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‘The Wise Man and the Bow’ in Aristides Quintilianus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. Kerr Borthwick
E. Kerr Borthwick
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Extract

In the second book of the De Musica, Aristides Quintilianus discourses at length on the educational value of music, drawing on many earlier sources, Pythagorean, Damonian, and of course Plato and Aristotle. In ch. 6 (p. 60 W.-I.) Plato's censorious views in the Republic are particularly referred to, but, like Aristotle in the eighth book of his Politics, Aristides takes a less severe attitude towards the pleasure-giving content of melody on appropriate occasions, and points to the natural human taste for such music: τ⋯ς δ ϕὺσεως κα τ τοιατα παιτοσης, μποδίζειν μν δνατον (εὖ γρ εἴρηται τῷ σοϕῷ κα τò περ το τòξου), τν δ νσεων τν ὠϕλιμον προκριτον.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , May 1991 , pp. 275 - 278
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1991

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References

1 In Greek Musical Writings, ii (Cambridge, 1989), p. 465.Google Scholar

2 Aristides Quintilianus, On Music (New Haven, 1983), p. 123.Google Scholar

3 Aristeides Quintilianus, Von der Musik (Berlin, 1937), p. 258Google Scholar. Aristides uses sophos of many named or un-named persons - see Winnington-Ingram's index.

4 Aristidis Quintiliani de musica libri III (Berlin, 1882), intro. p. xxiii.Google Scholar

5 Praechter, K., Hermes 47 (1912), 471ffGoogle Scholar. suggests it was used by Athenodorus in his περι σπουδς καì παιδíας.

6 It is odd that, in his ‘Dinner of the seven wise men’ (Mor. 148c–e), Plutarch introduces, as attending assiduously to Anacharsis, Cleobulina, whose wisdom, and skill in setting riddles, is mentioned ὥσπερ στραγάλοις παíζουσα.

7 See Champlin, E., Fronto and Antonine Rome (Harvard, 1980), pp. 7, 16, 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Cf. Anacharsis, Ep. 1 (p. 102 Hercher), and other passages cited by Sternbach ad loc. For Anacharsis' awareness of his own shortcomings, cf. Luc. Scyth. 3–4, and perhaps Himerius, Or. 30.1.

9 Similar is Plutarch's musical metaphor in Comp. Lycurg. et Numa 1 of Lycurgus tightening the lyre strings of over-indulgent Sparta, and Numa loosening the over-stretched ones of Rome.

10 Cf. the paroemiographers Diogenianus 2.89, Apostolius 3.47, 13.511. Apuleius (Met. 2.16) plays on the familiar sexual meaning in the encounter with Fotis: ‘arcum meum et ipse vigorate tetendi, et oppido formido ne nervus rigoris nimietate rumpatur.’

11 Ps. Sen. De mor. 138, Publ. Syr., etc. For later Latin proverbial versions, see Hans Walther, Lateinische Sprichwörter und Sentenzen des Mittelalters, nos. 1282–6. For English usage cf. J. Lyly, Euphues (1, p. 196 Bond) ‘The bow, the more it is bent…the weaker it waxeth.’

12 Horace's phrase was so employed by the once-popular Victorian novelist F. E. Smedley in his Frank Fairlegh (1850), ch. 52: ‘It's a man's duty never to miss an opportunity of recruiting his exhausted and care-worn frame by enjoying a little innocent relaxation: nec semper tendit Apollo.’

13 On this statue, and copies of it, see Farnell, L. R., Cults of the Greek States iv.350ffGoogle Scholar. Another ancient statue of Apollo at Delos represented the god with bow in his left, and the Graces with musical instruments in his right hand (Plut. Mor. 1136a, Paus. 9.35.3, etc.). It is probable enough that the active and relaxed aspects of Apollo were being indicated with the appropriate attributes, but later writers (Callimachus, Philo, Macrobius) liked to give an allegorical ethical interpretation, contrasting his beneficence and capacity for punishment of the unrighteous: see the article by Pfeiffer, R., ‘The Image of the Delian Apollo and Apolline Ethics’, in J.W.I. 15 (1952), 21–32.Google Scholar