ARISTOXENUS  , of

Tarentum (4th century B.C.), a Greek peripatetic philosopher, and writer on music and rhythm . He was taught first by his father Spintharus, a pupil of Socrates, and later by the Pythagoreans, Lamprus of Erythrae and Xenophilus, from whom he learned the theory of music . Finally he studied under Aristotle at Athens, and was deeply annoyed, it is said, when Theophrastus was appointed head of the school on Aristotle's death . His writings, said to have numbered four hundred and fifty-three, were in the style of Aristotle, and dealt with philosophy, ethics and music . The empirical tendency of his thought is shown in his theory that the soul is related to the body as harmony to the parts of a musical instrument . We have no evidence as to the method by which he deduced this theory (cf . T . Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, Eng. trans . 19o5, vol. iii. p . 43) . In music he held that the notes of the scale are to be judged, not as the Pythagoreans held, by mathematical ratio, but by the ear . The only work of his that has come down to us is the three books of the Elements of Harmony (pvOµwrcd urorxeia), an incomplete musical treatise .

Grenfell and

Hunt's OxyrhynchusPapyri (vol. i., 1898) contains a five-column fragment of a treatise on metre, probably this treatise of Aristoxenus . The best edition is by Paul Marquard, with German translation and full commentary, Die harmonischen FragmentedesAristoxenus (Berlin, 1868) . The fragments are also given in C.W . Muller, Frag . Hist . Graec., ii . 269 sqq.; and R Westphal, Melik and Rhythmik d. klass . Hellenenthums (2nd vol. edited by F . Saran, Leipzig, 1893) . Eng. trans. by H . S . Macran (Oxford, 1902) .

See also W . L . Mahne, Diatribe de Aristoxeno (

Amsterdam, 1793) ; B . Brill, Aristoxenus' rhythmische and metrische Messungen (1871); R . Westphal, GriechischeRhythmik and Harmonik (Leipzig, 1867); L . Laloy, Aristoxene de Tarente et la musique del'antiquiti(Paris,,904) . See PERIPATETICS,PYTHAGORAS (Music) and art . " Greek Music" in Grove's Did. of Music (1904) . For the Oxyrhynchus fragment see Classical Review (January 1898), and C. van Jan in Bursian's Jahresbericht, civ . (1901) .