title: Documents of Ancient Greek Music: The Extant Melodies and Fragments
author: Egert Pohlmann
description: <br /><strong>M. L. West</strong> is the author of Ancient Greek Music (1992; pb 1994) and The East Face of Helicon (1997; pb 1999) and the editor of several editions of Greek poetry (Hesiod: Theogony and Works and Days; Iambi et Elegi Graeci; Greek Lyric Poetry).<br />
zlib_text: Journal of Hellenic Studies 120 (2000) pp 57-85
  MUSICAL EVENINGS IN THE EARLY EMPIRE:
  NEW EVIDENCE FROM A GREEK PAPYRUS WITH MUSICAL NOTATION
  WITH disarmingly open conceit, the Younger Pliny tells Pontius Allifanus that 'my hendeca-
  syllables are read, are copied, are even sung, and Greeks (who have learned Latin out of love for
  my poetry book) make my verses resound to cithara and lyre' {Epist. 7.4.9). By Pliny's time,
  Greek musicians (and actors) were widely distributed and organized in a worldwide guild cen-
  tred at Rome,1 so it will not surprise us that Greeks are the ones setting the verses to music. But
  what sort of music? When Pliny went out to hear his beloved poems sung to cithara and lyre,
  what did it sound like? Or, more generally, what did Pliny, or Martial, or, in an earlier genera-
  tion, Horace see and hear when out for an evening's musical entertainment at the hands of a
  Greek troupe? Until fairly recently, we have known precious little. Literary sources give the odd
  ane