Plato, Aristotle, and Women Musicians

Author(s): Roger Harmon

Source: Music & Letters, Vol. 86, No. 3 (Aug., 2005), pp. 351-356
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3526606
Accessed: 13-11-2015 13:57 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Music & Letters.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 155.223.99.94 on Fri, 13 Nov 2015 13:57:12 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Music& Letters,
Vol. 86 No. 3, ? The Author(2005).Publishedby OxfordUniversityPress.All rightsreserved.
doi:10.1093/ml/gci068,availableonlineat www.ml.oupjournals.org

PLATO, ARISTOTLE, AND WOMEN MUSICIANS

BY ROGER HARMON

READERSOFJUDITH TICK'S informative and interesting New Grove II article 'Women in

Music: I. Historiography; II. Western classical traditions in Europe and the USA'
will note in subsection II.1, 'Antiquity to 500 CE', the following statement: 'Both
Plato (in Protagoras)and Aristotle (in the Politics) differentiated respectable domestic
female musicians from entertainer-musicians.'1 As it happens, Plato and Aristotle did
not differentiate respectable domestic female musicians from entertainer-musicians,
nor do Aristotle's remarks occur in the Politics. The purpose of this article is to set the
record straight on Plato and Aristotle, trace the sequence of citations leading to the
above statement, and reflect on an issue raised by recent discussions of these ancient
texts.
In 1977 Sarah B. Pomeroy published the influential essay 'Technikai kai Mousikai:
The Education of Women in the Fourth Century and in the Hellenistic Period'. After a
general introduction, she surveys the achievements of women in the fields of painting,
music, poetry, philosophy, medicine, and scholarship. As an example of a woman who
'had learned to play the harp and kithara,... [the] knowledge [of which]
provided... the possibility of a profession', Pomeroy mentions a certain Polygnota:

In 186 B.C. [recte86], for example, Polygnota,daughterof Socrates,a Theban, was given many
rewards,including the sum of 500 drachmas,for recitationsat Delphi. She must have been a
and found often
respectableartist,not a harp-girlof the sort mentioned by Plato in the Protagoras
in New Comedy...
An endnote appended to the word 'Protagoras' reads: '347D. The harp-girls mentioned in the same context as flute-girls by Arist. Ath. pol. 50.2, and Men. 319.4 are
also not respectable women.'3 'Respectability' is the leitmotif of the introduction to
Pomeroy's article; on the first page alone the words 'respectable' and 'respectability'
occur five times.4 The 'harp-' and 'flute-girls' of the classical (Plato, Aristotle) and
early Hellenistic periods (Menander), on the other hand, illustrate the not-respectable
status quo for female musicians from which technitidessuch as Polygnota emancipated
This paper is a by-productof my article 'Musikerinnen',which appeared in DerNeuePauly,ed. Hubert Cancik and
Helmuth Schneider(Stuttgart,1996-2003), xii/2 (2002), cols. 1063-8 (Englishedition forthcoming:TheNewPaulyEncyLeiden, 2002-).
clopedia
ofAntiquity,
' New Grove xxvii. 519-37 at 521.
II,
2
Sarah B. Pomeroy, 'Technikaikai Mousikai',AmericanJournal
ofAncientHistory,2/1 (1977), 51-68 at 54.
3 Ibid. 65 n. 29.
4 'The role of
respectablewomen received a new definition [in the Hellenistic period] ... respectablewomen began
to be given the advantagesof an education... [Earlier,]in the fifth century,... respectablewomen... worked outside
the home only if they were forced to because they needed money... Thus, in Athens, respectable women earned
money by cooking and selling food [etc.] ... Contrastingwith these women were hetairai... beyond the pale of respectability'(ibid. 51).

351
This content downloaded from 155.223.99.94 on Fri, 13 Nov 2015 13:57:12 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

themselves.5As the Platonic and Aristotelian text witnesses named by Pomeroy are
the key to Tick's statement quoted above from the New Grovearticle, I shall discuss
them here.6
Protagorasof Abdera (c.486-11 Bc), author of the phrase 'man is the measure of all
things',7was a leading figure of the Sophistic movement, exponents of which taught
skillsfrommathematicsto rhetoric.In Plato'seponymousdialogue,Protagoras,who professed to teach apeTil(virtue)itself (318 A, 320 B-c),8is engaged in debate (320 c-362 A)
by Socrates,who is scepticalof its teachability(319 A-320 c). In midstreamthey interpret a song by the lyricpoet Simonidesof Ceos (556-468 Be)on the difficultyof'becoming good' (338 E-347 A).Afterwards,with the interlocutorand Sophist Hippias of Elis
(c.481-11) champing at the bit to contributehis own interpretation(347 A-B),Socrates
says (347 B9-D5) he'djust as soon
aboutpoetryseemsto me to be mostsimilar
havedonewithsongsandpoems... Fordiscoursing
to the symposiaof uneducated,commonmen. For, beingunableto entertaineach otherby
themselves
whendrinking,neitherwiththeirownvoicesnorwiththeirownthoughts,forwantof
education,they make the auletrides9
expensive,hiringa voice 'belongingto another'(a,OXtpiav),

5 Polygnotais known from an inscriptioncarvedin the firstcenturyBCin Delphi, publishedin full or part severaltimes
in the 20th c.: W. Dittenberger,Sylloge
3rd edn. (Leipzig,1915-24), ii (1917),no. 738; LouisRobert,
Graecarum,
Inscriptionum
Etudesepigraphiques
(Paris,1938), 38; H. W. Pleket,Epigraphica
(Leiden, 1969), ii. 16-18). The inscriptionhas
etphilologiques
andRome(London, 1982),
been translatedinto Englishby Mary R. Lefkowitzand MaureenB. Fant, Women's
Lifein Greece
VII(Cambridge,1985), 105-6,
AgefromtheBattleofIpsostotheDeathofKleopatra
30, and by StanleyM. Burstein,TheHellenistic
in SocialandCultural
History(2nd edn., Upper Saddle River, NJ,
and, with D. BrendanNagle, TheAncientWorld:Readings
2002), 199. The following is a paraphraseof the inscription(parentheticalglosses added):'In 86 BC Polygnota,a choroa stringedinstrument),was present in Delphi at the appointedtime for the
psaltria(choralaccompaniston the psalterion,
PythianGames (heldquadrenniallyon the site of Apollo'svictoryover the Pythiandragon;the contestswere athleticand
musical),which howeverdue to war (thefirstMithradaticwar (89-85 Be)foughtbetween King MithradatesVI of Pontus,
who had freed Asia Minor from Roman rule and was then welcomed in Greece, and the Roman commanderSulla)had
to be brought to an (early)end; that very day (though)she began (to play anyway)and, encouragedby the town magistratesand citizens, contended three days long and was held in the greatestesteem ... we (of Delphi) crowned her with a
wreath and (rewardedher)with 500 drachmas.'Among the many hundredsof inscriptionsof this kind known to survive,
the Polygnota inscription,which continues with a series of municipalprivilegesbestowed upon her, is unique as documentation of a courageous woman (no doubt with bills to pay) and of a war-wearypopulace longing for the respite
affordedby music. The circumstancesof Polygnota'sperformanceand the privilegesbestowed show that she, in fact if
not in name, was a technitis
(female'artisan','artist'),one of the travellingprofessionalmusicians,poets, and actors,organized
in the Guildof Dionysus,who performedat festivalsthroughoutthe Hellenisticworld (seeRoger Harmon, 'Technitai',Der
VeuePauly,xii/1 (2002), cols. 74-5). She was, as Pomeroy says, a respectableartist;membershipalone in the Guild of
30. 10 suggests:'Why
Dionysus, however, ensured neither respectablebehaviournor respect,as the AristotelianProblem
are the technitai
of the Guild of Dionysus usuallyof bad character?Is it not because they partakeleast in reason and wisdom since the great[er]part of [their]life is devoted to the artsnecessary[to theirwork], and because much of [their]life
is markedby lack of self-controland [by] dire [financial]straits?Both are conducive of baseness.'Aulus Gellius quotes
this passage in connection with second-centuryADtechnitai
in NoctesAtticae20. 4.
6 ConcerningMenander (342/1-291/90 BC)sufficeit to say that 'Men. 319' in Pomeroy'sendnote cited above refers
to a fragment, preserved by the second-centuryAD anthologistAthenaeus (4. 146d-e and 8. 364d-e), from his New
Atticorum
Comedy Metheor 'Carousal'(fr. 319 in the comiciedition of Theodor Kock (Comicorum
Fragmenta
(Leipzig, 1888),
iii. 91-2); fr. 224 in that of R. Kassel and C. Austin (PoetaeComiciGraeci,vi/2 (Berlinand New York, 1998), 156-7)).
In this fragment, people's extravagance towards themselves-expenditure of a talent (6,000 drachmas) on auletrides
wine, eels, cheese, and honey-is contrastedwith their
(femaleaulos-players),perfume,psaltriai(femalepsalterion-players),
meannesstowardsthe gods, for whom 10 drachmasare spent on a little sacrificialsheep. Assumingthat the most expensive items appearat the top of the list, the auletrides
here are not the 2-drachmatype mentionedby Aristotle(seebelow)but
rather are slaves rented at a much higher price from their owners as depicted by Xenophon (see below), who, like
Menanderin the Methefragmentcited above, alsojuxtaposes auletrides
and perfume(Symposium
2. 3-4).
385 E-386 A and Theaetetus
7 Plato, Cratylus
152 A; Aristotle,Metaphysics
I, 1, 1053a36and K 6, 1062b14. That man
should be the measure was connected with the Sophists'educationalmission and provokedthe opposition of Socrates
and Plato, for whom God is the measure;Plato calls Protagoras'position asebeia(impiety,profanity):Laws4, 716 c.
8 'Aperx, usually translated 'virtue', is more
closely rendered by the German Bestheit('bestness':Hans Joachim
Kramer,AretebeiPlatonundAristoteles
(Heidelberg,1959), 39 n. 39)-i.e. the Bestheit
superordinateto and strivenfor within
the individualdisciplines.
9 Female aulos-players.

352
This content downloaded from 155.223.99.94 on Fri, 13 Nov 2015 13:57:12 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

[namely the 'voice'] of the auloi,'0and with [the auloi's] voice they entertain themselves.But
wherever noble and good (cKaXoiKacyaOoi)symposiasts and educated [symposiasts] are
nor orchestrides"
nor psaltriai,'2
but rathermen who are
[found], [there]you'll see neither auletrides
able to entertainthemselves... 3
The equation of poetry analysis and passive entertainment, though specious, silences
Hippias and gets the debate back on track.'4 The key words are 'noble and good', the
persuasive self-definition of the relatively small Athenian elite to which Plato belonged;
partisan (self-)demarcation is an undercurrent in literature proceeding from the classconscious Athenian fifth century.'5 Socrates' ideal of an auletris-free symposium is
enacted in Plato's Symposium,where the symposiasts, having had the auletrisperform the
initial rites (176 A: libations, accompaniment of the paean),'6 agree to dismiss her in
order to devote themselves to conversation (176 E-177 A).'7 Whether they stayed on or
were dismissed, however, as sympotic accessories the auletrides,orchestrides,
and psaltriai
referred to by Socrates were way down the social ladder when compared, as Pomeroy
does, with the Hellenistic technitisPolygnota.
A non-fictional apercu into the circumstances of such entertainers is provided by the
Constitutionof the Athenians ('AthenaionPoliteia' in Greek, abbreviated as Ath. pol. in
Pomeroy's endnote cited above). This work is attributed to Aristotle. If the attribution is
correct, then he wrote it during his second stay in Athens (335-23 Be), a period marked
by large-scale research projects such as the collection of the constitutions of 158 Greek
of theAtheniansstems. Thus we find Aristotle, who
city-states, from which the Constitution
had spent some twenty years under Plato's tutelage, at the greatest possible remove
from his one-time master's idealism as he positivistically traces the constitutional history
of Athens (??1-41) and documents the constitution current in his day (??42-69). ??42-9
are about the Council, ??50-9 list the city officials and their duties. Near the top of the
list are ten magistrates responsible for street maintenance; their first obligation, however, is to
see to it that auletrides,
shall not be hired out for more than 2 drachmas
psaltriai,and kitharistriai18
[each]; and if more [than one customer] is eager to take the same [woman], then [the magistrates]assign [her] by lot and let [her] out for hire to him who obtains [her] by lot (?50. 2).
Thus these magistrates functioned as a kind of'wage and price control' agency, ensuring that the type of symposiasts Socrates complains about in Protagoras347 c7-D I ('they
make the auletridesexpensive') obtain the desired services by lottery instead of by
'o a&XoTpia('belongingto another')has the secondarysense 'foreign',which, given the fact that the auloi were associated not only with Thebes (Polygnota'shomeland)but also with Phrygiain Asia Minor, also resonateshere.
" Female dancers.
12 Female
On the f0akTiplov see M. L. West,AncientGreek
Music(Oxford, 1994), 74.
psalterion-players.
3 This and all other translationsin the followingpages are my own.
4 In the Phaedon,
which portraysthe last day of his life, Socratesrevealsa recurringdream in which a vision tells him
to 'make and work on' music (60 E). Music in this sense is the unity of arts practisedby the Muses, encompassinglyreI,
1-11; Plato,Alcibiades
accompaniedsong,dance,and poetrysuchas Simonides'versementionedabove(seeHesiod,Theogony
108 c-D). The aged Socrates,who by his own account had hitherto neglected music in favour of philosophy,which he
consideredto be the 'greatestmusic' (Phaedon
61 A),obeyed the vision.
15 Cf. Roger Harmon, 'From Themistocles to Philomathes:Amousos
and amousiain Antiquityand the Early Modern
9 (2002-3), 351-90 at 356-7.
Period',International
JournaloftheClassicalTradition,
16 A
hymn to Apollo. On sympoticculturein generalwith literatureon the subject,see ibid. 352-4.
17 In the
of Plato'sfellow Socrates-followerXenophon, the entertainers(an auletris,
an orchestris,
and a 'citharaSymposium
playingboy' owned by a man from Syracuse)havingperformedthe libationsand paean, put on a show (detaileddescription: 2. 1-3. 1)before Socratespersuadesthe other gueststo try entertainingthemselveswith conversation(3. 2).
18 Female cithara-players.

353
This content downloaded from 155.223.99.94 on Fri, 13 Nov 2015 13:57:12 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

auction,19 as the latter would drive up prices in the entertainment industry and cause
inflation.20Judging by their wage, the social status of the women supervised by these
magistrates-to return to Pomeroy-was far below that of the future technitisPolygnota,
who was well paid and immortalized in an inscription at Delphi.
The sequence of (mis)citations leading from Pomeroy's essay to Tick's New Grovearticle is soon told. In an article entitled 'The Traditional Role of Greek Women in Music
from Antiquity to the End of the Byzantine Empire' Diane Touliatos writes:
[1] Women newly educated in the arts became the main competitorsto the hetairai,resultingin
two categories of female musicians during the Hellenisticperiod: respectablewomen pursuing
professionalconcert careers and unrespectablehetairai,prostituteswho used music to entertain
and seduce their lovers. [2] Referencesto female musiciansby both Plato and Aristotlesubstantiate this division. [3] Plato in Protagoras
and Aristotlein Athenian
Politics[sic]distinguishbetween
female
musicians
and
and
not respectable.2'
who
were
harp-girls
flute-girls,
respectable
An endnote at the end of this passage reads: 'Ibid. [referring to S. B. Pomeroy, 'Technikai
kai Mousikai'], p. 54.'22 Given that Touliatos cites page 54 of 'Technikai kai Mousikai'
for sentence [3], that sentence may be measured against Pomeroy's own words: Polygnota 'must have been a respectable artist, not a harp-girl of the sort mentioned by Plato
in the Protagoras(347D)... The harp-girls mentioned in the same context as flute-girls by
Arist. Ath.pol. 50.2... are also not respectable women.' Thus, contraTouliatos, [3] 'Plato
in Protagoras...' does not 'distinguish between respectable female musicans and harpgirls and flute-girls, who were not respectable'; it is not Plato but Pomeroy herself who
makes the distinction.23One look at the Protagoras
passage referred to by Pomeroy would
have prevented Touliatos from making such an assertion, for it does not contain a word
about 'respectable female musicians'. The same goes for Athenaionpoliteia?50. 2: the distinction Touliatos attributes to Aristotle is again that of Pomeroy herself, and the Athenaion
Politeiapassage referred to by Pomeroy makes no mention of 'respectable female musicians'. Here, though, Touliatos would have had trouble checking Pomeroy's reference,
for she resolves the abbreviation 'Ath.pol.' in Pomeroy's endnote not with 'Athenaion
politeia'but rather with the lectiofacilior'Athenian Politics'-which does not exist. Aristotle
wrote the Politics (Io3XlTnKa) and perhaps the Constitutionof the Athenians('A0Tvai0vcv
CoXrT?ia)but no 'Athenian Politics'. This may seem to be a trivial distinction, but its
dismissal was to have a surprising consequence.
It was only a small step from the passage in Touliatos's essay quoted above to the following statement in Tick's New Grovearticle 'Women in Music': 'Both Plato (in Protagoras)
afterthe symposiumis impliedby Persaeusof Citium
'9 That there were no restraintson the sale (auction?)of auletrides
was being sold (as is the custom in drink(c.306-243 BC),quoted in Athenaeus 13. 607 D-E: 'Then later, when the auletris
ing bouts), [a guest] became quite insolent [lit. 'youthful']to the sellerduringthe haggling,as if [the seller]had consigned
[her] too quicklyto someone else...'. The entirepassageis of interestfor its portrayalof convivialmores.
20 This and the activityof 'corn-wardens'mentioned in ?51 are the only economic control mechanismsprescribedby
the Constitution
Chester G. Starrobservesthat ?50. 2 is the only evidence anywherefor the fixing of wages
of theAthenians;
in Athens ('An Eveningwith the Flute-Girls',Laparoladelpassato,183 (1978), 401-10 at 406), which suggeststhat Athens
practiseda more or less laissez-faireeconomy and that entertainmentand food were key areasof that economy. As Starr
points out, 2 drachmaswere 'at least the equal of a full day'spay for a skilledworkmanin the later fourthcentury'(ibid.);
were this benchmark-a potentiallyvolatile one at that-to spin out of control, drastic consequencescould ensue for
Athenian society, devoted as it was to stillingwhatJames N. Davidson has called 'the consumingpassions'(Courtesans
and
TheConsuming
Fishcakes:
Passionsof Classical
Athens(London, 1997)).
21 Diane Touliatos, 'The Traditional Role of Greek Women in Music from
Antiquity to the End of the Byzantine
theMuses:Womens'
MusicalTraditions
Empire',in KimberlyMarshall(ed.),Rediscovering
(Boston, 1993), 111-23 at 114-15;
bracketedsentence numbersadded.
22

23

Ibid. 250 n. 19.

Strictly speaking Plato was precluded from making the said distinction by the fact that the 'respectableartists'
such as Polygnota,lived in the Hellenisticperiod-after his death.
Pomeroy refersto, i.e. technitides

354
This content downloaded from 155.223.99.94 on Fri, 13 Nov 2015 13:57:12 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

and Aristotle (in the Politics)differentiated respectable domestic female musicians from
entertainer-musicians.' Tick, following Touliatos closely, appropriates the errors noted
above and introduces two new ones. The Hellenistic technitides,
whom Touliatos rightly
called 'respectable female musicians', become 'respectable domesticfemale musicians'
(emphasis added), which is wrong, technitaiand technitidesbeing Mediterranean worldtravellers, not homebodies.24 And Touliatos's lectiofacilior'Athenian Politics' inevitably
becomes the lectiofacillima:'Politics'. A New Grovereader, intrigued by the prospect held
out by Tick of a play-offbetween 'respectable domestic female musicians' and 'entertainermusicians', may be able to get to the bottom of the matter with regard to the Protagoras,
but, without Pomeroy to clarify things, Tick's reference to Aristotle's Politics-the closing
book 8 of which just happens to deal with the role of music and musical education in
society and state-presents an insurmountable obstacle.
Thus by neglecting to check sources New Grovehas enshrined a hardly Greek, let alone
Platonic or Aristotelian, distinction between 'respectable domestic' and 'entertainer'
female musicians. Not only is the distinction false, but neither Pomeroy, Touliatos, nor
Tick reflect on the issue of respectability they invoke. Due to this lapse, the onus of
respectability devolves by default, as it were, onto the auletridesalone, without a thought
given to the respectability or lack thereof of the men commanding these women's services. A prominent translation of a locusclassicusof sympotic sexual mores, verses 1326-87
from the Old Comedy The Waspsby Aristophanes, shows that this skewed perspective
has a long tradition. Literally translated, verses 1345-6 read: 'you see how cleverly I
[Philocleon] stole you [the auletrisDardanis] away just as you were about to fellate the
symposiasts'. Fellation here is obviously a routine chore to be performed by the shellshocked Dardanis. The Loeb edition, however, placing the onus of respectability on
Dardanis alone, rendered these verses as follows: 'See now, how cleverly I filched you
off, A wanton hussy, flirting with the guests.'25'Wanton hussy', a patent distortion by a
prudish translator, paves the way, so to speak, for the use of '-girl' compounds, implicitly derogatory, by Pomeroy and Touliatos. To refer to the auletridesas 'flute-girls', however, is not only wrong, the women in question not necessarily being young,26 it is also
gratuitously demeaning. Thanks to M. L. West, it is now recognized that 'flute' as translation of aulos is incorrect: 'The most pervasive sign of the average classicist's unconcern with the realities of music is the ubiquitous rendering of aulos, a reed-blown
instrument, by "flute"... countless literary scholars and even archaeologists persist in
this deplorable habit... One might as well call the syrinxa mouth organ.'27Is it not time
to rethink the '-girl' component of 'flute-girl' as well?
Thus I propose calling female aulos-players not 'flute-girls' but rather, as in the preceding pages, auletrides.For 'Women in Music' is a story worth getting, as far as possible,
right. After all, it is-to speak with Aretha Franklin-a question of respect.

24 See n. 5 above. This is not to

say that there was no domestic music-makingby women in classical-eraGreece; the
vases above all testify to domestic music-makingas full and varied then as in any other place or time (see Harmon,
'Musikerinnen','III. HauslichesMusizieren,Hochzeits- und Arbeitslieder',col. 1065).
25
Aristophanes, The Wasps,ed. and trans. Benjamin Bickley Rogers (London, 1924), i. 535. This translationis rectified in the new Loeb Aristophanesedition, ed. and trans.Jeffrey Henderson (Cambridge,Mass. and London, 1998),
ii. 391.
26 The
subject of women in the entertainmentindustryis considered in studies by Ingeborg Peschel, Die Hetirebei
vorChristus
undKomosin derattisch-roigurigen
Vasenmalerei
des 6.-4. Jahrhunderts
Symposion
(Berne, 1987); Carola Reinsberg,
undKnabenliebe
imantikenGriechenland
undKonkubinat
Ehe,Hetiirentum
(Munich, 1989);and Elke Hartmann,Heirat,Hetirentum
Athen(Frankfurtam Main, 2002).
imklassischen
27
West, AncientGreek
Music,1-2.

355
This content downloaded from 155.223.99.94 on Fri, 13 Nov 2015 13:57:12 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

ABSTRACT
Plato and Aristotleallude to women musiciansavailablefor hire for servicesrenderable
at symposia (the drinkingparties that followed banquets).These allusions have been
misunderstoodin recent scholarship,culminatingin the incorrect assertionthat 'Plato
and Aristotle differentiatedrespectable domestic female musicians from entertainermusicians'(NewGrove
II, 'Women in music').The same scholarshiptends to referto such
as 'flute-girls'and the like; auletriswould be a philologicallyand
furthermore,
persons,
correct
alternative.
politically

356
This content downloaded from 155.223.99.94 on Fri, 13 Nov 2015 13:57:12 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions