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II. 3. THE HEAVENLY BODIES OF THE MUSES
a) Prooimion
We have already mentioned some affinities between the Sirens, Moirai, and
Muses, and we must now deal with the Muses themselves as bearers of cosmic
harmony. We are going to show that the Muses share with the Sirens the association
with heavenly spheres/bodies, the fact that they were considered as embodiments of
sound, and the function of leading the souls through heaven. The main difference
between Muses and Sirens in this connection is that the former were not believed to
be souls of the dead. Otherwise, the link between Muses and heavenly bodies may be
of not too later origin than the celestial Sirens discussed in the previous chapter,
although it had a greater literary success, and even survived among Christian Latin
writers and medieval music theorists. The association of the Muses with the sounds of
the musical system, and more specifically with the strings of the lyre, is far clearer
than in the case of the Sirens, but it was of later origin (as we shall see in the next
section, it was the Pleiads, not the Muses, who were linked with the strings of the lyre
in the Classical period). On the other hand, Plato hinted at the role of the Muses as
celestial psychopomps, whereas he did not attribute it to the Sirens. The Neoplatonists
made further allusions to this aspect of the Muses.
b) Muses and Heavenly Realms191
In the previous chapter we mentioned that, according to a passage of
Plutarch’s Table Talk, the three Moirai singing in Plato’s myth of Er were a hint at
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three Muses belonging to a Delphic tradition, whose names were Hypate, Mese,
Neate,192 and who were linked with cosmic regions:193
Still I wonder how Lamprias missed what they say in Delphi, namely, that among
them the Muses are not the eponyms of the sounds or the strings, but since the world
is as a whole divided in three parts, the first one is that of the fixed stars; second, that
of the errant ones; last, the sublunar one, and all are joined together and arranged
according harmonic ratios.194 A Muse is the protector of every one of them: Hypate
guards the first region; Neate guards the last one; Mese, the middle one, who holds
together and turns at the same time as much as possible the mortal things with the
divine ones, those surrounding the Earth with those of heavens. Plato hinted at this
with the names of the Moirai, giving to one of them the name ‘Atropos,’ to the other,
‘Klotho,’ and to the last one, ‘Lachesis,’ for he placed the Sirens, not the Muses,
(who were equal in number) on the orbits of the eight spheres.195
The names mentioned by Plutarch are attested for the Muses on an inscription from
Argos (ca. 300 B. C. E.), where three Muses, called Neta, Messa and Hypata appear
besides a fourth one, Prata (dialect form for Prote, i. e., “first”), possibly a local
denomination of a string of the lyre otherwise called hyperhypate.196 Yet Plutarch did
not refer those names of the Muses to the strings of the lyre, but to different regions of
the Universe:
a) “Hypate” (“the uppermost”) was linked with the sphere of the fixed stars,
because of the most general meaning of the adjective hypatos, “the
uppermost.”
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b) “Mese,” meaning “the middle,” was linked with the region of the planets as a
whole, since it is placed between the sphere of the fixed stars and that of the
Moon.
c) “Nete,” meaning “the uttermost,” was linked with the sublunar region.197
Plutarch suggested that these Delphic Muses were already at work in the
Platonic myth of Er, concealed under the names of the three Moirai,198 but Plato did
not associate his Moirai with any cosmic region. Such a connection seems to be
exclusively Plutarchean, but these three Muses and the Moirai, all linked with regions
of a threefold cosmic scheme, will deserve further comments in another chapter.
On the other hand, Proclus, in his commentaries to Plato’s Timaeus, stated a
relationship between the nine Muses and a nine-fold division of the universe.199
c) Muses as Stars of Cosmic Music
The first source where a link between Muses and heavenly bodies might have
been suggested is a fragment of the Latin poet Ennius (239-169 B. C. E.200): Musae,
quae pedibus magnum pulsatis Olympum (“O ye Muses, who stamp with your feet the
mighty Olympus”). Varro (116-27 B. C. E.201), commenting on Ennius’s fragment,
explains that the Greeks called the heaven “Olympus” (caelum dicunt Graeci
Olympum).202 This might imply that for Ennius the Muses are the heavenly bodies:203
even if Ennius’s fragment makes sense without identifying heavens and Olympus, it is
likely that Ennius, born in Rudiae, near Brindisi and Tarentum, in the third century B.
C. E. (the same century in which Tarentum was conquered by Rome), knew and was
influenced by the Pythagorean doctrines so widely extended in Magna Graecia.204 And
the equation “Olympus” = “Heaven,” mentioned for the first time by Varro, as we
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have seen, was ascribed to Philolaus by the first-second centuries C. E. doxographer
Aetius, which suggests that it was accepted in Pythagorean circles.205
A far more clear, direct piece of evidence for the Muses being related to
cosmic harmony is at least three centuries later than Plato, and only a few decades
later than Varro and earlier than Plutarch (ca. 45-125 C. E.): Philo of Alexandria (25
B. C. E. – 50 C. E.) is the first author qualifying the harmony of the celestial
movements as “like that of all the Muses” or alluding to the “harmonic arrangement
and dance of the stars, truly like that of all the Muses.”206 Maximus of Tyrus (125-185
C. E. 207 ) seems to imply an identification between Muses and stars in his
interpretation of a passage of Hesiod: according to Maximus, Hesiod was alluding to
the heavenly music when describing Mount Helicon, the most holy choirs dancing
there, and Helios or Apollo as their coryphaeus. Given the Hesiodic passages, where
Apollo leads the choir of the Muses, it is likely that Maximus of Tyrus was implying
an identification between Muses and stars.208
Maximus of Tyrus also suggests that a factor enhancing the association of the
Muses with the stars might have been Apollo’s identification with the Sun. As a
matter of fact, Apollo and the Sun are distinct from one another in the earliest sources
(for example, in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, Apollo alludes to the Sun as being
different from himself209), but they became identified in Classical times.210 It seems
that the Pythagoreans had some influence on that idea: according to Macrobius, the
astronomer Oenopides explained the Apollinean epithet Loxiva" on the ground that
the Sun follows an inclined path through the ecliptic: the equation Apollo = Sun is
implicit in this interpretation.211 Oenopides was not far from the Pythagoreans: Aetius
says that Oenopides had kidnapped Pythagoras’s discovery of the obliquity of the
ecliptic, and Aristotle attributed to “some Pythagoreans” the doctrine (later ascribed
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to Oenopides) that the Milky Way was the ancient path of the Sun.212 If Apollo was
already identified with the Sun, the Muses could be associated with the planets,
because they constituted the choir usually lead by Apollo, and this god was honored
by Plato as “conductor” of the cosmic harmony.213 Thus, the association of Muses and
planets could have existed in Classical times as well, but our first piece of actual
evidence is hardly to be dated to the third century B. C. E., if we accept that Ennius
was implying such an association in the fragment discussed above.
No one of those authors specified the number of the Muses, but beyond the
three Delphic Muses perhaps mentioned by Plutarch, other authors such as Arnobius
take into account the nine Hesiodic Muses,214 and Porphyrius attributes to Pythagoras
himself a link between those nine Muses and the heavenly bodies, as we shall see
below. We can observe that, while there is no ancient source specifying individual
links between the Sirens and the heavenly bodies,215 it is a different matter with
respect to the Muses. We have seen a possible correspondence between the three
Delphic Muses and the threefold division of the cosmos. When it came to linking
Muses and heavenly bodies, the Ancients made several attempts to establish a
correspondence between nine Muses and seven or eight cosmic spheres.
According to Plutarch, “the elders bequeathed us nine Muses: eight (according
to Plato) bewitching around the heavenly bodies, and the ninth around the terrestrial
realms.”216 In the Table Talk, the author places this ninth Muse between Moon and
Earth and makes her transmit harmony and rhythm to the Earth, charming what is
prone to disorder and trouble in human life.217 Other efforts to assign the nine Muses
to eight positions are those of Porphyrius, who suggested that Apollo was the Sun and
“the nine Muses who entice him are the sublunar sphere, the seven planetary spheres,
and the sphere of the fixed stars.”218 This seems a logical derivation of the association
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between Sun and Apollo, a link we can trace back to the fifth century B. C. E., and the
seven planetary spheres mentioned by Porphyrius would be those of Mercury, Venus,
Earth, Moon, Mars, Juppiter, and Saturn. Porphyrius also attributed to Pythagoras an
identification of the sounds of the seven planets, the sphere of the fixed stars, and the
Counter-Earth with the Muses, as we shall see later. One can argue that these
identifications involving nine heavenly bodies or regions cannot go back to the
Pythagoreans of Classical times, who counted ten heavenly bodies; but it should be
remembered that one of those ten heavenly bodies was the Sun, identified with
Apollo, and, as we have seen, the Pythagoreans admitted this equation Apollo = Sun.
The identification of Muses with planets, however, should belong to a tradition
different from that of a Pythagorean aphorism quoted by Porphyrius himself, and
according to which the planets are the dogs of Persephone.219
Another system, attributed to Porphyrius by Macrobius, considers that the
ninth Muse corresponds to the harmony of all the eight celestial spheres together.220
Last, Martianus Capella is the only ancient author who specifies which sphere is
linked with each Muse, taking into account the Earth: Urania is assigned the sphere of
the fixed stars; Polyhymnia, that of Saturn; Euterpe, that of Jupiter (the “jovial” star);
Erato, that of Mars; Melpomene, that of the Sun; Terpsichore, that of Venus; Calliope,
that of Mercury; Clio, that of the Moon, and Thalia, that of the Earth.221 We can see
that Porphyrius linked Apollo with the Sun, and included the Counter-Earth in the
system attributed to Pythagoras, whereas Martianus Capella drops out the CounterEarth, does not take Apollo into account, and associates the Sun with a Muse.
Last, we should remember Eratosthenes, the Alexandrine scholar of the third
century B. C. E., author of a catalogue of constellations in which the myths related to
them were also told. Of this work only an abridged version, perhaps dating from the
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second century C. E., survives. It is known as the Pseudo-Eratosthenes’
Catasterismoi, and in its chapter 31, devoted to the constellation of the Dolphin, it is
said that this animal is fond of music because the number of stars of its constellation
its equal to that of the Muses.222
d) Muses as Divine Embodiments of Sound
At the beginning of this chapter we saw that, according to Plutarch, the names
of the three Delphic Muses, Hypate, Mese, and Nete, did not allude to the strings of
the lyre, but to regions of the Universe (the sphere of the fixed stars, the region
between Sun and Moon, and the sublunar realm). No one of the other authors
examined so far specified any link between the Muses and the sounds of the musical
system, but such links are attested elsewhere and constitute a further trait shared by
Sirens and Muses. An association between Muses and strings of the lyre is even more
consistently attested when it comes to the Muses than in the case of the Sirens.223
For example, in plain opposition to Plutarch, Censorinus (third century C.
E.224) says that three Muses were worshipped in the past, Hypate, Mese, and Nete,
because of the three pitch-regions of the instruments. 225 In fact, “Hypate” (“the
uppermost”) was the name for the string yielding the lowest sound, but the one being
the farthest from the body of the player;226 “Mese,” meaning “the middle,” was the
name for the string that yields a sound being a fourth higher than the “hypate,” and
“Nete,” meaning “the uttermost,” was the highest in pitch.
Another link between the number of Muses and that of the sounds of ancient
musical systems is also suggested two centuries before Censorinus: according to
Cornutus, some men believed that the Muses were four or seven because that was the
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number of sounds of the ancient instruments of the musicians.227 All this can be
adaptations of an idea which may go back to Eratosthenes: the Alexandrine scholar
seems to have written that Orpheus increased the number of strings of the lyre from
seven to nine, “because of the number of the Muses.”228 If this actually goes back to
Eratosthenes himself, it is the earliest piece of evidence associating Muses and strings
of the lyre, and Cornutus and Censorinus would have adapted the idea to traditions
presenting a different number of Muses.
Besides, Porphyrius attributes to Pythagoras himself the link between the nine
Muses and the sounds of the heavenly bodies: according to Porphyrius, Pythagoras
would have identified the sounds of the seven planets, the sphere of the fixed stars,
and the Counter-Earth with the Muses.229 This brings to our mind that, according to
Theon of Smyrna, the Pythagoreans interpreted the Sirens of Plato’s myth of Er as
personifications of the sound of the stars. Both Sirens and Muses shared this
association with celestial sounds.
e) Celestial Psychopomps?230
Beyond these attempts at equating Muses, heavenly bodies, and musical
sounds, or at identifying correspondences among them, we can say that the Muses
represented the divine and musical character of the stars, as the Sirens also did.
Amelius (a disciple of Plotinus, third century C. E.), quoted by the sixth century C. E.
historian Johannes Lydus, said that:
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The Muses are the souls of the spheres, who bring together the operations of all the
causal powers and essences that they send forth toward the universe, and join them in
one consonance, that has been settled by the Demiurge.231
Obviously, this may remind us of the function of the Sirens, according to Proclus’s
commentaries on Plato’s Republic (see II. 1. c. 4), which note that the Sirens are
inferior to the Muses as spirits to be carried round together with the heavenly
circles.232 Both Muses and Sirens are interpreted as the musical tunes of the spheres
by Macrobius, even if they are not identified:
[1] In a discussion in the Republic about the whirling motion of the heavenly spheres,
Plato says that a Siren sits upon each of the spheres, thus indicating that by the
motions of the spheres divinities were provided with song; for a singing Siren is
equivalent to a god in the Greek acceptance of the word. Moreover, cosmogonists
have chosen to consider the nine Muses as the tuneful song of the eight spheres and
the one predominant harmony that comes from all of them. [2] In the Theogony,
Hesiod calls the eighth Muse Urania because the eighth sphere, the star bearer,
situated above the seven errant spheres, is correctly referred to as the sky; and to
show that the ninth was the greatest, resulting from the harmony of all sounds
together, he added: “Calliope, too, who is preeminent among all.” The very name
shows that the ninth Muse was noted for the sweetness of her voice, for Calliope
means “best voice.”233
Besides being considered spirits of the heavenly spheres, the Muses, according
to Proclus, share with the Sirens the cathartic function of cosmic music. For example,
in the commentaries to Plato’s Republic, Proclus says:
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For one is the harmony that is fit for the gods, that saves the souls and sets them
among the gods; the other is the harmony incident to generation, the harmony that
binds the soul to material things. And the first one is actually the work of the Muses,
who educate our intellectual faculties and bring them to perfection and make them
resemble the celestial order, whereas the other one, belonging to a certain kind of
Sirens, resembles the harmonies that favor generation.234
The same author of these lines said that the Muses teach the souls how to proceed,
purified, towards the stars allotted to them, and Porphyrius credits them with that
function as well.235
Plato did not explicitly attribute a cathartic function to the Muses, but we may
infer he was hinting at it in certain passages of the Symposium and the Timaeus. In
this dialogue, Plato states that the faculty of hearing and everything helpful for music
was given to mankind in order to keep harmony, and that this is not oriented to
irrational pleasure, but is a gift of the Muses to those who make use of them according
to reason, for adapting the soul’s movements to those of music, and restore in that
way the harmony of the soul.236 It is especially interesting that, for Plato, the Muse
who most clearly plays this role is Urania. This was one of the Muses most frequently
invoked in archaic Greek literature, and in the Hellenistic period she would become
Muse of Astronomy.237 In the Symposium, Plato considered music as an erotic art, on
the ground of its harmonizing power, and stated that love which infuses harmony into
human soul is the heavenly one, that of Muse Urania.238 This is still alluded to by
Diodorus Siculus, who wrote that Urania owes her name to the fact that she snatches
to heaven those she has instructed. 239 An interesting iconographic hint at this
consideration of Urania can be seen on a Roman sarcophagus:240 next to a sitting man
with a papyrus roll in his hand, Urania, standing, touches with a wand a starry sphere.
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The meaning of that image, acccording to Marrou241 and Cumont,242 was this: the
Muse of Astronomy was showing that the knowledge of heavens leads to
immortality.243 This was an echo of the important role Plato had bestowed upon
Urania.244
f) Conclusion
As we have seen, the Muses share almost all the characteristics of the Sirens
as mythical bearers of the harmony of the spheres, but their role in this connection is
attested later than in the case of the Sirens. Their association with certain regions of
the universe, or with the heavenly bodies, begins to be alluded to in literary sources of
the first century B. C. E.-first century C. E., although it might be suggested by Ennius
in the third-second centuries C. E. The individual links of the Muses with different
heavenly bodies, however, is more clearly detailed than those of the Sirens. The same
can be said about the Muses as divine embodiments of the sound: this character was
first suggested by Cornutus in the first century C. E. Last, but not least, their function
as psychopomps and purifiers of the soul was already suggested by Plato, and the
Neoplatonists developed this idea and connected it with the ascent of the soul and the
belief in astral immortality. On the other hand, we do not know any source hinting at
a relation between the Muses and the souls of the dead: this is an important difference
with respect to the Sirens.
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g) Appendix: The Conductors of the Cosmic Choir
We have seen that, before the Muses were associated with other heavenly
bodies, Apollo was identified with the Sun and thought to be the conductor of cosmic
harmony, and we have even suggested that both “equations” (Apollo – Sun; Muses –
planets and sphere of the fixed stars) could have been linked.245 Now it seems
interesting to present some other sources for Apollo-Sun as conductor of the harmony
of heavens. We are going to show that, although the equation “Apollo – Sun” is older
than the one identifying Muses and the other heavenly bodies, both ran a parallel story
in literary sources during the Roman Empire.
It is really intriguing that the first divine conductor of the cosmic choir was
Dionysus, not Apollo: in his Antigone, Sophocles invokes Dionysus as “chorus-leader
of the fire-breathing stars.”246 This was, so far as we know, an isolated testimony,
whereas the function of leading the chorus of the stars corresponded to Apollo,
associated with the Sun. We have already alluded to Plato’s discussion of Apollo as
conductor of the cosmic choir: in the Cratylus, speculating about possible
etymologies of the name “Apollo,” Socrates says:
And with reference to music we have to understand that alpha often signifies
“together,” and here it denotes moving together in the heavens about the poles, as we
call them, and harmony in song, which is called concord; for, as the ingenious
musicians and astronomers tell us, all these things move together by a kind of
harmony. And this god directs the harmony, making them all move together, among
both gods and men; and so, just as we call the homokeleuthon (him who
accompanies), and homokoitin (bedfellow), by changing the homo to alpha,
akolouthon and akoitin, so also we called him Apollo who was Homopolo, and the
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second lambda was inserted, because without it the name sounded of disaster (apolô,
apolôla, etc.).247
This function of Apolo might already be hinted at in a fragment by the fifth century B.
C. E. poet Scythinus. According to Plutarch, the Megareans dedicated a golden
plectron to Apollo, because the god attuned his instrument with the sunlight, as the
poet Scythinus had said when talking about Apollo’s lyre
Which the good-looking son of Zeus attunes in its wholeness,
encompassing its beginning and its end, and he has as his shining plectron the sunlight.248
We can guess that, if Apollo’s plectron is the sunlight, his lyre, in this context, would
be the cosmic one, constituted by the other heavenly bodies, whose sounds would
correspond to those of the lyre, according to an image we find attested in later
sources.249 It may be rather puzzling that the connection of Apollo-Sun with the
harmony of the spheres, possibly hinted at by Scythinus and more clearly stated by
Plato, was not attested again until the first century B. C. E. Cornutus wrote that
Apollo was called “musician” and “cithara-player” “because he harmonically strikes
every part of the universe and makes it to be in harmony with every other part.”250 The
verb employed for “strike” (kroúo in Greek) was also commonly used for “play an
instrument,”251 and this implies that the universe (the kósmos mentioned in the text)
was considered to be Apollo’s instrument.
On the other hand, Varro attributed to the Sun the same function in relation
with the cosmic lyre:
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The Sun, handling the pliant lyre of the gods with a certain tuning method, makes it
alive with divine movements.252
The musical connotations of the Sun’s relevance among heavenly bodies are also
hinted at by Cicero, when he calls the Sun “leader, chief, and ruler of the other
luminaries, mind and ordering principle of the world.”253 Boyancé observed that the
words dux et princeps (“leader and chief”) correspond to the Greek hegemon kai
arkhon the epithets with which the musicians described the function of the mese, the
central string of the lyre:254Aristotle said that “the mese is the chief,” and, in the
pseudo-aristotelian Problemata, we read that the mese is the highest leader of the
tetrachord; in fact, another passage of those Problemata states that “for all [sc. ‘the
strings’] to be attuned is to be in a certain relation to the mese,” and Dio
Chrysostomus says that the musicians first attuned the mese, then the other strings in
relation to the mese. 255 This affinity between the position and function of the Sun and
those of the mese was developed by Philo of Alexandria in a passage of the Life of
Moses, where he wrote:
The Sun, placed like the lampstand amidst the other six, in the fourth position, brings
light for the three which are above as well as for those, equal in number, which are
below, and attunes the musical and truly divine instrument.256
It must be pointed out257 that the central position given by Cicero and Philo of
Alexandria to the Sun was accepted by some of the Pythagoreans. Theo of Smyrna
attributes to the Pythagoreans, without further specification, the following ordination
of the heavenly bodies, with the Sun in the middle: Earth, Moon, Mercury, Venus,
Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the sphere of the fixed stars.258 Aetius, however,
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attributes to Philolaus a cosmographical system in which the Sun follows immediately
the Moon.259 This suggests that the Sun’s association with the mese and its function as
“conductor” of the music of the spheres belonged, at least partly, to the Pythagorean
lore as well.
After Varro, Cicero, and Philo of Alexandria, the next piece of evidence for
the musical connotations of the leading role of the Sun is to be found in some of the
systems of the harmony of the spheres propounded by the ancients. Trying to
establish links between the strings of the lyre and the heavenly bodies, some authors
ascribed the mese to the Sun: for example, Alexander of Ephesus,260 Plutarch,261
Nicomachus of Gerasa,262 and Boethius.263
Later, the so-called Orphic Hymns (second-third centuries C. E.) contain a
couple of relevant passages for our topic. The Orphic Hymn Nr. 8, v. 10, invokes the
Sun with these words: “Thou of the golden lyre, who drags the harmonious course of
the world.”264 Another Orphic hymn, the Nr. 34, offers further details about Apollo’s
ruling function of the cosmic harmony:
Thou govern the whole heaven with thy much-sounding cithara, when, going to the
limit of the nete, and other times in turn to that of the hypate, sometimes tempering
the whole heaven according to the Dorian arrangement, thou distinguish the lifesupporting species. For that thou harmoniously mix the universal fate of men,
combining for both 265 the same amount of winter as of summer, distinguishing winter
with the most acute sounds, summer with the lowest, with the Dorian mode the fresh
flower of the much-loved spring.266
This text hints at an analogy between the strings of the lyre and the seasons of the
year. Such analogy is attested elsewhere from the first century B. C. E. onwards.267
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The point here is that the analogy between sounds and seasons of the year is taken to
be the ground on which Apollo regulates the succession of the seasons: the summer
comes with the help of the highest string of Apollo’s lyre, and the winter, with that of
the lowest string. It is rather strange that the name of a mode (“Dorian”) should be put
at the same level of the strings corresponding to two individual sounds of that
mode.268 We suggest that “Dorian” could have been here substituted for the string
“mese”, corresponding to the spring in the other source linking three seasons with
three strings (Diodorus Siculus, I, 16, quoted in n. 267): it is not the only example in
which the names of the modes are mentioned in systems of cosmic harmony, instead
of the names of the strings.269 Substituting the name of a mode for the “mese” can be
due to the fact that the “mese” was the sound most frequently repeated in a melody,
that is: it could be taken as the most characteristic sound of the mode.270
In the last centuries of the ancient world, Apollo’s role as conductor of the
harmony of the spheres was connected with that of coryphaeus of the Muses by
Macrobius. Commenting on Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis, Macrobius wrote:
They call Apollo, god of the sun, the “leader of the Muses,” as if to say that he is the
leader and chief of the other spheres, just as Cicero, in referring to the sun, called it
leader, chief, and regulator of the other planets, mind and moderator of the
universe.271
Besides, Macrobius alludes to this function of Apollo in his Saturnalia:
The seven-stringed lyre of Apollo is better for the movements of the same number of
heavenly spheres to be understood, for which nature appointed the Sun as their
ruler.272
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Last, but not least, Proclus, who has provided us with evidence about the Muses as
souls of the spheres, mentioned Apollo as unifying conductor of the music of the
universe:
The ancients set the Muses and their leader Apollo over the universe: the latter leads
the unique union of the whole harmony, whereas the former hold together the
differentiated harmonies emerging from that harmony.273
Thus we can see that the notion of Apollo as conductor of the cosmic harmony is consistently
attested along the whole literary history of the ancient world, since the fifth century B. C. E.,
and the belief in this function of Apollo paralleled that in the Muses as bearers of the music of
the spheres in Latin and Greek sources of the imperial period.
191
Cf. II. 1. a-b., about the Sirens.
192
A. Homer and Hesiod mention nine Muses (Od., XXIV, 60: Mou'sai d∆ ejnneva pa's ai ajmeibovmenai ojpi;
kalh';/ Hesiod, Th., 75-76: tau't∆ a[ra Mou'sai a[eidon ∆Oluvm pia dwvm at∆ e[c ousai É ejnneva qugatevre"
megavl ou Dio;" ejkgegaui'ai), but other authors, chronologically near to Plutarch, mention three: Diodorus
Siculus, IV, 7, 2 (oiJ me;n ga;r trei'" levgousin, oiJ d∆ ejnneva, kai; kekravthken oJ tw'n ejnneva ajriqmo;" uJpo;
tw'n ejpifanestavtwn ajndrw'n bebaiouvmeno", levgw de; ÔOmhvrou te kai; ÔHsiovdou kai; tw'n a[llwn tw'n
toiouvtwn); Cornutus, De nat. deor., 14, p. 15, 3 Lang (trei'" me;n dia; th;n proeirhmevnhn th'" triavdo"
teleiovthta), and Pausanias, IX, 29, 2 (oiJ de; tou' ’Alwevw" pai'de" ajriqmovn te Mouvs a" ejnovmisan ei\nai
trei'" kai; ojnovm ata aujtai'" e[qento Melevthn kai; Mnhvmhn kai; ∆Aoidhvn). This tradition may go back to
Eumelus (eighth-seventh centuries B. C. E.), fr. 17 Bernabé: ajl l∆ Eu[mhlo" me;n oJ Korivnqio" trei`" fhsi;n
ei\nai Mouvsa", qugatevra" ∆Apovllwno", Khfisou`n, ∆Acelwi?da, Borusqenivda (cf. Cramer, 1835, IV,
424).
B. Apart from the passage quoted in n. 195, Plutarch insists that the designation of those Delphic Muses did not
refer to the first, fourth and last notes of a scale, in Table Talks, IX, 14, 3, 744c-d: Ei\pen ou\n oJ ajdelfov", o{ti
trei'" h[/desan oiJ palaioi; Mouvs a": Ækai; touvtou levgein ajpovdeixin ojyimaqev" ejsti kai; a[groikon ejn
tosouvtoi" kai; toiouvtoi" ajndravsin. aijtiva d∆ oujc wJ" e[nioi levgousi ta; melw/douvmena gevnh, to;
diavtonon kai; to; crwmatiko;n kai; to; ejnarmovnion: oujd∆ oiJ ta; diasthvm ata parevc onte" o{roi, nhvth
kai; mevs h kai; uJp avth: kaivtoi Delfoiv ge ta;" Mouvsa" ou{tw" wjnovm azon, oujk ojrqw'" eJni; maqhvmati,
ma'llon de; morivw/ maqhvmato" eJno;" tou' mousikou', tw'/ g∆ aJrmonikw'/, prostiqevnte".
193
Cf. Molina Moreno, 2003, 431.
194
Literally “enharmonic ratios,” but it is almost sure that Plutarch is not referring here to a specific genus: the
strings whose names coincide with those of the Muses mentioned by Plutarch (Hypate, Mese, Nete) correspond to
the fixed sounds in the ancient Greek musical system, and did not vary depending on the genus. Cf. our n. 104 to
II. 1. c. 4.
161
195
Plutarch, Table Talks, IX, 4, 3, 745a-c: ajll∆ ejkei'no qaumavz w, pw'" e[laqe Lamprivan to; legovmenon uJpo;
Delfw'n. levgousi ga;r ouj fqovggwn oujde; cordw'n ejpwnuvm ou" gegonevnai ta;" Mouvs a" par∆ aujtoi'",
ajlla; tou' kovsmou trich'/ pavnta nenemhmevnou prwvthn me;n ei\nai th;n tw'n ajplanw'n merivda, deutevran
de; th;n tw'n planwmevnwn, ejscavthn de; th;n tw'n uJp o; selhvnhn, sunhrth'sqai de; pavs a" kai;
suntetavcqai kata; lovgou" ejnarmonivou", w|n eJkavs th" fuvlaka Mou'san ei\nai, th'" me;n prwvth"
ÔUpavthn, th'" d∆ ejscavth" Neavthn, Mevshn de; th'" metaxuv, sunevcousan a{m a kai; sunepistrevfousan,
wJ" ajnustovn ejsti, ta; qnhta; toi'" qeivoi" kai; ta; perivgeia toi'" oujranivoi": wJ" kai; Plavtwn (R. 617b-c)
hj/nivxato toi'" tw'n Moirw'n ojnovm asin th;n me;n “Atropon ãth;n de; Klwqw;Ã th;n de; Lavcesin
prosagoreuvs a": ejpei; tai'" ge tw'n ojktw; sfairw'n periforai'" Seirh'na" ouj Mouvsa" ijsarivqmou"
ejpevsthsen. Cf. De animae procreatione in Timaeo, 1029d, where the problem of linking nine Muses with eight
heavenly spheres is also alluded to: oiJ de; presbuvteroi Mouvs a" parevdwkan kai; hJmi'n ejnneva, ta;" me;n
ojktw; kaqavper oJ Plavtwn peri; ta; oujravnia, th;n d∆ ejnavthn ta; perivgeia khlei'n ajnakaloumevnhn kai;
kaqista'san ejk plavnh" kai; diafora'" ajnwmalivan kai; tarach;n ejcouvsh".
196
Vid. the inscription in Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, 30, 382; cf. West, 1992, 224, n. 14. For these
names as referred to the strings of the lyre, vid. c) “Muses as Divine Embodiments of Sound,” in this same chapter.
197
As we saw in II. 2., the Moirai are the only singing mythical figures, other than the Sirens, in Plato’s myth, but
we do not find them singing anywhere else in Greek sources, besides some commentaries to the myth of Er. In his
treatise De facie in orbe Lunae, 945c-d, Plutarch associates certain regions of the Universe with the three Moirai:
the solar region corresponds to Átropos; that of the Moon, to Clotho, and that of the Earth, to Láchesis; cf. text in
n. 183 B to II. 2. This threefold cosmological schema has been attributed to Anaximander by Aetius, p. 345, ll. 913 Diels (= Anaximander, fr. 18 DK: (∆Anaxivmandro") ·kai;‚ ajnwtavtw me;n pavntwn to;n h{lion tetavcqai,
met∆ aujto;n de; th;n selhvnhn: uJp o; de; aujtou;" ta; ajplanh' tw'n a[strwn kai; tou;" planhvta"). Some
authors had suggested that Pythagoras could link those cosmic regions with the three basic consonances of fourth,
fifth, and octave (cf. Burkert, 1962, 355, n. 25 of the English version; Burnet, 41930, 110; Kranz, 1939, 437-8, and
Pépin, 1986, col. 609-10). On the other side, Xenocrates (a disciple of Plato; fourth century B. C. E.) proposed
another threefold schema and employed, in order to designate its parts, the adjectives u{paton and nevaton, as in
the Delphic schema described by Plutarch; this may suggest a Platonic origin of this structure. Cf. Xenocrates, fr.
18 Heinze = 216 Isnardi-Parente, ap. Plut. Quaestiones platonicae, 1007 f (to; ga;r a[nw kai; prw'ton u{p aton oiJ
palaioi; proshgovreuon: h|/ kai; Xenokravth" (fr. 18 H.) Diva to;n me;n ejn toi'" kata; ta; aujta; kai;
wJsauvtw" e[c ousin u{paton kalei', nevaton de; to;n uJpo; selhvnhn), and fr. 5 Heinze = 83 Isnardi-Parente, ap.
Sextus Empiricus, Adversus mathematicos, 7, 147 (Xenokravth" de; trei'" fhsin oujsiva" ei\nai, th;n me;n
aijsqhth;n th;n de; nohth;n th;n de; suvnqeton kai; doxasthvn, w|n aijsqhth;n me;n ei\nai th;n ejnto;"
oujranou', nohth;n de; ãth;nà pavntwn tw'n ejkto;" oujranou', doxasth;n de; kai; suvnqeton th;n aujtou' tou'
oujranou'). Vid. also Dörrie, 1954, esp. p. 336, and Heinze, 1892, 75-76.
198
Cf. Plutarch, Table Talks, IX, 14, 4, 745b-c, in n. 195, and our section II. 2.
199
Proclus, In Tim., vol. II, p. 234 Diehl: λοιπῆς δὲ οὔσης τῆς εἰς ὀκτὼ μὲν σφαίρας τοῦ οὐρανοῦ τομῆς, εἰς
ἐννέα δὲ τοῦ κόσμου παντός, καὶ τῆς μὲν ταῖς ἐν <Πολιτείᾳ> [X 617 B] Σειρῆσι, τῆς δὲ ταῖς ὅλαις
Μούσαις ἀνειμένης, ὑφ' ἃς καὶ αἱ Σειρῆνες, πάλιν εἰκότως ὁ τόνος συνέκλεισε τὸ διάγραμμα πᾶν. Cf.
Hermias, In Phdr., p. 215, lines 16-7 Couvreur (οὕτως οὖν οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἦσαν πρὶν γενέσθαι τὰς Μούσας,
τουτέστι τὰς σφαίρας καὶ τὸν αἰσθητὸν κόσμον).
200
Cf.,
for
Ennius’s
birthdate,
Cicero,
Brutus,
72
(quoted
from
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/brut.shtml#72, as consulted on July 6, 2005: Atqui hic Livius [qui] primus
fabulam C. Claudio Caeci filio et M. Tuditano consulibus docuit anno ipso ante quam natus est Ennius, post
Romam conditam autem quarto decumo et quingentesimo, that is 753 – 514 = 239 B. C. E.); for the year of his
162
death, Cicero, De senectute, 14 (quoted from http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/senectute.shtml#14, as
consulted on July 6, 2005): Annos septuaginta natus (tot enim vixit Ennius), which implies that he died in 169 B.
C. E.
201
Cf. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062&layout=&loc=Varro,
as consulted on July 5, 2005, and Dahlmann, 1935, col. 1173; cf. St. Hieronymus, Chronicon, sub Olympiade 166,
1: Marcus Terentius Varro philosophus et poeta nascitur; for Varro’s death, ibid., sub Olympiade 188, 2: Marcus
Terentius Varro philosophus prope nonagenarius moritur. According to this same work, the beginning of the
“common era” corresponds to Olympiad 194 (Jesus Christus filius Dei in Betheleem Judae nascitur), and
Olympiads were held every four years. Latin quotations from St. Hieronymus are taken from
http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/pld-idx.pl?type=DIV2&byte=142555945&q1=Varro&q2=nascitur&q3=,
http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/pld-idx.pl?type=DIV2&byte=142724118&q1=Varro&q2=moritur&q3=, and
http://www.letrs.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/pld-idx.pl?type=DIV2&byte=142759387&q1=Christ&q2=Juda&q3=,
consulted
on
July
6,
2005.
Cf.
still
http://www.attalus.org/translate/jerome1.html,
as
and
http://www.attalus.org/translate/jerome2.html, as consulted on July 6, 2005.
202
Cf. Ennius, fr. 1 Vahlen, and Varro, De lingua latina, 7, 20.
203
Vid. Todini, 1971, and Deschamps, 1979, 21.
204
More specifically, Pythagoras is said to have preached the cult to the Muses in Crotona (Iambl. VP, 9, 45:
∆Apaggelqevntwn d∆ ou\n uJpo; tw'n neanivs kwn pro;" tou;" patevra" tw'n eijrhmevnwn ejkavlesan oiJ civlioi
to;n Puqagovran eij" to; sunevdrion, kai; proepainevsante" ejpi; toi'" pro;" tou;" uiJou;" rJhqei'sin
ejkevleusan, ei[ ti sumfevron e[cei levgein toi'" Krotwniavtai", ajpofhvnasqai tou'to pro;" tou;" th'"
politeiva" prokaqhmevnou". o} de; prw'ton me;n aujtoi'" sunebouvleuen iJdruvsasqai Mousw'n iJerovn, i{na
thrw'si th;n uJpavrcousan oJmovnoian: tauvta" ga;r ta;" qea;" kai; th;n proshgorivan th;n aujth;n aJp avsa"
e[cein kai; met∆ ajllhvl wn paradedovsqai kai; tai'" koinai'" timai'" mavlista caivrein, kai; to; suvnolon
e{na kai; to;n aujto;n ajei; coro;n ei\nai tw'n Mousw'n, e[ti de; sumfwnivan, aJrmonivan, rJuqmovn, a{p anta
perieilhfevnai ta; paraskeuavzonta th;n oJmovnoian. ejp edeivknue de; aujtw'n th;n duvnamin ouj peri; ta;
kavllista qewrhvm ata movnon ajnhvkein, ajlla; kai; peri; th;n sumfwnivan kai; aJrmonivan tw'n o[ntwn).
Pythagoras’s devotion to the Muses is attested also by the first century B. C. E. Roman architect Vitruvius, IX, 7
(ita quantum areae pedum numerum duo quadrata ex tribus pedibus longitudinis laterum et quattuor efficiunt,
aeque tantum numerum reddidit unum ex quinque descriptum. id Pythagoras cum invenisset, non dubitans a Musis
se in ea inventione moitum, maximas gratias agens ostias dicitur his immolavisse, quoted from
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Vitruvius/9*.html, as consulted on July 14 2005). According
to Clement of Alexandria, Pythagoras taught that the Muses were more lovely than the Sirens (Strom., I, 10, 48, 6:
Mouvsa" Seirhvnwn hJdivou" hJgei'sqai Puqagovra" parainei'). Maximus of Tyrus (15, 6f-g) says that if the
Muses stopped singing, the world would be thrown into confusion and disorder (h\ ga;r a]n ejpauvsato kai;
oujrano;" periferovmeno": kai; gh' trevfousa, kai; potamoi; rJevonte", kai; decomevnh qavlatta, kai; w|rai
ajmeivbousai, kai; Moi'rai dialagcavnousai, kai; Mou'sai a[/dousai: ejpauvs anto d∆ a]n kai; aiJ ajnqrwvpwn
ajretaiv, kai; zwv/wn swthrivai, kai; karpw'n genevsei", kai; to; pa'n tou'to au\qi" a]n peri; auJtw'/
sfallovmenon sunecuvq h kai; sunetaravcqh).
205
Philolaus, 44 A 16 DK = A 16b Huffman, ap. Aetius, II, 7, 7, p. 336 D. = Stob. 1, 22, 1d: Filovlao" pu'r ejn
mevsw/ peri; to; kevntron, o{per eJstivan tou' panto;" kalei' kai; Dio;" oi\kon kai; mhtevra qew'n, bwmovn te
kai; sunoch;n kai; mevtron fuvsew": kai; pavlin pu'r e{teron ajnwtavtw, to; perievcon. Prw'ton d∆ ei\nai
fuvsei to; mevson, peri; de; tou'to devka swvm ata qei'a coreuvein, oujranovn meta; th;n tw'n ajplanw'n
sfai'ran, tou;" e planhvta", meq∆ ou}" h{lion, uJf ∆ w|/ selhvnhn, uJf∆ h|/ th;n gh'n, uJf∆ h|/ th;n ajntivcqona,
meq∆ a} suvmpanta to; pu'r eJstiva" peri; ta; kevntra tavxin ejpevcon. To; me;n ou\n ajnwtavtw mevro" tou'
163
perievconto", ejn w|/ th;n eijlikrivneian ei\nai tw'n stoiceivwn, “Olumpon kalei': ta; de; uJpo; th;n tou'
∆Oluvmpou foravn, ejn w|/ tou;" pevnte planhvta" meq∆ hJlivou kai; selhvnh" tetavcqai, kovsmon.
206
Cf. Philo of Alexandria, De somniis, I, 6, 35, t. III, p. 212, 25 C.-W.: oJ de; oujrano;" ajei; melw/dei', kata; ta;"
kinhvsei" tw'n ejn eJautw'/ th;n pavmmouson aJrmonivan ajpotelw'n, and De congressu eruditionis gratia, 10, 51,
III, p. 82 C.-W.: to;n aijsqhto;n oujr ano;n kai; th;n ejn aujtw'/ tw'n ajstevr wn ejnarmovnion tavxin kai;
pavmmouson wJ" ajl hqw'" coreivan. According to Cumont, 1942, 259, it is obvious that pavmmouso" means “all
the Muses,” in those passages, if we compare them with the myth told by the same Philo in De plantatione Noe,
28, 127 ff. (II, p. 156 ff. C.-W.), where the daughters of Mnemosyne are called also to; pavmmouson kai;
uJmnw/do;n gevno" (ibid., 30, 129, II, p. 159 C.-W.). Cf. also Cumont, 1919, esp. p. 78. However, LSJ, s. v.
pavmmouso" translate it as “all-musical.” For the Muses as daughters of Mnemosyne, cf. Hesiod, Theogony, vv.
52-4: Mou's ai ’Olumpiavde", kou'r ai Dio;" aijgiovc oio. É ta;" ejn Pierivh/ Kronivdh/ tevke patri; migei'sa É
Mnhmosuvnh...
207
According to St. Hieronymus, Chron., sub anno CXLIX, Maximus of Tyre lived around that year (Arrianus
Philosophus Nicomediensis agnoscitur, et Maximus Tyrius), and Suda, s. v., says that he lived in Rome when
Commodus was emperor (182-192 C. E.): Mavximo" Tuvrio" filovsofo", dievtriye de; ejn ÔRwvmhi ejpi;
Komovdou . Cf. Kroll, 1930, col. 2555.
208
A. The Hesiodic passages commented by Maximus of Tyrus are:
A.
1. Theogony, vv. 1-10: Mousavwn ÔElikwniavdwn ajrcwvmeq∆ ajeivdein, É ai{ q∆ ÔElikw'no" e[c ousin
o[ro" mevga te zavqeovn te, É kaiv te peri; krhvnhn ijoeideva povss∆ aJp aloi'sin / ojrceu'ntai kai;
bwmo;n ejrisqenevo" Kronivwno": É kaiv te loessavmenai tevrena crova Permhssoi'o É hjæ ”Ippou
krhvnh" hjæ ∆Olmeiou' zaqevoio É ajkrotavtw/ ÔElikw'ni corou;" ejnepoihvsanto, É kalou;"
iJmeroventa", ejperrwvs anto de; possivn. É e[nqen ajp ornuvm enai kekalummevnai hjevri pollw'/ É
ejnnuvciai stei'con perikalleva o[ssan iJei'sai .
A. 2. Ps. Hesiod, Shield of Heracles, vv. 201-6: ∆En d∆ h\n ajq anavtwn iJero;" corov": ejn d∆ a[r a mevssw/ É
iJmeroven kiqavrize Dio;" kai; Lhtou'" uiJo;" É cruseivh/ fovrmiggi: ªqew'n d∆ e{do" aJgno;" “Olumpo": É
ejn d∆ ajgorhv, peri; d∆ o[lbo" ajpeivrito" ejstefavnwto É ajq anavtwn ejn ajgw'ni:º qeai; d∆ ejxh'rcon
ajoidh'" É Mou's ai Pierivde", ligu; melpomevnh/" eji kui'ai.
B. The commentary on those lines by Maximus of Tyrus (37, 4-5) reads: Eij de; Puqagovr a/ peiqovmeqa, w{sper
kai; a[xion, kai; melw/dei' oJ oujranov" , ouj krouovmeno", w{sper luvra, oujde; ejmpneovmeno", w{sper aujlov" ,
ajll∆ hJ perifora; tw'n ejn aujtw'/ daimonivwn kai; mousikw'n swmavtwn, suvmmetrov" te ou\sa kai;
ajntivrropo", h\c ovn tina ajpotelei' daimovnion. Th'" wj/dh'" tauvth" to; kavllo" qeoi'" me;n gnwvrimon, hJmi'n
de; ajnaisqev", di∆ uJp erbolh;n me;n aujtou', e[ndeian de; hJm etevran. Tou'tov moi ajm evlei kai; ÔHsivodo"
aijnivttetai, ÔElikw'nav tina ojnomavz wn to;n qeovn, kai; corou;" hjgaqevou" ejn aujtw'/, korufai'on de; ei[te
”Hlion, ei[te ∆Apovllwna, ei[tev ti a[llo o[noma fanotavtw/ kai; mousikw'/ puriv.
209
Homeric Hymn to Apollo, vv. 362-71: oJ d∆ ejphuvxato Foi'bo" ∆Apovllwn: É ejntauqoi' nu'n puvqeu ejpi;
cqoni; bwtianeivrh/, É oujde; suv ge zwoi'si kako;n dhvlhma brotoi'sin É e[sseai, oi} gaivh" polufovrbou
karpo;n e[donte" É ejnqavd∆ ajginhvsousi telhevssa" eJkatovmba", É oujdev tiv toi qavnatovn ge dushlegev∆
ou[te Tufweu;" É ajrkevsei ou[te Civm aira duswvnumo", ajlla; sev g∆ aujtou' É puvs ei gai'a mevlaina kai;
hjlevktwr ÔUperivwn. É ’W" favt∆ ejpeucovmeno", th;n de; skovto" o[sse kavluye. É th;n d∆ aujtou' katevpus∆
iJero;n mevno" ÔHelivoio.
210
The first piece of direct evidence we know of the equation Apollo = Sun is provided by Aeschylus, Seven
against Thebes, 859-60 (ta;n ajstibh' ∆Apovllwni, ta;n ajnavl ion É pavndokon eij" ajfanh' te cersovn);
Euripides, Phaeth., fr. 781, vv. 11-13 Kannicht (= 781 Nauck = Phaethon, vv. 224-6 Diggle = Phaethon, fr. 4, vv.
224-6 Jouan-Van Looy, in Codex Parisinus Graecus 107B, fol. II, verso, col. 2: w\ kallifegge;" ”Hli∆, w{" m∆
164
ajpwvlesa" É kai; tovnd∆: ∆Apovllwn d∆ ejn brotoi'" ojrqw'" kalh'i, É o{sti" ta; sigw'nt∆ ojnovm at∆ oi\de
daimovnwn); Timotheos, fr. 24 Page (suv t∆ w\ to;n ajei; povl on oujravnion É lamprai'" ajkti's ∆ ”Hlie bavllwn, É
pevmyon eJkabovlon ejcqroi'sià bevlo" É sa'" ajp o; neura'", w\ i{e Paiavn); Skythinos, fr. 1 West, ap. Plut., De
Pythiae oraculis, 402a-b (u{s teron mevntoi plh'ktron ajnevq hkan tw'/ qew'/ crusou'n ejpisthvsante" wJ" e[oike
Skuqivnw/ levgonti (fr. 1) peri; th'" luvra" Æh}n aJrmovzetai É Zhno;" eujeidh;" ∆Apovllwn pa'san, ajrch;n kai;
tevlo" É sullabwvn, e[c ei de; lampro;n plh'ktron hJlivou favo"Æ); Oenopides, 41 A 7 DK, ap. Macrobius, Sat.,
I, 17, 31 (Loxiva" cognominatur ut ait Oenopides, o{ti ejkporeuvetai to;n loxo;n kuvklon ajp o; dusmw'n ejp ∆
ajnatola;" kinouvm eno", id est quod obliquum circulum ab occasu ad orientem pergit); Callimachus, Hecale, fr.
302 Pfeiffer, ap. schol. in Pi. N. 1, 3 (oi{ nu kai; ∆Apovllwna panarkevo" ÔHelivoio É cw'ri diatmhvgousi kai;
eu[poda Dhwivnhn É ∆Artevmido"); [Ps.] Eratosthenes, Cat., 24 (= Aeschylus, p. 138 Radt = OF 113 T Kern =
536 T, 1033 T Bernabé: [∆Orfeu;" ] to;n... ”Hlion mevgiston tw'n qew'n ejnovmisen, o}n kai; ∆Apovllwna
proshgovreusen. Cf. OF 323 Bernabé, 172 Kern, ap. Proclus, Theologia platonica, VI, 12 = vol. VI, p. 58, 1
Saffrey-Westerink: prw'ton dh; tou'to katanohvswmen, o{p w" kai; aujto;" (sc. Plato) w{sper ∆Orfeu;" , to;n
”Hlion eij" taujvtovn pw" a[gei tw'i ∆Apovllwni); Diogenes of Babylonia, fr. 33 Von Arnim, ap. Philodemus, De
pietate, 15 (= Diels, H., 1879, p. 549: kai; to;( n h{li)on m(e;n) ∆Apovll(w)); Varro, Antiquitates rerum divinarum,
XVI, fr. 32 Agahd (= 16, 251 Cardauns, quoted by Aug., CD, VII, 16: Apollinem… solem esse dixerunt; cf.
Cardauns, B., 1976, I, p. 194 and II, p. 229); Cic. ND, 2, 68 (iam Apollinis nomen est Graecum, quem solem esse
volunt); Plut. De defectu oraculorum, 433d (oiJ me;n polloi; tw'n progenestevrwn e{na kai; to;n aujto;n
hJgou'nto qeo;n ∆Apovllwna kai; h{lion); De latenter vivendo, 1130a (to;n me;n h{lion ∆Apovllwna kata; tou;"
patrivou" kai; palaiou;" qesmou;" nomivzonte" Dhvlion kai; Puvqion prosagoreuvousi). Cf. also Boyancé,
1966; Deschamps, 1979, 16, Farnell, 1907, 136-144, and 366-7; Moreau, 1996, and our section III. 4. B., with the
notes 435-39.
211
Cf. Macrobius, Sat., I, 17, 31 (= Oenopides, 41 A 7 DK): Loxiva" cognominatur ut ait Oenopides, o{ti
ejkporeuvetai to;n loxo;n kuvklon ajpo; dusmw'n ejp∆ ajnatola;" kinouvmeno", id est quod obliquum circulum ab
occasu ad orientem pergit. According to Proclus, Commentary on Euclides’s First Book of the “Elements”, p. 66,
2 Friedlein, Oenopides was a little younger than Anaxagoras. Cf. Boyancé, 1936, 94, and 1966.
212
For Oenopides’s plagiarism of the Pythagorean discovery, cf. Aetius, Placita philosophorum, II, 12, 2, p. 340-1
Diels (= Oenopides, 41 A 7 DK: Puqagovr a" prw'to" ejpinenohkevnai levgetai th;n lovxwsin tou' zw/diakou'
kuvklou, h{ntina Oijnopivdh" oJ Ci'o" ejpivnoian wJ" ijdivan sfeterivzetai); as to the Pythagorean doctrine
about the Milky Way, cf. Aristotle, Meteorologica, 345a 11-17 (o{pw" de; kai; dia; tivn∆ aijtivan givgnetai kai;
tiv ejsti to; gavla, levgwmen h[dh. prodievlqwmen de; kai; peri; touvtou ta; para; tw'n a[llwn eijrhmevna
prw'ton. tw'n me;n ou\n kaloumevnwn Puqagoreivwn fasiv tine" oJdo;n ei\nai tauvthn oiJ me;n tw'n
ejkpesovntwn tino;" ajstevrwn, kata; th;n legomevnhn ejpi; Faevqonto" fqoravn, oiJ de; to;n h{lion tou'ton
to;n kuvklon fevresqaiv potev fasin). Achilles Tatius, Isagoge ad Aratum, 24, p. 55, ll. 18-19 Maass, attributes
that idea to Oenopides (e{teroi dev fasin, w|n ejstin kai; Oijnopivdh" oJ Ci'o", o{ti provteron dia; touvtou
ejfevreto oJ h{lio"). The latter text dates probably from the third century C. E.
213
For Apollo and cosmic harmony, cf. Pl., Crat., 405c-d: kata; de; th;n mousikh;n dei' uJpolabei'n ªw{sper to;n
ajkovlouqovn te kai; th;n a[koitinº o{ti to; a[lfa shmaivnei pollacou' to; oJmou', kai; ejntau'q a th;n oJm ou'
povlhsin kai; peri; to;n oujranovn, ou}" dh; Æpovl ou"Æ kalou'sin, kai; ªth;nº peri; th;n ejn th'/ wj/dh'/ aJrmonivan,
h} dh; sumfwniva kalei'tai, o{ti tau'ta pavnta, w{" fasin oiJ komyoi; peri; mousikh;n kai; ajstronomivan,
aJrmoniva/ tini; polei' a{m a pavnta: ejpistatei' de; ou|to" oJ qeo;" th'/ aJrmoniva/ oJm opolw'n aujta; pavnta kai;
kata; qeou;" kai; kat∆ ajnqrwvp ou": w{sper ou\n to;n oJm okevleuqon kai; oJm ovkoitinÆ ajkovlouqon kai; a[koitin
ejkalevsamen, metabalovnte" ajnti; tou' ÆoJm o-Æ Æaj-,Æ ou{tw kai; ∆Apovllwna ejkalevsamen o}" h\n
ÔOmopolw'n, e{teron lavbda ejmbalovnte", o{ti oJm wvnumon ejgivgneto tw'/ calepw'/ ojnovm ati. For Apollo as
165
conductor of the choir of the Muses, vid. Il., I, 602 ff. (daivnunt∆, oujdev ti qumo;" ejdeuveto daito;" eji>vsh", É ouj
me;n fovrmiggo" perikavlleo", h}n e[c∆ ∆Apovllwn, É Mousavwn q∆, ai} a[eidon ajmeibovmenai ojpi; kalh'i);
cf. also the Hesiodic passages quoted above, n. 208, A. About Apollo as conductor of the cosmic choir, cf.
“Appendix: The Conductors of the Cosmic Choir,” at the end of this chapter.
214
Arnobius, Adversus nationes, 3, 37: Hesiodus novem Musas prodit, dis caelum et sidera locupletans.
215
Perhaps this was due to a Pythagorean or Platonic innovation, because, as we have seen, Homer mentions only
two Sirens, who could not be associated with heavenly bodies; cf. Od., 12, 52 (o[f ra ke terpovmeno" o[p∆
ajkouvs h/" Seirhvnoii>n); Od., 12, 167 (nh'son Seirhvnoii>n). Eustathius, Ad Od., vol. 2, p. 5, ll. 16-20: Duvo de;
aujta;" ejmfaivnei oJ poihth;" ejn oi|" levgei: o[pa ajkouvs h/" Seirhvnoii>n, kai; nh's on Seirhvnoii>n, dui>ko;n
ga;r to; Seirhvnoi>n, wJ" to; podoi'i>n kai; w[moii>n. kai; sunevdramovn tine" tw'/ ÔOmhvrw/, oi} kai; ojnovm atav
fasin ei\nai aujtai'" ∆Aglaofhvm hn kai; Qelxievp eian. oiJ de; newvteroi, ejn oi|" kai; Lukovfrwn, trei'"
aujtaV" ajriqmou'si, Parqenovp hn, Livgeian, kai; Leukwsivan .
216
Plutarch, De animae procreatione in Timaeo, 1029 d: oiJ de; presbuvteroi Mouvsa" parevdwkan hJmi'n
ejnneva, ta;" me;n ojktw; kaqavper oJ Plavtwn peri; ta; oujravnia th;n d∆ ejnavthn ta; perivgeia khlei'n.
217
Plut., Quaest. conv., IX, 14, 7, p. 746 A: Mou's ai d∆ eijsi;n ojktw; me;n aiJ sumperipolou'sai tai'" ojktw;
sfaivrai", miva de; to;n peri; gh'n ei[lhce tovp on. aiJ me;n ou\n ojktw; periovdoi" ejfestw's ai th;n tw'n
planwmevnwn a[s trwn pro;" ta; ajplanh' kai; pro;" a[llhla sunevc ousi kai; diaswv/z ousin aJrmonivan: miva
de; to;n metaxu; gh'" kai; selhvnh" tovp on ejpiskopou'sa kai; peripolou'sa, toi'" qnhtoi'" , o{s on
aijsqavnesqai kai; devcesqai pevfuke carivtwn kai; rJuqmou' kai; aJrmoniva", ejndivdwsi dia; lovgou kai;
wj/dh'", peiqw; politikh'" kai; koinwnhtikh'" sunergo;n ejp avgousa paramuqoumevnhn kai; khlou'san hJmw'n
to; taracw'de" kai; to; planwvm enon w{sper ejx ajnodiva" ajnakaloumevnhn ejpieikw'" kai; kaqista's an.
218
Porphyrius, Peri; ajgalmavtwn, fr. 8, p. 12 *.12 Bidez = Eus., PE, III, 11, 24: kai; hJlivou de; th;n toiavnde
duvnamin uJpolabovnte", ∆Apovllwna prosei'pon ajp o; th'" tw'n ajktivnwn aujtou' pavlsew". ejnneva de;
ejpavidousai aujtw'i Mou'sai, h{ te uJposelhvnio" sfai'ra kai; eJpta; tw'n planhtw'n kai; miva th'"
ajplanou'" .
219
Cf. Porphyrius, Life of Pythagoras, 41: tou;" de; planhvta" kuvna" th'" Fersefovnh" (sc. oJ Puqagovra"
ejkavlei).
220
For the ninth Muse corresponding to the harmony of all the eight celestial spheres, cf. Porph., In Tim., fr. 68
Sodano, ap. Macrobius, In Somn. Scip., II, 3, 1 (theologi quoque novem Musas octo sphaerarum musicos cantus et
unam maximam concinentiam quae confit ex omnibus esse voluerunt). Other systems may be found in the
Mythographi Vaticani, III, 8, 19: Addunt quoque physiologi, novem Musas nihil aliud intelligendas, quam VII
sphaerarum musicos cantus, et unam illam, quae ex omnibus consonantibus conficitur, harmoniam. Vnde et
octavam Vraniam, id est caelestem, nonam vero Musam, ipsam videlicet octo vocum universitatem, Calliopen, id
est “optimae vocis” dicunt; cf. Ps. Isidor of Sevilla, De musica caelesti, in PL, LXXXIII, col. 987 D: Vnde et
philosophi IX musas finxerunt, quia a terra usque ad caelum IX consonantias deprehenderunt. In this same
section, in the paragraph corresponding to nn. 209-211, we have exposed the evidence for the Pythagorean
character of the equation Apollo = Sun.
221
Martianus Capella, I, 27-8: superi autem globi orbesque septemplices suavis cuiusdam melodiae harmonicis
tinnitibus concinebant ac sono ultra solitum dulciore, quippe Musas adventare praesenserant; quae quidem
singillatim circulis quibusque metatis, ubi suae pulsum modulationis agnoverant, constiterunt. Nam Vranie
stellantis mundi sphaeram extimam continatur, quae acuto raptabatur sonora tinnitu, Polymnia Saturnium
circulum tenuit, Euterpe Iovialem, Erato ingressa Martium modulatur, Melpomene medium, ubi Sol flammanti
mundum lumine convenustat, Terpsichore Venerio sociatur auro, Calliope orbem complexa Cyllenium, Clio
citimum circulum, hoc est Luna collocavit hospitium, quae quidem graves pulsus modis raucioribus personabat.
166
Sola vero, quod vector eius cycnus impatiens oneris atque etiam subvolandi alumna stagna petierat, Thalia
derelicta in ipso florentis campi ubere residebat. Cf. Regino of Prümm, De harmonica institutione, 17
(http://www.music.indiana.edu/tml/9th-11th/REGDHI_TEXT.html, as consulted on March 22nd 2006): cum octo
musae subvectae in circulis coelestibus essent, nona, id est, Thalia in terra remansit. Nam cum Urania sphaeram
coelestem, Polymnia Saturni, Euterpe Iovis, Erato Martis, Melpomene Solis, Terpsichore Veneris, Calliope
Mercurii, Clio Lunae circulos subintrassent, ut ibi dulces resonarent modos: sola Thalia derelicta in ipso florentis
campi ubere, id est, in circulo terrae resedit. At the end of the eleventh century C. E., this system has survived in a
manuscript edited by Alverny, 1964, 11-14; cf. later Bartolomé Ramos de Pareja, Musica practica, I, 3, 59
(http://www.music.indiana.edu/tml/15th/RAMPP1T3_TEXT.html, as consulted on March 21nd 2006: Sic et
unicuique versum imponemus, per quem convenientia cum musica denotetur. Disponemus ergo eas sic, ut Thalia
silentium teneat sicut Terra. Deinde Clionem Lunae attribuemus, sed Calliopen Mercurio dicabimus ac
Terpsichoren Veneri affigemus. Melpomenen Sol decolorabit, Erato Martem incitabit, Euterpen Jupiter benevolam
facit et laetam, Polyhymniam vero Saturnus contristat. Ultimae vero Uraniae coelum stellatum dabit decorem ac
requiem). Those correspondences are enlarged with further ones, linking Muses and heavenly bodies with lyrestrings and Gregorian modes, in a diagram at the beginning of the treatise Practica musica, by Franchino Gaffuri
(1496) (cf. http://www.music.indiana.edu/tml/15th/GAFPM1_01GF.gif, as consulted on March 21nd 2006; our pl.
32).
Pl. 32: Muses, heavenly bodies, lyre strings, and Gregorian modes (from Franchino Gafuri’s Practica musica).
167
222
Cf. [Ps.] Eratosthenes, Catasterismi, 31 (levgetai de; kai; filovmouson ei\nai to; zw'/on dia; to; ajp o; tw'n
Mousw'n to;n ajriqmo;n e[cein tw'n ajstevrwn).
223
The consideration of the Sirens as embodiment of sound was limited to an observation by Theon of Smyrna (cf.
II. 1. b), who attributed such view to the Pythagoreans.
224
In his De die natali, XXI, Censorinus says that he wrote that book in the year of the consulate of V. C. Pius and
Pontianus, which corresponds to 991 A. V. C.: Secundum quam rationem nisi fallor hic annus, cuius velut index et
titulus quidam est V. C. Pii et Pontiani consulatus, ab olympiade prima millensimus est et quartus decimus, ex
diebus dumtaxat aestivis, quibus agon Olympicus celebratur; a Roma autem condita nongentesimus nonagensimus
primus, quoted from http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Censorinus/text*.html, as consulted on
July 9, 2005. Now 991 A. V. C. = 238 C. E.
225
Censorinus, fr. 12, 3 (p. 75 Sallmann): organum quondam habuit tres intentiones, gravem, mediam et acutam.
Inde Musae quoque tres olim existimatae, hypate, mese, nete. Nunc in ampliore numero soni considerantur.
226
Vid. Plutarch, Quaestiones Platonicae, 1008e (aujth;n th;n uJpavthn oJrw'nta" ejn me;n luvr a/ to;n ajnwtavtw
kai; prw'ton, ejn d∆ aujloi'" to;n kavtw kai; to;n teleutai'on ejpevcousan, e[ti de; th;n mevshn ejn w|/ ti" a]n
cwrivw/ th'" luvra" qevmeno" wJsauvtw" aJrmovshtai, fqeggomevnhn ojxuvteron me;n uJp avth" baruvteron de;
nhvth"), and Nicomachus of Gerasa, p. 241 ff. Jan (ajll∆ ajp o; me;n tou' kronikou' kinhvmato" ajnwtavtou
o[nto" ajf∆ hJm w'n oJ baruvtato" ejn tw/' dia; pasw'n fqovggo" uJpavth ejklhvq h, u{paton ga;r to; ajnwvtaton.
ajpo; de; tou' selhniakou' katwtavtou pavntwn kai; perigeiotevrou keimevnou neavth: kai; ga;r nevaton to;
katwvtaton). Cf. West, 1992, 64, quoted from Indiana University Library, Bloomington, on line,
http://www.netLibrary.com/Reader/, as consulted on November 21st, 2004, and Mathiesen, 1999, 246.
227
Cornutus, De nat. deor., 14, p. 15, 3 Lang (tevttare" de; kai; eJpta; tavca dia; to; ta; palaia; tw'n
mousikw'n o[rgana tosouvtou" fqovggou" ejschkevnai).
228
Pseudo-Eratosthenes, Catasterismi, 24 (almost literally identical to a scholion to Aratus, 269): kateskeuavsqh
de; to; me;n prw'ton uJpo; ÔErmou' ejk th'" celwvnh" kai; tw'n ∆Apovllwno" bow'n, e[sce de; corda;" eJpta; h]
ajpo; tw'n z∆ planhtw'n ajpo; tw'n ∆Atlantivdwn. metevl abe de; aujth;n ∆Apovllwn kai; sunarmosavmeno"
wjidh;n ∆Orfei' e[dwken, o}" Kalliovph" uiJo"
; w[n, mia'" tw'n Mousw'n, ejp oivhse ta;" corda;" ejnneva ajpo;
tw'n Mousw'n ajriqmou' . Cf., in the fourth century C. E., Callistratus, 7, 2 (meteceirivz eto th;n luvran, hJ de;
ijsarivqmou" tai'" Mouvs ai" ejxh'pto tou;" fqovggou"), and Avienus, Aratea, 621-5: hanc ubi rursum
concentus superi complevit pulcher Apollo / Orphea Pangaeo docuit gestare sub antro. / hic iam fila novem docta
in modulamina movit / Musarum ad speciem Musa satus, ille repertor / carmina Pleiadum numero deduxerat. Vid.
Molina Moreno, 1998b, 431-2.
229
Porphyrius, Life of Pythagoras, 31: ta; d∆ ou\n tw'n eJpta; ajstevr wn fqevgmata kai; th'" tw'n ajplanw'n ejpi;
tauvth" te th'" uJpe;r hJma'" legomevnh" de; kat∆ aujtou;" ajntivcqono" ta;" ejnneva mouvs a" ei\nai
diebebaiou'to. Cf. sch. in Od., I, 371: θεοῖς ἐναλίγκιος] ἢ ταῖς μούσαις, ἢ ταῖς τῶν ἀστέρων
ἀπηχήσεσι. P. Boyancé, 1946, 16, says that the mention of the Counter-Earth, in Porphyrius’ text, makes it
likely to go back to quite early sources; actually, Porphyrius may be drawing on Aristotle, Metaph., 986a 8-12:
ejpeidh; tevleion hJ deka;" ei\nai dokei' kai; pa'san perieilhfevnai th;n tw'n ajriqmw'n fuvsin, kai; ta;
ferovmena kata; to;n oujrano;n devka me;n ei\naiv fasin, o[ntwn de; ejnneva movnon tw'n fanerw'n dia; tou'to
dekavthn th;n ajntivcqona poiou'sin (sc. oiJ Puqagovreioi). But the earliest Pythagorean cosmology, as
described by Aristotle, counts ten heavenly bodies; on the other hand, the scientific astronomy of Porphyrius’s
time could not accept the existence of the Counter-Earth (cf. Cumont, 1942, 259). It seems that Porphyrius pushed
the old-fashioned Counter-Earth into his system in an effort to match the number of the Muses. That this
conception of the cosmic Muses may go back to Aristotle’s times is suggested by Iamblichus as well: in his Life of
Pythagoras, 9, 45, we read: kai; to; suvnolon e{na kai; to;n aujto;n ajei; coro;n ei\nai tw'n Mousw'n. Cf. Arist.
168
Metaph., 986 a 2-3: to;n o{lon oujr ano;n aJrmonivan ei\nai kai; ajriqmovn), e[ti de; sumfwnivan, aJrmonivan,
rJuqmovn, a{p anta perieilhfevnai ta; paraskeuavz onta th;n oJmovnoian. ejpedeivknue de; aujtw'n th;n
duvnamin ouj peri; ta; kavllista qewrhvm ata movnon ajnhvkein, ajlla; kai; peri; th;n sumfwnivan kai;
aJrmonivan tw'n o[ntwn.
230
Cf. II. 1. d, about the Sirens as psychopomps.
231
Lydus, De mensibus, IV, 85: Ὅτι ὁ Ἀμέλιος· Μοῦσαί εἰσι, φησίν, αἱ τῶν σφαιρῶν ψυχαί, αἳ τὰς τῶν ὅλων
δυνάμεών τε καὶ οὐσιῶν ἐνεργείας ὅσας εἰς τὸ πᾶν ἀφιᾶσιν ὁμοῦ καὶ εἰς μίαν συνάγουσι συμφωνίαν τὴν
ὑπὸ τοῦ δημιουργοῦ τεταγμένην. For Amelius as disciple of Plotinus, cf. Porphyrius, Vita Plotini, 7 (“Esce de;
ajkroata;" me;n pleivou", zhlwta;" de; kai; dia; filosofivan sunovnta" ∆Amevliovn te ajpo; th'"
Touskiva"...). For the meanings of the terms duvnami", oujsiva, ejnevrgeia, cf. Sleeman (✝) and Pollet, 1980, s. vv.
232
A. Proclus, In R., 2, 237 Kroll: Touvtwn d∆ ou\n ou{tw" aujtw'/ diatetagmevnwn, wJ" ei[rhtai, tivna" ei\nai
rJhtevon ta;" Seirh'na" tauvta"… to; me;n ou\n dh; levgein ta;" Mouvsa" ei\nai kai; par∆ hJmw'n hJma'"
prostiqevnai th;n loiphvn, i{na to;n th'" ejnneavdo" sumplhrwvswmen ajriqmovn, oujk e[s tin eJpomevnwn tai'"
rJhvsesin: pro;" tw'/ kai; to; sumperifevresqai toi'" kuvkloi" ta;" Seirh'na" katadee(stevra") ei\nai tw'n
Mousw'n
.. 20 .. a.eid ..20 .. yucikh'" swmatik . .16 . fwnai'" tw'n Mousw'n ei\n(ai): dio; kai;
ejnarm(onivou") e[cein kinhvsei" kai; toi'" kuvkloi" oi|" ej(pibe)bhvkasin proxenei'n th;n e[rruqmon
kivnh(sin) panavl hqe". tivna ou\n oujsivan kai; tavxin ejcouvsa"… o{ti me;n dh; pro; swmavtwn ou[sa"
ajnagkai'on kai; prosecw'" ejfestwvsa" toi'" kuvkloi" ei\nai yuca;" aujtav", dh'lon, ejp ei; kai; to;
sumperifevresqai toi'" kuvkloi" kinei'sqai dhvpou metabatikw'" aujta;" ajnadidavs kei .
B. On the other hand, Muses and Sirens shared some features already in the Homeric and Hesiodic poems: cf. the
wisdom of the Sirens, in Od., 12, 189-191 (i[dmen gavr toi pavnq∆, o{s∆ ejni; Troivh/ eujr eivh/ /É...É i[dmen d∆ o{ssa
gevnhtai ejpi; cqoni; pouluboteivrh/), and that of the Muses, in Il., 2, 485 (i[stev te pavnta), and in Hes. Th., 278 (i[dmen yeuvdea polla; levgein ejtuvmoisin oJm oi'a, É i[dmen d∆ eu\t∆ ejq evlwmen ajlhqeva ghruvsasqai).
Moreover, they were associated by Alcman (fr. 86 Calame = 30 Page: aJ Mw's a kevklag∆ aJ livgha Shrhvn,
quoted by Aelius Aristides Rhet., Περὶ τοῦ παραφθέγματος, Jebb page 377, line 29). This poet compares their
song with that of his choir in fr. 3 Calame = fr. 1, vv. 96 ss. Page: aJ de; ta'n Shrhn(iv) dwn
/ ajoidotevra m(e;n
oujciv, / siai; gavr, ajnt(i; d∆ e{ndeka / paivdwn dek(av" a{d∆ ajeivd)ei). West, 1965, 200, suggests that “being
half-birds in form”, the Sirens “make good Muses for a poet who thinks of himself as an imitator of bird-music”,
as we may see in the fr. 39 Page (Ûevph tavde kai; mevl o" ∆Alkma;n
/ eu|re geglwssamevnan / kakkabivdwn
o[pa sunqevmeno" = fr. 91 Calame: e[p h dev ge kai; mevlo" ∆Alkmavn / eu|re † te glwssamenon† /
kakkabivdwn o[p a sunqevmeno"); fr. 40 Page (Ûoi'da d∆ ojrnivc wn novm w"; cf. fr. 140 Calame). Pindar substitutes
the Sirens for the Muses too, as he talks of his work as an imitation of the singing of the Sirens (fr. 94b SnellMaehler, vv. 13-15: seirh'na de; kovmpon
/ aujlivskwn uJpo; lwtivnwn / mimhvsom∆ ajoidai'" ). We know that
music, in Greek legends, was held to be learned from the birds: cf. Plutarch, De sollertia animalium, 20, 974a
(Geloi'oi d∆ i[s w" ejsme;n ejpi; tw'/ manqavnein ta; zw'/a semnuvnonte", w|n oJ Dhmovkrito" (B
154)
ajpofaivnei maqhta;" ejn toi'" megivstoi" gegonovta" hJma'" : ajravc nh" ãejnà uJfantikh'/ kai; ajkestikh'/,
celidovno" ejn oijkodomiva/, kai; tw'n ligurw'n, kuvknou kai; ajhdovno", ejn wj/dh'/ kata; mivmhsin); vid. Bowra,
2
1961, 30, and Hofstetter, 1990, 19 and 312, n. 116 to p. 19. We may recall that Orpheus learnt his art through the
imitation of the birds, according to Theophilus of Antiochia, Ad Autolycum, II, 30 (a[lloi de; ∆Orfeva ajp o; th'"
tw'n ojrnevwn hJdufwniva" fasi;n ejxeurhkevnai th;n mousikhvn), and Philostratus the Elder, Im., II, 15, 6
(perievc ousin d∆ aujto;n kai; ajlkuovne" oJm ou' me;n a[i dousai ta; tw'n ajnqrwvp wn, ejx w|n aujtaiv te kai; oJ
169
Glau'ko" meqhrmovsqhsan, oJmou' d∆ ejndeiknuvmenai tw'i ∆Orfei' th;n eJautw'n wji dhvn, di∆ h}n oujde; hJ
qavlatta ajmouvsw" e[cei ).
233
Macrobius, In Somn. Scip., 2, 3, 1-2: Hinc Plato in Re publica sua cum de sphaerarum caelestium uolubilitate
tractaret, singulas ait Sirenas singulis orbibus insidere, significans sphaerarum motu cantum numinibus exhiberi.
nam Siren deo canens Graeco intellectu ualet. theologi quoque nouem Musas octo sphaerarum musicos cantus et
unam maximam concinentiam quae confit ex omnibus esse uoluerunt. unde Hesiodus in Theogonia sua octauam
Musam Vraniam uocat, quia post septem uagas quae subiectae sunt octaua stellifera sphaera superposita proprio
nomine caelum uocatur, et ut ostenderet nonam esse et maximam quam conficit sonorum concors uniuersitas,
adiecit Kalliovph q j: h} deV proferestavth ejstin aJpasevw n ex nomine ostendens ipsam uocis dulcedinem nonam
Musam
uocari,
nam
Kalliovph
optimae
uocis
Graeca
interpretatio
est
(quoted
from
th
http://www.music.indiana.edu/tml/3rd-5th/MACCOM2_TEXT.html, as consulted on November 20 2004). Transl.
by Stahl, 1952, 193-4.
234
Proclus, In R., 2, 68 Kroll: h} me;n gavr ejstin aJrmoniva qeopreph;" kai; ta;" yuca;" swvz ousa kai;
ejnidruvousa toi'" qeoi'" , h} de; genesiourgo;" kai; sunavptousa aujta;" toi'" ejnuvloi": kai; h} me;n o[ntw"
e[rgon tw'n Mousw'n tw'n paideuousw'n ta;" noera;" hJm w'n dunavmei" kai; teleiousw'n kai; pro;" th;n
oujranivan tavxin ajfomoiousw'n, h} de; Seirhvnwn ou\s av tinwn tai'" th;n gevnesin aujxouvs ai" aJrmonivai"
proseoikui'a .
235
Proclus, Hymn No. 3, vv. 6-7: kai; speuvdein ejdivdaxan uJpe;r baquceuvmona lhvq hn É i[cno" e[cein,
kaqara;" de; molei'n poti; suvnnomon a[stron. This notion of the “allotted star” is found in Plato’s Timaeus, 42
b (kai; oJ me;n eu\ to;n proshvkonta crovnon biouv" , pavlin eij" th;n tou' sunnovm ou poreuqei;" oi[khsin
a[strou, bivon eujdaivm ona kai; sunhvq h e{xoi); cf. Proclus, In Tim., 3, 290, 18-9 Diehl (to; de; suvnnomon
a[stron ejsti; peri; o} hJ spora; kai; hJ dianomh; tw'n te yucw'n kai; tw'n ojc hmavtwn). The Muses are credited
with the same cathartic function by Porphyrius, Life of Plotinus, 22, vv. 20-8 (∆All∆ a[ge Mousavwn iJero;"
corov" , ajpuvs wmen É eij" e}n ejpipneivonte" ajoidh'" tevrmata pavs h": É u{mmi kai; ejn mevssaisin ejgw;
Foi'bo" baqucaivth": É dai'm on, a[ner to; pavroiqen, ajta;r nu'n daivmono" ai[s h/ É qeiotevrh/ pelavwn, o{t∆
ejluvsao desmo;n ajnavgkh" É ajndromevh", rJeqevwn de; polufloivsboio kudoimou' É rJwsavm eno"
prapivdessin ej" hj/ovna nhcuvtou ajkth'" É nhvce∆ ejpeigovmeno" dhvmou a[po novsfin ajlitrw'n É sthrivxai
kaqarh'" yuch'" eujkampeva oi[mhn).
236
Cf. Pl. Tim., 47b-d, quoted in n. 160 C to II. 1. d. Vid. Molina Moreno, 2002b.
237
Vid. Bacchylides, IV, 7-8 (= 5 ed. Irigoin: ajna- É xifovrmiggo" Oujraniva"); V, 13-14 (= 7 Irigoin:
crusavmpiko" Oujraniva"); VI, 10-11 (= 4-5 Irigoin: ajnaximovlpou É Oujraniva" ), and Dithyrambi, 16, 3-4
(Pier[iavqen ej[u?q]rono" [O]ujraniva). For Urania as Muse of Astronomy, cf. sch. in Hes., Th., 76, p. 16, l. 23 Di
Gregorio (Oujraniva ajs tronomivan, sc. eu|re); Anthologiae Graecae Appendix, 134 (∆Astevra" hjr euvnhsa
sofh'/ freni; patriv t∆ ejoiko;" É ou[nom∆ e[c w: levgomai d∆ hJ Dio;" Oujranivh); Anthologia Graeca, IX, 504, 9
(Oujr anivh povlon eu|re kai; oujranivwn coro;n a[strwn), and 505, 13-14 (Oujranivh yhvf oio qeorrhvtwi tini;
mevtrwi É ajstrwvi hn ejdivdaxa palindivnhton ajnavgkhn); later, Ps. Ausonius, Id., III, 20, v. 8 (URANIE coeli
motus scrutatur, et astra). Cf. Molina Moreno, 2002b.
238
Cf. Pl. Smp., 187c-e (th;n de; oJm ologivan pa'si touvtoi", w{sper ejkei' hJ ijatrikhv, ejntau'q a hJ mousikh;
ejntivqhsin, e[rwta kai; oJmovnoian ajllhvl wn ejmpoihvsasa: kai; e[stin au\ mousikh; peri; aJrmonivan kai;
rJuqmo;n ejrwtikw'n ejpisthvmh. kai; ejn mevn ge aujth'/ th'/ sustavsei aJrmoniva" te kai; rJuqmou' oujde;n
calepo;n ta; ejrwtika; diagignwvs kein, oujde; oJ diplou'" e[rw" ejntau'q av pw e[stin: ajll∆ ejp eida;n devh/
pro;" tou;" ajnqrwvp ou" katacrh'sqai 187d rJuqmw'/ te kai; aJrmoniva/ h] poiou'nta, o} dh; melopoiivan
kalou'sin, h] crwvmenon ojrqw'" toi'" pepoihmevnoi" mevlesiv te kai; mevtroi", o} dh; paideiva ejklhvqh,
ejntau'qa dh; kai; calepo;n kai; ajgaqou' dhmiourgou' dei'. pavl in ga;r h{kei oJ aujto;" lovgo", o{ti toi'" me;n
170
kosmivoi" tw'n ajnqrwvp wn, kai; wJ" a]n kosmiwvteroi givgnointo oiJ mhvp w o[nte", dei' carivzesqai kai;
fulavttein to;n touvtwn e[rwta, kai; ou|tov" ejstin oJ kalov", oJ oujravnio", oJ th'" Oujraniva" mouvsh"
“Erw" ). Vid. Molina Moreno, 2002b.
239
Cf. D. S., IV, 7, 4 (Oujranivan d∆ ajp o; tou' tou;" paideuqevnta" uJp∆ aujth'" ejxaivresqai pro;" oujranovn).
240
This sarcophagus belongs to the old Simonetti Collection, and dates from the third century C. E.; vid. Marrou,
1933, 173 ff. (with a reproduction on p. 174, fig. 4); eiusd., 1938, 159-60, and Cumont, 1942, 300.
241
1933 and 1938.
242
1942, 300.
243
Urania is also represented on a sarcophagus of Palazzo Mattei (vid. Cumont, 1942, pl. XXXI, 1).
244
Plato showed a high esteem for Urania in another passage, besides that of the Symposium quoted above. In
Phaedr., 259 d, Socrates says: “To the eldest, Calliope, and to the one who follows her, Urania, they make report
of those who pass their lives in philosophy and do honor the music of those two Muses, who certainly are most
related to divine and human thoughts among all, and have the most beautiful voice” (th'/ de; presbutavth/
Kalliovph/ kai; th'/ met∆ aujth;n Oujraniva/ tou;" ejn filosofiva/ diavgontav" te kai; timw'nta" th;n ejkeivnwn
mousikh;n ajggevllousin, ai} dh; mavlista tw'n Mousw'n periv te oujrano;n kai; lovgou" ou\sai qeivou" te
kai; ajnqrwpivnou" iJa'sin kallivsthn fwnhvn).
245
Of course this was not the case when it came to the Delphic Muses alluded to by Plutarch, and linked with the
sphere of the fixed stars, the region of the planets, and the sublunar sphere, as we saw in b) “Muses and Heavenly
Realms,” in this same chapter.
246
Cf. Sophocles, Antigone, 1146-7 (ijwv, pu'r pneiovntwn cora'g∆ a[strwn). It should be noted that Dionysus
was also linked with the Sun: cf. OF 239a Kern = 542 Bernabé (”Hlio", o}n Diovnuson ejpivklhsin kalevousi),
and OF 239b Kern = 543 Bernabé (ei|" Zeuv" , ei|" ”Aidh", ei|" ”Hlio", ei|" Diovnuso"), both quoted by
Macrobius, Sat., I, 18, 17. On the other hand, Dionysos was called “star” by Aristophanes, Frogs, 341-2 (“Iakce /
nuktevrou teleth'" fwsfovro" ajsthvr); cf. “Eumolpus,” quoted by Diodorus of Sicily, I, 11, 3 (ajstrofah'
Diovnuson ejn ajktivnessi purwpovn, where Lloyd-Jones, H., and Wilson, N. G., 1990, p. 145, read tuvrannon
instead of purwpovn). He was also worshipped with choral dances, according to Euripides, Bacchae, 220
(Diovnuson, o{sti" ejsti, timw'sa" coroi'"). Moreover, the v. 9 of the prooemion to the Orphic hymns calls
Dionysos coreuthv" , “dancer;” the Orphic Hymn Nr. 52, v. 7, calls him coroimanhv". The stars are invited to
join the Orphic ritual, in the Orphic Hymn Nr. 7, v. 12 (e[lqet∆ ejp∆ eujievrou teleth'" polui?stora" a[qlou" ),
in what may be a late echo of the notions evoked by Sophocles. Thanks to Prof. Gabriella Ricciardelli, Università
di Roma, for these references (e-mail July 18th 2005). In some texts of the Classical period, the stars are said to
participate in the night festivals of Dionysus (Euripides, Ion, 1074 ff.: aijscuvnomai to;n poluvu- / mnon qeo;n, eij
para; kallicovvroisi pagai'" / lampavda qewro;n eijkavdwn / o[yetai ejnnuvcio" a[u>pno" w[n, o{te É kai;
Dio;" ajsterwpo;" / ajnecovreusen aijq hvr / coreuvei de; selavna). We may add a passage by Lydus, De
mensibus, IV, 51, lines 21-4 Wünsch, where it is suggested that there was an allegorical interpretation of Mount
Kithairon as heaven, which because of the harmony of the seven celestial bodies was called “Kitharon” (from
κιθάρα), and, since Dionysus was called “Bacchic Dancer of the Kithairon”, this could suggest that he was
considered a conductor of cosmic music (οἱ δέ γε Ῥωμαῖοι τὸν Διόνυσον Βακχευτὴν τοῦ Κιθαιρῶνός φασιν,
οἱονεὶ βακχευτὴν καὶ ἀνατρέχοντα ἀνὰ τὸν οὐρανόν, <ὃν> ἐκ τῆς τῶν ἑπτὰ συμφωνίας ἀστέρων
Κιθάρωνα ὠνόμασαν). We can see that this late and over-elaborate interpretation had its roots in Classical times.
247
Cf. Plato, Cratylus, 405c-d (transl. by Harold. N. Fowler, quoted from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-
bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0172;query=section%3D%23112;layout=;loc=Crat.%20405d,
consulted on July 7, 2005).
as
171
248
Cf. Scythinus, fr. 1 West, ap. Plu. De Pythiae oraculis, 402a-b: u{steron mevntoi plh'ktron ajnevq hkan tw'/
qew'/ crusou'n ejpisthvsante" wJ" e[oike Skuqivnw/ levgonti (fr. 1) peri; th'" luvra"
æh}n aJrmovzetai
Zhno;" eujeidh;" ∆Apovllwn pa's an, ajrch;n kai; tevlo"
sullabwvn, e[cei de; lampro;n plh'ktron hJlivou favo".
249
Cf., among other sources:
a)
Eratosth. Hermes, fr. 15 Powell (= 397 A SHell, quoted by Theo Sm. pp. 105-6 Hiller (Τιμόθεός φησι
καὶ παροιμίαν εἶναι τὴν „πάντα ὀκτὼ“ διὰ τὸ τοῦ κόσμου τὰς πάσας ὀκτὼ σφαίρας περὶ γῆν
κυκλεῖσθαι, καθά φησι καὶ Ἐρατοσθένης· ὀκτὼ δὴ τάδε πάντα σὺν ἁρμονίῃσιν ἀρήρει, p. 106
ὀκτὼ δ’ ἐν σφαίρῃσι κυλίνδετο κύκλῳ ἰόντα .................... ἐνάτην περὶ γαῖαν); cf. also Anat. Laod.
Decad., p. 14 Heiberg; Iambl. Theol. ar., pp. 75-6 De Falco, and Tzetzes, Exegesis in Homeri Iliadem A
97-609, esp. v. 601.
b)
Varro of Atax, fr. 14 Morel (= 12 Traglia, = 11 Büchner, quoted by Marius Victorinus, in Grammatici
Latini, VI, 60 Keil = Orph. vest. 419 Bernabé: vidit et aetherio mundum torquerier axe / et septem
aeternis sonitum dare vocibus orbes / nitentes aliis alios, quae maxima divis / laetitia est. at tunc longe
gratissima Phoebi / dextera consimiles meditatur reddere voces);
c)
Alexander of Ephesus, fr. 21 SHell (quoted by Heraclitus, Allegoriae homericae, 12, and by Theo of
Smyrna, pp. 138-41 Hiller: ὑψοῦ δ’ ἄλλοθεν ἄλλος ὑπέρτερον ἔλλαχε κύκλον· / ἀγχοτάτη μὲν δῖα
Σεληναίη περὶ γαῖαν, / δεύτερος αὖ Στίλβων χελυοξόου Ἑρμείαο, / τῷ δ’ ἔπι Φωσφόρος ἐστὶ
φαεινότατος Κυθερείης, / τέτρατος αὐτὸς ὕπερθεν ἐπ’ Ἠέλιος φέρεθ’ ἵπποις, / πέμπτος δ’ αὖ
Πυρόεις φονίου Θρήϊκος Ἄρηος, / ἕκτος δ’ αὖ Φαέθων Διὸς ἀγλαὸς ἵσταται ἀστήρ, / ἕβδομος
<αὖ> Φαίνων Κρόνου ἀγχόθι τέλλεται ἄστρον· / πάντες δ’ ἑπτατόνοιο λύρης φθόγγοισι
συνῳδὸν / ἁρμονίην προχέουσι, διαστάσει ἄλλος ἐπ’ ἄλλῃ· / γαῖα μὲν οὖν ὑπάτη τε βαρεῖά τε
μεσσόθι ναίει· / ἀπλανέων δὲ σφαῖρα συνημμένη ἔπλετο νήτη· / μέσσην δ’ Ἠέλιος πλαγκτῶν
θέσιν ἔσχεθεν ἄστρων· / τοῦ δ’ ἀπὸ δὴ ψυχρὸς μὲν ἔχει διὰ τέσσαρα κύκλος· / κείνου δ’
ἡμίτονον Φαίνων ἀνίησι χαλασθείς, / τοῦ δὲ τόσον Φαέθων ὅσον ὄβριμος Ἄρεος ἀστήρ· /
Ἠέλιος δ’ ὑπὸ τοῖσι τόνον τερψίμβροτος ἴσχει, / αἴγλης δ’ Ἠελίοιο τριημίτονον Κυθέρεια· /
ἡμίτονον δ’ ὑπὸ τῷ Στίλβων φέρεθ’ Ἑρμείαο, / τόσσον δὲ χρωσθεῖσα φύσιν πολυκαμπέα Μήνη·
/ κέντρου δ’ Ἠελίοιο θέσιν διὰ <πέντ’> ἔλαχε χθών· / αὕτη πεντάζωνος ἀπ’ ἠέρος εἰς φλογόεν
πῦρ / ἁρμοσθεῖσ’ ἀκτῖσι πυρὸς κρυερῇσί τε πάχναις / οὐρανοῦ ἑξατόνου τόνον ἔσχεθε τὸν διὰ
πασῶν. / τοίην τοι σειρῆνα Διὸς πάϊς ἥρμοσεν Ἑρμῆς, / ἑπτάτονον κίθαριν, θεομήστορος εἰκόνα
κόσμου);
d)
Philo of Alexandria, De opificio mundi, 126 (luvra me;n ga;r hJ eJptavcordo" ajnalogou'sa th'i tw'n
planhvtwn coreivai ta;" ejllogivmou" aJrmoniva" ajpotelei', scedovn ti th'" kata; mousikh;n
ojrganopoiiva" aJpavs h" hJgemoni;" ou\s a);
e)
Nicomachus of Gerasa, Ench., 3, pp. 241-2 Jan (”Oti hJ prwvth ejn aijsqhtoi'" mousikh; peri; tou;"
plavnhta" qewrei'tai kata; mivm hsin d∆ ejkeivnh" hJ par∆ hJmi'n: Ta; me;n ou\n ojnovmata tw'n
fqovggwn ajpo; tw'n kat∆ oujrano;n ijovntwn eJpta; ajstevrwn kai; th;n gh'n peripoleuovntwn
piqano;n wjnomavsqai. pavnta ga;r ta; rJoizouvmenav fasi swvmata kaqupeivkontov" tino" kai;
rJa'/sta kumainomevnou yovfou" ajnagkaivw" poiei'n megevqei kai; fwnh'" tovp w/ parhllagmevnou"
ajllhvl wn h[toi para; tou;" eJautw'n o[gkou" h] para; ta;" ijdiva" tacuth'ta" h] para; ta;"
ejpoca;" , ejn ai|" hJ ejkavstou rJuvm h suntelei'tai, eujkumantotevra" h] toujnantivon duspalei'"
uJparcouvsa". aiJ de; trei'" au|tai diaforai; tranw'" oJrw'ntai peri; tou;" plavnhta" megevqei te
kai; tavc ei kai; tovpw/ diestw'ta" ajllhvlwn kai; dia; tou' aijq erivou ajnacuvm ato" dihnekw'" kai;
172
ajstavtw" rJoizoumevnou". e[nqen ga;r kai; tou' ajsth;r ojnovmato" tevteucen e{kasto" oi|on
stavsew" ejsterhmevno" kai; ajei; qevwn, par∆ o} kai; qeo;" kai; aijq h;r wjnomatopepoivhtai. ajll∆
ajpo; me;n tou' kronikou' kinhvm ato" ajnwtavtou o[nto" ajf∆ hJmw'n oJ baruvtato" ejn tw'/ dia; pasw'n
fqovggo" uJpavth ejklhvq h, u{p aton ga;r to; ajnwvtaton. ajp o; de; tou' selhniakou' katwtavtou
pavntwn kai; perigeiotevrou keimevnou neavth: kai; ga;r nevaton to; katwvtaton ajp o; de; tw'n
par∆ eJkavteron tou' me;n uJp o; to;n Krovnon, o{" ejsti Dio;", parupavth: tou' d∆ uJp e;r Selhvnhn, o{"
ejstin ∆Afrodivth", paraneavth. ajp o; de; tou' mesaitavtou, o{" ejstin hJliakou' tetavrtou
eJkatevrwqen keimevnou, mevs h dia; tessavrwn pro;" ajmfovtera a[kra e[n ge th'/ eJptacovrdw/ kata;
to; palaio;n diestw's a kaqavp er kai; oJ ”Hlio" ejn toi'" eJpta; plavnhsin eJkatevrwqevn ejsti
tevtarto", mesaivtato" w[n. ajpo; de; tw'n par∆ eJkavtera tou' ÔHlivou “Areo" me;n metaxu; Dio;"
kai; ÔHlivou th;n sfai'ran eijl hcovto" uJpermevsh hJ kai; licanov" . ÔErmou' de; to; metaivcmion
∆Afrodivth" kai; ÔHlivou katevc onto" paramevsh). This system is attributed to Orpheus in an
anonymous text copied by Constantinos Lascaris and conserved in the manuscript Matritensis gr. 4621
(former N-72), ff. 134 r – 136 r, of the Biblioteca Nacional of Madrid (cf. Ruelle, 1878, and Martínez
Manzano, 1994, 50 and 56-7).
f)
Nicomachus of Gerasa, Theol. ar., p. 71, 14-18 De Falco (o{ti ouj movnon th'" ajnqrwpivnh" fwnh'"
ajlla; kai; ojrganikh'" kai; kosmikh'" kai; aJplw'" ejnarmonivou fwnh'" z uJp avrcei ta; stoiceiwvdh
fqevgmata, ouj movnon para; to; uJpo; tw'n z∆ ajstevrwn ajfivesqai movna kai; prwvtista, wJ"
ejmavqomen, ajll∆ o{ti kai; to; prw'ton diavgramma para; toi'" mousikoi'" eJptavc ordon
uJpevpesen);
g)
On Claudius Ptolemaeus’ systems of cosmic harmony, cf. Redondo Reyes, 2003, and Swerdlow, 2004.
h)
Ps. Lucianus, De astr., X (OF 418 Bernabé: ”Ellhne" de; ou[te par∆ Aijqiovpwn ou[te par∆
Aijguptivwn ajstrologivh" pevri oujde;n h[kousan, ajlla; sfivsin ∆Orfeu;" oJ Oijavgrou kai;
Kalliovph" prw'to" tavde ajp hghvs ato, ... phxavmeno" ga;r luvrhn o[rgiav te ejp oieveto kai; ta;
iJra; h[eiden: hJ de; luvrh eJptavmito" ejou'sa th;n tw'n kineomevnwn ajs tevrwn aJrmonivhn
sunebavlleto);
i)
Servius, In Verg. Aen., VI, 645 (Orpheus ... primus etiam deprehendit harmoniam, id est circulorum
mundanorum sonum, quos novem esse novimus. e quibus summus quem anastron dicunt, sono caret,
item ultimus, qui terranus est. reliqui septem sunt, quorum sonum deprehendit Orpheus, unde uti septem
fingitur chordis);
j)
Servius, In Verg. Buc., VIII, 75: septem chordae, septem planetae, septem dies nominibus deorum,
septem stellae in septemtrione, et multa his similia.
k)
Macrobius, Sat., I, 19, 15 (et tetrachordum Mercurio creditur attributum, quippe significat hic numerus
vel totidem plagas mundi vel quattuor vices temporum quibus annus includitur, vel quod duobus
aequinoctiis duobusque solstitiis zodiaci ratio distincta est; ut lyra Apollinis chordarum septem tot
caelestium sphaerarum motus praestat intellegi, quibus solem moderatorem natura constituit);
l)
Sch. in Verg. Aen., VI, 119 ap. Cod. Par. Lat. 7930 (OF 417 Bernabé: Dicunt tamen quidam liram
Orphei cum vii cordas fuisse, et celum habet vii zonas, unde teologia assignatur). On this text, cf.
Molina Moreno, 2011.
m) Hermias, In Phdr., p. 217, lines 19-21 Couvreur: καί τινες δὲ τὰ ὀνόματα τῶν χορδῶν ἐκ τῶν
οὐρανίων σφαιρῶν ὠνόμασαν, οἷον ὅτι προσλαμβανομένη ἐστὶν ἡ τοῦ Κρόνου σφαῖρα, καὶ ἐπὶ
τῶν ἄλλων ὁμοίως ἄλλας χορδὰς εἶπον.
n)
Manuel Bryennios, I, 1, p. 56, lines 12-15 Jonker: Ὁ Ἑρμῆς, οὗ θρύλλος ἦν πάλαι πολὺς ἐν τοῖς
Ἕλλησι, πρῶτος τὴν εἰρημένην ἀρχαιότροπον ἑπτάχορδον λύραν εὗρε καὶ ἐκ δυοῖν
173
τετραχόρδων ὁμοίων κατὰ σχῆμα ὀξυτέρου τε καὶ βαρυτέρου ἡρμόσατο κατὰ μίμησιν τῶν
σφαιρῶν τῶν ἑπτὰ ἀστέρων. Cf. ibid., p. 58, line 20 – p. 60, line 16 Jonker: Ὅθεν οὗτος τὴν μὲν
πρώτην καὶ βαρύφθογγον αὐτῆς χορδήν, ἣν ὑπάτην ἐκάλεσε διὰ τὸ ὕπατον τὸ πρῶτον παρὰ
τοῖς παλαιοῖς καλεῖσθαι, τῇ τῆς Σελήνης σφαίρᾳ οὐκ ἀπεικότως παρείκασεν, ἐπειδήπερ καὶ ὁ
ἀπ’ αὐτῆς φθόγγος τῶν ἀπὸ τῶν ἄλλων πλανωμένων βαρύτατος· τὴν δὲ ἑβδόμην καὶ
ὀξύφθογγον, ἣν πάλιν νήτην ἐκάλεσε διὰ τὸ νέατον τὸ ἔσχατον παρὰ τοῖς παλαιοῖς καλεῖσθαι
τῇ τοῦ Κρόνου, ἐπειδήπερ καὶ ὁ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ φθόγγος τῶν ἀπὸ τῶν ἄλλων ὀξύτατος· τὴν δὲ
τετάρτην καὶ τῆς μὲν ὑπάτης ὀξυφθογγοτέραν, τῆς δὲ νήτης βαρυφθογγοτέραν, ἣν ἀπὸ τῆς
τάξεως μέσην ὠνόμασε—μεσαιτάτη καὶ γὰρ αὕτη τῆς τοιαύτης λύρας ἐστί—τῇ τοῦ Ἡλίου,
ἐπειδήπερ καὶ ὁ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ φθόγγος τοῦ μὲν ἀπὸ τῆς Σελήνης φθόγγου ὀξύτερος, τοῦ δὲ ἀπὸ
τοῦ Κρόνου βαρύτερος· τὴν δὲ δευτέραν καὶ ὀξυφθογγοτέραν τῆς ὑπάτης, ἣν καὶ παρυπάτην
προσηγόρευσε διὰ τὸ ἑξῆς ὑπὲρ τὴν ὑπάτην κεῖσθαι, τῇ τοῦ Ἑρμοῦ, ἐπειδήπερ καὶ ὁ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ
φθόγγος τοῦ ἀπὸ τῆς Σελήνης ὀξύτερος· τὴν δὲ ἕκτην καὶ βαρυφθογγοτέραν τῆς νήτης, ἣν
παρανήτην προσηγόρευσε διὰ τὸ ὑπὸ τὴν νήτην κεῖσθαι, τῇ τοῦ Δίος, ἐπειδήπερ καὶ ὁ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ
φθόγγος τοῦ ἀπὸ Κρόνου βαρύτερος· τὴν δὲ τρίτην καὶ τῆς μὲν μέσης βαρυφθογγοτέραν, τῆς δὲ
παρυπάτης ὀξυφθογγοτέραν, ἣν καὶ ὑπερπαρυπάτην ἐκάλεσε διὰ τὸ ἑξῆς ὑπὲρ τὴν παρυπάτην
κεῖσθαι, τῇ τῆς Ἀφροδίτης, ἐπειδήπερ καὶ ὁ ἀπ’ αὐτῆς φθόγγος τοῦ μὲν ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἡλίου
βαρύτερος, τοῦ δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἑρμοῦ ὀξύτερος· ἡ τοιαύτη δὲ χορδὴ καὶ λιχανὸς καλεῖται, δι’ ἣν
αἰτίαν μετ’ ὀλίγον εἰσόμεθα· τὴν δὲ πέμπτην καὶ τῆς μὲν μέσης ὀξυφθογγοτέραν, τῆς δὲ
παρανήτης βαρυφθογγοτέραν, ἣν καὶ παραμέσην ἐκάλεσε διὰ τὸ παρακεῖσθαι τῇ μέσῃ, τῇ τοῦ
Ἄρεος, ἐπειδήπερ ὁ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ φθόγγος τοῦ μὲν ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἡλίου ὀξύτερος, τοῦ δὲ τοῦ Δίος
βαρύτερος.
Vid. also Jan, 1894; Reinach, 1900; Bragard, 1929; Gundel, 1950; Burkert, 1961, esp. 28-43; Pizzani, 1986;
Freyburger, 1996, and Richter, 1999.
250
Cf. Cornutus, 32, p. 67, ll. 17-9 Lang (mousiko;" de; kai; kiqaristh;" pareish'ktai tw'i krouvein
ejnarmonivw" pa'n mevro" tou' kovsmou kai; sunwido;n aujto; pa'si toi'" a[lloi" mevresi poiei'n).
251
Cf., among many others, Philostr. Iun. Im. 11, p. 344 Fairbanks (prosav/dwn toi'" th'" kiqavr a" krouvmasi),
and Them. Or. 16, p. 209c-d Hardouin (toi'" krouvmasi toi'" ∆Orfevw").
252
Cf. Varro, “Ono" luvr a", fr. 351 Buecheler (ap. Nonnius, 100, 25 M. = p. 140 Müller): quam mobilem divum
lyram sol harmoge / quadam gubernans motibus diis veget.
253
Cf. Cic., De re p., VI, 17: Sol… dux et princeps et moderator luminum reliquorum, mens mundi et temperatio.
254
Cf. Boyancé, 1936, 98.
255
Cf. Arist. Metaph., IV, 2, 5, p. 1018 b 29 (hJ mevsh ajrchv); Ps. Arist. Probl., XIX, 33, 920a 21 (hJ ga;r mevs h
kai; hJgemw;n ojxutavth tou' tetracovrdou), and XIX, 36, 920b 9-10 (h] o{ti to; hJrmovsqai ejsti;n aJpavs ai" to;
e[cein pw" pro;" th;n mevshn); Varro, fr. 282 Funaioli (mevsh in musica initium cantionis), and D. Chrys.,
LXVII, 234 Dind. (crh; de; w{sper ejn luvr ai to;n mevson fqovggon katasthvs ante" e[peita pro;" tou'ton
aJrmovttontai tou;" a[llou", eij de; mh; oujdemivan oujdevp ote aJrmonivan ajp odeivxousin). Martianus Capella,
II, 187, p. 73 Dick addresses these words to the Sun: Hinc est quod quarto ius est te currere circo, / ut tibi perfecta
numerus ratione probetur: / nonne hac principio geminum tu das tetrachordum?
256
Cf. Philo, De vita Mosis, III, 9: oJ ga;r h{lio" w{sper hJ lucniva mevso" tw'n e}x tetagmevno" ejn tetavrthi
cwvrai fwsforei' toi'" uJperavnw trisi; kai; toi'" uJf∆ auJto;n i[soi", aJrmozovm eno" to; mousiko;n kai; qei'on
wJ" ajlhqw'" o[rganon.
257
Cf. Boyancé, 1936, 97.
174
258
Cf. Theo of Smyrna, p. 138 Hiller (th;n de; kata; tovpon tw'n sfairw'n < h]> kuvklwn qevsin te kai; tavxin,
ejn oi|" keivmena fevretai ta; planwvmena, tine;~ me;n tw'n Puqagoreivwn toiavnde nomivzousi:
prosgeiovtaton me;n ei\nai to;n th'" selhvnh" kuvklon, deuvteron d∆ uJpe;r tou'ton <to;n tou'> ÔErmou',
e[peita to;n tou' fwsfovrou, kai; tevtarton ãto;nà tou' hJlivou, ei\ta to;n tou' “Arew", e[peita to;n tou'
Diov", teleutai'on de; kai; suvneggu" toi'" ajplanevsi to;n tou' Krovnou: mevson ei\nai boulovmenoi to;n tou'
hJlivou tw'n planwmevnwn wJ" hJgemonikwvtaton kai; oi|on kardivan tou' pantov").
259
Cf. Aetius, Plac., II, 7, 7, pp. 336-7 Diels (ap. Stob. I, 22, 1d = Philolaus, 44 A 16 DK = A 16b Huffman):
Filovlao" pu'r ejn mevs w/ peri; to; kevntron, o{per eJstivan tou' panto;" kalei' kai; Dio;" oi\kon kai; mhtevra
qew'n, bwmovn te kai; sunoch;n kai; mevtron fuvsew". kai; pavlin pu'r e{teron ajnwtavtw to; perievc on.
prw'ton d∆ ei\nai fuvsei to; mevs on, peri; de; tou'to devka swvmata qei'a coreuvein, oujranovn † te
planhvta", meq∆ ou}" h{lion, uJf∆ w|/ selhvnhn, uJf∆ h|/ th;n gh'n, uJf∆ h|/ th;n ajntivcqona, meq∆ a} suvmpanta to;
pu'r eJstiva" peri; ta; kevntra tavxin ejpevc on . It is rather puzzling that the Moon were also called mese and
endowed with the function of harmonizing the cosmos, according to a passage of the hippocratic treatise De
hebdomadibus, 2 (cf. West, 1971 b, 368-9): ἡ μὲν γῆ ο[ὖσα μέση] καὶ ὁ Ὀλύμπ ιος κόσμος ὕπατος ὢν
ἀκίνητά ἐστιν· ἡ δὲ σελήνη μέση οὖσα συναρμόζει αὐτὴ <πάντων τῶν ἄλλων μερέων, τῶν μὲν
ἀνωτέρων, τῶν δὲ κατωτέρων,> συναρμόζει αὐτὴ τἆ[λ]λα πάντα, ἐν ἀλλήλοισ ι ζῷντα κα ὶ δι’
[ἀ]λλήλων δι ιόντα· αὐτά τε ὑ φ’ ἑωυτῶν κα ὶ ὑπὸ τῶν ἀεὶ ὄντων θ[εῶν] α ϊδ ϊως κινεῖτα ι.
260
Cf. Alexander of Ephesus, fr. 21 SHell., v. 14 (mevsshn d∆ hjevl io" plagktw'n qevsin e[sceqen a[s trwn).
Vid. full quotation of this fragment in n. 249 to this same chapter.
261
Cf. Plutarch, De animae procreatione in Timaeo, 1029a (aujto;n to;n h{lion wJ" mevs hn sunevcein to; dia;
pasw'n ajxiou'sin).
262
Cf. Nicomachus of Gerasa, Enchiridion, 3, p. 242 Jan (ajp o; de; tou' mesaitavtou, o{" ejs tin hJliakou'
tetavrtou eJkatevrwqen keimevnou, mevsh dia; tessavrwn pro;" ajmfotevra a[kra e[n ge th'i eJptacovrdwi
kata; to; palaio;n diestw's a kaqavper kai; oJ ”Hlio" ejn toi'" eJpta; plavnhsin eJkatevrwqevn ejs ti
mesaivtato" ).
263
Cf. Boethius, De mus., I, 27: Namque hypate meson Saturno est adtributa, parhypate vero Ioviali circulo
consimilis est. Lichanon meson Marti tradidere. Sol mesen obtinuit. Triten synemmenon Venus habet, paraneten
synemmenon Mercurius regit. Nete autem lunaris circuli tenet exemplum.
264
crusoluvrh, kovsmou to;n ejnarmovnion drovmon e{l kwn .
265
“Both,” that is, the life-supporting species, and the human kind.
266
Cf. Orphic Hymn, 34, vv. 16-23 (su; de; pavnta povl on kiqavrhi polukrevktwi É aJrmovzei", oJte; me;n
neavth" ejpi; tevrmata baivnwn, É a[llote d∆ au\q∆ uJp avth", pote; Dwvrion eij" diavkosmon É pavnta povl on
kirna;" krivnei" bioqrevmmona fu'la, É aJrmonivhi keravs a" øth;nØ pagkovsmion ajndravsi moi'ran, É mivxa"
ceimw'no" qevreov" t∆ i[s on ajmfotevroisin, É tai'" uJp avtai" ceimw'na, qevro" neavtai" diakrivna", É
Dwvrion eij" e[aro" poluhravtou w{rion a[nqo").
267
A. Cf. Diodorus of Sicily, I, 16, who tells a myth about Hermes’s invention of the lyre, according to which the
first lyre had three strings because of the seasons of the year: the string yielding the highest pitch corresponded to
the summer, the one yielding the lowest pitch, to the winter, and the intermediate, to the spring (luvr an te
neurivnhn poih'sai trivcordon, mimhsavmenon ta;" kat∆ ejniauto;n w{ra": trei'" ga;r aujto;n
uJposthvsasqai fqovggou", ojxu;n kai; baru;n kai; mevson, ojxu;n me;n ajpo; tou' qevrou", baru;n de; ajpo; tou'
ceimw'no", mevson de; ajp o; tou' e[aro"). Diodorus’s source was probably Hecataeus of Abdera (fourth-third
century B. C. E.); cf. F Gr Hist., 264 F 25 Jacoby.
B. Later sources consider a year divided in four seasons: cf. Plutarch, De animae procreatione in Timaeo, 1028 e-f
(Caldai'oi de; levgousi to; e[ar ejn tw'/ dia; tettavr wn givgnesqai pro;" to; metovpwron, ejn de; tw'/ dia;
175
pevnte pro;" to;n ceimw'na, pro;" de; to; qevro" ejn tw'/ diaV pasw'n); Aristides Quintilianus, III, 19, who
attributes that system to Pythagoras (e{xei toivnun to; e[ar, kaqa; kai; Puqagovr an e[fasan levgein, pro;" me;n
metovp wron to; dia; tessavrwn, pro;" de; ceimw'na to; dia; pevnte, pro;" de; qevro" to; dia; pasw'n), and
Marcrobius, I, 19, 15 (et tetrachordum Mercurio creditur attributum, quippe significat hic numerus vel totidem
plagas mundi vel quattuor vices temporum quibus annus includitur, vel quod duobus aequinoctiis duobusque
solstitiis zodiaci ratio distincta est).
268
Cf. Palumbo Stracca, 1999, 190-191.
269
Cf. Pliny the Elder, NH, II, 84 (Sed Pythagoras interdum et musica ratione appellat quantum absit a terra luna,
ab ea ad Mercurium dimidium spatii et ab eo ad Veneris, a quo ad solem sescuplum, a sole ad Martem tonum [id
est quantum ad lunam a terra], ab eo ad Iovem dimidium et ab eo ad Saturni, et inde sescuplum ad signiferum; ita
septem tonis effici quam dia; pasw'n aJrmonivan hoc est universitatem concentus; in ea Saturnum Dorio moveri
phthongo, Iovem Phrygio et in reliquis similia, iucunda magis quam necessaria subtilitate, quoted from
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/pliny.nh2.html, as consulted on July 20, 2005), Martianus Capella, II, 196 (in
Iovialis sideris pervenere fulgores, cuius circulus Phrygio phthongo personabat), and eiusd., II, 197 (hunc etiam
praetergressa circum ac parili interiectione sublimis deorum rigidissimum creatorem in algido haerentem
pruinisque nivalibus conspicata: verum idem quem circumire nitebatur orbis melo Dorio tinniebat). Lydus, Mens.,
II, 3, p. 20 Wünsch speaks of rhythms instead of modes, in a way we have no explanation for (Pavnta" tou;"
rJuqmou;" ejk th'" tw'n planhvtwn kinhvsew" ei\nai sumbaivnei: oJ me;n ga;r Krovno" tw'/ Dwrivw/, oJ de; Zeu;"
tw'/ Frugivw/, oJ d∆ “Arh" tw'/ Ludivw/ kai; oiJ loipoi; toi'" loipoi'" kinou'ntai kata; to;n Puqagovran pro;"
to;n h\c on tw'n fwnhevntwn: oJ me;n ga;r ÔErmou' to;n a, oJ d∆ ∆Afrodivth" to;n e, oJ d∆ ”Hlio" to;n h, kai; oJ
me;n tou' Krovnou to;n i, oJ de; tou' “Areo" to;n o, kai; Selhvnh to;n u, o{ ge mh;n tou' Dio;" ajs th;r to;n w
rJuqmo;n ajp otelou'sin: oJ de; h\co" tw'n rJuqmw'n wJ" hJm a'" oujk ajfiknei'tai dia; th;n ajp ovstasin).
270
Cf. Ps. Arist. Probl., 919a 19-22 (pavnta ga;r ta; crhsta; mevl h pollavki" th'/ mevsh/ crh'tai, kai; pavnte"
oiJ ajgaqoi; poihtai; pukna; pro;" th;n mevshn ajpantw'si, ka]n ajpevlqwsi, tacu; ejp anevrcontai, pro;" de;
a[llhn ou{tw" oujdemivan). Vid. West, 1992, 219, and Varro, fr. 282, p. 302, 32 Funaioli (mevsh in musica initium
cantionis).
271
Transl. by Stahl, 1952, 194; cf. Macrobius, In Somn. Scip., II, 3, 3 (Apollinem ideo Moushgevt hn vocant quasi
ducem et principem orbium ceterorum, ut ipse Cicero refert, "dux et princeps et moderator luminum reliquorum,
mens mundi et temperatio"). Cf. Ps. Ausonius, Id., III, 20, vv. 10-11 (p. 412 Piper): Mentis Apollineae vis has
movet undique Musas, / in medio residens complectitur (= sunevc ei) omnia Phoebus. According to
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02112d.htm, as consulted on July 17th 2005, Ausonius was born ca. 310 C. E.,
and died ca. 394 C. E.
272
Cf. Macrobius, Sat., I, 19, 15 (lyra Apollinis chordarum septem tot caelestium sphaerarum motus praestat
intellegi, quibus solem moderatorem natura constituit).
273
Cf. Proclus, In Tim., II, 208, 9 Diehl: Mouvsa" oiJ palaioi; kai; ’Apovllwna Moushgevthn ejpevsthsan
tw'i pavnti (?), tou' me;n th;n mivan e{nwsin th'" o{lh" aJrmoniva" corhgou'nto", tw'n de; th;n dihirhmevnhn
aujth'" provodon sunecousw'n. Cf. Iambl., VP, 9, 45, quoted in n. 204 and 229 to this chapter.
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