THE MODES

OF

ANCIENT GREEK MUSIC

MONRO

London

HENRY FROWDE

Oxford University Press Warehouse

Amen Corner, E.C.

New York

MACMILLAN & CO., 66, FIFTH AVENUE

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

Oxford

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1894

Oxford

PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

DEDICATED

TO THE

PROVOST AND FELLOWS

OF TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

xeinosynês heneka

Transcriber's Note:
The original text contained many words in the Greek alphabet. These words have been transliterated to the Latin alphabet. They appear in the text in bold font.
  e.g. τροποι is written tropoi

PREFACE

The present essay is the sequel of an article on Greek music which the author contributed to the new edition of Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (London, 1890-91, art. Musica). In that article the long-standing controversy regarding the nature of the ancient musical Modes was briefly noticed, and some reasons were given for dissenting from the views maintained by Westphal, and now very generally accepted. A full discussion of the subject would have taken up more space than was then at the author's disposal, and he accordingly proposed to the Delegates of the Clarendon Press to treat the question in a separate form. He has now to thank them for undertaking the publication of a work which is 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 hellénique and the Philologus, viz. the so-called Seikelos inscription from Tralles, and a fragment of the Orestes of Euripides. But a much greater surprise was in store. The book was nearly ready for publication last November, when the newspapers reported that the French scholars engaged in excavating on the site of Delphi had found several pieces of musical notation, in particular a hymn to Apollo dating from the third century B.C. As the known remains of Greek music were either miserably brief, or so late as hardly to belong to classical antiquity, it was thought best to wait for the publication of the new material. The French School of Athens must be congratulated upon the good fortune which has attended their enterprise, and also upon the excellent form in which its results have been placed, within a comparatively short time, at the service of students. The writer of these pages, it will be readily understood, had especial reason to be interested in the announcement of a discovery which might give an entirely new complexion to the whole argument. It will be for the reader to determine whether the main thesis of the book has gained or lost by the new evidence.

Mr. Hubert Parry prefaces his suggestive treatment of Greek music by some remarks on the difficulty of the subject. 'It still seems possible,' he observes, 'that a large portion of what has passed into the domain of "well-authenticated fact" is complete misapprehension, as Greek scholars have not time for a thorough study of music up to the standard required to judge securely of the matters in question, and musicians as a rule are not extremely intimate with Greek' (The Art of Music, p. 24). To the present writer, who has no claim to the title of musician, the scepticism expressed in these words appears to be well founded. If his interpretation of the ancient texts furnishes musicians like Mr. Parry with a somewhat more trustworthy basis for their criticism of Greek music as an art, his object will be fully attained.

TABLE OF CONTENTS