This report provides a conspectus of the nine papers presented at ‘The Graduate Workshop in Ancient Greek and Roman Music’, held at the University of Oxford in June 2018. The workshop was organised with the intent of showcasing the innovative work of postgraduates in the field of ancient Greek and Roman music. Based around the themes of theory and practice, drama, and ritual, the papers reflect current areas of focus within the field and suggest promising avenues for further enquiry.

This paper examines in detail an under-appreciated passage from Philodemus of Gadara’s On Music in order to elucidate several important controversies in Hellenistic musical philosophy. The Stoic Diogenes of Babylon claimed that the emotional impact of trumpet tunes can inspire soldiers to fight. But the Epicurean Philodemus believed that the meaningful words (λόγοι) which stimulate our actions are utterly distinct from meaningless musical sound (µουσική). Philodemus therefore framed an alternative theory in which trumpet calls on the battlefield function not as music but as a kind of makeshift language, using conventional signifiers to communicate instructions. I show how both philosophers’ views arise logically out of doctrines from their respective schools. I then argue that the trumpet’s dual status as both performance instrument and communications device makes it a natural philosophical flashpoint: it raises central questions about what music is, how it affects listeners, and whether it can convey meaning.

I examine here an arresting and poorly understood pair of fragments (Phld. Mus. 4.34.2-8, 115.26-35) in which the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon refers to ‘scientific sense perception’ (ἐπιστηµονικὴ αἴσθησις). Previous studies of this phrase have focussed on its attribution by Sextus Empiricus to Plato’s nephew, Speusippus. But Sextus is likely mistaken in crediting the phrase to the Academy. I argue that ‘scientific sense perception’ is best interpreted as Diogenes’ contribution to Stoic epistemology in an effort to defend the ἦθος theory of musical affect against attacks from its detractors. By identifying a hitherto unnoticed reference to Aristoxenus of Tarentum, I show that Diogenes used ἐπιστηµονικὴ αἴσθησις to give ἦθος theory new intellectual viability in the Hellenistic schools. Using the concept of ‘scientific sense perception’, the Stoic could have supported the claim that those trained in harmonic science may directly perceive ethical and emotional content even in wordless music.

Simply by formulating a question about the nature of ancient Greek poetry or music, any modern English speaker is already risking anachronism. In recent years especially, scholars have reminded one another that the words ‘music’ and ‘poetry’ denote concepts with no easy counterpart in Greek. μουσική in its broadest sense evokes not only innumerable kinds of structured movement and sound but also the political, psychological and cosmic order of which song, verse and dance are supposed to be perceptible manifestations. Likewise, ποίησις and the ποιητικὴ τέχνη can encompass all kinds of ‘making’, from the assembly of a table to the construction of a rhetorical argument. Of course, there were specifically artistic usages of these terms—according to Plato, ‘musical and metrical production’ was the default meaning of ποίησις in everyday speech. But even in discussions which restrict themselves to the sphere of human art, we find nothing like the neat compartmentalization of harmonized rhythmic melody on the one hand, and stylized verbal composition on the other, which is often casually implied or expressly formulated in modern comparisons of ‘music’ with ‘poetry’. For many ancient theorists the City Dionysia, a dithyrambic festival and a recitation of Homer all featured different versions of one and the same form of composition, a μουσική or ποιητική to which λόγοι, γράμματα and συλλαβαί were just as essential as ἁρμονία, φθόγγοι, ῥυθμός and χρόνοι.