Musical demagogy

[700a] ΑΘ. οὐκ ἦν, ὦ φίλοι, ἡμῖν ἐπὶ τῶν παλαιῶν νόμων ὁ δῆμός τινων κύριος, ἀλλὰ τρόπον τινὰ ἑκὼν ἐδούλευε τοῖς νόμοις. ΜΕ. ποίοις δὴ λέγεις; ΑΘ. Τοῖς περὶ τὴν μουσικὴν πρῶτον τὴν τότε, ἵνα ἐξ ἀρχῆς διέλθωμεν τὴν τοῦ ἐλευθέρου λίαν ἐπίδοσιν βίου. διῃρημένη γὰρ δὴ τότε ἦν ἡμῖν ἡ μουσικὴ κατὰ εἴδη τε [700b] ἑαυτῆς ἄττα καὶ σχήματα, καί τι ἦν εἶδος ᾠδῆς εὐχαὶ πρὸς θεούς, ὄνομα δὲ ὕμνοι ἐπεκαλοῦντο· καὶ τούτῳ δὴ τὸ ἐναντίον ἦν ᾠδῆς ἕτερον εἶδος, θρήνους δέ τις ἂν αὐτοὺς μάλιστα ἐκάλεσε· καὶ παίωνες ἕτερον, καὶ ἄλλο Διονύσου γ᾿αἴνεσες, οἶμαι, διθύραμβος λεγόμενος. νόμους τε αὐτὸ τοῦτο τοὔνομα ἐκάλουν, ᾠδὴν ὥς τινα ἑτέραν· ἐπέλεγον δὲ κιθαρῳδικούς. τούτων δὴ διατεταγμένων καὶ ἄλλων τινῶν οὐκ ἐξῆν ἄλλῳ [700c] εἰς ἄλλο καταχρῆσθαι μέλους εἶδος. τὸ δὲ κῦρος τούτων γνῶναί τε καὶ ἅμα γνόντα δικάσαι ζημιοῦν τε αὖ τὸν μὴ πειθόμενον οὐ σύριγξ ἦν οὐδέ τινες ἄμουσοι βοαὶ πλήθους, καθάπερ τὰ νῦν, οὐδ᾿ αὖ κρότοι ἐπαίνους ἀποδιδόντες, ἀλλὰ τοῖς μὲν γεγονόσι περὶ παίδευσιν δεδογμένον ἀκούειν ἦν αὐτοῖς μετὰ σιγῆς διὰ τέλους, παισὶ δὲ καὶ παιδαγωγοῖς καὶ τῷ πλείστῳ ὄχλῳ ῥάβδου κοσμούσης ἡ νουθέτησις ἐγίγνετο. [700d] ταῦτ᾿ οὖν οὕτω τεταγμένως ἤθελεν ἄρχεσθαι τῶν πολιτῶν τὸ πλῆθος, καὶ μὴ τολμᾷν κρίνειν διὰ θορύβου· μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα προϊόντος τοῦ χρόνου ἄρχοντες μὲν τῆς ἀμούσου παρανομίας ποιηταὶ ἐγίγνοντο φύσει μὲν ποιητικοί, ἀγνώμονες δὲ περὶ τὸ δίκαιον τῆς Μούσης καὶ τὸ νόμιμον, βακχεύοντες καὶ μᾶλλον τοῦ δέοντος κατεχόμενοι ὑφ᾿ ἡδονῆς, κεραννύντες δὲ θρήνους τε ὕμνοις καὶ παίωνας διθυράμβοις, καὶ αὐλῳδίας δὴ ταῖς κιθαρῳδίας μιμούμενοι καὶ πάντα εἰς πάντα ξυνάγοντες, [700e] μουσικῆς ἄκοντες ὑπ᾿ ἀνοίας καταψευδόμενοι, ὡς ὀρθότητα μὲν οὐκ ἔχοι οὐδ᾿ ἡντινοῦν μουσική, ἡδονῇ δὲ τῇ τοῦ χαίροντος, εἴτε βελτίων εἴτε χείρων ἂν εἴη τις, κρίνοιτο ὀρθότατα. τοιαῦτα δὴ ποιοῦντες ποιήματα λόγους τε ἐπιλέγοντες τοιούτους τοῖς πολλοῖς ἐνέθεσαν παρανομίαν εἰς τὴν μουσικὴν καὶ τόλμαν, ὡς ἱκανοῖς οὖσι κρίνειν. ὅθεν δὴ τὰ [701a]θέατρα ἐξ ἀφώνων φωνήεντα ἐγένοντο, ὡς ἐπαΐοντα ἐν Μούσαις τό τε καλὸν καὶ μή, καὶ ἀντὶ ἀριστοκρατίας ἐν αὐτῇ θεατροκρατία τις πονηρὰ γέγονεν. εἰ γὰρ δὴ καὶ δημοκρατία ἐν αὐτῇ τις μόνον ἐγένετο ἐλευθέρων ἀνδρῶν, οὐδὲν ἂν πάνυ γε δεινὸν ἦν τὸ γεγονός. νῦν δὲ ἦρξε μὲν ἡμῖν ἐκ μουσικῆς ἡ πάντων εἰς πάντα σοφίας [701b] δόξα καὶ παρανομία, ξυνεφέσπετο δὲ ἐλευθερία. ἄφοβοι γὰρ ἐγίγνοντο ὡς εἰδότες, ἡ δὲ ἄδεια ἀναισχυντίαν ἐνέτεκε· τὸ γὰρ τὴν τοῦ βελτίονος δόξαν μὴ φοβεῖσθαι διὰ θράσος, τοῦτ᾿ αὐτό ἐστι σχεδὸν ἡ πονηρὰ ἀναισχυντία, διὰ δή τινος ἐλευθερίας λίαν ἀποτετολμημένης.

γ᾿αἴνεσες (corr. Bury post Post): γένεσες MSS., edd.

[a] ATH. Under the old laws, my friends, our commons had no control over anything, but were, so to say, voluntary slaves to the laws. MEG. What laws do you mean? ATH. Those dealing with the music of that age, in the first place, — to describe from its commencement how the life of excessive liberty grew up. Among us, at that time, music was divided into various classes [b] and styles: one class of song was that of prayers to the gods, which bore the name of “hymns”; contrasted with this was another class, best called “dirges”; “paeans” formed another; and yet another was the “dithyramb”, named, I fancy, after Dionysus. “Nomes” also were so called as being a distinct class of song; and these were further described as “citharoedic nomes”. So, these and other kinds being classified and fixed, it was forbidden to set [c] one kind of words to a different class of tune. The authority whose duty it was to know these regulations, and, when known, to apply them in its judgments and to penalise the disobedient, was not a pipe nor, as now, the mob’s unmusical shoutings, nor yet the clappings which mark applause: in place of this, it was a rule made by those in control of education that they themselves should listen throughout in silence, while the children and their ushers and the general crowd were kept in order by the discipline of the rod. In the matter of music the populace willingly submitted to orderly control and abstained from outrageously judging by clamour; but later on, with the progress of time, there arose as leaders of unmusical illegality poets who, though by nature poetical, were ignorant of what was just and lawful in music; and they, being frenzied and unduly possessed by a spirit of pleasure, mixed dirges with hymns and paeans with dithyrambs, and imitated pipe-tunes with kithara-tunes, and blended every kind of [e] music with every other; and thus, through their folly, they unwittingly bore false witness against music, as a thing without any standard of correctness, of which the best criterion is the pleasure of the auditor, be he a good man or a bad. By compositions of such a character, set to similar words, they bred in the populace a spirit of lawlessness in regard to music, and the effrontery of supposing themselves capable of passing judgment on it. Hence [701a] the theatre goers became noisy instead of silent, as though they knew the difference between good and bad music, and in place of an aristocracy in music there sprang up a kind of base theatrocracy. For if in music, and music only, there had arisen a democracy of free men, such a result would not have been so very alarming; but as it was, the universal conceit of universal wisdom and the contempt for law originated in the music, and on the heels of these came liberty. For, thinking themselves knowing, men became fearless; and audacity begat effrontery. For to be fearless of the opinion of a better man, owing to self-confidence, is nothing else than base effrontery; and it is brought about by a liberty that is audacious to excess. [Transl. Bury 1926]

The passage, taken from the third book of the Laws, reflects and summarizes Plato’s critical position towards the Athenian political model contemporary to him, through the mouth of the Athenian guest who is one of the characters in the dialogue. Indeed, through the words of the Athenian, Plato’s ethical-political and musical position is clear: the plurality and heterogeneity that characterize the New Music do not respect any principle in harmony with the nomoi and in tune with a legal political regime, but rest on the hedonistic appreciation – and completely arbitrary because individualistic – of the public. The παρανομία established is thus a paradigm of not only political, but also ethical and musical disorder. To put it in political-social terms: the wise aesthetics of the best (musical aristocracy: remember that the best regime, that is, the one in which the goal of politics is achieved, according to Plato is the one in which «the best dominate the multitude», III, 626 b – 627 c) has given way to an unhealthy domination of the crowd (θεατροκρατία τις πονηρά), so that ethical-musical beauty has been supplanted by noise and the senses. The passage in question is also important with regard to reflection on genres. As LeVen 2014, 63ff. recalls, it has given rise to two types of considerations by modern scholarship: on the one hand, it notes the loss of the ritual character of certain genres (especially the dithyramb) which, breaking away from a mere sacred and ceremonial destination, turned towards contexts and performance forms that we could define as “entertainment”; on the other hand, it deduces the implicit denunciation – by Plato – of the consequent hybridization of genres of the μουσική. The hybridization and plurality found in this passage, both on the political and musical levels, clash with the principles on which Plato’s Politeia is based: the πρέπον, or what is convenient for each, the οἰκειοπραγία, or the respect by each of the three orders for its own role, but above all the principle of the βελτίονες, or the principle of the best. This aristocratic principle, or rather that judgment – ​​both in the political and musical fields – belong to the connoisseurs, is reiterated by Plato himself also in other contexts, such as for example by Socrates (in dialogue with Melesias) in the Laches (Plat. Lach. 184e). For the term θεατροκρατία, see the corresponding entry in the section Notable Words, s.v.

R.G. BURY, transl. by, Plato. Laws, Volume I: Books 1-6, Cambridge (MA) 1926; S. GASTALDI, La «teatrocrazia»: cattiva educazione e degenerazione politica nelle “Leggi” di Platone, in Filosofia e politica: studi in onore di Girolamo Cotroneo, a cura di Furnari Luvarà G., Soveria Mannelli 2005, pp. 159-171; P. LEVEN, The Many-Headed Muse. Tradition and Innovation in Late Classical Greek Lyric Poetry, Cambridge 2014, 63ss.

Music, theatrocracy, noise, aesthetic-musical demagogy.

[Francesco Buè]