Roman Music

[Stuart]

Something that's been worrying at me ever since I started writing a story set in the Seleucid Empire. Do we have any idea what Roman music sounded like? Has any of their music survived or do we have to guess at it?

[erik_t]

This is very much not my field, but I'm sure we can make some pretty solid determinations based on the instruments they'd have had, which I am pretty sure have survived (at least in artistic renditions).

I mean, we know the Romans weren't big on piano.

[ray245]

If I recall properly, the Romans did have a harp. In regards to actual notes though, I don't remember reading up on any notes that was recorded down.

Not sure if this book can help.

Synaulia: Music from Ancient Rome
By Walter Maioli, Synaulia (Musical group
Published by Amiata Records, 2002)

[Kanastrous]

There's a group called De Organographia who specialize in performing recovered ancient musical works on re-created ancient instruments. I've heard them in concert; their stuff is very alien-sounding but still sounds like western music.

[Thanas]

Roman music is largely unknown to us. Little has survived due to christianity and changing tastes. However, most people speculate that it was largely monophonic and pretty much like Greek music (as we know the roman copied largescale elements from roman music).

Note however that a lot of this is speculation, we do not for example know if the romans had any latin or etruscan influences on their music. I would guess that this was indeed the case, but we do not know much about that kind of music either.

As to Kanastrous's recommendation, De Organographia only plays greek musik AFAIK, though I could be wrong about that.


I would recommend you start with this article in JSTOR.

The book of Giovanni Comotti, La musica nella cultura greca e romana, 2nd ed. 1991, is available on googlebooks here. I believe the first edition is available in an english translation by John Hopkins Univ., but I do not know if the second edition has been translated as well.


There also is a group called "Musica Romana" which is comprised of several german archeologists and historians. You can find their homepage here and a few samples of their work here.

I'd recommend the Hymnus Helios.

[Thanas]

EDIT: Forgot to add, the Hymnus Helios is an original piece of the court composer of Hadrianus Augustus, Mesomedes of Crete.

[Stuart]

Thank you very much Thanas, the Musica Romana gives me just what I was looking for. Kanastrous, your recommendation is very useful as well; I'll be needing Greek as well as Roman.

Thank you both again.