Unfortunately the authorship of both these

Canonis.

works

is

doubtful

All that

^.

we

can say

that

is

if

the

System was elaborated in the brief interval

between the time of Aristotle and that of Euclid, the
materials for it must have already existed in musical
Perfect

practice.

Relation of System

19.

now

Let us

consider the relation between this fixed

or standard scale

and the

terms ap\iovia and

tqvos.

With regard
are not

left in

to the rbvoi

in

doubt.

a series of notes

key

which the

rovov^,

If then

SeTraL).

denoted by the

or Y^^y^ of Aristoxenus

system, as

As Aristoxenus

Systems are melodies

{joy's

varieties

we have

we

seen,

is

whose relative pitch is fixed. The

System is taken fixes the absolute

pitch of the series.

keys

and Key.

e(^'

we

expresses

it,

the

set at the pitch of the different

cov

TiOe/jLeua

speak of

ra

a-vo-Trj/jLara

Hypate or Mese

/leXco-

(just as

The Introduction to Harmonics {elaayaifT} apfxoviKr)) which bears 'the

name of EucHd in modern editions (beginning with J. Pena, Paris, 1557) cannot
be his work. In some MSS. it is ascribed to Cleonides, in others to Pappus,
who was, probably of the fourth century a. d. The author is one of the
apfioviKoi or Aristoxeneans, who adopt the method of equal temperament.
^

He may

perhaps be assigned to a comparatively early period on the ground

recognises only the thirteen keys ascribed to Aristoxenus not
the fifteen keys given by most later writers (Aristides Quint., p. 22 Meib.).
For some curious evidence connecting it with the name of the otherwise unknown writer Cleonides, see K. von Jan, Die Harmonik des Aristhat he

The Section of the Canon {Kavovos

belongs to the mathematical or Pythagorean school, dividing the

toxenianers Kleonides (Landsberg, 1870).

KaraTOfiT})

tetrachord into

a semitone.

two major tones and a

In point of form

it is

XeT/xfxa

which

is

decidedly Euclidean

somewhat
:

but

referred to by any writer before the third century a.d.

the
testimony being that of Porphyry (pp. 272-276 in Wallis' edition).

it

less

we do

than

not find
earliest

SYSTEM AND KEY.

when we speak

we mean

of a moveable Do),

notes as there

different

keys

are

41

many

as

but the

Dorian

Hypate or the Lydian Mese has an ascertained

The Keys of Aristoxenus, in short, are so many

pitch.

trans-

positions of the scale called the Perfect System.

Such being the

the key, can

we suppose any

different relation to

subsisted between the standard

'

modes known

to Plato

'

System

relation of the standard

to

have

System and the ancient

and Aristotle under the name

of apfiovtaL ?

appears from the language used by Plato in the

It

Republic that Greek musical instruments differed very

much

in the variety of

were

susceptible.

the passage quoted

only two modes, the

on

to

modes or

apiiovtaL of

which they

After Socrates has determined, in

above (p. 7), that he will admit

Dorian and Phrygian, he goes

observe that the music of his state will not need

a multitude of strings, or an instrument of

[TTavapfiovLovy.

'

There

who make
instruments of many

will

all

the

modes

be no custom therefore for

and harps and other

notes and many modes. How
then about makers of the flute (ai)Aoy) and players on
craftsmen

Has

the flute?
notes,

triangles

not the flute the greatest

and are not the scales which admit

simply imitations of the flute?

^

Plato,

Rep.

p.

qixiv diT)(Ti kv Tais

399

8'

67a;,

fi^Xeffiv,

Ov

ovk apa,

wSais re koX

-qv

all

number of
the modes

There remain then

iToXvxophias yc ov8e vavapfjioviov

(paivcTai.

fioi, ecpj],

Tpiym'oiv dpa

Kal VTjKriSwv koi iravTcvv opydvojv offa iToKvxopda Kal TToKvappLovia drjfxiovpyovs ov

Ov

6peif/o/xv.
rj

TiSi; avXoTroiovs

(paivofxfOa.

rj

avXrjTas irapade^et ds Tqv it6\iv;

ov rovTO iToXvxOf^^oTaTOV, Kal avrd rd Travapfxot/ia avXov rvyx^^^i^ ovra

A^Xa

drj,

5' 6s.

XpijaLixa' Kal

The

Avpa

Srj

aoi,

av Kar' dypovs rots

^v

5' 70;,

vofxevcri

/xifLijixa

Kal KiOdpa Xe'nreTaL, Kal Kara iroXiv

avpiy^ dv Tt?

c'lt].

was not exactly a flute. It had a mouthpiece which gave it the

character rather of the modern oboe or clarinet
see the Dictionary of
Antiquities^ s.v. tibia.
The -navap/xoviov is not otherwise known, and the
passage in Plato does not enable us to decide whether it was a real
avXos

instrument or only a scale or arrangement of notes.

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

42

the lyre and the cithara for use in our city

shepherds

in the

lyre,

plain, did

it

is

The seven

country a syrinx (pan's

and

pipes).'

for

The

not admit of changes of mode.

or eight strings were tuned to furnish the

mode, not of more. What then is the

between the mode or dp/ioyia of a lyre and the
standard scale or ava-Trjfia which (as we have seen) was
based upon the lyre and its primitive gamut ?
The
If apiiovia means 'key,' there is no difficulty.
scale of a lyre was usually the standard octave from
Hypate to Nete and that octave might be in any one
key.
But if a mode is somehow characterised by a
particular succession of intervals, what becomes of the
standard octave ? No one succession of intervals can
then be singled out. It may be said that the standard
octave is in fact the scale of a particular mode, which
scale of one
relation

had come to be regarded as the type, viz. the Dorian.

But there is no trace of any such prominence of the
Dorian mode as this would necessitate. The philosophers
who recognise its elevation and Hellenic purity are very
far from implying that it had the chief place in popular
Indeed the contrary was evidently the case^.
regard.

20.
It

may be

Tonality of the Greek musical

said here that the value of a series of notes

as the basis of a distinct

the

word depends

mode in

essentially

the

modern sense of

upon the

single scale might yield music of different

key-note were different.

collect the scanty notices

upon the

tonality of

It

is

tonality.

modes

if

A
the

necessary therefore to

which we possess bearing

Greek music.

The

chief evidence

The passage quoted above from the Knights of Aristophanes (p. 7)

sufficient to show that a marked preference for the Dorian mode would

is

scale.

be a matter for

jest.

TONALITY

MEIH.

43

a passage of the Problems, the impor-

on the subject

is

tance of which

was

is

THE

first

pointed out by Helmholtz^

It

as follows
Arlst. Probl. xix. 20

aWas

apixocras tcls

rjiJib)V,

orav Kara top

KiXO-vdv

orav

fxv tls ttjv }j.ar]v Kivriar]

r<5 6pyav(^,

^priTai

ris

a\Xr]V /xeAwStar, iav be

Tr]V

yap Ta XRV^"^^
7roi?]rat

fxeAr;

evAoycoj rovro

r)

ttoXXolkls rfj

hvkvcl TTpbs Tr]V

p.iar\

biacjiipeiv

crvp^jiaivei

X6yo)v

Tr}v

povov
irdvra
ol

d-navrSxri, kclv a-niXOoio-i

iJLi(rr]V

avvbecrpiaiv

e^aipedevTodV

eviixiv

irdvTes

/cat

xprirat,

Ta)(y kiiavipyovTai, irpos he dXXrjv ovtchs ovbepaav.

T(ov

ov piovov

(f)66yyov Xvirel kol ^aiv^rai

TLva aXXov cpdoyyov, t6t ^aiverai

7]

KCLKeivT]

ayaOol

yevr]Tai

Kara

kol

lav

rt

xopbds, kol \priTai

p,iar\s

rrj?

dXXa

avdpiJLoaTov,

Ata

ovk

KaOdirep eK

eariv

Xoyos

^EXX-qvLKos, olov TO re Kal to Kai, evioi be ovOev Xvttovo-l, bid to

Tols p.ev dvayKalov elvai xpriaOai TToXXdKLS, el ea-Tat Xoyos, tols be
pL-q,

ovTOi Kal tS>v

^Ooyycov

rj

axrirep avvbeap-os eaTi, Kai p.d-

ptecrr]

rwr KaXcdV, bid to TrAetoraKts ewndpx^iv tov <p66yyov

Xio-Ta

'Why
strings

is

it

that

if

the Mese

when the Mese

the whole of the music,

other note

is

whereas

out of tune,

that note

is

struck?

it

avrrjs.

altered, after the other

have been tuned, the instrument

of tune, not only

when

is

is

is

felt

to be out

sounded, but through

if

the Lichanos or any

seems to be perceived only

Is

it

to

be explained on the

good melodies often use the Mese, and all

good composers resort to it frequently, and if they leave it
soon return again, but do not make the same use of any
other note? just as language cannot be Greek if certain
ground that

all

conjunctions are omitted, such as re and

may

for language, but not the other:

the

Kai,

be dispensed with, because the one class

Mese

is

a kind of

sounds^ since
^

it is

'

while others
is

necessary

so with musical sounds

conjunction,' especially of beautiful

most often heard among

Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen,

these.'

p. 367, ed. 1863.

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

44

In another place

(xix. 36)

the question

answered by

is

saying that the notes of a scale stand in a certain relation to the

to

of the

Mese, which determines them with reference

rd^LS

it (rj

rj

Ud(TTr]S

rjSrj

8l

kKLvr)v)

SO that the loSS

the loss of the ground and unifying

Mese means

element of the scale [dpOevros rod alriov rod

rov (TVvi^OVTOS)

ripfioaOaL kol

^.

the

scale known to
Mese a had the

Tonic or key-note.

This must have

These passages imply

that in the

Aristotle, viz. the octave e -

character of a

e,

been true a fortiori of the older seven-stringed scale,

in which the Mese united the two conjunct tetrachords.
It was quite in accordance with this state of things
that the later enlargement completed the octaves from

Mese downwards and upwards,

so

that

consisted of two octaves of the form a -

how

question

shown,

a.

in

the

scale

As to the
Mese was

the Tonic character of the

what parts of the melody it was necessarily

heard, and the

like,

of the Problems

is

we

can but guess.

The

statement

not repeated by any technical writer,

and accordingly it does not appear that any rules on

It is significant,
the subject had been arrived at.
perhaps, that the frequent use of the Mese is spoken
of as characteristic of
fiiXrj

TToXXdKL?

rfj

fji4(rrj

good melody
xpvt<^l),

(iTdvTa ra ^pr)crTd

as though tonality

were

a merit rather than a necessity.

Another passage of the Problems has been thought to

show that in Greek music the melody ended on the
Hypate. The words are these (ProbL xix. 33)
:

Aia

TL

evapiioarorepov airo tov 6^09

iirl

to (3apv

rj

airo tov

^
So in the Euclidean Secfto Canonis the propositions which deal with the
'movable' notes, viz. Paranete and Lichanos (Theor, xvii) and Parhypate
and Trite (Theor. xviii), begin by postulating the Mese (earo; 70^ n^arf o

K T.\.).

'

'

TONALITY
^apio9
crdai

iirl

yap

ixiarj

kclL

7]y\xu>v

aAA'

0.1:6

Tekevrrjs.

'Why

is

descending

ascending one?
the beginning,

Is

since

we begin with

45

o^vtclttj tov TTpa)(^6pbov'

scale

the

the end

Mese

but

to 8e

more musical than an

that in this order

it

of the tetrachord,

highest

MEIH.

Tiorepov otl to airo ttjs apxrjs yiverai apyje-

oLpyjis

rj

ovK aii

TO o^v

THE

we

begin with

or leading note^

is

the

with the reverse order

There is here no explicit statement that the melody

ended on the Hypate, or even that it began with the
Mese. In what sense, then, was the Mese a beginning
In Aristotelian
{dpxrj), and the Hypate an 'end'?
language the word dpxv has various senses. It might
'

be used to express the relation of the Mese to the other

notes as the basis or ground-work of the scale. Other
passages, however, point to a simpler explanation, viz.

was merely conventional. In

Probl. xix. 44 it is said that the Mese is the beginning
(dpxn) of one of the two tetrachords which form the
ordinary octave scale (viz. the tetrachord Meson) and

that the order in question

again in Probl. xix. 47 that in the old heptachord which

consisted of two conjunct tetrachords {e - a - d) the

Mese

was the end of the upper tetrachord and the

(a)

beginning of the lower one (on

XopSov TeXevTrj, tov 8e kutco dpxv)'
it is

evident that there

is

r\v

tov

iikv

dvco rerpa-

In this last passage

no reference

to the

beginning

or end of the melody.

^

The term

rjyefxwv

applied to the Mese,

where

Trept

tov

Similarly Ptolemy

is

or 'leading note' of the tetrachord Meson, here

found in the same sense in Plutarch, De Mus. c, 11,
tovos

Keifievos

Tj'^fyt.ova

(Harm,

i.

means

the

disjunctive

as being kv toTs ^yovfiivois ronois, the semitones ev rois knofievois

and again of the ratio 5 4 (the major Third) as the
tetrachord)
:

one of an Enharmonic tetrachord (juv kmriTapTov

kvapfjioviov

yhovs).

tone.

16) speaks of the tones in a diatonic scale

(^sc.
'

of the

leading

'

os koriv ^yov/xevos tov

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

46

Another instance of the use of dpxrj in connexion with

is to be found in the Metaphysics
1018
b
II,
(iv.
26), where Aristotle is speaking of the
p.
different senses in which things may be prior and
the musical scale

posterior

Ta

be Kara tol^lv ravra

6'

eo-rti^

ocra irpos tl V oypta-fxivov

biiaTrjKe Kara rov \6yov, oXov TTapaaTaTi-js TpLToaTCLTOv uporepov^

KoX TTapavrjTrj

vtjttjs'

evOa

jxkv

yap

6 KOpvcpa'Los,

hOa

hk

tj

fxia-r]

Other things [are prior and posterior] in oi^der viz.

from some one
:

those which are at a varying interval

definite thing

as the second

man

in

the rank

the third man, and the Paranete to the Nete

one case the coryphaeus

is

is

prior to

for in the

the starting-point, in the other

the Mese.'

Here the Mese

the order

Nete

is

is

is

again the apxn or beginning, but

the ascending one, and consequently the

the end.

The passage

confirms what

we have

learned of the relative importance of the Mese: but

it

certainly negatives any inference regarding the note on

which the melody ended.
It appears, then, that the Mese of the Greek standard
System had the functions of a key-note in that System.
In other words, the music was in the mode (using
that term in the modern sense) represented by the
octave a- a of the natural key the Hypo-dorian or
Common Species. We do not indeed know how the
predominant character of the Mese was shown
whether, for example, the melody ended on the Mese.
The supposed evidence for an ending on the Hypate
has been shown to be insufficient. But we may at

least hold that as far as the

far the

Greek

scale

was

Mese was

that

of the

a key-note, so

modern Minor


THE
mode

SPECIES.

The

(descending).

only

way

47

of escape from this

conclusion is to deny that the Mese of Probl. xix. 20

was the note which we have understood by the term
the Mese of the standard System. This, as we shall
presently see, is the plea to which Westphal has
recourse.

The Species of a

21.

The object
make it clear

Scale.

of the preceding discussion has been to

system of modes
word finds no support
from the earlier authorities on Greek music. There
is, however, evidence to show that Aristoxenus, and

in

the

that the theory of a

modern sense

of the

perhaps other writers of the time, gave much thought

to the varieties to

be obtained by taking the intervals of

a scale in different order.

These

of as the forms or species {a^rjiiara,

varieties they
elS-q)

spoke

of the interval

which measured the compass of the scale in question.

Thus, the interval of the Octave {Sta iraacov) is divided
into seven intervals, and these are, in the Diatonic
genus, five tones and two semitones, in the Enharmonic
two ditones, four quarter-tones, and a tone. As we
shall presently see in detail, there are

the Octave in each genus.

That

seven admissible octachord scales

is

seven species of
to say, there are

{o-va-Tfuiara efi/xeXfj),

differing only in the succession of the intervals

which

compose them.
Further, there

is

evidence which goes to connect the

seven species of the Octave with the Modes or

apiiovtai.

some writers these species are described under

names which are familiar to us in their application
In

to

the

modes.

called the

certain

succession of intervals

is

Dorian species of the Octave, another sue-

48

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

Phrygian species, and so on for

the Lydian, Mixo-lydian, Hypo-dorian, Hypo-phrygian,
It seems natural to conclude that
and Hypo-l3^dian.
cession

is

called the

named were
some way of the modes which bore the
same names, consequently that the modes were not keys,
but modes in the modern sense of the term.

the species or successions of intervals so

characteristic in

In order to estimate the value of this argument,

necessary to ask,
of these

names

(i)

how

far

back

we

it

is

can date the use

for the species of the Octave,

and

(2) in

what degree the species of the Octave can be shown to

have entered into the practice of music at any period.
The answer to these questions must be gathered from
a careful examination of all that Aristoxenus and other
early writers

sa}'

of the different musical scales

in

reference to the order of their intervals.

22.

The
treated

The Scales as treated by Aristoxenus.

subject of the

musical

scales

(a-vo-rrifiaTa)

is

by Aristoxenus as a general problem, without

reference to the scales in actual use.

He

complains

that his predecessors dealt only with the octave scale,

and only with the Enharmonic genus, and did not

address themselves to the real question of the melodious
sequence of intervals. Accordingly, instead of beginning
with a particular scale, such as the octave, he supposes
a scale of indefinite compass,

just

as a mathematician

postulates lines and surfaces of unlimited magnitude.

His problem

virtually

to the particular

given any interval

genus supposed,
it on a musical

intervals can follow

ing or descending.

is,

to

known

determine what

scale, either ascend-

In the Diatonic genus, for example,

semitone must be followed by two tones, so as to

THE SPECIES

ARISTOXENUS.

49

make up the interval of a Fourth. In the Enharmonic

genus the dieses or quarter-tones can only occur two
together, and every such pair of dieses {ttvkvov) must
be followed in the ascending order by a ditone, in the
descending order by a ditone or a tone. By these and
similar rules, which he deduces mathematically from
one or two general principles of melody, Aristoxenus in
determines

effect

all

the possible scales of each genus,

without restriction of compass or pitch ^.

he refers for the purpose of

use,

actual

it

But whenever

illustration to a scale in

always the standard octave already

is

described (from Hypate to Nete), or a part of

it.

Thus

nothing can be clearer than the distinction which he

makes between the

only to

certain

theoretically infinite scale, subject

principles

or

laws determining the

succession of intervals, and the eight notes, of fixed

relative pitch,

which constituted the gamut of

practical

music.

The

passages in which Aristoxenus dwells upon the

advance which he has made upon the methods of his

predecessors are of considerable importance for the

whole question of the species of the Octave. There

are three or four places which it will be worth while to
quote.
I.

Aristoxenus,

Harm.

p. 2, 15

MSS.)

avTols tS)V kvap\iovi(JdV {^ap\xoviQ>v

fxcLTOiV,
TO.

biaTovoov

hiaypaixpiaTa

V ot? Trept
IJLOvov

8'

17

ra yap hiaypaixiiaTa

e/CKeirat fxovov avo-rrj-

xpco/xartKWz^ ovbels ttcotto^' (apaKV

y avT&v ebrjXov

G-ucTTr^judrcoz;

eXeyov, irepl

Meib.

Tr]v

Traaav

r?}?

Kairoi

jueAwStaj tcl^lv,

OKrayophd^v evappiOvCaiv (apiJLOVL(ovM.SS.)

8e tojv

aXkcov yevo^v re Kal

avT^ re rw yeret tovt(o koI tols

Xolttols ov8'

(T)(ii]ixdTOiv

e^Te^^eipet

ovbels

KaTafjiav0dvLv.
'

The

investigation occupies a considerable space in his Harmonics, viz.

pp. 27-29 Meib. (^from the

words

ir^pi 5e

pp. 58-72 Meib.

auvexftas kox tov e^?), and again

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK

50

MUSIC.

'The diagrams of the earlier writers set forth Systems

in the Enharmonic genus only, never in the Diatonic or
Chromatic and yet these diagrams professed to give the
whole scheme of their music, and in them they treated of
Enharmonic octave Systems only; of other genera and
other forms of this or any genus no one attempted to
:

discover anything.'
2.

Ibid. p. 6, 20

ilJiiTpocrOev

ovbels

itiTOjJi^v

aTroSeiKTiKWS

TT^vre

(Jx;r]fxdT(iiv

The

rjirrai,

aW^v

hos

to, a^^fip^ara

iracrcov

ov

Kara-

kol tcov tov bia reo-adpiDV rrpos bk tovtols kol

avrutv tls ttot icrrl Kad'

twv

rjv e/xjueXdis

avvTiOevTaL,

k-nrd (TV}x^aiveiv yiyvecrOaL bdKVvrai.

in

by a

one genus, to enumerate the forms or

the Octave, and to determine

general

we have

first

not perceiving that

demonstrated the forms of the Fifth

and the Fourth, and the manner of

bination, the forms of the

more than

species of

them mathematically by the

periodic recurrence of the intervals

The
may be

rov bia

but Eratocles has attempted in the case of one

System,

KaOairep

\xev

b^LKvvs'

btao-TrjixcLTOiv

other Systems no one has dealt with

method

unless

KaOokov

be crDcrr?i/xaro? ^EparoKXrjs

T^poa-aTTobei^OivTOdv (qu. irpoaiiob.) t(ov re tov bta

Ti]s crvvOiaeois

'

tS>v 5'

TrepKpopa t&v

rrj

pLT]

77oXAa7rAao-ta

yivos i^apiOfXTJaai

TTxeLp7](T Ka6^ V

piadcbv oTi,

Meib.

Octave

melodious com-

their

will

come

to

be

many

seven.'

here spoken of
on the key-board of a piano. If we
take successive octaves of white notes, a - a^ b - b^ and
so on,
{i.e.

'

periodic recurrence of intervals

'

illustrated

we

obtain each time a different order of intervals

the semitones occur in different places), until

reach a - a again, when the series begins afresh.

this

way

it

is

shown

we
In

that only seven species of the

Octave can be found on any particular scale. Aristoxenus shows how to prove this from first principles,

THE SPECIES DIAGRAMS.

viz.

by analysing the Octave

as the

5^

combination of

a Fifth with a Fourth.

3.

Ibid. p. ^6, 29 Meib.

ol [xkv oAcoj

tu>v

b'k

T&v k-nTayophoav a eKakovv

ra^ Sm^opa?

(Tva-T7]\xaT(>v

ovK 'n\^ipovv k^apiQ\x^lv, aXKa

irepl

avrutv fxovov

apixovias Tr]v 7TL(tk\I/lv TTOLovvto, ol

5e 7nx^Lpi](TavTS ovbiva rpoirov i^ptOixovvTO.

For
iTTTcc

Meibomius and other

eTTTaxopScoy

oKTaxopScDu

3.

the parallel words

editors read

by

corrcction strongly suggested

crva-TrjfxdiTcou

oKraxopSccv in the

first

passage quoted.
'

Some

did not attempt to enumerate the differences of

the Systems, but confined their view to the seven octachord

Systems which they

called app.oviai

others

who

did

make

the attempt did not succeed.'

It

appears from these passages that before the time

of Aristoxenus musicians had framed diagrams or tables

showing the division of the octave scale according to

the Enharmonic genus and that a certain Eratocles
of whom nothing else is known had recognised seven
forms or species of the octachord scale, and had shown
:

how

the order of the intervals in the several species

passes through a sort of cycle.

Finally,

if

the correction

proposed in the third passage is right, the seven species

of the Octave were somehow shown in the diagrams
In what respect
of which the first passage speaks.
Eratocles failed in his treatment of the seven species
can hardly be conjectured.

Elsewhere the diagrams are described by Aristoxenus

somewhat differently, as though they exhibited a division
into Enharmonic dieses or quarter-tones, without reference to the melodious character of the scale. Thus we
find

him saying
E2

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

52
4.

Harm.

apjjLoi'LKol

TOVTOvs

7TLpoiVTaL,

KdcrOaL

oh

ov yap TO

28 Meib.

p.

rah t&v

^j

Se to (Tvvey\^ ovx

Qr]T7]Tiov

a7T0(j)aLV0VTs

(TVfxl3i^r]Ke

pLT}

TO)v

aW'qXaiv

^T]S

(jyOoyycjiv

ot

cmohihovai

hiaypa[x\xdT(iiV KaranvKVCiXTeaLV

a(^' avTOiv.

to eAax.t(rroz; hia(TTy]ixa Sie^ety

bvvaa-daL SteVets okto) kol eiKoatv k^ijs /oteXwSeto-^at

akXCL TTJV Tp[Tr]V bU(TLV TTCLvra iTOLovaa ovx Ota

TTJS (pUiVTJS (TTLV,

T eoTt TTpoaTiOevaL.
'

We must seek continuity of succession, not as theoretical

musicians do in filling up their diagrams with small intervals,

making those notes successive which are separated from
each other by the least interval. For it is not merely that
the voice cannot sing twenty-eight successive dieses
all its efforts it

cannot sing a third

This representation of the musical diagrams

with

is

borne

This point is one which Aristoxenus is fond of insisting upon cp, p. lo,
rrpbs t^v KaraTtvKVwaiv fiXitrovras ua-n^p ol apfioviKoi
p. 38, 3 on St eariv
KarattvKvuais eK/xfXrjS koX navra rponov axpr]aTos (pavepov
p. 53, 3 Kara t^v
^

16 ov
j)

diesis^.'

Tov fieXovs

(pvcriv ^rjTrjTeov

to |^s kol ovx w?

ot els rrjv

KaTairvKvojaiv fiXe'irovT(S

elojOaaiv diroSiSovai to e^rjs.

The statement

that the ancient diagrams gave a series of twenty-eight

successive dieses or quarter-tones has not been explained.

quarter-tones in an octave is only twenty-four. Possibly it

The number
is

of

mere error

of transcription (kt] for 5). If not, we may perhaps connect it with the
seven intervals of the ordinary octave scale, and the simple method by
which the enharmonic intervals were expressed in the instrumental notation.
It has been explained that raising a note a quarter of a tone was shown by
turning it through a quarter of a circle. Thus, our c being denoted by E,
Now the ancient diagrams, which divided every
c* was 111, and cfl was 3.
tone into four parts, must have had a character for eft*, or the note
Naturally this would be the remaining
three-quarters of a tone above c.
position of E, namely m. Again, we have seen that when the interval
between two notes on the diatonic scale is only a semitone, the result

produce a certain number of duplicates, so to speak.

and therefore )| for c: but c is a note of the original
It may be that the diagrams to which
scale, and as such is written HAristoxenus refers made use of these duplicates that is to say, they may
of the notation

Thus

is to

stands for

b,

have made use of all four positions of a character (such as K iil >| ^)
whether the interval to be filled was a tone or a semitone. If so, the seven
intervals would give twenty-eight characters ^besides the upper octave-note),

and apparently therefore twenty-eight dieses. Some traces of this use of

characters in four positions have been noticed by Bellermann {Tonlettem,
p. 65).

THE SPECIES

DIAGRAMS.

53

out by the passage in the Republic in which Plato

derides the experimental study of music

Rep.

531

p-

3.

y^P ciKovoixevas av

7-?

aviJicpcavLas /cat (f)66yyovi

aAA-rjAots avajieTpovvres avrivvra, ooo-nep ol aa-Tpovofxoi, TTOvovatv.

N^

Tovs Oeov^,

(prij

kqI yeXotco? ye, irvKvcoiJiaT

KoX 7ra/oa/3aAAorre? ra oiva, olov

ol }xiv

^aatv

e/c

yetTovMV

Tl KaraKoveiv iv /xeVw

elvai TOVTO btdcrTrjixa,

tlvo.

arra orojuafoz^re?

(jxavrjv Orjp^voixevoL,

rixv^

aixiKpoTarov

'^^'^

fjierp-qr^ov, ol 6e k.t.X.

Here Socrates is insisting that the theory of music

should be studied as a branch of mathematics, not by
observation of the sounds and concords actually heard,
Yes,' says
about which musicians spend toil in vain.
'

Glaucon,

they talk of the close-fitting of intervals, and

'

put their ears

interval,

which

down
is

to listen for the smallest possible

then to be the measure.'

The

smallest

was of course the Enharmonic diesis or quarter

of a tone, and this accordingly was the measure or unit
A group of notes
into which the scale was divided.
{ttvkvou, or
close
called
was
diesis
a
by
separated
that way
in
a nvKPcofia), and the filling up of the scale

interval

'

'

was therefore a KaTairvKvcdcns

up with close-set' notes, by
'

rod SLaypafi/xaros

filling

the division of every tone

into four equal parts.

An

example of a diagram of

kind has perhaps

this

late writer, viz. Aristides

survived in a comparatively
Quintilianus, who gives a scale of two octaves, one
divided into twenty-four dieses, the next into twelve

semitones (Be Mus.

p.

15 Meib.).

The

characters used

are not otherwise known, being quite different from the

but the nature of the diagram is
ordinary notation
:

plain from the

Kara

T0L9 apxaloL^

repov

SLciyova-a,

av^rjaaa-a

'
:

accompanying words
Sia

Siio-ei? apiiovia, eco9

iraa-cou,

this is

avTr] ea-Tiv

k8

Stea-ecop

to SevTepov Sta T(ov

rj

napa

to irpo-

tj/xltovlcou

the ap^iovta (division of the scale)

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

54

according to dieses

in

use

among

the ancients, carried

in the case of the first octave as far as

twenty-four

dieses, and dividing the second into semitones ^Z

The phrase rj Kara Siea-ei? dpfiouia, used for the divi-

sion of an octave scale into quarter-tones, serves to

explain the statement of Aristoxenus (in the third of

the passages above quoted) that the writers

harmonies

who

treated

UdXow

them
That statement has usually been taken to
refer to the ancient Modes called apjxovtaL by Plato and
Aristotle, and has been used accordingly as proof that
the scales of these Modes were based upon the different
species {dBrj) of the Octave. But the form of the reference 'which they called apixoviai' impHes some forgotten or at least unfamiliar use of the word by the
It is very much more probaolder technical writers.
of octave Systems called

'

'

{a

apiiovias).

ble that the apiioviai in question are divisions of the

octave scale, as

shown

and had
Apparently

in theoretical diagrams,

no necessary connexion with the Modes.

some at least of these diagrams were not musical scales,
but tables of all the notes in the compass of an octave
and the Enharmonic diesis was used, not merely on
account of the importance of that genus, but because it

was the

smallest interval, and therefore the natural unit

of measurement^.

The use

of apfiovta as an equivalent for

'

System or
'

account of this curious fragment of notation is that given

in his admirable book, Die Tonleitern und Musiknoten der
His conjectures as to its origin do not claim a high
Griechen, pp. 61-65.
degree of probability. See the remarks on pp. 97-99^ Cp. Plato, Rep.
kcu CfxiicpoTarov dvai tovto biaarrjixa, w /xcTprjTiov.
p. 531
It may even be that this sense of dpfiovia was connected with the use
It is at least worth notice that the phrase
for the Enharmonic genus.
^

The

fullest

by Bellermann

& tKaKovv dpnovias in this passage answers to the adjective hvapixovlwv in the
passage first quoted (compare the words "mpt avruv piovov ratv enrd. oKraxopScov
a kKakovv dpfxovias with irepl avanqixdruv oKraxop^wv hap^ovicuv p-ovov).

THE SPECIES
'

MEANING

division of the scale

'

kol

Kal ^apvTTjTO?,

a-TrjfjLaTCou,

KaTiSoures

Kal rd

^i'Xe, krreiSav

S>

kol

oirola^

Xd^rj? rd

Trjs (p(oyfJ9 o^vrrjTo^

re

tov? opovs tmv Sra-

k tovtcov oaa (TvcrrrjiiaTa ykyov^v^ a

ol irpocrBev TrapeSocrav

avrd

KaXelu

has an

d\\\

rov dpiOfMou

SLaa-TTjfMaTa oiroa-a ecTTt

55

appears in an important passage

in Plato's PhilebllS (p. 17):

TripL

OF 'APHONIA.

dpfzouia^,

toT? inofjievoL^ kKelvoL^

In this passage,

k.t.X.

air of technical

yj/jllu

which

accuracy not usual in Plato's

references to music (though perhaps characteristic of the

Phtkbus), there

is

a close agreement with the technical

The main thought

writers, especially Aristoxenus.

is

the appHcation of Umit or measure to matter which is

given as unlimited or indefinite the distinction drawn
out by Aristoxenus in a passage quoted below (p. 81).

The

treatment of the term

oxenean

(cp.

Harm.

p.

36 rd

Kal irola drra, Kal irm

ea-TL

<f)66yycoi^ a-vveaTTjKora).

System

'

is

notably Arist-

ava-TrjfjLaTa OecoprjcraL noa-a re

e/c

re rSiv

8ia(TTr]/j,dTcoj^

Further, the use

Kal

of dp/iovta for

or rather of the plural dppLoviaL for the ava-TrniaTa

observed by the older musical theorists, is exactly what

a-varrjfia,

is

noticed

antiquated.

word

his

by Aristoxenus as if it were more or less

Even in the time of Plato it appears as

own word being

there

is

{ol irpocrO^v TrapkBoa-av),

of traditional character
a-va-Tij/ia.

It

no such hesitation, either

need not be said that

in Plato or in Aristotle,

about the use of dpfiovLaL for the modes.

The same use of dpiiovla is found in the Aristotelian

Problems
fiio-T]

i.e.

KaXetTaL

how

where the question is asked,

rah dpfiouiaL?, toou 8e oktco ovk Icttl

(xix. 26),

can

we speak

of a scale of eight notes

We

of the

Mese

Sid rt
jiia-ov,

or 'middle note'

have now reviewed all the passages in Aristoxenus which can be thought to bear upon the question whether the dpfMoyiai or Modes of early Greek

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

56

music are the same as the tovol or Keys discussed by

Aristoxenus himself. The result seems to be that we
have found nothing to set against the positive arguments for the identification already urged. It may be
thought, perhaps, that the variety of senses ascribed to

word apfjLovia goes beyond what is probable. In

^.'
itself however the word meant simply 'musical scale

the

The Pythagorean

use of

in

it

and the very similar use

scale,'

the sense of 'octave

in reference to

which represented the division of

quated
'

key was

were

The

anti-

sense

of

doubtless limited in the first instance to the

'

use

that scale,

time of Aristoxenus.

the

in

diagrams

conjunction with the names Dorian, &c., which

in

suggested a distinction of pitch. From the meaning

'Dorian scale' to 'Dorian key' is an easy step. Finally,

genus

in reference to
scale.

It is

dpiiovta

meant the Enharmonic

not surprising that a

word with

so

many

meanings did not keep its place in technical language,

but was replaced by unambiguous words, viz. tovos in
one

sense,

a third.

be

first

another,

in

crva-rrjiJLa

Naturally, too, the

employed by technical
77?^

23.

kvapixoviov

yiuos^

in

more precise terms would

writers.

Seven Species.

(See the Appendix,

Table

I.)

In the Harmonics of Aristoxenus an account of the

seven species of the Octave followed

theory of Systems already referred

the
to

(p.

elaborate
48),

and

doubtless exhibited the application of that general theory

to the particular cases of the Fourth, Fifth,

Unfortunately
'

So

av T^s

the

in Plato, Leg. p.
<p(uvr}s,

wpoaayopevoiTO.

rov

existing

665 a

tj)

5^

rrjs

manuscripts

and Octave.
have only

Kivqaojs tcl^h pvd^bs oyofia

eii], rfj 3*

b^ios d/xa Kal fiapios avyKepayvv/iivojv, ap/xovia ovopua

presented the

first

Aristoxenean work

THE

SPECIES.

few

lines
11.

(p. 74,

57

chapter of the

of this

10-24 Meib.).

next source from which we learn anything of

this part of the subject is the pseudo-Euclidean hitro-

The

ductio

The

Harmonica.

writer enumerates the species

of the Fourth, the Fifth, and the Octave,

first

the

in

He
Enharmonic and then in the Diatonic genus.
scale,
Diatonic
a
on
Fourths
shows that if we take
beginning with Hypate Hypaton (our h\ we get sucd

cessively b c
c

f (\

Enharmonic

i)

and d

scale

Hypate Hypaton

we
to

with the intervals i

scale

(a

fg

(i

i).

Hypate Meson

l)^ c

Parhypate

Lichanos

Lichanos

In the case of the Octave the species

scale

h"^ c

e
is

e
e"^

(t t 2)

e^ [\ 2 J)

{2.

Hypaton

to

Thus

Paramese

highest interval;

(b

in the

\ \)

distinguished

by the place of the tone which

separates the tetrachords, the so-called Disjunctive

[rdvos Sia^evKTLKos).

ij,

get

Parhypate

on the Enharmonic

Similarly on the

in

the octave from

b) this

tone {a -

b)

Tone

Hypate
is

the

next octave, from Parhypate

Diezeugmenon \c - c\ it is the second

highest and so on. These octaves, or species of the
Octave, the writer goes on to tell us, were anciently
called by the same names as the seven oldest Keys, as
Hypaton

to Trite

follows

Mixo-lydian

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

On

the Diatonic scale, according to the same writer,

the species of an Octave

of the two semitones.

the semitones are the

and

-f)

is

distinguished by the places

Thus
first

in the second, c

the seventh, and so on.

in the first species, b

b,

and fourth intervals {b c

- c, they are the third and

He

as he does in the case of the

does not however say,

Enharmonic

scale, that

known by the names of the Keys.

This statement is first made by Gaudentius (p. 20 Meib.),
a writer of unknown date. If we adopt it provisionally,

these species were

the species of the Diatonic octave will be as follows

[Mixo-lydian]

THE

SPECIES.

59

and which the derived one ? Those who hold that the
species were the basis of the ancient Modes or apiiovlai
must regard the keys as derivative. Now Aristoxenus
tells us, in one of the passages just quoted, that the
seven species had long been recognised by theorists.
If the scheme of keys was founded upon the seven
species, it would at once have been complete, both in
the number of the keys and in the determination of the
But Aristoxenus also tells us
intervals between them.
one
that down to his time there were only six keys,
of them not yet generally recognised, and that their

was not settled. Evidently then the

which were scales in practical use, were still

relative

keys,

pitch

incomplete

when

the species of the Octave had been

worked out

in the

theory of music.

If

on the other hand we regard the names Dorian,

we have only to

&c. as originally applied to keys,

suppose that these names were extended to the species

after the number of seven keys had been completed.

This supposition is borne out by the fact that Aristoxenus, who mentions the seven species as well known,
does not give them names, or connect them with the
keys.

This

step

was apparently taken

who wished

follower of Aristoxenus,

by some

to connect the

species of the older theorists with the system of keys

which Aristoxenus had perfected.

The view now taken of the seven species is supported
by the whole treatment of musical scales (o-va-TrifjLaTa) as
we find it in Aristoxenus. That treatment from first
to last is purely abstract

and

theoretical.

The

rules

serve to determine the

which Aristoxenus lays
sequence of intervals, but are not confined to scales of
any particular compass. His Systems, accordingly, are

down

not scales in practical use: they are parts taken any-

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC,

6o

where on an

ideal

unlimited scale.

And

the seven

by Aristoxenus as
scheme of the same abstract order. They represent
the earlier teaching on which he had improved.
He
condemned that teaching for its want of generaHty,
because it was confined to the compass of the Octave
and to the Enharmonic genus, and also because it
rested on no principles that would necessarily limit
the species of the Octave to seven. On the other hand
the diagrams of the earlier musicians were unscientific,
in the opinion of Aristoxenus, on the ground that they
species of the Octave are regarded

divided the scale into a succession of quarter-tones.

Such a

division,

musically

wrong

he urged,
(e/c/zeXe?).

is

impossible in practice and

All this goes to

show

that

the earlier treatment of Systems, including the seven

Species, had the

The

exposition.
for

practical

same

theoretical character as his

own

System which he recognises

only

purposes

is

the

old

standard

octave,

from Hypate to Nete

and that System, with the
enlargements which turned it into the Perfect System,
kept its ground with all writers of the Aristoxenean
:

school.

Even

in the

accounts of the pseudo-Euchd and the

who treat of the Species of the Octave

under the names of the Keys, there is much to show
that the species existed chiefly or wholly in musical
theory. The seven species of the Octave are given
along with the three species of the Fourth and the
four species of the Fifth, neither of which appear to
have had any practical application. Another indication
of this may be seen in the seventh or Hypo-dorian
species, which was also called Locrian and Common
later writers,

(ps. Eucl. p.

i6 Meib.).

more than one name?

Why should

this species

In the Perfect System

have
it

is

THE

SPECIES.

6i

singular in being exemplified

by two different octaves,

Proslambanomenos to Mese, and that
from Mese to Nete Hyperbolaion. Now we have seen
that the higher the octave which represents a species,
the lower the key of the same name.
In this case,
then, the upper of the two octaves answers to the
Hypo-dorian key, and the lower to the Locrian. But if
the species has its two names from these two keys,
it follows that the names of the species are
derived
that fi-om

viz.

from the keys.

The

argument
*

common

the

to
'

Common

same purpose.

the sense that

in

Hypo-dorian or

that the

fact

Locrian species was also called

it

is

a further

was doubtless
characterised the two
It

made up the Perfect System. Thus the

System was recognised as the really important

octaves which
Perfect
scale.

Another consideration, which has been overlooked

by Westphal and those who follow him, is the difference between the species of the Octave in the several
genera, especially the difference between the Diatonic
and the Enharmonic. This is not felt as a difficulty
with

^-^

all

the species.

Thus

the so-called Dorian octave

Enharmonic genus e e^fa b b^ c e^2i scale

which may be regarded as the Diatonic with g and d
But the Phrygian
omitted, and the semitones divided.
d-d cannot pass in any such way into the Enharmonic
Phrygian c e e^^f a b b'^c, which answers rather to the
is in

the

Diatonic scale of the species

scholars

who

connect

the

c (the

ancient

Lydian).

Modes with

The
the

species generally confine themselves to octaves of the

Diatonic genus. In this they are supported by later

Greek writers notably, as we shall see, by Ptolemy
and by the analogy of the mediaeval Modes or Tones.
But on the other side we have the repeated complaints

'

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK

62

MUSIC.

of Aristoxenus that the earlier theorists confined themselves to

Enharmonic octave

scales.

We have

also the

circumstance that the writer or compiler of the pseudo-

Euclidean

treatise,

who

is

our

earliest

authority for

names of the species, gives these names for the

Enharmonic genus only. Here, once more, we feel
To
the difference between theory and practice.
a theorist there is no great difficulty in the terms
Diatonic Phrygian and Enharmonic Phrygian meaning
But the Phrygian Mode
essentially different things.
in practical music must have been a tolerably definite
the

'

musical form.

25.

From

The Ethos of Music.

and Aristotle we have learned some

may be called the gamut of sensiBetween the higher keys which in Greece, as in
bility.
Oriental countries generally, were the familiar vehicle of
passion, especially of the passion of grief, and the lower
keys which were regarded, by Plato at least, as the
natural language of ease and license, there were keys
expressive of calm and balanced states of mind, free
from the violent extremes of pain and pleasure. In
some later writers on music we find this classification
reduced to a more regular form, and clothed in technical
language.
We find also, what is still more to our
purpose, an attempt to define more precisely the musical
forms which answered to the several states of temper or
Plato

elements of what

emotion.

Among
is

the writers in question the most instructive

Aristides Quintilianus.

musical ethos under the

He
first

discusses the subject of

of the usual seven heads,

ETHOS.

63

which deals with sounds or notes {Trepl cpdoyycou).

the distinctions to be drawn in regard to notes
he reckons that of ethos the ethos of notes, he says,
is different as they are higher or lower, and also as
that

Among

they are in the place of a Parhypate or in the place

of a Lichanos (p. 13 Meib. eVepa yap rjO-q roh 6^VTepoL9,
Tepa Tols papvrepOLS kirLTpiyei, kol erepa

jxeu irapviraro-

Again, under the seventh

L8i(nv, erepa 8e XtxccpoeLSeo-Lv).

head, that of /xeXoiroua or composition, he treats of the

There are three

(p. 28), viz. that which
is akin to Hypate {vTraToeLSrj^), that which is akin to Mese
(/xeo-oei^T??), and that which is akin to Nete {r-qToeLSrjs).
*

regions of the voice

'

{tottol rrj^

(J)(dvt]s).

kinds of composition, he tells us

The

first

part of the art of composition

which the musician

(Xtj-^l?)

is

able

region of the voice to be employed

is

the choice

make

to

(Xrjyln?

of the

plv

Sl

rjs

evplcTKeLv T(p [xovciKco irepLyLyueraL aTro ttolov ttjs (patvrj^ to

(TV(rrr]fjLa

tottov iroL-qreov, irorepov vTraToecSov?

TLU09).

He

rj

rcov Xolttcou

then proceeds to connect these regions,

or different parts of the musical scale, with different

There are three styles of
branches of lyrical poetry.
'

musical composition

{rpoiroL

rrfs

/leXoTroua?),

viz.

the

Nomic, the Dithyrambic, and the Tragic and of these

Nomic is netoid, the Dithyrambic is mesoid, and
;

the

the Tragic

is

They

hypatoid

are called styles

because according to the melody adopted they

Thus it happens that

(TpoTTOi)

express the ethos of the mind.

composition {iieXoiroua)

may

monic, Chromatic:

System, as Hypatoid,

Netoid

in key, as

Dithyrambic
''

in

Dorian, Phrygian

in ethos, as

contracting "

painful feehngs

differ in genus, as

we

call

Nomic,

by which we move

another ''expanding"

by which we arouse the

Mesoid,

one kind of composition

{(rva-TaXTLKrj), viz. that

;

in style, as

Enhar-

(5ia(rraAriK:??),that

spirit (Ov/xo?);

and another

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK

64

"middle"

(/^ecr?;),

that

MUSIC.

by which we bring round the soul

to calmness.'

This passage does not quite

three kinds of ethos

intermediate

with

the

the

explicitly connect the

diastaltic,

three

the systaltic, the

regions of

the

but the connexion was evidently implied, and

down

in

dudio

(p.

voice
laid

is

express terms in the pseudo-Euclidean Intro21 Meib.).

According

Aristoxenean

to this

writer, 'the diastaltic ethos of musical composition is

which expresses grandeur and manly elevation of

kol hiap\ia yjrvxv^ dySpcoSe^), and
heroic actions and these are employed by tragedy and
The systaltic
all poetry that approaches the tragic type.
ethos is that by which the soul is brought down into
a humble and unmanly frame; and such a disposition will
be fitting for amatory effusions and dirges and lamentations and the like. And the hesychastic or tranquilly disposed ethos {rjcrvxcccTTLKou rjOo^) of musical composition is
that which is followed by calmness of soul and a liberal
and peaceful disposition and this temper will fit hymns,
paeans, laudations, didactic poetry and the like.* It
that

soul (/xeyaAoTrpeTreia
;

appears then that difference in the

notes employed in a composition
say, of pitch
its

ethos,

'

place

'

(tottos)

of the

difference, that

is to

was the element which chiefly determined

and (by consequence) which distinguished

the music appropriate to the several kinds of lyrical

poetry.

A slightly

different version of this piece of theory is

preserved in the anonymous treatise edited by Beller-

mann

where the

( 63, 64),

'

regions of the voice

'

are

number, viz. the three already menand a fourth which takes its name from the
tetrachord Hyperbolaion {totto? v7repl3o\oeL8rJ9).
In the
said to be four in

tioned,

same passage the boundaries of the several regions

ETHOS.

down by

are laid

or hypatoid

65

reference to the keys.

from the

reaches

region

'

The

lowest

Hypo-dorian

Hypate Meson to the Dorian Mese; the intermediate

or mesoid region from the Phrygian Hypate Meson
Mese the netoid region from the
to the Lydian
Lydian Mese to the Nete Synemmenon; the hyperboloid region embracing all above the last point.'
;

The

text of this passage is uncertain

character of the

enough

The

11 Meib.):

(p.

The

Meib.):

is

clearly

What

is

rj

rpels.

Kara

tjOos

when

the humble to the magnificent;

appear

o^vv,
(p.

eh

14
els

irapaKeKiv-qKos.

a change

is

made from

or from the tranquil

to violent emotion.'

When we
find

rovrovr

orav eK raireLvov

e^ r]crv)(ov kol (tvvvov

change of ethos

and sober

rlva^

Tpoirovs) Se Trj9

varieties of ethos also

Be iierapoXr]

77

(MSS.

tottovs

Xeyofiev etvai

papvv.

fieyaXoTTpeire?'

we

but the general

indicated.

(jxovrfS TTOcrovs

'

or regions of the voice

three regions are mentioned in the catechism of

Bacchius

fieo-oy,

tottol

it

compare the doctrine of musical ethos as

in

these later writers with the indications

be gathered from Plato and Aristotle, the chief

appears to be that we no longer hear of
the ethos of particular modes, but only of that of three or
to

difference

(at

the most) four portions of the scale.

of the division,
pitch.

But

if

it

that

is

evident,

was the

is

The

principle

simply difference of

basis of the ethical effect

of music in later times, the circumstance goes far to

confirm us in the conclusion that

it

was the

pitch of

the music, rather than any difference in the succession

of the intervals, that principally determined the ethical

character of the older modes.

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

66

The Ethos of

26.

the

Genera and Species.

Although the pitch of a musical composition as

these passages confirm us in beheving was the chief
ground of its ethical character, it cannot be said that no

other element entered into the case.

In the passage quoted above from Aristides Quintilianus (p. 13 Meib.)

depends

said that ethos

it is

first

on pitch {Tpa rjOrj T0L9 o^vripoL?, erepa tol9 papVTepOLs)y

and secondly on the moveable notes, that is to say, on
the genus- For that is evidently involved in the words
that

follow

By

XL^avoetSecnv.

means
first

all

erepa

koI

fieu

irapviraroeLSicnv,

and

TrapviraroeLSeh

the moveable notes {(pOoyyoL

erepa

XixccvoeLSeT?
(p^pofiei^ot)

8\

he
the

are those which hold the place of Parhypate in

tetrachord, viz.

their

Trite

or Paranete.
to the
scale.

the notes

Parhypate or

called

the second are similarly the notes called Lichanos

These moveable

notes, then, give an ethos

music because they determine the genus of the

Regarding the particular ethos belonging to the

same author
mascuHne and

different genera, there is a statement of the

(p.

Ill) to the effect that the Diatonic

5' karri

austere {dppevcoirov

matic

sweet and plaintive

Enharmonic
TovTo KOL

some

stirring

riTTLov).

{tjSlcttou re

and pleasing

Thc

is

Chro-

kol avdTrjpoTepou), the

Kal yoepov), the

5'

{SieyepTiKov

karl

cHticism doubtless came from

earlier source.

Do we

ever find ethos attributed to this or that species

of the Octave ?

source of ethos

is

indicated.

chief authority (as

species,

and

can find no passage in which this

we

Even Ptolemy, who

is

the

shall see) for the value of the

who makes

least of

mere

difference of

THE NOTATION.
pitch, recognises

67

only two forms of modulation

course of a melody,

in the

change of genus and change of

viz.

pitch \

The Musical Notation.

27.

As

the preceding argument turns very

much upon
we have

the practical importance of the scale which

been discussing,
original

Hypate

as the single octave from the

first

the Perfect System,

may be worth

it

some such scale is implied

Greek musical notation.
use of written characters

paratively early period

a-rjfiai/TLKrj)

Greece.

in

down

art of writing

had come

to represent

{a-r^ixe'La)

appears to date from a com-

the sounds of music

Aristoxenus the

while to show

in the history of the

that

The

to

In

which Aristoxenus

is

time of

the

a melody {napa-

be considered by some persons

music (apiiovLKrj), an error

identical with the science of

true that the

form as

to Nete, then in its enlarged

some pains

at

authorities

from

refute.

to

whom we

It

is

derive our

knowledge of the Greek notation are post-classical.

But the characters themselves, as we shall presently
see, furnish sufficient evidence of their antiquity.

The Greek

musical notation

is

curiously complicated.

After drawing a distinction between difference of key

6.
whole of a melody or piece of music and as a means of
change in the course of it the distinction, in short, between transposition
and modulation proper he says of the latter avrrj 5e wairfp iKmnTeiv avrfjv
(sc. TTjV aia6r]aiv) TroieT rod awrjOovs fcal TrpoaSoKOJfxivov /xcAouj, orav km nXeov
^

Ptol.

Harm.

ii.

as affecting the

fjLtv

GVveiprjTai to olkoKovBoi;, ix(Tal3aivr) 5e

yevos ^ Kara t^v raffiv.

That

is

irrj

vpos erepov

to say, the sense of

eldos, tjtoi Kara,

change

is

to

produced

by a change of genus or of pitch. A change of species is not suggested. So

Dionys. Hal. De Comp. Verb. c. 19 oi U 7c SLOvpafil^oTTOiol Kal tovs rpoirovs
(keys) fiTi{3a\\ov, Acopinovs re teal ^pvyiovs Kal AvSiovs kv tw avrcv aa^iari
TTOiovvTes' Kal

Tas fxeXcuSics k^-qWarrov, rore

F 2

pilv evapfiovivvs nuLovvTes, k.t.X.

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

68

There

a double set of characters, one for the note

is

assigned to the singer, the other for those of the lyre

The notes for the voice are
or other instrument.
obviously derived from the letters of the ordinary Ionic
alphabet, multipHed by the use of accents and other
diacritical

The

marks.

instrumental notes were

explained less than thirty years ago by Westphal.

first

In

work Harmonik und Melopoie der Griechen (c. viii

Die Semantik) he showed, in a manner as conclusive as
it is ingenious, that they were originally taken from the
his

first

fourteen letters of an alphabet of archaic

to the alphabets

Among

found

in certain parts of

most

the primitive crooked iota

h,

of Argos.
alpha,

beta

akin

Peloponnesus.

the letters which he traces, and which point to

this conclusion, the

< and

t3^pe,

is

we

digamma,

significant are the

h and two forms

the latter of which

is

of lambda,

peculiar to the alphabet

the other characters ^, which stands for

Of

best derived from the archaic form

)^.

For

which may come from an archaic form

character 1, as Westphal shows, is
with part of one side left out. Similarly

find C,

of the letter \
for 7, or delta

The

the ancient O,
the character

when the circle was incomplete, yielded

The crooked iota (h) appears as h.

C.

The two forms

of lambda serve for different notes, thus

bringmg the number of symbols up to fifteen. Besides
and 6, which cannot
these there are two characters,
ci.

^
Since this was written I have learned from Mr. H. S. Jones that the
form E for beta occurs on an inscription dated about 500 b.c viz. Count
Tyszkiewicz's bronze plate, published simultaneously by Robert in the
Monumenti Antichi pubblicati per cura della reale Accademia dei Lincei, i.
,

(with plate), and Frohner in the Revue Arche'ologique, 1891

fF.
July-August, pp. 51 ff. PI. xix. Mr. Jones points out that this C connects
the crescent beta (C) of Naxos, Delos, &c. with the common form, and is
evidently therefore an early form of the letter.
I take this opportunity of thanking Mr. Jones for other help, especially in
pp. 593

regard to the subject of thi^ section.

THE NOTATION.

69

be derived in the same way from any alphabet. As

they stand for the lowest notes of the scale, they are
probably an addition, later than the rest of the system.

At the upper end,

again, the scale

extended by the

is

simple device of using the same characters for notes an

octave higher, distinguishing them in this use by an

The

accent.

original fifteen characters, with the letters

from which they are derived, and the corresponding

notes in the

modern musical

scale, are as follows

HhEi-r/^FCKn<[iNzM
X^

be

These

/I

X-

notes,

it

will

the Greater Perfect System.

those

The

They may be regarded

which form the complete

natural

'

(^

two octaves of

as answering to the white notes of the

so-called

be seen, compose two octaves of

the Diatonic scale, identical with the

board,

defgahcdefga

7j

modern keyscale

in

the

key.

other notes,

viz.

those which are required not

only in different keys of the Diatonic scale, but also in

all Enharmonic and Chromatic scales, are represented

by the same characters modified

in

some simple way.

is turned half round backwards to

by one small interval (as from Hypate to Parhypate), and reversed to raise it by both (Hypate to

Usually a character

raise

it

Lichanos).

Thus

the letter epsilon, E, stands for our

and accordingly UJ (E dvcrrpafjLfj,ipou or vtttlov)

stands for c* and a (E dTrea-rpafx/iiyou) for cjf. The
Enharmonic scale c-c^^-c^-f is therefore written
E U 3 A, the two modifications of the letter E representing the two 'moveable' notes of the tetrachord.

c\

Similarly
/^

we have
u D, K y

the
>|,

triads

< V

>,

hxrl,

Hj. h,

E Ud. As some

Ll^,

letters

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

70

do not admit of this kind of differentiation, other

methods are employed. Thus A is made to yield the
from H (or B) are obtained the
forms n (for 7) A A
forms U and R and from Z (or I ) the forms A and A
The modifications of N are / and \ those of M are
/ and \.
The method of writing a Chromatic tetrachord is the
same, except that the higher of the two moveable notes
Thus the tetrachord
is marked by a bar or accent.
:

c%

df is

written

3'

LiJ

A'.

we

In the Diatonic genus

should have expected that

the original characters would have been used for the

tetrachords h

d e and

fg a

and that

in other tetra-

chords the second note, being a semitone above the

first,

would have been represented by a reversed

In

(ypa/zyna aTreoTpa/zyLieVoj/).

fact,

letter

however, the Diatonic

Parhypate and Trite are written with the same character

b c
is

That

Enharmonic.

as the

d e'ls

not written

not h H Z' F, but

h E

is

to say,

h r, but

the tetrachord

H r

and d e^fg

h H >^ F.

Let us now consider

how

scheme of symbols is
related to the Systems already described and the Keys
in which those Systems may be set [tovol k(j) a>u riOe[i^va

ra

The

this

avcrrrifiaTa fxeXcpSeLTai).

fifteen characters,

diatonic octaves.

It

it

will

has been noticed, form two

appear on a

little

further

scheme must have been conThe

to these two octaves.
successive notes are not expressed by the letters of the
alphabet in their usual order (as is done in the case of
the vocal notes). The highest note is represented by
the first letter. A: and then the remaining fourteen
notes are taken in pairs, each with its octave and each
of the pairs of notes is represented by two successive

examination that
structed

with

the

view

72

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

M. Gevaert meets this difficulty by supposing that the

original scale was in the Dorian key, and that subsequently, from some cause the nature of which we cannot
guess, a change of pitch took place by which the Dorian
scale became a semitone higher.
It is perhaps simpler
the
original
Dorian
became split up,
to conjecture that
so to speak, into two keys by difference of local usage,
and that the lower of the two came to be called
Hypo-dorian, but kept the original notation. A more
serious difficulty is raised by the high antiquity which
M. Gevaert assigns to the Perfect System. He supposes that the inventor of the notation made use of an
instrument (the magadis) which 'magadised' or repeated
the notes an octave higher.

But

this

would give us

a repetition of the primitive octave e-e^ rather than an

enlargement by the addition of tetrachords

at

both ends.

M. Gevaert regards the adaptation of the scheme

to

the other keys as the result of a gradual process of

Here we may

extension.

recourse

the

to

modified

distinguish

characters

between the

which

served
'

same purpose as the sharps and flats

in the signature of a modern key
and the additional
notes obtained either by means of new characters (a.
and e), or by the use of accents (T, &c.). The Hypodorian and Hypo-phrygian, which employ the new
characters a. and , are known to be comparatively
recent.
The Phrygian and Lydian, it is true, employ
essentially the

'

'

the accented notes

but they do so only in the highest

tetrachord (Hyperbolaion), which

originally

used

in

these

may

high keys.

not have been

The

modified

characters doubtless belong to an earlier period.

are needed for the three oldest keys

Lydian
genera.

and
If

also for the

They

Dorian, Phrygian,

Enharmonic and Chromatic

they are not part of the original scheme.


THE NOTATION.
the musician

who

devised them

may

73
fairly

be counted

as the second inventor of the instrumental notation.

In setting out the scales of the several keys

it

will

be unnecessary to give more than the standing notes

{(pOoyyoL e(TTS>res)j which are nearly all represented by

moveable notes being

represented by the modified forms described above.
original or unmodified letters the

The

following

includes

fist

standing notes,

the

viz.

Proslambanomenos, Hypate Hypaton, Hypate Meson,

Mese, Paramese, Nete Diezeugmenon and Nete Hyperthe two lowest are
bolaion in the seven oldest keys
:

marked

as doubtful

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

74

an archaic one.
particular

for

which belong

contained several characters, in

It

digamma, h

for iota,

and h

for lambda,

to the period before the introduction of

Indeed

the Ionian alphabet.

these letters alone

we

if

we were

judge from

to

should be led to assign the

instrumental notation (as Westphal does) to the time of

The

Solon.

three-stroke iota (h), in particular, does

not occur in any alphabet later than the sixth century

On

B.C.

the other hand,

when we

find that the notation

impHes the use of a musical System in advance of any

scale recognised in Aristotle, or even in Aristoxenus,
such a date becomes incredible. We can only suppose

either (i) that the use of

in the fifth

epigraphic record, or
still

known as

(2)

that

century was

we have no

confined to localities of which

complete

as a form of iota

i-,

archaic forms must have been

was

from

was adopted by the

the older public inscriptions, and

inventor of the notation as being better suited to his

purpose than

I.

With regard

to the

the chief fact which

place of origin of the notation

we have

to deal with is the

of the character h for lambda, which

alphabet of Argos, along with the

Westphal indeed
found
(C.

I.

asserts

that

the Argive alphabet.

which he quotes^ for <

in a slightly different form.

that

distinctive of the

commoner form <

both these forms are

But the inscription

in
i)

is

use

really contains only h

We

cannot therefore say

the inventor of the notation derived

entirely

it

from the alphabet of Argos, but only that he shows an

acquaintance with that alphabet. This is confirmed by
the fact that the form

for iota is not

found

at

Argos.

Probably therefore the inventor drew upon more than

^

Harmonik imd

Melopoie, p. 286 (ed. i863\

given by Mr. Roberts, Greek Epigraphy,

p. 109.

The

true form of the letter

is

THE NOTATION.
one alphabet
being one.

The

purpose,

his

for

the

75

Argive alphabet

special fitness of the notation for the scales of

the Enharmonic genus

may be

We

regarded as a further

present^ that that

genus held a peculiar predominance in the earliest
indication of

period

its

date.

of musical

brought

to

If the

theory

shall see

that,

namely, which was

an end by Aristoxenus.

or the second author,

characters was one of the

author of the notation

inventor of the modified

musicians whose names have come

be

difficult to find

Pronomus

of Thebes.

down to us, it would

more probable one than that of

One

of the most striking features

when it was framed, must

have been the adjustment of the keys. Even in the time
of Aristoxenus, as we know from the passage so often
quoted, that adjustment was not universal. But it is
of the notation, at the time

precisely

done

what Pronomus of Thebes

for the

music of the

is

said to have

flute {supra, p. 38).

The

circumstance that the system was only used for instru-

mental music
If

it

may

is

is at

least in

harmony with

thought that Thebes

is

this conjecture.

too far from Argos,

we

back upon the notice that Sacadas of Argos

was the chief composer for the flute before the time of
Pronomus ^, and doubtless Argos was one of the first
cities to share in the advance which Pronomus made in
fall

the technique of his

28.

art.

Traces of the Species in the Notation.

Before leaving this part of the subject

to notice the attempt
^

Pausanias

(iv.

will

which Westphal makes

27, 4) says of the founding of

di) irpoTixOrj

fxaKiara

els

to

be well
connect

Messene: elpyd^ovro

virb fxovaiKrjs dX\T]s fxlv ovdefiids, avkuiv 5e BoiajTiajv fcal

Kot IIpovoixov fiiXrj t6t

it

'Apydcov

ajxiWai^.

to,

be koi

re laKoZa


THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

76

the species of the Octave with the form of the musical

notation.

The

notation, as has been explained

formed by two Diatonic octaves, denoted by
the letters of the alphabet from a to v^ as follows

basis of the

(p. 69), is

ahcdefgabcd

f g

In this scale, as has been pointed out

(p.

71),

the

notes which are at the distance of an octave from, each

other are always expressed by two successive letters

Thus we

of the alphabet.
^3

- y

is

^ - e
F - C
r} -

find

the octave e -

e^

the Dorian species.

c,

the Lydian species.

,,

g -gi

a -a, the Hypo-dorian species.

the Hypo-phrygian species.

Westphal adopts the theory of Boeckh (as to which

Hypo-phrygian and Hypo-dorian
species answered to the ancient Ionian and Aeolian
see p. 11) that the

piodes.

On

this

assumption he argues that the order

of the pairs of letters representing the species agrees

with the order of the

Modes

in the historical develop-

ment of Greek music.

For the
Ionian, and Aeolian he appeals

to

Heraclides Ponticus, quoted above

(p. 9).

he supposes, was interposed

account of

we have

its

seen,

priority of Dorian,

in the

the authority of

Lydian,

second place on

importance

in

by Aristotle

in the Politics

Hence he regards

The

education, recognised, as

7 ad fin.).
the notation as confirming his theory
(viii.

of the nature and history of the Modes.

The weakness

of this reasoning

is manifold.
Granting
Hypo-dorian and Hypo-phrygian answer to the
old Aeolian and Ionian respectively, we have to ask
what is the nature of the priority which Heraclides

that the

THE NOTATION.

77

Ponticus claims for his three modes, and what

value of his testimony.

What

he says

worthy of the name of modes

Hellenic, and

is

the

in substance,

music that are truly

that these are the only kinds of

It

is,

can hardly be thought that this

is

{apfiovLai.).

a criticism likely

have weighed with the inventor of the notation.

But if it did, why did he give an equally prominent
place to Lydian, one of the modes which Heraclides
condemned? In fact, the introduction of Lydian goes
to

far to

show

the views

that the coincidence

of

Heraclides

is

mere

however, from these

difficulties,

considerations which

seem

1.

The

such

as

it

accident.

is

with
Apart,

there are at least two

fatal to

Westphal's theory:

notation, so far as the original

two octaves are

concerned, must have been devised and worked out at

some one

No

time.

part of these two octaves can have

been completed before the rest. Hence the order in

which the letters are taken for the several notes has no
historical importance.
2.

The

notation does not represent onl}^ the species

of a scale, that

is to

which compose

it,

pitch of each note.

say, the relative pitch of the notes

it

represents also the absolute

Thus

the octaves which are defined

but

P-

S -

and the
If they were framed
rest, are octaves of definite notes.
with a view to the ancient modes, as Westphal thinks,
they must be the actual scales employed in these modes.

by the successive

If so, the

pairs of letters,

modes followed each

y,

e,

other, in respect of pitch,

in an order exactly the reverse of the order observed

It need hardly be said that this is quite
in the keys.

impossible.

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

78

Ptolemy s Scheme of Modes.

29.

The

first

who

writer

takes the Species of the Octave

as the basis of the musical scales

Claudius Ptolemaeus

is

140-160

(fl.

the mathematician

In his Har-

a.d.).

he virtually sets aside the scheme of keys

elaborated by Aristoxenus and his school, and adopts
in their place a system of scales answering in their
monics

main features

to the

The

mediaeval Tones or Modes.

object of difference of key, he says,

is

not that the

may be of a higher or lower pitch,

melody may be brought within a certain

music as a whole
but that a

For

compass.

this

purpose

is

it

necessary to vary the

modern musician does

succession of intervals (as

by changing the signature of the clef). If, for example,

we take the Perfect System {o-vo-Trj/ia dfxeTalBoXou) in the
key of a minor which is its natural key, and transpose it to the key of d minor, we do so, according to

Ptolemy, not in order to raise the general pitch of our

music by a Fourth, but because we wish to have a scale
with b

flat

The

instead of b natural.

flattening of this

two octaves change their

They are now of the species e-e. Thus,
species.
instead of transposing the Perfect System into different
keys, we arrive more directly at the desired result by

note, however,

means

that the

changing the species of

its

seven possible species of the

Systems or scales.
follows, as Ptolemy shows

different
it

greater

number

of keys

And as there are

Octave, we obtain seven
From these assumptions

octaves.

is

octave higher than another,

in

some

useless.
it

is

Harm.

ii.

oi 5e

If a

key

is

same

an

virepiKm-nTOvrts tov Sid -naawv tovs

an

intervals \
avrov rov did

-naawv dircuTepo} irapeXKovTcos viroTiOevTai, tovs cvtovs dci -yivoiiivovs roTs

\r]fjifiii/ois.

any

superfluous because

gives us a mere repetition of the

it

detail, that

irpoei-

Ptolemy's scheme.
If

we

interpose a key between

(e.g.)

79

the Hypo-dorian

must give us over again

either the Hypo-dorian or the Hypo-phrygian scaled
Thus the fifteen keys of the Aristoxeneans are reduced

and the Hypo-phrygian,

it

seven, and these seven are not transpositions of

a single scale, but are all of the same pitch. See the

to

end of the book.

With this scheme of Keys Ptolemy combined a new
method of naming the individual notes. The old
method, by which a note was named from its relative
place in the Perfect System, must evidently have

table at the

become inconvenient. The Lydian Mese, for example,

was two tones higher than the Dorian Mese, because
the Lydian scale as a whole was two tones higher than
But when the two scales were reduced to
the Dorian.
the old Lydian Mese was no longer
compass,
the same
in the middle of the scale, and the name ceased to have
though the term dominant when
Minor
key were made to mean the domiapplied to a
nant of the relative Major key. On Ptolemy's method
the notes of each scale were named from their places in
The old names were used, Proslambanomenos for
it.
the lowest, Hypate Hypaton for the next, and so on,

a meaning.

It is

as

'

'

but without regard to the intervals between the notes.

Thus there were two methods of naming, that which

had been

in

use hitherto, termed

'

nomenclature accord-

and the new

method of naming from the various scales, termed
'nomenclature according to position' (pvo\ia(Tia Kara

ing to value''

The former was

eia-Lv).

Perfect
place a
1

fj

Kara

in

SvuafXLv),

effect

a retention of the

System and the Keys the latter put in their

scheme of seven different standard Systems.
:

Harm.

irporepov,

{ovo^acria

ii.

dW

ii

wan

jx-qh'

av Uepov en 86iai rZ

virodwpiov irnXiv,

^apvcpoJvoTfpov jxovov.

rj

et'Sfi

tov rovov -napa lov

tov avTov viro(ppvyiov, o^vcpMVoTepov

-rivos

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

8o

In illustration of his theory Ptolemy gives tables

numbers the intervals of the octaves used

He shows two
in the different keys and genera.
octaves in each key, viz. that from Hypate Meson [Kara
Oia-Lv) to Nete Diezeugmenon (called the octave airh
vrjTTj^), and that from Proslambanomenos to Mese (the
showing

in

octave drro

five different

number

As he

/leo-rj?).

colours

'

of octaves

is

'

no

gives the divisions of

also

or varieties of genus, the whole

less than seventy.

Ptolemy does not exclude difference of pitch altoThe whole instrument, he says, may be tuned
higher or lower at pleasured Thus the pitch is treated
by him as modern notation treats the fempo, viz. as
something which is not absolutely given, but has to be
supplied by the individual performer.
Although the language of Ptolemy's exposition is
gether.

studiously impersonal,

may be

it

gathered

his

that

reduction of the number of keys from fifteen to seven

was an innovation proposed by himself 2. If this is so,
the rest of the scheme,
pitch,

due

the elimination of the element of

and the nomenclature by position,' must also be

'

we find ourselves at issue

who agree with him on the

Here, however,

to him.

with Westphal and those

main question of the Modes. According to Westphal the

nomenclature by position is mentioned by Aristoxenus,
and is implied in at least one important passage of the
Aristotelian Pi^oblems. We have now to examine the
evidence which he adduces to support his contention.
Hartn.

ii.

7 irpbs ttjv roiavr-qv hia<popav

tj

twv dpydvwv o\ojv cniTaais ^

iraXiv

dveais a-napKil.
^

ol

This

may be

traced in the occasionally controversial tone

fih' en' (tkaTTOv

fxfi^ov

TovTov,

TraXaiOTfpovs

bid.

irpoKOTirjv

OTjpojfiiVcuv,

Karaar da iocs' ^
didaraoiv.

tov

fJ-ovr)

iraacuv (pdacravrts, ol

riva

(TxcSoi/

S'

eir'

roiahrrjv ael

avro
tuiv

as

Harm.

fiovov, ol de

vecoTipwv

ii.

iirl

irapa

to

rovs

dvoiKfiov t^s rrepi to rjppiO(Tp.evov (pvaews re Kal diro-

Trfpaivfiv

We may compare

dvayKaiov kari
c. 11.

ttjv

twv iaopLtvuv

aKpctiv rdvoiv

PTOLEMY

30.

Two

SCHEME.

8r

Nomenclature by Position.

passages of Aristoxenus are quoted by Westphal

The first (p. 6 Meib.) is one

which Aristoxenus announces his intention to treat
setting out their
of Systems, their number and nature
differences in respect of compass {iiiyeBos), and for each
compass the differences in form and composition and
in

support of his contention.

in

'

position (ra? re Kara a^rjixa

OecTLv),

Kara

kolI

SO that no element of melody,

form or composition or position,

But the word

mean

the

notes.

'

Elsewhere

may be unexplained.'

when appHed

Bea-LSy

position

'

(p.

Kara

crvvOea-Lv kol

either compass or
Systems, does not

to

of single notes, but of groups of

54 Meib.) he speaks of the position

of tetrachords towards each other {ras rcov rerpayopSoDv

Trpbs

dXXr]Xa

chords

decrei?),

in the

laying

it

down

that

any two

same System must be consonant

tetra-

either

The

with each other or with some third tetrachord.

other passage quoted by Westphal
in the discussion of

Systems.

(p.

69 Meib.)

Aristoxenus

out the necessity of recognising that

is

is

also

pointing

some elements of

melodious succession are fixed and limited, others are

unlimited
Kara

jXev

ovv

rao-etj aireipd

tcov hia(TTr]}xaTcov kol ras tG>v cj^OoyyoiV

to, jxey^dr]

ttcos

(fyaCverai

etvai

ra

irefA

piXos,

Kara be ras

bwdp^eis KOL Kara ra dbr) kol Kara rds Oecreis 'ne'nepacrpeva re

KoX rerayixiva.

In the size of the intervals and the pitch of the notes

the elements of melody seem to be infinite but in respect
'

of the values

[i.e.

the relative places oP the notes) and in

respect of the forms

in respect of

[i.e.

the succession of the intervals) and

the positions they are limited and settled.'

by supposing that
scale downwards from a ttvki'ov or
G

Aristoxenus goes on to

we wish

to continue a

illustrate this


THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

82

pair of small intervals (Chromatic or Enharmonic).

In

this case, as the ttvkpou forms the lower part of a tetra-

chord, there are two possibilities.

tetrachord
is

is disjunct,

conjunct, the next interval

genus

(77

fxeu

TrjfLaT09 elSos,

eh

fMiyedo9

next lower

If the

the next interval

is

a tone

is

yap Kara tovov eh Bid^ev^iv dyet to tov

17

8e

Kara Odrepov

avvacprju).

Thus

if it

the large interval of the

SLda-TrjjjLa

ovcr-

6 tl SrJTTor e)(ei

the succession of intervals

is determined by the relative position of the two tetrachords, as to which there is a choice between two defin-

This then is evidently what is meant

by the words Kara ra? Beaeis ^. On the other hand the
Oeo-Ls of Ptolemy's nomenclature is the absolute pitch

ite alternatives.

(Harm.
oLTrXm

rj

ii.

5 nore

fiev

nap' avrrju rrjv Oecnu, to o^vTepou

fiapvTepov, ovoiid^oiiev),

and

this is

one of the

elements which according to Aristoxenus are indefinite.

Westphal also finds the nomenclature by position
implied in the passage of the Aristotelian Problems
(xix. 20)

Mese

which deals with the peculiar

to the rest of the musical scale.

relation of the

The passage

already been quoted and discussed [supra,

it

has been pointed out that

if

the

Mese

p. 43),

has

and

of the Perfect

System [p-iar] KaTd BvvapLv) is the key-note, the scale

must have been an octave of the a-species. If octaves
of other species were used, as Westphal maintains, it
becomes necessary to take the Mese of this passage to
be the pea-q koltol OecTLu, or Mese by position. That is,
Westphal is obliged by his theory of the Modes to take
the term Mese in a sense of which there is no other
But
trace before the time of Ptolemy.
that
the names of the
improbable
(i) It is highly
notes Mese, Hypate, Nete and the rest should have

'

So Bacch.

p.

19 Meib. Okans St TerpaxopSoov oh rb fj.i\os opi^erai elaiv

the whole passage).

firra; avvacpT]^ dia^iv^LS, vrrodia^^v^is, k.t.\. (see

SCALES IN USE.

83

had two distinct meanings. Such an ambiguity would

have been intolerable, and only to be compared with
the similar ambiguity which Westphal's theory implies
in the use of the

terms Dorian, &c.

the different species of the octave were the

(2) If

practically important scales, as

Westphal maintains, the

must have been

position of the notes in these scales

Hence

correspondingly important.

the nomenclature

by position must have been the more usual and

one.

familiar

we have shown, it is not found in

Aristoxenus or Euclid to say nothing of

Yet, as

Aristotle,

later writers.

The nomenclature by position is an essential part

scheme of Keys proposed by Ptolemy. It bears
same relation to Ptolemy's octaves as the nomen-

(3)

of the

the

clature

by value bears

to the old standard octave

'

'

and

was probably therefore devised

about the time of Ptolemy, if not actually by him.

the Perfect System.

Scales of the Lyre

31.

The

It

evidence

earliest

in

and

Cithara,

practical

music of any

octaves other than those of the standard System

be found
scales

is

to

account given by Ptolemy of certain

in the

employed on the

lyre

and

According

cithara.

to

account the scales of the lyre (the simpler and

commoner instrument) were of two kinds. One was

this

Diatonic, of the

'colour' or variety which

recognises as the prevailing one,

or

'

Tonic

ture' of

'

{Stdropoi/ routaLouy.

We may think
i.e.

in

The

the

'

other

Ptolemy
Middle Soft'

was a

Diatonic with the standard

this

iXP^I^^ (^yvTovov)

smaller,

viz.

mix-

Chromatic

that is to say, the octave consisted of

which the semitones are considerably

and /are nearly a quarter of a tone flat.

of this as a scale in

which

'

G 2

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

84

These octaves apparently

a tetrachord of each genus.

might be of any

On

the cithara,

which was

more elaborate form of

confined in practice to professional musicians,

lyre,

octave

different

six

according to the key chosen^.

species,

were

scales

employed, each of

They

a particular species and key.

are enumerated

and described by Ptolemy in two passages {Harm.

i6
and ii. i6), which in some points serve to correct
each other^. Of the six scales two are of the Hypoi.

Ptol.

Harm.

ii.

i6 Trepiex^rai Se

tcL fiev

ev

rrj

\vpa uaXovficva ffrepia tovov

Tivbs vnb rS)V rov roviaiov Siarovov dpidfiSfv tov avrov tovov,

Se fiaXaKa virb

to,

Here tovov
means of any given key/ and tov avTov tovov of that key.'
There is either no restriction, or none that Ptolemy thought worth mentioning, in the choice of the key and species.
^ The two passages enumerate the scales in a slightly different manner.
In i. i6 they are arranged in view of the genus or colour into
Twv

kv

rw

fiiy/xari

Tivos evidently

tov /xaXatcov

xP'^A'ctTos a.pi9p.a)v

tov avTov tovov.

'

'

Pure Middle Soft Diatonic,

viz.

aTeped, of the lyre.

TpiTCU

vireprpova

Mixture of Chromatic,

.of the
viz.

fiaXaKo,,

of the lyre.

TpoTTiKa,

of the cithara.

Mixture of Soft Diatonic,

TTapvircLTai,

Mixture of

viz.

of the cithara.

Sicltovov cvvtovov, viz.

XvSia

laoTia
It is

cithara.

of the cithara.

added, however, that in their use of this last

in the habit of tuning the cithara in the

mixture musicians are

Pythagorean manner, with two
'

'

Major tones and a XufXfxa (called Sicitovov SiToviaTov).

In the second passage (ii. i6) the scales of the lyre are given first, then
those of the cithara with the key of each. The order is the same, except
that irapvacLTai comes before rpoinKd (now called Tponoi), and XvSia is placed

The words

tcL 5i \v5ia ol tov Toviaiov SiaTdvov [sc. dpiOpLoi n^puxovai]

cannot be correct, not merely because they contradict the statement of the earlier passage that Xvdia denoted a mixture with Slcltovov
avvTovov (or in practice hidrovov SiroviaTov), but also because the scales that
do not admit mixture are placed first in the list in both passages. Hence
we should doubtless read to, S^ \vSia ol (^tov fxlyfiarosy tov (^di'^Toviaiov SiaTovov

last.

TOV

doopiov

TOV Aajpiov.

SCALES IN USE.

85

dorian or

Common

rpLTai,

purely Diatonic of the Middle Soft variety;

is

species {a -

a).

One

of these, called

the intervals expressed by fractions are as follows

The

other, called rpoiroL or rpoinKd, is a mixture.

Middle

Soft Diatonic in the upper tetrachord, and Chromatic

in the

Two

lower

scales are of the Dorian or ^-species, viz. irapv-

TrdraL, a

combination of Soft and Middle Soft Diatonic

^

and
or
'

XvSia, in
*

Uf \'g\a^b^^c4rdie
which the upper tetrachord

highly strung

natural

'

is

of the strict

Diatonic {SidTovov avvTovov

'

our

temperament)

Westphal {Harmonik und Melopoie, 1863, p. 255) supposes a much deeper

He would restore rh. l\ Kv8ia [Kal idaria ol tov fiiyixaros tov

corruption.

This
ra 5e
.] ot rov Toviaiov diarovov tov Aojpiov.
introduces a serious discrepancy between the two passages, as the number

Gvvrovov biarovov tov

raised to eight (Westphal making iaaTia and

and furthermore inserting a new scale, of
unknown name). Moreover the (unknown) scale of unmixed biaTovov
Westphal's objection to
Toviaiov is out of its place at the end of the list.
Av5m as the name of a scale of the Dorian species of course only holds good
on his theory of the Modes.
The only other differences between the two passages are

of scales in the second

laaTiaioXiaia distinct

is

list

scales,

In the scales of the lyre called /naAa/ca the admixture, according to

But,
to ii. 16 of XP- t^aXaKov.
i. 16, is one of xpa^AiaTt/foy ovvtovov, according
as Westphal shows. Soft Chromatic is not admitted by Ptolemy as in
It would seem that in the second passage the copyist was
practical use.
(i)

led astray
(2)

The

by the word
IdaTia of

i.

fiakaKo. just before.

16

is

called lacTLaioXiaia in

ii.

16.

We

need not

suppose the text to be faulty, since the two forms may have been both in use.
Another point overlooked in Westphal's treatment is that Sidrovov ovvtovov
and 5. biTovialov are not really distinguished by Ptolemy. In one passage
with S. ovvtovov, adding
(i. 16) he gives his Au5m and IdoTia as a mixture
of
that in practice it was 8. Zitovioxov. In the other (ii. 16) he speaks at once
This consideration brings the two places into such close agreeS. ZiToviaiov.

ment

that

any hypothesis involving discrepancy

is

most improbable.

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

86

In practice

chord

b-e

it

appears that musicians tuned the tetra-

of

this

Major tones and

Of

in species (d-d),

One, called
phrygian or

IdcrTta,

highly strung

one, called

vTrepTporra^

is

and of the standard genus

or lacmaLoXLaLa,

^-species,
'

Pythagorean two

XeT/jLjxa.

the remaining scales

Phrygian

'

scale with the

the

Diatonic or

is

of the

Hypo-

b-e

being

tetrachord

(in practice)

Pythagorean,

viz.:

Regarding the tonahty of these scales there

not

is

very much to be said. In the case of the Hypo-dorian

and Dorian octaves it will be generally thought probable
that the

key-note

so, the difference

'

mode,'

in

the

is

a (the

//eor?;

Kara

between the two species

modern

sense,

BvvajXLv).
is

If

not one of

but consists in the

fact

compass of the melody is

from the key-note upwards, while in the Dorian it
extends a Fourth below the key-note. It is possible,
however, that the lowest note {e) of the Dorian octave
was sometimes the key-note in which case the niode
was properly Dorian. In the Phrygian octave of

that in the Hypo-dorian the

Ptolemy's

description

Fourth or Mese Kara

is

the

be

the

since the interval

g-c

key-note

Oia-iv (g),

cannot

not consonant (| x f x f f being less than |). Possibly

is the key-note
if so the scale is of

the lowest note (d)

Phrygian mode (in the modern sense).

In the
Hypo-phrygian octave there is a similar objection to
regarding the Mese Kara Oio-iu (c) as the key-note, and

the

some

probability in favour of the lowest note (g).

the Pythagorean division of the tetrachord

g-c

If

were


EXTANT SPECIMENS.

8?

replaced by the natural temperament, which the lan-

guage used by Ptolemy^ leads us to regard as the true

division, the scale would exhibit the intervals

which give the natural chord of the Seventh. This

however is no more than a hypothesis.
all
this that Ptolemy's
It evidently follows from
octaves do not constitute a system of modes. They
are merely the groups of notes, of the compass of an
octave, which are most likely to be used in the several

some earlier
by the names of those keys.

keys, and which Ptolemy or

to call

32.

The

theorist chose

Remains of Greek Music.

extant specimens of

Greek music are mostly

of

the second century a.d., and therefore nearly contemporary with Ptolemy. The most considerable are the

melodies of three
a

hymn

lyrical

to Calliope, (2) a

pieces or hymns, viz.

hymn

to

(i)

Apollo (or Helios),

both ascribed to a certain Dionysius, and (3) a hymn

Besides these
to Nemesis, ascribed to Mesomedes^

some short instrumental passages or exercises given by Bellermann's Anonymus (pp. 94-96).
And quite recently the list has been increased by (5) an

there are

Harm.

i.

(4)

16

-nKriv

KaOuaov adovcri

TOViKw, KaOa-n-ep k^eTTai (XKoneTv dird

fxev

clkoXovOws

rrjs Tuiv

tw

o'lKiicvv

SeSeiyfiivo)

avvTovw

Sta-

avTOV koycuv vapafioX^s,

apixoCovrai Se ertpov ti yivos (sc. the Pythagorean), ^677/^01^

f^ii'

kK^ivw, k.t.X.

seems needless to set out these melodies here. The first satisfactory
edition of them is that of Bellermann, Die Hymnen des Dionysius und
Mesomedes (Berlin, 1840). They are given by Westphal in his Musik des
griechischen Alterthumes (1883), and by Gevaert, Musique de V Antiquite,
vol. i. pp. 445 ff.; also in Mr. W. Chappell's History of Music (London, 1874),
where the melodies of the first and third hymns will be found harmonised
2

It

by the

late Sir

George Macfarren.

The melody published by Kircher {Musurgia,

the

first

i.

p.

541) as a fragment of
is generally regarded

Pythian ode of Pindar has no attestation, and

as a forgery.

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

88

inscription discovered

by Mr.

W. M.

Ramsay, which

gives a musical setting of four short gnomic sentences,

and

(6)

a papyrus fragment

(now

in the collection of

Rainer) of the music of a chorus in

the Arch-duke

the Orestes of Euripides.

These two

last additions to

our scanty stock of Greek music are set out and discussed by Dr. Wessely of Vienna and M. Ruelle in the

Revue des Etudes Grecques

(V. 1892, pp. 265-280), also

by

Dr. Otto Crusius in the Philologtts, Vol. LI I, pp. 160-200^.

The music of the three hymns is noted in the Lydian

key (answering to the modern scale with one [7). The

melody of the second hymn is of the compass of an
octave, the notes being those of the Perfect System
from Parhypate H3^pat6n to Trite Diezeugmenon (/-/
with one b). The first employs the same octave with
the third
a lower note added, viz. Hypate Hypaton {e)
adds the next higher note, Paranete Diezeugmenon {g).
Thus the Lydian key may be said, in the case of the
second hymn, and less exactly in the case of the two
others, to give the Lydian or c-species of the octave
just as on
in the most convenient part of the scale
of
Modes we should expect it to do.
Ptolemy's system
This octave, however, represents merely the compass
{ambitus or tessitura) of the melody it has nothing to
do with its tonality. In the first two hymns, as Bellermann pointed out, the key-note is the Hypate Meson
and the mode in the modern sense of that word is
that of the octave e-e (the Dorian mode of Helmholtz's
theory).
In the third hymn the key-note appears to be
the Lichanos Meson, so that the mode is that of g-g,
:

viz.

the Hypo-phrygian.

Of the
^

Of

hope

instrumental passages given by the

the discovery
to say

made

something

at Delphi, after

in the

Appendix.

most of

this

Anonymus

book was

in type,

EXTANT SPECIMENS.

89

three are clearly in the Hypo-dorian or

the

Mese

p. 141.)

(See Gevaert, i.
being the key-note.
on
the Mese, but
ends
also
104)
(

{a)

common mode,

fourth

the key-note appears to be the Parhypate Meson (/).

Accordingly Westphal and Gevaert assign it to the

Hypo-lydian species (/-/) ^^ Westphal's view the

circumstance of the end of the melody falling, not on
the key-note, but on the Third or Mediant of the octave,

was

characteristic of the

Modes

distinguished

by the

and accordingly the passage in question

pronounced by him to be Syntono-lydian. All those
passages, however, are mere fragments of two or three
bars each, and are quoted as examples of certain pecuThey can hardly be made to lend
liarities of rhythm.
much support to any theory of the Modes.
The music of Mr. Ramsay's inscription labours under

prefix syntono;
is

however,

the

same

we

regard the four brief sentences as set to a con-

defect of excessive shortness.

tinuous melody,
six notes in

we

all,

If,

obtain a passage consisting of thirty-

with a compass of less than an octave,

and ending on the lowest note of that compass. Unhke

the other extant specimens of Greek music it is written
in the Ionian key a curious fact which has not been
noticed by Dr. Wessely.

INSCRIPTION WITH MUSICAL NOTES.

?2:

:^

OV

Cv^

b\v

i
OCT

^^
<p<^i-

1=^

;^
hn

oK

av

\v


THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

90

^^

^^

Xi

irpos

rb

la

701'

^ m
\os

t6

XP^

CW'

-^^
-

1:2:

irai

The notes which enter into this melody form the

f^-g-a-b-ciff-d-e [-/fl], which is an octave
of the Dorian species (^-^ on the white notes). Hence
scdXe

if /tf,

on which the melody ends,

mode

is

the

On

Dorian.

the

dominant notes are those of the

is

the key-note, the

other
triad

hand the prea-cjf-^, which

point to the key of ^ major, with the difference that the

Seventh is flat (g instead of g%). On this view the

music would be in the Hypo-phrygian mode.

However
this

this

may

most singular feature of

be, the

fragment remains to be mentioned,

viz.

ment between the musical notes and the

We know from

of the words.

acute accent signified

that

the agree-

accentuation

the grammarians that an

the

vowel was sounded

with a rise in the pitch of the voice, and that a circum-

on the same syllable by

and fall being quite
independent both of syllabic quantity and of stress or
ictus.
Thus in ordinary speech the accents formed
flex

denoted a

a lower note

rise followed

every

a species of melody,

such

rise

XoySdBis tl //eXoy, as

it

is

called

by Aristoxenus ^. When words were sung this spoken

melody* was no longer heard, being superseded by the
melody proper. Dionysius of Halicarnassus is at pains
to explain {De Comp. Verb., c. 11), that the melody to
which words are set does not usually follow or resemble
'

Harm.

p. i8

Meib. Kijerai

yoip

5?)

Kal KoyouSh ti fieXos, to avyKeiixevov (K

tSjv irpo(Tq}8iu)v, to Iv Tols 6v6fJ.a(n' (pvaiKuv

diakiyeaOai.

yap to (TriTeivdv Kal dviivai hv

Tcp

EXTANT SPECIMENS.

91

the quasi-melody of the accents, e.g. in the following

words of a chorus
142):

in the Orestes of

dlya dXya XevKou

TLSere,

jxtj

l)(^i/09

Euripides

(11.

140-

dp^vXrjs

KTvirelTe'

dTTOTTpo^aT eKeia diroTrpo

fioL

Koira?,

he notices that the melody differs in several points from

the spoken accents: (i) the three first words are all on

same

the

note, in

syllable of dpPvXrj?

spite of the accents;

that is the only accented syllable

of TiOeTe

higher

is

(4)

(2)

the last

as high as the second, though

is

(3)

the

first

syllable

lower than the two others, instead of being

the circumflex of KTVTrdre

because the word

is

all

is lost (rjcpdi/Lo-raL),

on the same pitch;

fourth syllable of diroirpopaTe

is

higher

(5)

the

in pitch, instead

In Mr. Ramsay's inscription, however,

of the third.

the music follows the accents as closely as possible.

Every acute accent coincides with a rise of pitch,

except in oa-ov, which begins the melody, and in kcrriy
for which we should perhaps read the orthotone eVri.

Of

the four instances of the circumflex accent three

exhibit the

expect.

two notes and the

The

interval

is

falling pitch

either a major

which we

or a minor

In the other case {Cv^) the next note is a

Third lower but it does not seem to belong to the
All this cannot be accidental.
circumflexed syllable.

Third.

It leads us to the conclusion that the musical notes

represent a kind of recitative, or imitation of spoken
words, rather than a melody in the proper sense of

the term.

specimen of the music of

Euripides had survived, it might have solved many
of the problems with which we have been dealing.
If

any

considerable

The fragment

before us extends over about six fines

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

92

dochmiac metre {Orestes 338-343), with the vocal

notation but no single line is entire. The key is the
The genus is either Enharmonic or ChroLydian.
matic. Assuming that it is Enharmonic the alternative
adopted by Dr. Wessely the characters which are
in

follows

represented in modern notation as

may be

legible

still

[Euripides, Orestes 338-344.

^
^

:^r=^:

^W:

(KaToXo)(f>v

i
^

po

- fjicu'

fj.a

re

pos (ai/xa ads

a'

dva)^aK

x^^

" ^''

2t=5*:
6

fJt.i

'

yas (oA/3os

t=f^
't)

oii

fi6vifxo)s

va (8e \ac(pos ws ti)s a

tois'

-^x#-

^:X^
-

Ppo

kv

- ko. -

tov

60

-as

ri

va{^as daifxajv)

35 S^
Kar)

- e

k\v

crev

{Seivuv novooy) us

(jov Xafipois k.t.K

:xM:

should be observed that in the fragment the line

It

KaToXo(j)vpofiaL KaToXo(pvpo/iaL
Af.T.X.),

vov

not after

it,

comes before 338

as in our texts

need not repeat what

is

said

by Dr. Wessely and M. Ruelle

of the genuineness of our fragment.

They

(/xarepo?

^.

in defence

justly point to the remarkable

coincidence that the music of this very play is quoted by Dionysius of

Halicarnassus (/. c). It would almost seem as if it was the only well-known

specimen of music of the

The

classical period of tragedy.

transcription of Dr. Crusius, with his conjectural restorations^ will be

found in the Appendix. I have only introduced one of his corrections here,
the note on the second syllable of KariKKvafv.

viz.

EXTANT SPECIMENS.
The

notes employed, according to the interpretation

given above, give the scale

If the

93

genus

g-a-a"^ -a^f-d-e-e^.

Chromatic, as M. Ruelle

is

is

disposed

g-a-a%-h- d-e-f. When these

compared with the Perfect System we find
Whether the
that they do not entirely agree with it.
genus is Enharmonic or Chromatic the notes from
a to e^ (or/) answer to those of the Perfect System
(of the same genus) from Hypate Meson to Trite DieBut in either case the lowest note (^)
zeugmenon.
finds no place in the System, since it can only be the

to think,

they are

scales are

Diatonic Lichanos Hypaton.

It

possible, however,

is

that the scale belongs to the period

when

the original

octave had been extended by the addition of a tone

the

which we have
Hyper-hypate
scale
may
have
the
complete
consisted
Thus
(p. 39).
of the disjunct tetrachords a-d and e-a, with the tone
below the Hypate

note, in fact,

name

already met with under the

g-a.

It

may be observed here

in question

does not

fit

of

that although the scale

into the

Perfect System,

it

conforms to the general rules laid down by Aristoxenus

It is unfor the melodious succession of intervals.
necessary therefore to suppose (as Dr. Wessely and

M. Ruelle do)

that

the scale

a mixture of

exhibits

different genera.
It

must be vain

to attempt to discover the tonality of

a short fragment which has neither beginning nor end.

The

only group of notes which has the character of

a cadence
the words

genus
in

is

is

that
kv

the

on the word

{o\o)^vpo\iai^

and again on

the notes a J a* a (if the

The same notes occur
Enharmonic).
ISporoc^, viz,

reversed order on aKarov and {KaT)iKXv(Tv.

seems to bear out the common

as produced by the introduction of an

This

view of the Enharmonic

'

accidental

'

or

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

94

passing note.

It will

be seen,

Enhar-

in fact, that the

monic notes {a^ and ^*) only occur before or after the
standing notes (a and e).
Relying on the fact that the lowest note is g, Dr.
Wessely and M. Ruelle pronounce the mode to be the
Phrygian {g-g in the key with one b, or d-d in the
I have already put forward a different
natural key).
explanation of this g, and will only add here that it
occurs twice in the fragment, both times on a short
'

'

syllable

The

^.

important notes, so far as the evidence

goes, are a, which twice

comes

(with a pause in the sense), and

position.

sense
is

If

is

is

the key-note, the

Dorian (the

end of a verse
which once has that

at the
e,

mode in

^-species).

the

modern

If e is the key-note,

it

Mixo-lydian (the ^-species).

33.

The most
the ancient

Modes of

Aristides Quintilianus.

Modes were

of their intervals has

differentiated

still

to

by the succession

be considered.

account given by Aristides Quintilianus

the six

view that

direct testimony in support of the

Modes

(p.

It

describing the genera and their varieties the

he goes on

the

21 Meib.) of

of Plato's Republic.

(dpfMoj/Lai)

is

'

After

colours,'

were other divisions of

the tetrachord {rerpayopSLKal ScaipicreLs) which the most
ancient musicians used for the dp/iouLai, and that these
were sometimes greater in compass than the octave,
sometimes less. He then gives the intervals of the
scale for each of the six Modes mentioned by Plato,
^

to say that there

Dr. Crusius, however, detects a

(the sign for^) over the

of KareK\vav and the second syllable of ttovtov.

in his facsimile.

There

is little

first

syllable

trace of

them


ARISTIDES QUINTILIANUS.

95

and adds the scales in the ancient notation. They are

of the Enharmonic genus, and may be represented by

modern notes

as follows

Mixo=lydian

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

96

answer

to

depends upon several con-

question

this

siderations.
1.

The

date of Aristides

unknown.

than Cicero, since he quotes the

later

70 Meib.).

(p.

is

From

He

is

De

certainly
Repiihlica

the circumstance that he

makes

no reference to the musical innovations of Ptolemy it

has been supposed that he was earlier than that writer.
But, as Aristides usually confines himself to the theory
of Aristoxenus and his school, the argument from silence

not of

is

much

value.

On

the other hand he gives

containing two characters, C

scale two successive semithe
extend
which
%,
tones beyond the lowest point of the notation given
by Alypius^ For this reason it is probable that
Aristides is one of the latest of the writers on ancient
a scheme of notation

and

music.
2.

The manner

in

which Aristides introduces

information about the Platonic

Modes

is

his

highly sus-

He

has been describing the various divisions

of the tetrachord according to the theory of Aristoxenus,
and adds that there were anciently other divisions in

picious.

use.

So

far Aristides is doubtless

right, since Arist-

oxenus himself says that the divisions of the tetrachord

are theoretically infinite in number (p. 26 Meib.), that
it is possible, for example, to combine the Parhypate of

the Soft Chromatic with the Lichanos of the Diatonic

But all this concerns the genus of the
(p. 52 Meib.).

and has nothing to do with the species of the

Octave, with which Aristides proceeds to connect it.

scale,

is some confusion in the

was compiling from sources which

follows either that there

It

text, or that Aristides

he did not understand.

^

Mr.

This argument is used, along with some others not so cogent, in

W. Chappell's History of Music (p. 130).

ARISTIDES QUINTILIANUS.
3.

The

Modes were

Platonic

97

a subject of interest to

were discussed by

the early musical writers, and

oxenus himself (Plut. de Miis.

Arist-

If Aristoxenus
had had access to such an account as we have in
Aristides, we must have found some trace of it, either
in the extant

Harmonics or

c. 17).

in the quotations of Plutarch

and other compilers.

4.

Of

the four scales which extend to the compass of

an octave, only one,

viz. the Dorian, conforms to the

which are said by Aristoxenus to have prevailed
in early Greek music.
The Phrygian divides the
Fourth a- d into four intervals instead of three, by
the sequence a h hi^ c d. As has been observed, it is
neither the Enharmonic Phrygian species [c e e^fa b b^ c),

rules

nor the

d-d, but

Diatonic

a mixture

of the two.

Similarly the Mixo-lydian divides the Fourth

d.

The Lydian

is

certainly the

Enharmonic species of the pseudo-Euchd

can hardly suppose that

Aristoxenus lays
tone

is

it

into

by introducing the purely

four intervals (bb^cde),

Diatonic note

b-e

it

down

Lydian
but

we

existed in practical music.

emphatically that a quarter-

always followed by another: and

we

cannot

imagine a scale in which the highest and lowest notes

are in no harmonic relation to the rest.
5.

Two

of the scales are incomplete, viz. the Ionian,

which has

six notes

and the compass of a Seventh, and

the Syntono-lydian, which consists of five notes, with

the compass of a
parallels

among

Problems and
httle that

even

in

Minor

Sixth.

the defective

We

naturally look for

scales

Plutarch's dialogues.

illustrates the

modes

noticed in the

But we

of Aristides.

find

The

scales noticed in the Problems (xix.

7, 32, 47) are heptachord, and generally of the compass of an octave. In

one passage of Plutarch (De Mus.

c.

11) there

is

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

description

quoted from Aristoxenus of an older kind

of Enharmonic, in which the semitones had

not yet

been divided into quarter-tones. In another chapter

(c. 19) he speaks of the omission of the Trite and also
of the Nete as characteristic of a form of music called
the a-TrouS^LaKo? Tpoiros.

It

may be

said

that in the

Ionian and Syntono-lydian of Aristides the Enharmonic

Trite {b^) and the Nete

{e)

mese

in

also

{b) is

Ionian

open

is

wanting

But the Paraboth these modes. And the

are wanting.

to the observation already

regard to the Phrygian,

viz. that

made with

the two highest notes

Enharmonic
(who evidently wrote
with Aristoxenus before him) gives no hint that the
omission of these notes was characteristic of any par(c

d)

involve a mixture of Diatonic with

scale.

We

ticular

modes.

6. It is

may add

that Plutarch

impossible to decide the question of the

of Aristides without

some reference

ment of the same author.

modes

to another state-

In the chapter which treats

of Intervals (pp. 13-15 Meib.) he gives the ancient

division of two octaves, the first into dieses or quartertones, the
(17

second into semitones.

The former

of these

Tvapa TOLS dp)(^aL0L9 Kara 8l4(Ti? apjiovLo) is as follows

[I]

ARISTIDES QUINTILIANUS.
in a corrupt form,

it is

99

impossible to reduce them to the

The

ordinary notation, as Meibomius sought to do.

scholar

MSS.

who

first

published them as they stand in the

(F. L. Perne, see

regarded them as a
notation.

This

is

Bellermann, Tonleitern,

relic of a

much

p. 62)

older system of

accordance with the language

in

of Aristides, and indeed

is

the only view consistent with

a belief in their genuineness.

They

are too hke the

ordinary notation to be quite independent, and cannot

have been put forward as an improvement upon

Bellermann has
which seems fatal

they, then, earher ?

it.

Are

called our attention

any such claim.

two sets, one
written above the other, and in every instance one of
the pair is simply a reversed or inverted form of the
to a peculiarity

They

other.

to

consist, like the ordinary signs, of

With

the ordinary signs this

is

not generally

the case, since the two sets, the vocal and instrumental
notes, are originally independent.

But

with

those which were

the three lowest notes,

added

viz.

to the series at a later time.

it

When

is

the case

these addi-

were invented the vocal and instrumental

notes had come to be employed together. The inventor
therefore devised a pair of signs in each case, and not
unnaturally made them correspond in form.
In the
scale given by Aristides this correspondence runs
through the whole series, which must therefore be of
later date.
But if this is so, the characters can hardly
In other
represent a genuine system of notation.
words, Aristides must have been imposed upon by
tional signs

a species of forgery.
7.

Does the fragment

of the Orestes

Modes described by Aristides?

The scale which is formed by the

tell

for or against

the

ment agrees, so

far as

it

notes of the frag-

extends, with two of the scales

H2

lOO

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

Phrygian and the Dorian.

Taking the view of its tonahty expressed in the last
chapter (p. 93), we should describe it as the Dorian

now

in

question, viz. the

two highest notes omitted.

The omission, in so short a fragment, is of little weight
and the agreement in the use of an additional lower
On
note (Hyper-hypate) is certainly worth notice.
of
mode,
the
precisely
is
Dorian
the other hand, the
those given in the Hst of Aristides, which least needs

scale of Aristides with the

defence, as

System.

it

is

Hence

the most faithful copy of the Perfect

the fact that

it

is

verified

by an

actual

piece of music does not go far in support of the other

scales in the

same

list.

our suspicions are well-founded, it is evident that

they seriously affect the genuineness of all the antiIf

quarian learning which Aristides sets before his readers,

and in particular of his account of the Platonic modes."

venture to think that they go far to deprive that

account of the value which it has been supposed to
I

have for the history of the earliest Greek music.

For the later period, however, to which Aristides
himself belongs, these apocr3^phal scales are a document of some importance. The fact that they do not

agree entirely with the species of the Octave as given

by the pseudo-Euclid leads us to think that they may

be influenced by scales used in actual music. This

applies especially to the Phrygian, which (as has been
shown) is really diatonic. The Ionian, again, is perhaps

merely an imperfect form of the same scale, viz. the

octave d-d with lower d omitted. And the Syntonolydian may be the Lydian diatonic octave c -c with
a similar omission of the lower c.

SCALES OF DIFFERENT SPECIES.

35.

The

Evidence for Scales of different

loi

species.

object of the foregoing discussion has been to

was no such distinction in ancient Greek music as that which scholars have
drawn between Modes [apjiovLaL) and Keys {tovol or
show,

TpoTToi)

in the first place, that there

and, in the second place, that the musical scales

denoted by these terms were primarily distinguished

by difference oi pitch, that in fact they were so many

keys of the standard scale known in its final form as

The evidence now brought
the Perfect System.
forward in support of these two propositions

is

surely

as complete as that which has been allowed to determine any question of ancient learning.
It does not, however, follow that the Greeks knew of
no musical forms analogous to our Major and Minor

modes, or to the mediaeval Tones. On the contrary,

the course of the discussion has led us to recognise
distinctions

The

more than one instance.

argument has been
ancient scales were of more

of this kind in

doctrine against which the

mainly directed

is

not that

than one species or

'

mode

'

(as

it

is

now

called),

but

was the basis of the ancient

This will become clear if we bring

that difference of species

Greek Modes.
together

all

the indications which

scales differing

from each other

we have observed

in species, that

order of the intervals in the octave.

is,

In doing so

of

in the
it

will

be especially important to be guided by the principle

which we laid down at the outset, of arranging our
materials according to chronology, and judging of each

piece of evidence strictly with reference to the period

to

which

it

belongs.

It is

only thus that

we

can hope

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

102

Greek music as the living and

changing thing that we know it must have been.
I. The principal scale of Greek music is undoubtedly

to gain a conception of

of the Hypo-dorian or
ciently

proved by the

common

species.

facts (1) that

species {a - a) constitute the scale

is

is suffi-

two octaves of

known

this

as the Greater

(2) that the central a of this system,

Perfect System, and

called the Mese,

This

said to have

been the key-note, or

at

least to have had the kind of importance in the scale

which we connect with the key-note (Arist. Probl. xix.

This mode, it is obvious, is based on the scale

which is the descending scale of the modern Minor
mode. It may therefore be identified with the Minor,

2o).

except that

it

does not admit the leading note.

should be observed that this

It

mode

is

to

be recog-

System but equally in

of the form e-e, out of which the

nised not merely in the Perfect

the primitive octave,

Perfect

System grew.

character of the

Mese

The
{a),

important point

and

this,

as

it

is

the tonic

happens, rests

upon the testimony of an author who knows the

The

tive octave only.

so-called

are

now

primi-

fact that that octave is of the

Dorian species does not

alter the

mode

(as

we

using that .term), but only the compass of the

notes employed.

seen in two of the scales

(p. 85), viz. those called
aud the Dorian octave {e - e) in two

The Hypo-dorian
of the cithara given
TpiTttL

and

TpoTTOL,

octave

is

by Ptolemy

and XvSia. It is very possible (as was

on them) that the two latter
commenting
observed in
scales were in the key of a, and therefore Hypo-dorian
The Hypo-dorian mode is also
in respect of mode.
exemplified by three at least of the instrumental passages
given by the Anonymus (supra, p. 89).

scales, TrapvirdraL

2.

The

earliest trace of a difference of species

appears

DORIAN AND MIXO-LYDIAN.

to

be found

Mixo-lydian

the passage

in

on the subject of the

(p. 24) from Plutarch's

mode quoted above

Dialogue on Music.
it

In that mode, according to Plutarch,

was discovered by a

the Disjunctive

certain

Tone was

Lamprocles of Athens

the highest interval, that

say, that the octave in reality consisted of

tetrachords and a tone

the note which

that
is

to

two conjunct

Mese

As

103

is

Disj.

Tone

the meeting-point of the two

we shall not be
Mese, and thus finding the
octave in question in the Perfect System and in the
oldest part of it, viz. the tetrac Words Meson and Synemmenon, with the Nete Diezeugmenon. How then did
this octave come to be recognised by Lamprocles as
tetrachords

wrong

in

doubtless the key-note,

is

making

the

it

We

distinctively Mixo-lydian?
tainty,

because

we do

not

cannot

know what

tell

with cer-

the Mixo-lydian

was before his treatment of it. Probably, however,

the answer is to be sought in the relation in respect of
scale

between the Dorian and Mixo-lydian keys. These,

as we have seen (p. 23), were the keys chiefly employed
in tragedy, and the Mixo-lydian was a Fourth higher

pitch

than the other.

notes

is

Now when

a scale consisting of white

transposed to a key a Fourth higher,

a scale with one

Synemmenon

\).

it

becomes

In ancient language, the tetrachord

[a-h\)

-c-d)

takes the place of the tetra-

chord Diezeugmenon. In some such way as this the

octave of this form may have come to be associated in

way with the use of the Mixo-lydian key.

However this may be, the change from the tetrachord
Diezeugmenon to the tetrachord Synemmenon, or the

a special

(i04

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

reverse,
is

what

is

a change of

mode

modern

in the

sense, for

it

change of System
it hard to determine

the ancients classified as a

Kara

(fieralSoXr)

Nor

atxTTrj/jiay,

the two 'modes' concerned,

is

we may

if

authority of the Aristotehan Problems

the Mese as always the key-note. For

trust

a- a

arrive at

is

kept as

is

the so-

In this

way we

if

with one b

the key-note, the octave

called Dorian (^ - ^ on the white notes).
the somewhat confusing

the

to

and regard

(/. c.)

result that the ancient

Dorian species {e-e but with a as key-note) yields the

Hypo-dorian or modern Minor mode while the Dorian
:

mode of modern scientific theory^ has its ancient prototype in the Mixo-lydian species, viz. the octave first
brought

to

The

by Lamprocles.

light

difficulty

of

course arises from the species of the Octave being

classified according to their compass, without reference
to the tonic character of the

The Dorian mode

is

Mese.

amply represented

remains of Greek music.

It

is

the

in the extant

mode

of the two

compositions of Dionysius, the Hymn to Calliope and

the Hymn to Apollo (p. 88), perhaps also of Mr. Ramsay's
musical inscription
factory

if

we

(p. 90).

It

would have been

could have found

it

in the

satis-

much more

important fragment of the Orestes. Such indications

as that fragment presents seem to me to point to the

Dorian mode (Mixo-lydian of Lamprocles).

of
3. The scales of the cithara furnish one example
the Phrygian species (d-d), and one

of the

Hypo-

phrygian (g-g)' but we have no means

which note of the scale is to be treated as the key-note.

of determining

ff

Ps. Eucl. Introd. p.

20 Meib. Kara avorriixa Se orav Ik avvacprjs ds Sid^fv^iv

Anonym. 65 avar-qiiaTiKai b\ (sc. fxerafioXai)

avatrakiv fifrafioX^ yivTjrai.

ds awacprjv rj t^ivaXiv fxereXOy to ixiXos.

represented primarily by the analysis of Helmholtz, Die Toiiempfin-

uiTOTav Ik dia^ev^icus
2

As

diingen, p. 467, ed. 1863.

PHRYGIAN AND HYPO-PHRYGIAN.

In the

Hymn

Nemesis, however,

to

incomplete form in which

it

105

in spite of the

has reached

us, there is

a sufficiently clear example of the Hypo-phrygian mode.

has been suggested as possible that the melody of

Mr. Ramsay's inscription is also Hypo-phrygian, and if
It

mode would be

so the evidence for the

the

first

carried back to

century.

The Hypo-phrygian

made by
modern Major

the nearest approach

is

any specimen of Greek music to the

mode, the Lydian or ^-species not being found even
among the scales of the cithara as given by Ptolemy.

It is

therefore of peculiar interest for musical history,

and we look with eagerness for any indication which

would allow us to connect it with the classical period

Greek

of

The most
cp. p. 13),

One

art.

been thought

to

or two sayings of Aristotle have

bear upon this issue.

interesting

where

is

Aristotle

a passage in the Politics

is

of forms of government, and

number

of varieties

may

a few classes or types.

the

may

(iv. 3,

speaking of the multiplicity

showing how a great

nevertheless be brought under

He

illustrates the point

musical Modes, observing

that

all

from

constitutions

be regarded as either oligarchical (government

by a minority) or democratical (government by the

majority), just as in the opinion of some musicians
((W9 (^aai TLue?) all modes are essentially either Dorian
or Phrygian. What, then, is the basis of this grouping
of certain modes together as Dorian, while the rest are
Phrygian in character ? According to Westphal it is
a form of the opposition between the true Hellenic
music, represented by tkirian, and the foreign music,
the Rhrygiaii.-and. X^ydian, with their varieties.
Moreover, it is in his view virtually the same distinction as that
which obtains in modern music between the Minor and
.

lo6

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

the Major scales \

This account of the matter, however,

not supported by the context of the passage.

is

Aristotle

draws out the comparison between forms of government

and musical modes in such a way as to make it plain
that in the case of the modes the distinction was one of
pitch {ras (TVVTovcDTepas

The Dorian was

lower keys,

5' dueL/ieva?

ra?

kol /xaXaKas)-

the best, because the highest, of the

the others being Hypo-dorian

(in the earlier

below Dorian), and Hypo-phrygian

Phrygian was the first of the higher series

sense, immediately

while

which took in Lydian and Mixo-lydian. The division

would be aided, or may even have been suggested,
by the circumstance that it nearly coincided with the
favourite contrast of Hellenic and 'barbarous' modes ^.
There is another passage, however, which can hardly be
reconciled with a classification according to pitch alone.

In the chapters dealing with the ethical character of

music Aristotle dwells (as will be remembered) upon the

exciting and orgiastic character of the Phrygian mode,

and notices

its

This

especial fitness for the dithyramb.

fitness or affinity,

he says, was so marked that a poet

^ Harmonik und Melopoie,

Die alteste griechische
p. 356 (ed. 1863)
Tonart ist demnach eine Molltonart.
Aus Kleinasien wurden zunachst
2wei Durtonarten nach Griechenland eingefuhrt. die lydische und phrygische.'
In the 1886 edition of the same book (p. 189) Westphal discovers a similar
classification of modes implied in the words of Plato, Rep. p. 400 a rpi' drra
:

<

^aans vXeKovrai, warrep ev tois (p$6yyois rirrapa o6ev al

But Plato is evidently referring to some matter of common
knowledge. The three forms or elements of which all rhythms are made
up are of course the ratios 1:1,2:1 and 3 2, which yield the three kinds
of rhythm, dactylic, iambic and cretic (answering to common, triple, and
quintuple time). Surely the four elements of all musical scales of which
kffTiv

('i8r)

^ ojv at

irdaai ap/xoviai.

Plato speaks are not four kinds of scale {Harmonien-Klassen), but the four

which give the primary musical intervals viz. the ratios 2 i, 3 2,

3 and 9 8, which give the Octave, Fifth, Fourth and Tone.
^ If Hypo-phrygian is the same as the older Ionian
(p. 11), the coincidence
is complete for the time of Aristotle.
Plato treats the claim of Ionian to
rank among the Hellenic modes as somewhat doubtful {Laches, p. 188).
ratios

107

PHRYGIAN.

compose a dithyramb in another mode

found himself passing unawares into the Phrygian (Pol.

who

tried

to

It is

viii. 7).

natural to understand this of the use of

certain sequences of intervals, or of cadences, such as

are characteristic of a

mode

'

'

in the

modern sense

the word, rather than of a change of key.

so

we may

If this is

venture the further hypothesis that the

some
distinguished not only by
Phrygian music,

least

at

in

of

its

but also

pitch,

was
by the more
forms,

or less conscious use of scales which differed

from the scale of the Greek standard system.
It

of

may be urged

that this hypothesis

in

type

inconsistent

is

with our interpretation of the passage of the Problems

about the tonic character of the Mese. If a is keynote,

it

was argued, the mode

is

that of the ^-species

(Hypo-dorian, our Minor), or at most by admitting

the tetrachord Synemmenon it includes the ^-species

The answer may be

(Dorian of Helmholtz).

statement of the Problems

It

is

down

is

that the

not of this absolute kind.

not the statement of a technical writer, laying

definite rules, but is a general observation, or at

We

best a canon of taste.

predominance of the
the melody.

Moreover

be exercised
[nduTa yap ra

to

Mese

in

this

is

are

not told

shown

I^^^V

TroXXaici?

This may mean either that tonality

in

in all
rfj

how

the

the form of

predominance

music generally, but

XPW^^

in

is

not said

good music

/xecrr]

-^pfJTat).

Greek music was

of an imperfect kind, a question of style and taste rather

than of fixed rule, or that they occasionally employed

modes

of a less approved stamp, unrecognised in the

earlier musical theory.

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

io8

36.

The
to

Conclusion.

considerations set forth in the last chapter

show

that

if

difference of

mode

entirely denied of the classical period of

it

occupied a subordinate

seem

or species cannot be

Greek music,

and almost unrecognised

place.

The main elements of the art were, (i) difference of

genus, the sub-divisions of the tetrachord which Aristoxenus and Ptolemy alike recognise, though with
important discrepancies in detail
or key

and

(3)

rhythm.

(2)

difference of pitch

Passing over the

belonging to the subject of Harmonics,

last,

as not

we may now

say that genus and key are the only grounds of distinction

which are evidently of

No

practical importance.

others were associated with the early history of the

art,

with particular composers or periods, with particular

This, how-

instruments, or with the ethos of music.

ever,

only true in the fullest sense of Greek music

is

before

the

time of Ptolemy.

The main

object

Ptolemy's reform of the keys was to provide a

set of scales,

each characterised by a particular succes-

sion of intervals, while the pitch

itself.

And

of

new

it

is

clear,

was

left to

take care of

especially from the specimens

which Ptolemy gives of the scales in use in his time,

that he was only endeavouring to systematise what
already existed, and bring theory into harmony with
the developments of practice. We must suppose, therefore, that the musical feeling which sought variety in
differences of key came to have less influence on the
practical art, and that musicians began to discover, or to
appreciate more than they had done, the use of different
'

modes or forms
'

of the octave scale.

CONCLUSION.

109

change we have to note the comEnharmonic and Chromatic

divisions of the tetrachord. The Enharmonic, according to Ptolemy, had ceased to be employed.
Of the
three varieties of Chromatic given by Aristoxenus only
one remains on Ptolemy's list, and that the one which
in the scheme of Aristoxenus involved no interval less
than a semitone. And although Ptolemy distinguished
at least three varieties of Diatonic, it is worth notice

Along with

this

disuse of the

parative

one of these was admitted in the tuning of

the lyre, the others being confined to the more
elaborate cithara.
In Ptolemy's time, therefore, music
was rapidly approaching the stage in which all its forms
are based upon a single scale the natural diatonic
scale of modern Europe.
In the light of these facts it must occur to us that
that only

Westphal's theory of seven modes or species of the

Octave
sive in

is
its

really

open

to

an a priori objection as deci-

nature as any of the testimony which has

been brought against

it.

Is

possible,

it

we may

ask,

system of modes analogous to the ecclesiastical

Tones can have subsisted along with a system of scales
that a

such as the genera and

The

reply

may be

that

of early Greek music ?

Ptolemy himself combines the

colours

'

two systems. He supposes five divisions of the tetrachord, and seven modes based upon so many species of
the Octave in all thirty-five different scales (or seventy,
if we bring in the distinction of octaves airo vrjrrj? and
ttTTo ixearjs).
But when we come to the scales actually
used on the chief Greek instrument, the cithara, the
number falls at once to six. Evidently the others, or
most of them, only existed on paper, as the mathematical results of certain assumptions which Ptolemy
had made. And if this can be said of Ptolemy's

no

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

what would be the value of a similar scheme

combining the modes with the Enharmonic and the
The truth
different varieties of the Chromatic genus ?
is, surely, that such a scheme tries to unite elements
which belong to different times, which in fact are the
theory,

fundamental ideas of different stages of

The most

of

characteristic

striking

art.

Greek music,

and
which
the
scale
was
delicacy of the
A sort of frame-work was formed by the
divided.
division of the octave into tetrachords, completed by
and so far all Greek
the so-called disjunctive tone
music was alike. But within the tetrachord the reign
Not only were there
of diversity was unchecked.
especially in

its

earlier periods, is the multiplicity

into

intervals

recognised divisions containing intervals of a fourth,

a third, and even three-eighths of a tone, but

we

gather

from several things said by Aristoxenus that the number of possible divisions was regarded as theoretically
unlimited.

Thus he

tendency

to flatten the

us that there was a constant

tells
'

moveable

'

notes of the Chro-

matic genus, and thus diminish the small intervals, for

the sake of sweetness
'

tone^;

'

or in order to obtain a plaintive

that the Lichanos of a tetrachord may in theory

be any note between the Enharmonic Lichanos (/ in

the scale e-e'^ -/- a) and the Diatonic {g in the scale
e-f-g-a)^; and that the magnitude of the smaller

Harm.

Aristox.

p.

23 Meib.

01 jjlIu

yap

fxovov ovTfs dKoToos TTjv hiTovov Xix^-Vov

avvTovcuripais yap xP^^to.'- o'xcSoj/

Pov\ia6ai yXvKaiveiv dei

KOt ttKuotov xpovov (V

tQ

ar]jj,fTov

Be

01

rri

{f

vvv Karexovari fXfXonoiia ovvrjOfis

in the scale e

irXeiaroi

on

rwv

vvv'

a) (^opi^ovar

tovtov

airiov to

S'

tovtov CTOxo-iovTai, ixdXtaTa

xpajpLaTi SiaTpiPovaiv

orav

d'

ydp

fitv

dcpiKcuvTai irore els t^v

dpfioviav kyyi/s tov xP'^'/^otos vpocrdyovai, avverrKTiraifxevov tov t]9ovs.

^

T^v

Ibid. p.
(pojvTjv

26

voTjTeov

ydp dnfipovs tov

dpidp.ov Tas Kixavovs' ov

yap dv aTrjays

TOV dnoSfSciyfxevov Xixavcv tottov Xixavos earar Sidnevov 5e

TOV Xixo-^oabovs TOTTOV, ovZl ToiovToy wcTTe

kneiSri irep u

pLT)

Sf'xfo^^at Xixavov.

t^s Xixo-vov tottos ds dirdpovs TefivcTai Top.ds.

oiiSev

And

tan

p.

48

CONCLUSION.
and

intervals

division

the

of

1 1

music \

Moreover,

generally

tetrachord

belongs to the indefinite or indeterminate

element

in

in spite of the disuse of several of

much of this holds good for the time

The modern diatonic scale is fully recog-

the older scales,

of Ptolemy.

one of several different

which he treats as the

nised by him, but only as

divisions.

And

division

the

ordinary or standard form of the octave is not the

modern diatonic scale, but one of the so-called 'soft'
or flattened varieties.

It

that

clear

is

in

the best

periods of Greek music these refinements of melody,

which modern musicians find scarcely conceivable,

from being accidental or subordinate features.

Rather, they were as much bound up with the fundamental nature of that music as complex harmony is with

were

far

modern Europe.
The mediaeval modes or Tones, on the other hand,

the music of

are essentially based on the diatonic scale, the scale

that knows only of tones and semitones. To suppose
that they held in the earliest

place which

we

Greek music the prominent

find assigned to the ancient

Modes

or

suppose that the art of music was developed

two different directions, under the influence
of different and almost opposite ideas. Yet nothing is
more remarkable in all departments of Greek art than

dpfjLoviaL is to

Greece

in

in

the strictness with which

limits given

once for

it

all in

confines itself within the

the leading types, and the

consequent harmony and consistency of all the forms

which it takes in the course of its growth.
The dependence of artistic forms in their manifold

developments upon a central governing idea or

^

Aristox.

Harm.

p.

69 Meib. Kara

ras Twv (pOoyywv rdcrcis direipd

Swdfius Kal Kara rd

i'idi]

Kal

ttojs

/xtv

ovu ra

(paiveTai elvai

Kara ras Oeaeis

fieyiOr]

rd

rrepl

TTCTrepacr/xeVa

prin-

twv SiaarrjfmTOJV Kal

fj.i\os, Kara 5e ras

to

t Kal TiTayfxiva.

'

112

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

ciple

has

by the

never been more luminously stated than

illustrious physicist

Helmholtz,

chapter of his Toiiempfindimgen.

in the thirteenth

venture to think

that in applying that truth to the facts of

Greek music

he was materially hindered by the accepted theory of

the Greek modes. The scales which he analyses under
that

name were

certainly the basis of

Middle Ages, and are much more

all

music

in the

intelligible as

than in relation to the primitive Greek forms

such

of th^

art\
^

The

ecclesiastical

Modes received

their final shape in the Dodecachordon

They are substantially the Greek modes of

of Glareanus (Bale, 1547).
Westphal's theory, although the Greek names which Glareanus adopted
to have been chosen at haphazard.
But the ecclesiastical Modes, as
Helmholtz points out, were developed under the influence of polyphonic
music from the earlier stages represented by the Ambrosian and Gregorian
It would be a singular chance if they were also, as Greek modes,
scales.
the source from which the Ambrosian and Gregorian scales were themselves

seem

derived.

Some further hints on this part of the subject may possibly be derived
from the musical scales in use among nations that have not attained to any
form of harmony, such as the Arabians, the Indians, or the Chinese.
A valuable collection of these scales is given by Mr. A. J. Ellis at the end of
his translation of Helmholtz (Appendix XX. Sect. K, Non-harmonic Scales).
Among the most interesting for our purpose are the eight mediaeval Arabian
scales given on the authority of Professor Land (nos. 54-61). The first three
of these called 'Ochaq, Nawa and Boaslli follow the Pythagorean intonation, and answer respectively to the Hypo-phrygian, Phrygian, and Mixolydian species of the octave. The next two
Rast and Zenkouleh are also
Hypo-phrygian in species, but the Third and Sixth are flatter by about an
eighth of a tone (the Pythagorean comma). In Zenkouleh the Fifth also
is similarly flattened.
The last two scales Hhosaini and Hhidjazi are
Phrygian but the Second and Fifth, and in the case of Hhidjazi also the
Sixth, are flatter by the interval of a comma.
The remaining scale, called
Rahawi, does not fall under any species, since the semitones are between
the Third and Fourth, and again between the Fifth and Sixth.
It will be
seen that in general character though by no means in details this series
of scales bears a considerable resemblance to the scales of the cithara
as given by Ptolemy (supra, p. 85).
In both cases the several scales are
distinguished from each other partly by the order of the intervals {species),
partly by the intonation, or magnitude of the intervals employed {genus).
This latter element is conspicuous!}^ absent from the ecclesiastical Modes.

'


SPEAKING AND SINGING.

Epilogue

37.

113

Speech and Song.

make

Several indications combine to

it

probable that

singing and speaking were not so widely separated from

each other in Greek as in the modern languages with

which we are most famihar.
(i) The teaching of the grammarians on the subject

Our

habit of using

Latin translations of the terms of Greek

grammar has

of accent points to this conclusion.

tended to obscure the

fact that

they belong in almost

The

every case to the ordinary vocabulary of music.

word

for

'

accent

{roi^os) is

simply the musical term for

The words

'

and grave
{papvs) mean nothing more than 'high' and 'low' in
pitch.
A syllable may have two accents, just as in
music a syllable may be sung with more than one note.
Similarly the quantity of each syllable answers to the
time of a musical note, and the rule that a long syllable
is equal to two short ones is no doubt approximately
correct.
Consequently every Greek word (enclitics
being reckoned as parts of a word) is a sort of musical
phrase, and every sentence is a more or less definite
melody XoywSi? tl fiiXo^, as it is called by Aristoxenus
*

pitch

'

or

'

key.'

'

acute

'

(o^tJ?)

'

'

'

(p.

Moreover the accent

18 Meib.).

in

the

modern

sense, the tcfus or stress of the voice, appears to be

quite independent of the pitch or

'

tonic

'

accent

for in

Greek poetry the I'cfus (dpcrc^) is determined by the

metre, with which the tonic accent evidently has nothing
to do.

In singing, accordingly, the tonic accents

dis-

appear; for the melody takes their place, and gives

on which (as we
presently see) the spoken pitch has no influence.
each

syllable

new

pitch,

shall

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

114

The

and fall of the voice in ordinary speaking

enough in English, though it is more
marked in other European languages. Helmholtz tells
us with tacit reference to the speech of North Germany that an affirmative sentence generally ends with
rise

perceptible

is

a drop in the tone of about a Fourth, while an interrogative

is

marked by a

a Fifth \
given, not

rise

which

is

often as

In Italian the interrogative form

by a

the words,

change

particle or a

is

much

as

regularly

in the order of

The Gregorian

but by a rise of pitch.

church music, according to a series of rules quoted by

Helmholtz (/. c), marked a comma by a rise of a Tone,
a colon

by a

fall

of a Semitone

full

stop by a

above, followed by a Fourth below, the

'

Tone

reciting note

and an interrogation by a phrase of the form d b

{c

being the reciting note).

These examples, however, do little towards enabling

modern scholars to form a notion of the Greek system
of accentuation.

In these and similar cases

a whole which
whereas in Greek it

is

accent,

is

is

true that the accent of a

:

accent of oxytone words

is

the

modified by the tonic

sentence as

place in the sentence

it

the individual word.

word may be

affected

by

It
its

is

seen in the loss of the

when

not followed by a pause,

as

in the anastrophe of prepositions,

and

in the treatment

But in all these

instances it is the intonation of the word as such, not
of the sentence, which is primarily concerned. What
of the different classes of enclitics.

they really prove

is

that the musical accent is not so

invariable as the stress accent in English or

but

or

may depend upon

the collocation

upon the degree of emphasis which

a particular use.
^

Tonempfindungen,

p.

364

(ed. 1863).

German,

of the word,
it

has

in

SPEAKING AND SINGING.

ii.s)

The same

conclusion may be drawn from the

which the ancient writers on music endeavour
to distinguish musical and ordinary utterance.
Aristoxenus begins his Harmonics by observing that
there are two movements of the voice, not properly discriminated by any previous writer; namely, the continuous^
which is the movement characteristic of speaking, and
the discrete or that which proceeds by intervals^ the
(2)

terms

in

movement

In the latter the voice remains

on one note, and then passes by
a definite interval to another. In the former it is continually gliding by imperceptible degrees from higher
to lower or the reverse ^ In this kind of movement the
rise and fall of the voice is marked by the accents
of singing.

for a certain time

which accordingly form the melody, as it

of spoken utterance^.
Later writers
state the distinction in much the same language.
Nicomachus tells us that the two movements were
first discriminated by the Pythagoreans.
He dwells
especially on the ease with which we pass from one to
the other. If the notes and intervals of the speaking
voice are allowed to be separate and distinct, the form
of utterance becomes singing ^. Similarly Aristoxenus
says that we do not rest upon a note, unless we are
{TTpoa-cpSiaL),

may be

called,

Harm.

Aristox.,

fX\q}5ovvT0JV T^i/

TovTois iveariv.
8iaaTr]fiaTiKT)'

KoyiKTjV iivai (pafiev,

^

Ibid.

p.

Xiyerai yap

3 Meib. Kivetrai
Kivrjaiv

o^i)

filv

yap Kal SiaXfyo/xevouv

yap Kal

jiapv SrjXov

us (V

rjjxwv Koi

dfjKporipois

Also p. 8 5vo rives elav ISiai Kivrjaeojs, ij re avvxi)s

Kara jx\v ovv Tr)v avvexv tottov tivcL Sie^Uvai (paiverai fj

alaOrjaei ovtoos tbs

Tj?

p.

dprifjiivTjv

au

/^rjda/xov taTaf/.vrj,

k.t.\.

And

p.

ttjv fXiu

/cal

(pojvrl

ovv (TvvexV

k. t. \.

18 Meib, rod 76 XoyuiSovs k^x^P^'^to-'- Tavrr) to fiovaiKov fieXos'

Kal Xoyudes Ti [xiXos, rb avyKelfxevov l/c tuiv vpoacpbiwv tSjv

Sf)

yap ro kniTeiveiv Kal dvUvai ev tw diaXeyeaOai.

Nicomachus, Enchiridion, p. 4 d yap ris rj SiaXeyoi^evos rj diroKoyovjxevds
TLVi 7) dvayivucTKoov ye eKSrjka fx,eTa^v Ka9' eKaarov cpOoyyov ttoui rd fieyeOrj,
Suardvajv Kal fjLeTafidWwv ttjv cpuv^v dn dWov eh dWov, ovKeri Keyeiv 6 toiovtos
ovbe dvayivdiaKeiv dXXd fieKed^eiv Xeyerai.
kv roTs uvofiaffLV (pvatKov
^

ii6

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

by the influence of

led to do so
TTore

eh roLavTrjv

According

KLvrjcriv

dvayKaaOcdfiev iXOeTu).

approximately a

is

a half {SiaXeKTOv
Tco

ijlIv

Dionysius of Halicarthe melody of spoken

Fifth, or three tones

ovv /zlAoy evl fMerpelraL

XeyofLeuco Sid Treure, coy

nepa

Sia rrdOo?

fir]

to the rhetorician

nassus the interval used in

utterance

feeling {au

'iyyiara'

Kal ovt kiriTeiveTai

tcou rpicov toucov Kal tjihtovlov kirl to o^v ovre

rod yodpLov TOVTOV TrXeTov

kirl

Orestes of Euripides, to

show

He

gives an

from the

when words

that

dyUrai

p. 91)

to ^apv^).

example (quoted above on

interesting

and

StacrTrifMaTL

are set

music no account is taken of the accents, or spoken

melody. Not merely are the intervals varied (instead
to

of being nearly uniform), but the rise and

and

notes does not answer to the rise

fall

This statement

syllables in ordinary speech.

of the

of the

fall

is

ren-

dered the more interesting from the circumstance that

the inscription discovered by Mr.

which
this

is

about a century

correspondence.

later,

Ramsay

does exhibit precisely

Apparently, then, the melody of

the inscription represents a

new

idea in

more

direct

the tones of the speaking voice.

The

attempt to bring
attempt being

it

{supra, p. 89),

into a

made seems

music,

an

connexion with

such an

fact of

to indicate that the diver-

gence between the two kinds of utterance was becoming

more marked than had formerly been the case. It may
be compared with the invention of
beginning of the seventeenth century.
Aristides Quintilianus

or intermediate
is

employed

(p.

movement

is

one of the

in

the

7 Meib.) recognises a third

of the voice, viz. that which

in the recitation of poetry.

that Aristides

latest writers

and we may conjecture that

'

recitative

De ComposUionc Verborum,

in
c.

his
ii, p.

It is

probable

on the

subject,

time the Greek

58 Reisk.

SPEAKING AND SINGING

language had

in great

measure

RHYTHM.

n?

lost the original tonic

and with them the quasi-melodious character

which they gave to prose utterance.
In the view which these notices suggest the difference
between speaking and singing is reduced to one of
degree.
It is analysed in language such as we might
use to express the difference between a monotonous and
a varied manner of speaking, or between the sounds
accents,

of an Aeolian harp and those of a musical instrument.

(3)

What

has been said of melody in the two spheres

of speech and song applies also mutatis mutandis to

In English the time or quantity of syllables

rhythm.
as

little

attended to as the pitch.

But

is

Greek the
prose rhythm
in

and short furnished a

In^
which was a serious element in their rhetoric.
the rhythm of music, according to Dionysius, the
quantity of syllables could be neglected, just as the
accent was neglected in the melody ^ This, however,
distinction of long

does not mean that the natural time of the syllables

could be treated with the freedom which
a modern composition.

The

we

see in

regularity of lyric metres

prove that the increase or diminution of

natural quantity referred to by Dionysius was kept
within narrow limits, the nature of which is to be
is sufficient

to

gathered from the remains of the ancient system of

Rhythmic. From these sources we learn with something like certainty that the rhythm of ordinary speech,
as determined by the succession of long or short

was the

syllables,
^

iT(r]

De Comp.

c.

11, p.

basis not only of metres intended

64 to

5c avrb yiverai Kal nepl tov$ pvOjxovs'

r/

ixtu -yap

Aefis ovSevbs ovre ovofiaros ovre pqixaros fiid^erai tovs xpovovi ouSe ficra-

TiOrjatv,

dK\' oms

irapei\r]((> rfj (pvaei tols

TOiavra^ cpvXdTTei'
irapav^ovaai,

ij

uare iroXXdKis ds rdvavria

Ovvovai Tovs xpovovs,

GvXKa^ds, rds re [laKpds Kal ras Ppaxeias,

Se fxovaiKr] t Kal pv6pi.iKTj

dWd

fiera^dWovaiv avrds fxuovcrai Kai

yap rats avWa^ais direv-

fJLfTaxoopeTv ov

rois xp6voiS rds ovKKa^ds.

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

ii8

for recitation, such as the

trimeter, but also of lyrical
(4)

prose

As
we

hexameter and the iambic

rhythm of every kind.

the use of the stress accent in Greek

are without direct information. In verse it

to

appears as the metrical ictus or arsis of each foot, which

answers to what English musicians call the 'strong
In the Homeric

beat' or accented part of the bar\

confined to long syllables, and

hexameter the ictus is

appears to have some power of lengthening a short
or doubtful syllable. In the Attic poetry which was
written in

direct

imitation

of colloquial speech, viz.

the tragic and comic trimeter, there

no necessary

is

but
connexion between the ictus and
on the other hand a naturally long syllable which is
syllabic length:

without the ictus

may be

versification the ictus

nexion with quantity

that

it

that

it

rhythmically short.

does not seem to have any conand on the whole we may gather

was not until the Byzantine period

came to be recognised as a distinct

pronunciation.

The

time and stress

were

of

independent

they were independent goes a long

viz.

that ancient

pitch,

in ancient

And
way

Greek

factor in

chief elements of utterance

speech, just as they are in music.

main contention,

In lyrical

Greek

the fact that

to

prove our

Greek speech had

a peculiar quasi-musical character, consequently that

the
^

difficulty

The

which modern scholars

metrical accent or ictus

feel

in

under-

was marked

in ancient notation by points

These points have been preserved in
(see the Appendix, p. 133) and in one or

placed over the accented syllable.

Mr. Ramsay's musical inscription

two places of the fragment of the Orestes (p. 130). Hence Dr. Crusius has
been able to restore the rhythm with tolerable certainty, and has made the
interesting discovery that in both pieces the ictus falls as a rule on a short
syllable.
The only exceptions in the inscription are circumflexed syllables,
where the long vowel or diphthong is set to two notes, the first of which is
short and accented. The accents on the short first syllables of the dochmiacs
of Euripides are a still more unexpected evidence of the same rhythmical

tendency.

LANGUAGE AND MUSIC.

119

Standing the ancient statements on such matters as

accent and quantity

is

simply the

difficulty of

conceiving

a form of utterance of which no examples can

now be

observed.

The

conception which

form of ancient Greek as

we have
it

thus been led to

was spoken

is

bearing on the main subject of these pages.

language even

not without

For

if

the

form had qualities of

rhythm and intonation which gave it this peculiar half
in its colloquial

musical character, so that singing and speaking were

more

closely akin than they ever are in our experience,

we may

expect to find that music was influenced in

some measure by

this state of things.

What

is

there,

then, in the special characteristics of Greek music

which can be connected with the exceptional relation in
which it stood to language ?
Greek music was primarily and chiefly vocal. Instrumental music was looked upon as essentially subordinate,
an accompaniment or at best an imitation of singing.
For in the view of the Greeks the words (Ae^i?) were'
an integral part of the whole composition. They contained the ideas, while the music with its variations of
time {pvO[x6s) and pitch {apixovta) furnished a natural

vehicle for the appropriate feehngs. Purely instrumental

music could not do

this,

because

it

could not convey the

ideas or impressions fitted to be the object of feeling.

Hence we

find Plato complaining

on

be allowed

The

in his time.

poets,

ground of the
was beginning to

this

separation of poetry and music which

he says, rend asunder

they separate rhythm and dance

movements from melody, putting unmusical language
into metre, and again make melody and rhythm without
the elements of music

words, employing the lyre and the

flute

without the


THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

120

rhythm and
it is most difficult, when
produced without language, to know what
means, or what subject worthy of the name it
so that

voice:

melody
it

is

represents (Kal

otco eotKe rcov

d^LoXoyoov

HLfirjficcTCOv).

It is

utterly false taste, in Plato's opinion, to use the flute

or the lyre otherwise than as an accompaniment to

dance and song^. Similarly in the Aristotelian Problems
(xix. lo) it is asked why, although the human voice is
the most pleasing, singing without words, as in

or whisthng,
lyre.

Shall

voice too
represent
TjSv

;)

is

not

is

we

more agreeable than the

say, the writer answers,

that the

comparatively without charm

something ?

That

'

is to

{r\

say,

ov8' eKet,

music

is

kav

humming

flute or the

jxr]

if it

human

does not

/jLifjLfjTaL,

ofioLcos

expressive of feeling,

which may range from acute passion to calm and lofty

sentiment, but feeling must have an object, and this can
only be adequately given by language. Thus language
is, in the first instance at least, the matter to which
musical treatment gives
the tendency

is

artistic

form.

In

modern times

to regard instrumental music as the

highest form of the

art,

because in instrumental music

the artist creates his work, not

by taking ideas and

he finds them already expressed in language,

independent vehicle of
a new language, as it were, of passion and

feelings as

but directly, by forming an

feeling,

sentiment,

out of the

absolute relations of

movement

and sound.

The intimate connexion in Greek music between

words and melody may be shown in various particulars.
The modern practice of basing a musical composition
a long and elaborate chorus, for example upon a few
words, which are repeated again and again as the music
is developed, would have been impossible in Greece.


LANGUAGE AND MUSIC.

^^

r2i

becomes natural when the words are not an integral

announce the idea
on which it is based, and which the music brings out
under successive aspects. The same may be said of
the use of a melody with many different sets of words.
Greek writers regard even the repetition of the melody
in a strophe and antistrophe as a concession to the comWith the Greeks,
parative weakness of a chorus.
moreover, the union in one artist of the functions of
poet and musician must have tended to a more exquisite
adaptation of language and music than can be expected
It

part of the work, but only serve to

when

the

work

of art

is

the product of divided labour.

In Greece the principle of the interdependence of

Ian-,

guage, metre, and musical sound was carried very

far.i

The

had each certain metrical

forms and certain musical scales or keys appropriated
to them, in some cases also a certain dialect and vocabulary. These various elements were usually summed up
different recognised styles

an ethnical type, one of those which played so large

Such a term as Dorian

in

a part in their political history.

was not applied

to a particular scale at

random, but

because that scale was distinctive of Dorian music:

and Dorian music, again, was one aspect of Dorian

temper and

institutions,

Dorian literature and thought.

Whether the Greeks were acquainted w^th harmony

is a question that
in the modern sense of the word
has been much discussed, and may now be regarded as

were acquainted
with the phenomena on which harmony depends, viz.
the effect produced by sounding certain notes together.
It appears also that they made some use of harmony,
and of dissonant as well as consonant intervals, in
settled \

It is clear that

the Greeks

On

this point

may

Dictionary of Antiquities,

refer to the
art.

Musica

somewhat

fuller

treatment in Smith's

(Vol. II, p. 199, ed. 1890-91).

\
)

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

122

On

instrumental accompaniment {Kpovcni).

hand

was unknown

it

the other

in their vocal music, except

the form of bass and treble voices singing the

in

same

In the instrumental accompaniment it was

melody.
only an occasional ornament, not a necessary or regular
part of the music. Plato speaks of it in the Laws as

something which those who learn music as a branch of

The silence of
liberal education should not attempt ^
harmony and
of
the
use
to
both
as
writers,
the technical

Greek scale, points in the same

Evidently there was no system of harmony,

as to the tonality of the

direction.

no
two

notion of the effect of successive harmonies, or of

distinct parts or progressions of notes

harmonising

with each other.

is to be connected not only with
which was probably characteristic
of Greek music,we have seen (p. 42) that there is
some evidence of tonahty, but still more with the nonharmonic quality of many of the intervals of which their
We have repeatedly dwelt upon
scales were composed.

The want of harmony

the defective tonality

the variety and strangeness (to our apprehension) of

these intervals.

Modern

writers are usually disposed

to underrate their importance, or even to explain them

The Enharmonic,

away.

by

they point out, was produced

may have been only

the interpolation of a note which

a passing note or appoggiatvira.

is said,

was regarded

The Chromatic

also,

it

as too difficult for ordinary per-

went out of use at a

comparatively early period. Yet the accounts which we
find in writers so remote in time and so opposed in their
theoretical views as Aristoxenus and Ptolemy, bear the
strongest testimony to the reality and persistence of

formers, and most of

its

varieties

Plato, Legg. p. 812 d -navra ovv rd joiavra

kv rpialv

inai rb

fifj

irpoacpipuv rots fxiWovaiv

ttJs fiov(XiKJ]s XPI^'^H-'^^ iKX-qipeaBai ^idi

Taxovs.


NON-HARMONIC INTERVALS.
these non-diatonic scales.

And we

fact that of the six scales of the cithara

(see p. 85) not one

is

123

have the decisive

given by Ptolemy

diatonic in the

modern sense of

may be

alleged on the other side that the

Timaeus of Plato is purely diatonic,
and exhibits the strictest Pythagorean division. But
that scale is primarily a framework of mathematical
ratios, and could not take notice of intervals which had
It is not certain
not yet been identified with ratios.
when the discovery of Pythagoras was e!xtended to the

the word.

It

ideal scale in the

non-diatonic scales.

there

is

Even

in the Sectio

no trace of knowledge

that

Canonis of Euclid

any

intervals except

those of the Pythagorean diatonic scale had a numerical

or (as
as

we

we

should say) physical basis

In Plato's time,

^.

can see from a well-known passage of the Republic

Enharmonic and Chromatic scales

were the object of much zealous study and experiment
on the part of musicians of different schools, some
seeking to measure and compare the intervals directly
(quoted on

p. 53),

the

is assumed, and
no hint of any other ratio than those which Pythagoras discovered.
Prop, xvii shows how to find the Enharmonic Lichanos and Paranete by
means of the Fourth and Fifth, Prop, xviii proves against Aristoxenus
(of course without naming him), that a TrvKvov cannot be divided into two
equal intervals; but there is no attempt to explain the nature of the
Enharmonic diesis. It is worth notice that in these propositions the Lichanos
and Paranete of the Enharmonic scale are called \lxo-v6s and napav-qTrj simply,
as though the Enharmonic were the only genus a usage which agrees with
that of the Aristotelian Problems (supra, p. 33),
According to Ptolemy (i, 13) the Pythagorean philosopher Archytas was
*

In Euclid's Sectio Canonts the Pythagorean division

there

is

the author of a new division of the tetrachord for each of the three genera.
In it the natural Major Third (5
4) was given for the large interval of the
:

Pythagorean ditone (81 64); and the Diatonic

was the same as the Middle Soft Diatonic of Ptolemy. But, as Westphal
long ago pointed out (Harmonik und Melopotey p. 230, ed. 1863), this scheme
is probably the work of the later Pythagorean school.
It seems to be
unknown to Plato and Aristoxenus, the latter wrote a life of Archytas
and also to Euclid, as we have seen. The next scheme of musical ratios is
that of Eratosthenes, who makes no use of the natural Major Third.
Enharmonic,

in place of the

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

124

by the ear, others to find numbers in the consonances

which they heard, and both, from the Platonic point
of view,

'

setting ears above inteUigence,'

labouring in vain

and therefore

^.

which surprises us
the doctrine of the genera and colours was not an

The

multiplicity of intervals, then,

'

in

'

accident or excrescence.
finer varieties,

And

although some of the

such as the Enharmonic, belong only to

the early or classical period, there

is

enough

to

show
Greek

continued to be characteristic of the

musical system, at least until the revival of Hellenism
The grounds of this
in the age of the Antonines.

that

it

Greek temperathe credit of a

Greeks
ment. We can hardly deny the
fineness of sensibility upon which civihsation, to say the
least, has made no advance. We may note further how
entirely it is in accordance with the analogies of Greek
art to find a series of artistic types created by subtle
For the
variations within certain well-defined limits.

peculiarity

may be sought

present purpose, however,

partly in the

it

will

phenomenon is
characteristics of Greek music,

how

be enough

to consider

connected with other

the

known

compass and
passionless
and
probably imperfect
quality of its chief instrument, on the other hand the
keen sense of differences of pitch, the finely constructed
rhythm, and finally the natural adaptation, on which we
have already dwelt, between the musical form and the
its

limited

tonality, the thin

by Plato seem to be those which were

the apfxoviKoi or Aristoxeneans, and the p-aO-qnariKoi,
who carried on the tradition of Pythagoras, The apfioviKoi regarded a musical
interval as a quantity which could be measured directly by the ear, without
reference to the numerical ratio upon which it might be based. They prac^

The two schools

known as

distinguished

afterwards

adopted the system of equal temperament. The iA.a6r]ixaTiKoi sought

by experiment among the consonances which are heard,' as
Hence they failed equally with those whose method never rose
Plato says.
above the facts of sense.

tically

for ratios, but

'

'

CHARACTER OF GREEK MUSIC.

language.

The

last is

125

perhaps the feature of greatest

significance, especially in a

and modern types of the

art.

comparison of the ancient

The beauty and even the

we

more or
key in
which it is set, and in the second place upon subtle
variations of pitch, which give emphasis, or light and
shade. Answering to the first of these elements ancient
music, if the main contention of this essay is right, has
Answering to the second
its system of Modes or keys.
which the delicacy and
of
scales
in
it has a series
persuasive effect of a voice depend, as

less aware, in the first place

upon the

variety of the intervals

fill

still

are

pitch or

us with wonder.

In

modern music shows diminished

resources. We have in the Keys the same or even
a greater command of degrees of pitch but we seem
both these

points

which once obtained

between a note as the result of physical facts and the
same note as an index of temper or emotion. A change
of key affects us, generally speaking, like a change of
to

have

lost the

colour or of

close

relation

movement

not

soothing of a state of feeling.

as the

heightening or

In respect of the second

element of vocal expression, the rise and fall of the

Greek music possessed in the multiplicity of its

pitch,

scales

a range

modern
in the

parallel.

of

expression to which there

The

nearest analogue

is

no

may be found

use of modulation from a Major to a Minor key,

But the changes of genus and colour

at the disposal of an ancient musician must have been
acoustically more striking, and must have come nearer
to reproducing, in an idealised form, the tones and
The tendency of
inflexions of the speaking voice.
or the reverse.

'

music that is based upon harmony is to treat the voice

as one of a number of instruments, and accordingly
to curtail the use of it as the great source of dramatic

126

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

and emotional effect. The consequence is twofold.

On the one hand we lose sight of the direct influence
exerted by sound of certain degrees of pitch on the
human sensibility, and thus ultimately on character.
On the other hand the music becomes an independent
creation.

It

may

still

be a vehicle of the deepest

no longer seeks the aid of language,

or reaches its aim through the channels by which
language influences the mind of man.

feehng: but

it

APPENDIX
Table

I.

Scales of the seven oldest Keys, with the species

of the same name.

h- species.

Mixo-lydian.

Ks
^^

S^
Tt^r*^

tit

C-species.

Lydian.

5CE

TF^

t 5^=^

i3i:

:it3qt

rf-species

Phrygian.

:p=f:

Wi

i
r^^

ita

3qE

e-species.

Dorian.

^
^^^

b^
Hypo-lydian.

^i=^

^E

Hypo-phrygian.

salt
Hypo-dorian.

^J=it

liti:^

y- species.

^^

^-species

^ ^^^
fl^-species.

g^arTj^^lrf-^^ffP

-H*
:i:*

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

128

Table

II.

The fifteen Keys.

Mese.

Hyper-lydian.

5^

W?^=f=t

^im^

Hyper-aeolian.

_^

3C^::

-!2.

3C=g:

^ Ei3^
-C

Hyper-phrygian.

m^^.

22=p:
i

-r-

f-

=--

1=:z

aF^J: :it2Z
t)

Hyper-ionian.

p^i=^=E=

-<2_

i^

22:

:f=t

f
Mixo-lydian.

-^^

Etirfe^^
E^S^ES
r
:^

^=^ ^--==^

-i

Lydian.

^^3^^

:^:

:.it

^^

^S^^

-f-^-

3t=?2=:

t^

Aeolian.

:p=e:

^tf^g^zig;

if^SiSH

=st=?^

Phrygian.

i=tEa^^^f?:=^E
z

^^.^

i=fz:

Ionian.

m 5=:^=^
-:1

.2_

litia:

^E^^E 3c^^:

APPENDIX.

129

Mese.

Dorian.

fi ^^-1^ :i=2^

K^ :S=zS

S3t

Hypo-lydian.

2t =^=f
tz

I^ZZit

ist

-^^

tJ

^^

Hypo-aeolian.

^3.^^

4-4
1-

:g=t:?:

-f

I-

^rJ:#EfcE
^

:S

Hypo-phrygian.
:^=]=

^=fc

:^=*:

-1-

P^ -ihi^"

:g=:2i:

:i=i:

Hypo-ionian.

^S^ ^g^^^

liZZE

i
S^^^SS?*^^^

litK

Hypo-dorian.

^i^

:g=^

iziz2:

^;

The moveable

notes

-^_-^-^.^ :S=S=^-

(cpBoyyoi Kivovfxevoi)

are distinguished by

being printed as crotchets.

The two

highest of these keys

Hyper-aeoHan

appear

to

the

Hyper-lydian and the

have been added

of the Empire.

The remaining

Aristoxenus

pseudo- Euclidean Introductio

in the

and by Aristides Quintilianus

time

the

in

thirteen are attributed to

(p. 22,

1.

30)

(p. 19,

1.

30),

but there

no mention of them in the extant Harmonics.

It

is

may be

gathered, however, from the criticism of Heraclides Ponticus

(see

the

passage discussed on pp. 9-12) that the

keys was being considerably enlarged in his

Aristoxenus, though not named,

is

list

time,

of

and

doubtless aimed at there.

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

130

Mtistc of the

'

Orestes

of Euripides

'

Z(?)

-Z

.1-

PC

/.6j/i//oZEMBPOTOIZ"L

ouixa

aas

E(?)

c^^ajSAKXETEITOMErAZ
n

338-344).

XMATEPOZ

/caToXoc()TPOMAl

6'cr'

(11.

Sx^os

oi,

ANA

Sk XaTcpo^

Cx
c pi
n
c
p
cJ^yr^ZAKATOYGOAZTINA^ay^ar-

KATEKATZEN^HD

ficov

1-8.

Seiya>v

7r6i/a)N^nDnnznoNToi;
I

C: C: Pv"Z-(?)

oAe^yol

oiZ

et'

(?)
Kv/iaa-LV

Restoration proposed by Dr. Crusius.

Kar

Ko

-^

(pv

po

^1

fia

fiai

re

pos

ai

/xa

aas

-P ^1^-

.*

?
:ti

t^

^--X^EZIJJ^-L-^

g-.

APPENDIX.

sffrsdE

:e3: :z*zitl*:

^;f^=s^=^/toj' -

131

Ppo

hv

fios

i :fe=F
^

;^
a

roTs

i^=

v^

\ai-(pos w?

5e

q-

^-

t-7^^^=^^?:t^^=l^g!:^J:=^:t^3^=^--^J-.ah
d

TiS

Toy

-as

60

ti

id

^as

5ai-j^ojv

fe=p:

1^^^

tsfcU^
/far

eK

\v

8e

aei'

TTO -

- vo'P'

S^==:

:r^F=
i
^

TTOV-TOV

ay

J/OJI/

rp-^io-J-H

^^U^E^^S^^\-

P-:

^i^=yi=Ji^

.S^

AayS-pof?

$=^

The metre

Ae^

pi

-^

is

aiv

01

Iv

kv

-P

P-

/xa

cnv

=1

==1-

dochmiac, each dochmius consisting of an

The points which

iambus followed by a cretic, v^--w-.
seem to mark the ictus, or rhythmical accent, are found on the
If we assume that the
first syllable of each of these two feet.

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

132

iambus has the chief accent, the dochmius

first

syllable of the

will

be correctly expressed as a musical bar of the form

If the first syllable of the cretic is accented, the

is

dochmius

divided between two bars, and becomes

,^

The accompaniment or Kpoiais, consisting of notes interposed

between the phrases of the melody,

and Dr. Crusius

The

1.

is

found by Dr. Wessely

in the following characters

character 'L appears at the end of every dochmius

shown by the papyrus. After the first, third and fifth it

written in the same line with the text. After the seventh it
written above that line, between two vocal notes.

takes

it

to

be the instrumental

shape as due
it

Z,

to the necessity or

from the vocal Z.

If that

explaining the difference of

convenience of distinguishing

were so the form 1. would surely

schemes of Alypius and Aristides Quintilianus.

it

dochmius or

bar.

2.

mark intended

The group 910

words
P,

is

duvcov

TTovcou.

is

Dr. Crusius

have been permanent, and would have been given

suggest that

is

to

in the

venture to

show the end of the

occurs twice, before and after the

There

which Dr. Crusius takes

about the sign

is

to

be a Vortragszeichen.

difficulty

The

may be instrumental notes.

The double of ws (written nnZ) is interesting because it
shows that when more than one note went with a syllable,
other two characters
co

the vowel or diphthong

well-known

and

is

Apollo

was repeated.

et-ei-ei-ei-et-fiXto-o-ere

This agrees with the

of Aristophaucs {Ran. 1314),

amply confirmed by the newly discovered hymn

(p. 134).

to

APPENDIX.

Musical part of

the Seikelos inscription.

T.

133

KIZ

OZONZHZ(J)AINOT
K

IK

MHAENOAnZZY

AYnornpozoAi
k

rONEZTITOZHN
C

TOTEAOZOXPO
C

CX

NOZAHAITEI
The

inscription of

covered by Mr.

him
p.

in

277.

The

which these hnes form part was

W. M.

Ramsay, and was

first

dis-

pubhshed by

the Bulletin de corrcspondance hellenique for 1883,

It

work of a

professes to be the

certain SftVeXoy.

discovery that the smaller letters between the lines are

musical notes was

The

made by

(Philologus for 1893,

light

Dr. Wessely.

Seikelos inscription, as Dr. O. Crusius has shown

which

it

lii. p.

161 \

is

especially valuable for the

throws upon ancient rhythm.

is

case,

and we are able therefore

bars,

which may be represented as follows

\J

to

The

quantity of

marked in every
divide the melody into

the syllables and the place of the ictus

r
THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

134

The hymns

recently discovered at Delphi.

Since these sheets were

in type the materials for the

study

Greek music have received a notable accession.

The French archaeologists who are now excavating on the
of ancient

site

of Delphi have found

lyrical poetry,

several important fragments of

some of them with the music noted over

shown

of these fragments have been

hymn

inscription, containing a

to

belong to a single

to Apollo, which dates in

probability from the early part of the third century

the other fragments the most considerable

ferred to the

first

century

These

b. c.

plausibly re-

is

inscriptions have been

(viii-

with two valuable commentaries by

pp. 569-610),

all

Of

b. c.

published in the Bulletin dc correspondance hcllenique

xii.

the

The two .largest

words, as in the examples already known.

The former

Henri Weil and M. Theodore Reinach.

M.

scholar

deals with the text, the latter chiefly with the music.

The music of the hymn to Apollo is written in the vocal

notation. The metre is the cretic or paeonic (^^^ v^ ^ ^), and
the key, as M. Reinach has shown,
scale of

In the following transcription

same

as

in

When

thousfht

it

d'o

two notes are sung

vowel or diphthong

syllable the

fragment of the Orestes

the

the
df.

the Phrygian

have followed M. Reinach

except in a few minor points.

to the

is

minor, with the conjunct tetrachord c

best to adhere to the

(p.

132)

is

repeated,

but

have

modern method.
>t^

:fc

:i

[T6v

kKv

K\.^api\(Tei

Tov

TTni- ba

A.

^g
a - Kpo

vi -

(f)rj

tov

Se

yd

nd

\ov [Atos

A^

feSSi

'"

(iBfTf 7ra]p'

fxe -

-yov,

ap.\^po6' 6y]

APPENDIX.

4.

\-

no.

A r

Toh

7rpo-0ai

- I'ei?

[Xoyta,

iMioro
li

t^
-

Ova

ai

^35

rf>]i-7ro-Sa

/xni/

/Kru/Ku

^^^i^
ov

rfi -

exOpbs

l[\es,

(oi

bpa-KUiV

ov i-^p\ov - pet

o r

gES^^fe^

at

/K^-t-U

Ta-Xa-rav

5e

ci

u
fefc

rav

- Xi/c -

o- Xoi/

^^^^^^^

^
j/uj']

*-

e - rp]?; - (xa?

re [oto-i jSeXeo-iv

o - T

- prjs

IGr<t>

.v

iire

-o-f7r-T[o?

parr

^ r

:F^

-^=i
(raX-Xt -

(?)

y^v

vav

V 3d\os

(^i-Xoi/

u
e:-^
:^..^-L.-

Ef-rrg=g
5u

/iOt

Xo

pcoi'

e - (jinp

loi
.

u
Iff:

-li?-

^:
re

OV K

(about 12 bars wanting.)

j/at

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

136

S
M
^

.-]

'E\iK]u}va

M
^=^
=i^=;^

^a-dv

m=-r-w-

dev

:^^
\d[xeTe Aibs

Bpov at

1)

CO -

\[vol]

>*-^ -

^t=

to

^^^
-

- z^a

Ko

pv

- VI -

va [/Me]ra kXu

pas

-1^

t^

v/rr;

re

xpv

:^b=P

^fr=&^

ae

Ae\

al-dos

par

p.av'

- (pi-aiv

ner

racr - 6e

Kaa-ra-Xi-Bos

;^^

ttl

- vi - (re-rai,

=^ ^ ^

\-

v-8pou

k6-

^!^-f^b^=^

a Hap-vaa

iE?E?;
va. -

o -

or

va

1 -

fxaL-pov

<t)

Tat?

^^^^^S

/ie\ -

(Ti

k^

hi -

z^=g=j^^=

u
u ^ u o

ib!^=^

-\c[t} crvv-6

fio

:t=:'^

<i>or- 801/

o?

M
^-w-'^-^.
rrr-

pov

ipi]3p<) -

--m=^m'-

6i)-ya-TpS

:e=e:
:^-^^

*^

^-

W-

y^-^f^i^

AeX-cjiov

va

APPENDIX.

137

'i^

^S
^=i^=^

^-z^^

era

Tpi

is ^

n' -

Soy

aiv

"a

/xot

5a[7reS]oi/

pa

Tav

OpavaTou, a

A K

<paia-Tos

yi

6L

at

^r^^Bi^^
fjij]

vai-

ve

- (OV

KATMUO lor

pco

oe

-sz=

e^l^

ois

p6

-*

TO)

-f-T^

- ttXoi

(f)

.^r=^r=F=iS

ai

u ^ u

^^^^=^

IfLzt

fxe-ya-Xo- 7T0-\is 'A6-dis, ev - ;(al

K(?)

pa>v'

:^;^gEg^
6e

/mou

I'll/

OYOMAMOYO
-S

+-

ar-/a.o9

"A-pa'v//'

ts

MAM

\v[ji-7Tov

A K

va

Kid-va-Tai.'

Xi -

yu

6e

Xco

^pi-pwv

ro?

^f^^^^Bg^ggg^f^^

gJi
at

d - Xoi?

^v-6pov[s

[^iejXc-o-ii'

hav

o)

Kpi-Kd'

S^

Kil-da

pis

vp. -

VOL

->.->

(tlv

6e [^e]-a) -

piv

7rpo'-7ra?

eV

va

pos 'Ad

di

3^

/leX-Tre - rai*

5^
-

fN-

gEf^E^g

is-fe>^

5'

KAMOYOMAMO

ou/Kruor
S^

;(pi;-a-ea

6a

Xa^L'*'*']

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

138

The

notes employed in this piece of music cover about an

octave and a

half,

viz.

from Parypate Hypaton

matic Lichanos Hyperbolaion.

viz.

Chro-

to the

In two of the tetrachords,

Synemmenon and Hyperbolaion,

the intervals employed

are Chromatic (or possibly Enharmonic)

in the tetrachord

Diezeugmenon they are Diatonic, while in the tetrachord

Meson the Lichanos, which would distinguish the genus, is
wanting. On the other hand there are two notes which do
not belong to the Phrygian key as hitherto known,

semitone below Mese, and

zeugmenon.

If

we assume

of the standard kind

viz. 0,

a semitone below Nete Die-

B,

that

we have

the complete scale

{xp^i^a Toviaiov),

Fcl)YOM

before us Chromatic
is

lorBU/K>*c
,t?^_&^2_^ei

z-^.

Enharmonic, or Chromatic of a different

If the intervals are

variety, the

moveable notes

be somewhat

case

(in this

M. Reinach

is

particularly

changes of genus and key

happy

in the

opening passage, as he shows,

bolaion.

'iv

X)

is

>fc

(g

flb

a) of the

up

With the menwe come upon the

Diatonic.
aprj^)

to the point
{iOi,

From

lies

this point the

lation into

melody

Synemmenon

The

Chromatic tetrachord Hyper-

to address the Attic procession

tetrachord

will

in tracing the successive

At the beginning of the second fragment the

vals are again Diatonic,

of genus.

A-

course of the poem.

tion of the Gaulish invasion {TakaTav

group

A K and

flatter,

inter-

where the poet turns

kXvtu fieyaXuno'Xis'AddLs,

chiefly in the

A K f (cd^

k.t.X.).

Chromatic

df) a

moduthe key of the sub-dominant as well as a change

At the end of the fragment the poet returns to

the Diatonic and the original key.


APPENDIX.
With regard
concerns us

at

and convincing.

the mode

to

present

He

M.

the

139

endings of the several phrases and divisions

note which recurs most frequently.
a Minor mode.

clear

is

appeals to three criteria, (i) the im-

pression which the music makes on a modern ear

to

mainly

question which

Reinach's exposition

The

is

(2)

the

(3)

the

All these criteria point

made by

general impression

Diatonic parts of the melody

and

that of the

key of

the

minor

the rhythmical periods end on one or other of the notes

c

e^ g, which

form the chord of that key

and the note

This conclusion, it need hardly be

agreement with the main thesis of the pre-

distinctly predominates.
said, is in entire

ceding pages.

The symbols

and

B,

which do not belong

gian scale, are explained by

M. Reinach

a high degree plausible and suggestive.

holds the place of leading-note

'

note,

It

c.

to the

way

Phry-

that

'

is

in

In other keys, he

stands for the note b (natural).

observes, the symbol

it

in a

Thus

(note sensible) to the key-

has hitherto been supposed that the standard

Greek music, the octave a a, differed from the

modern Minor in the want of a leading note. Here, however, we find evidence that such a note was known in practice,
If this is
if not as a matter of theory, to Greek musicians.
in
fact
the keythat
was
view
c
so, it strongly confirms the
note of the Phrygian scale. The symbol B, which occurs
only once, answers to our g^, and may be similarly explained
as a leading note to g, the dominant of the key. We infer,
with M. Reinach, that the scale employed in the hymn is

scale of

not only

like,

but identical with, the scale of our Minor.

The fragment marked C by M. Weil resembles

to

the

hymn

Apollo in subject, and also in metre, but cannot belong to

The melody is written in the Lydian key,

we have hitherto known as the
instrumental, but which is now shown to have been used,
The fragment is as
occasionally at least, for vocal music.

the

same work.

with the notation which

follows

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

140

<C<u

<

fc--t^=c^
HS
T

III

N-

Tai/[^e]

$0?

T-^

V^

fiiX-ne - re

vL-(f)o-^6-\ovs

^l-^-~M
5e

nu -Bi- ov

^e=t2:
ov

- /3oi/

v/:*[tpj

u u u

epidfs at

$^

Kn-pV-(pOV KXei-TVP

dl ~

^-r-FF~ F^-l>^-|

:t^t

-\;iEz^=^

Tr]-\(T-KO-TVOV

i-TTL

<\j < Z

riK - re

A [a

rw]

M. Reinach connects this fragment with a shorter one,

Lydian key, but not in paeonic metre, viz.

also

in the

i
9

:gE 1^-^-

^iP=i-

..e ov ea

xe

6q

/xa

M. Reinach thinks

u<[:u

cuc

i:u<c

pa KUT-eK

that the

Hypo-lydian (the octave

/ /).

ra

(TupiyfM

- rrep

mode ma}^ be the so-called

The materials are surely

too scanty for any conclusion as to this.

The fragment

D,

Reinach has found

the
it

only remaining piece which

worth while

to

transcribe,

is

written in the instrumental notation of the Lydian key.

metre

is

the glyconic.

D
nP-TTo

The fragment

<

is

as follows

ZuZ<N

M.
also

The

APPENDIX.

i^ -^

drr - Ta'icr -

IV

^r=

=q

141

tovs

... re rrpoanoXois

Buk-xov [didaovs^

T=^

t^-^--

jiLz^.
rav T

This piece also

is

av-^T

a.

daX

- yi] - pd-T(p

referred by M. Reinach to the

Hypo-

may surely be objected that of three places

which we may fairly suppose that we have the end of

lydian mode.
in

dp-)(av

doly]pi[KXvTa>v

It

a metrical division,

viz.

those which end with the words

AeX(/)a)i/, Tj-poo-TTo'Xoiy

and

on the Mese

and one on the Hypate

[d),

dyrjpaTa,

two present us with cadences

(a).
This seems to
Minor Mode.
would seem that the only mode (in the

point strongly to the

On

the whole

it

modern sense of

the word) of which the

us anything

mode

Minor.
as

it

is

new

discoveries

practically identical with the

tell

modern

venture to think this a confirmation, as signal

was unexpected, of the main contention of this treatise.

does not seem to have been observed by M. Weil or

M. Reinach that in all these pieces of music there is the
same remarkable correspondence between the melody and
It

the accentuation that has been pointed out in the case of

the Seikelos inscription (pp. 90, 91).

cannot indeed be

It

said that every acute accent coincides with a rise of pitch

but the note of an accented syllable

lowed by a note of lower pitch.

(which may have practically lost

and

is

almost always

Exceptions are,
its

The

Greek

m),

in the

two notes of a circumflexed syllable

fiai/reloi/,

etAei/,

fxoK^Te (if

TakaTCLV,

rightly restored).

<^oi^ov,

wScuo-t,

oloXov,

accent, cp. the

KXvrats-,

opposite case occurs only once, in BvaroU.

holds not only of the chief hymn, but of

all

is

fall

folIva

Modern
of pitch

exemplified in

^(onolaiv,

The

6p.ov

'.

the

observation

the fragments.

INDEX
OF PASSAGES DISCUSSED OR REFERRED

Anonymi

Scriptio de Musica, 28 (the modes employed

different instruments)

63-64

(roTTOt Tr]i cfxovrjs)

TO.

on
27
64

Aristides Quintilianus (ed. Meib.)

p. 10

3^

(Lichanos)
music)

......
....

p. 13 (ethos of

p, 15 (Kara dteaeLS app.ov'ui)

p. 21
p.

28

(Modes

in Plato's Republic)

{tottoi rrjs (pcovrjs)

Aristophanes, Eq. 985-996 (Dorian Mode)

iv. 11,

p.

1018 b 26

53>

7i

(opx'?)

1290 a 20 (Dorian and Phrygian)

viii. 5-7, pp. 1340-1342 (ethos of music)
9, 12, 13,
12, 13,
viii. 7, p. 1342 a 32 (Phrygian Mode)
Problems, xix. 20, p. 919 a 13 (Mese)
43, 82, 102,
26, p. 919 b 21 (ap/ior/ta = System)

Politics, iv. 3, p.

....
.

33, p.

36, p.
47, p.

48, p.
49, p.

Rhetoric^

iii.

i,

p.

920
920
922
922
922

a 19 (Hypate)
h 7 (Mese)
b 3 (heptachord scales)
b 10 (modes used by chorus)
.

/;

31 (high and low pitch)

1403 b 27 (roVo? and

apixovUi)

...
.

66
9

94-100
63

....

Aristotle

Metaphysics,

63,

4^

46
105
107
107
107

55
44
44
33
14
15

15

INDEX.

143

AUTHOR

Aristoxenus

Harm.

Meib.)
15 (diagrams of apfxovlai)
p. 3 (melody of speech)
p. 6 (nomenclature by Oims or position)
p. 6, 1. 20 (species of the Octave)
(ed.

p. 2,

1.

p.

8 (speaking and singing)

12 (perfect System)
(melody of speech)
23 (Chromatic and Enharmonic)

p. 8,

1.

p. 18
p.

1.

Bacchius

1.

1.

36

no
no

52
51,54

17-19

no
81

III

65
82

^coj/^s-)

Dionysius Hal.
c. II, p. 58 Reisk. (accent and melody)
c. II, p. 64 Reisk. (rhythm and quantity)

90, 115
.

115

(ed. Meib.)

Introdudio, p. 19 (ten-stringed lyre)

p. 20 (modulation)

Sedio Canonis, Prop,

xvii, xviii

38

104
123

Euripides, Orest. 338-343 (musical setting)

92,

Heraclides Ponticus ap. Athen. xiv. pp. 624-626 (modes)

Lasus

50
115

....

p. 19 (deaeis TTpax6p8cov)

Euclid

14 (Lichanos indefinite)

(ed. Meib.), p. 11 {tottol ttjs

34 (diagrams)
29 (seven apixovlm)
p. 37 {tovol or keys)
p. 48, 1. 13 (Lichanos indefinite)
p. 69, 1. 6 (nomenclature by position)
ibid, (indefinite element in music)
p. 27,

p. 36,

115
81

90, 115

p. 26,

49

ap. Athen. xiv. p. 624 e [kloKh apfiovia)

Nicomachus

p. 7

Pausanias,

iv. 27,

Nem.

iv.

115

(heptachord scales)

4 (Sacadas and Pronomus)

Pherecrates ap. Plut. de Mus.

Pindar,

Meib), p. 4 (speaking and singing)

(ed.

c.

30

34
75

38

45 (Lydian)

Plato

....
....

Phileb. p. 17 (dp/xoj^t'a = System)

Laches, p. 188 (Dorian, Ionian, Phrygian, Lydian)
Repub. p. 398 (use of modes in education)

55
8

7,8

p.

399 {avkos

p. 531

TTo\vxop(^ia)

(study of music)

Laivs, p. 669 (instrumental music)

p.

812

(harmony)

130

9-11, 76

39,41
53, 123
.

120
122

THE MODES OF ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC.

144

AUTHOR
Plutarch

De

PAGE

Mitsica,

c.

6 (dpfiovlai)
15-17 (Platonic modes)

cc.
C.

19

De gener. Mundi,
Pollux,

Onom.

iv.

78

(toi^os, dpfjiovla)

p.

25

......
.

21-25, 103

1029 c (Proslambanomenos)

{dpfxoviai avXijTLKai

Pratinas ap. Athen. xiv. p.

62^/ (jirjTe

22,

26
39

28

ctvvtovov k.tX)

Ptolemy

Harm,

i.
i.

13 (musical ratios of Archytas)

16 (j7ye/Lia)i/ = highest note)

ibid, (scales

ii.
ii.

87
67
80
84-86, 102

(Pythagorean division)
6 (modulation)

7 (pitch of scales)
16 (scales of the cithara)

Telestes ap. Athen. xiv.

Theon Smyrnaeus,

....

Seikelos inscription

c.

p.

89, 132

625/ (Phrygian and Lydian)

8 (enlargement of scale).

THE END

45

84-86, 102, 123

of the cithara)

ibid.
ii.

123

37

[145]

Note on

the Seikilos Inscription (pp. 89-91, 133).

Since the publication of this work, the Seikilos inscription

J. A. R. Munro (of Lincoln

has been examined afresh by Mr.

The

College, Oxford).

show

result of his examination is to

From

that the last note of the melody has been misread.

he has kindly placed

a squeeze which

appears that the word

my

disposal

it

written

airaiTfi is

c xn

at

AHAITEI
The

last to
it

is

drawn under the three notes CXn has caused the

be read as D, which has no meaning here. In fact

line

Gamma

a reversed

(y aT:e(rTpaixy.vov),

and answers

to

our

e natural.

Hence

the

on pp. 89-90

transcription

line of the

last

should be as follows

T6

\os

xpo

VQS

nai

The importance of this correction is obvious.

is now seen to be the octave

The

scale

employed

ft

as

If,

(the scale

Seventh), the

Dominant
the beli

ventured to suggest

Hypo-phrygian
flat

'

e will

that in

ct

on

p.

90,

the

mode

is

the

of our Major mode, but with a

key-note will be

a.

The

then have to be noted as a

close
fact

on the

supporting

Greek music the close on the Dominant or

Hypate was the usual one (see p. 45).

The line drawn under the three symbols CXT is found in
several other cases where the melody gives more than one
note for a syllable. So [K (1. 2), and 0J> (1. 3), K] and 0J>
It does not appear however under KIZ (1. i).
(1. 4).
D. B. M.
Modes 0/ Ancient Greek Music.

Date Due

ML169.M75

MUSIC

3 5002 00141 0930

Monro, D. B.
The modes of ancient Greek

ML
169
-M75

AUTHOR

M onro

50468

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M BORROWER'S
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ilM es_of__an
DATE DUE

\h^.\

\-b

e_nj^_.G:r

^^^

NAMl

JViiriVvZ

MUSIC LiBRAkY

OEC 4

ML
169

M75

50468