drawing the audience to the following sacrificial animals and evoking a more appro-
priate, sacral, and solemn behavior.
The musicians’ role, however, was not alone that of structuring the ritual and of
calling attention, according to the sources. The music also evoked a certain mood,
as described for the triumphal procession of Aemilius Paulus by Plutarch (Aemilius
Paulus32.2–34.4): “On the third day, as soon as it was morning, trumpeters led
the way, sounding out no marching or processional strain, but such a one as the
Romans use to rouse themselves to battle.”
Only a few sources, however, describe the mood associated with music. One
exception is the procession for Isis in Apuleius’ The Golden Assor Metamorphoses
(11.2–16). In this text from the second centuryad, Lucius, turned into an ass,
is in a heightened emotional state because of the expectation of his impending re-
transformation into a human. Therefore he experiences the prospect of redemption
very vividly. The music and explicitly plastic description of the exotic procession serve
to literarily describe an emotional state, which fulfills a specific function in the text,
but also allows a glimpse of the aesthetic quality of such a procession. Apuleius
(Met.11.9) tries to generate a visual and acoustic image of such a procession in his
reader: “After that sounded the musical harmony of instruments, pipes and flutes
in most pleasant measure. Then came a fair company of youth appareled in white
vestments and festal array, singing both meter and verse with a comely grace.”
Equally expressive are texts that use music in cults as comparison. Cultic music is
used to describe the mood in non-cultic events. The Augustan poet Propertius
(2.7.11–12) mentions that a tibia, used to serenade a loved one, sounded more mourn-
ful than tibicines. His contemporary Horace characterizes in his first book of satires
(6.42ff.) one Novius, who has won an election because he shouted louder than the
horns and tubas of three funeral processions.
Roman literature uses the qualities of music and musical instruments in rituals as
a metaphor. Cult music was a suitable encapsulation, because it was known to every-
one and had a fixed form. Something similar can be observed for dance. The tripudium
of ritual can be used as a reference in literature to describe completely different dances
and their impact.
This utilization of the music and dance of Roman ritual in literature causes one
of the basic methodological problems of modern research. For Romans, the rituals
accompanied by music and dance were – thanks to their constant repetition – part
of daily life, and structured the spatial impression of the city and the temporal
experience of the year according to the festival calendar. Year after year the city was
filled with rituals accompanied by music and dance – either in processions moving
through the city during specific festivities, or in cultic performances at the various
temples. Music, in all rituals, formed an acoustic background, the forms of which
were widely heard and engraved in the memory of every Roman, and could thereby
be used as a reference in literature. Dance, effectively disrupting the ideal of solemn
and graceful walking, could only be observed by actual spectators. Both elements,
together with the burning or distribution of scents, the illumination and decoration
of the procession path or the cultic place, and the decoration of the participants,
formed an aesthetic framework for the ritual. Not all facets of this performative aspect
Music and Dance 261