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The Musical Scales of Plato's Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. F. Mountford
Affiliation:
The University, Edinburgh

Extract

The object of this article is to discuss, defend, and supplement the only definite piece of evidence we possess which deals with the musical scales(or Harmoniai)referred to by Plato in the Republic (398D–399C). In this first section I shall consider the list of scales given by Aristides Quintilianus and suggest the source from which it is derived; in the second part the employment of certain abnormal intervals will be established and elucidated; and finally the evidence of the preceding sections will be reviewed from the standpoint of the Pythagorean musical theory.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1923

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References

page 125 note 1 That Aristides lived later than Cicero, whom he mentions, and may be later than Plotinus, scarcely affects the value of his evidence, since his book is a compilation from older writers. Westphal, whose darling was Aristoxenus, perversely calls him ‘ein gedankloser Compilator aus früheren Schriften sehr verschiedenen Werthes.’

page 127 note 1 Journ. Hell. Studies, Vol. XL. (1920), p. 27Google Scholar .

page 129 note 1 Why the same interval should have one name if it is ascending and another if descending is not clear.

page 129 note 2 Bacchius the Elder (§ 37) also mentions the sklysis and ekbole. He says that they are only found in the enharmonic genus. But the statement is absurd In itself. He means perhaps that they are connected with the enharmonic genus, since one is a diesis more, and the other a diesis less than a tone.

page 131 note 1 Cf. Politics VIII., cap. 5, p. 1340.

page 131 note 2 The style of music spoken of as σπоѵ;δειζωѵ or σπоѵδειακς (Plut. c. 19, 1137B)does not seem to have used the spondeiasmos in every case.

page 131 note 3 As given the scale may be incomplete, but I am unwilling to rush into useless conjectures. It would be easy to suggest that the octave was completed by the upper E, as the words κ τς ѵαλоγíας seem to imply. The reader who compares this scale with the Dorian of Aristides will notice that the scale of Aristides would descend to D; but the significance of that fact has already been discussed (J.H.S., 1920, pp. 29–30).

page 131 note 4 See Aristoxenus, p. 8, and Cleonides, cap. 2.

page 132 note 1 Harmonika II. 14.

page 134 note 1 Macran's translation.

page 136 note 1 In the Syntonon chromatic of Ptolemy there is an interval 7:6, which may possibly represent the ‘ekbole.’