treated as celebrities. Despite music’s popularity, ancient Ro-
mans left behind little information on their music and mu-
sical practices. Th e Greeks wrote a great deal about music
and considered musical training an essential component of
a gentleman’s education, but it appears that Romans did not
feel the same way about music as a subject. Th ey considered
it a necessary component of religious ceremonies and pub-
lic celebrations and thought it entirely appropriate for young
people to learn the basics of music, but they did not dwell on
its philosophical implications the way the Greeks did.
For many Romans music was trivial entertainment, noth-
ing more. Roman poetry, unlike Greek poetry, was designed
to be recited without music. Romans who did write about
music preferred to dwell on the musical artistry of Greek
music, not on Roman compositions or performances. Aristo-
cratic Romans considered professional musicians somewhat
disreputable and oft en bewailed the lax morals of musicians
and actors. With the exception of a few celebrated profession-
als, most musicians were of the lower or middle classes and
did not associate socially with the upper classes.
Young nobles of both sexes studied music as part of their
education, but respectable Romans did not encourage their
children of either sex to aspire to be professional perform-
ers paid for their work. Music teachers were generally slaves,
oft en Greek. Girls were expected to learn enough music to
perform at home for their families. Noble children occasion-
ally performed publicly, such as on one occasion when the
Roman poet Horace trained a choir of children to sing at the
Secular Games in 17 b.c.e.
Music was essential to numerous public events. Sacri-
fi cial rituals were not complete without pipe players. Prac-
titioners of foreign cults brought their music with them to
Rome; the worshippers of Isis, for example, played daily
hymns to their goddess. Parades usually included singers
and dancers who performed to the music of drums, tam-
bourines, pipes, and lyres. Musicians played trumpets and
pipes during funeral processions. In the theater comic plays
were accompanied by musicians playing pipes, brass, and
percussion instruments; actors oft en sang and danced to
this accompaniment. Pantomime, a popular dramatic form,
consisted mainly of silent actors moving to music created
by pipes and singers. Wealthy people oft en hired musicians
and dancers to entertain their guests at parties. Th e most
popular musicians achieved fame throughout Rome; for
example, the writers Cicero and Horace both mention the
famed piper and singer Tigellius.
Romans did not leave behind any musical scores, so his-
torians have never been able to reconstruct Roman musical
styles or melodies. Historians do, however, know something
about the musical instruments Romans played. Th ey used
stringed, wind, and percussion instruments. Singing was also
common.
Ancient stringed instruments were all plucked with the
fi ngers or with a pick called a plectrum; no instruments of
this time were played with a bow. Th e lyre was one of the
most ancient stringed instruments, supposedly invented by
the Greek god Apollo, who made the fi rst lyre out of a tor-
toiseshell strung with cow intestines. Th e lyre consisted of
two arms and a crossbar affi xed to a sound box, with strings
strung from the crossbar to the base of the instrument. Some
lyres used a tortoiseshell as a sound box; others were made of
wood and hide painted to resemble a tortoiseshell. Lyres had
between four and seven strings made of gut, sinew, or fl ax.Although Romans did not leave behind much evi-
dence of their musical compositions, there are nu-
merous examples of a type of song called a carmen,
the plural of which is carmina. Carmen was a generic
Latin term for a song; the word derived from the verb
cano, meaning “to sing.” It originally referred to any-
thing chanted, particularly religious incantations or
magic spells. To perform magic spells, people would
sing or chant verses in a specifi ed order and perhaps
perform other ritual actions such as spitting. Repeti-
tion of the verses was necessary to make the magic
work; three or nine were common numbers for re-
quired repetitions. Spells could be used for anything,
from winning love to cursing an enemy. Carmina were
considered serious business in Rome’s early days; the
Twelve Tables, Rome’s most ancient laws, forbade the
casting of a malum carmen, or an evil spell.
Although by the time of the Roman Republic
(509–27 B.C.E.) the term carmen generally meant just a
song, the word continued to have a sense of enchant-
ment. Priests sang several types of carmen at festivals.
The historian Livy (59 B.C.E.–17 C.E.) describes priests
dancing and leaping through the streets as they
chanted their hymns. The carmen arvale was a song to
the Roman god Mars and the Lares, Roman house-
hold gods, performed during the sacrifi ce to the Dea
Dia, a goddess whose festival occurred in May. The
carmen saliare was a hymn sung by the Salii, priests of
Mars, during the parade to celebrate their annual fes-
tival. For this parade the priests dressed up in ancient
armor, carried ancient weapons, and performed an
ancient dance that involved leaping and jumping; the
name Salii refers to their leaping performance. Histo-
rians believe that these songs were slow and solemn.
Not all carmina were religious. When Roman
soldiers paraded through the city during a triumph,
a parade celebrating a major victory over an enemy
of Rome, they sang the carmina triumphalia, a collec-
tion of ancient songs that either praised their gen-
eral or mocked him satirically in order to ward off
the evil eye.CARMINA: MAGIC SONGS
music and musical instruments: Rome 771