Ailianos (Platonist)

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Ailianos ( called Ailianos the Platonists to distinguish them , Greek  Αἰλιανός Ailianós , Latin Aelianus ) was an ancient philosopher . He probably lived in the 1st or 2nd century; in any case, his lifetime fell into the epoch of Middle Platonism .

Nothing is known of the life of Ailianos. We only know that he wrote a commentary on Plato's dialogue Timaeus in (at least) two books. Only fragments of this work have survived. The Neo-Platonist Porphyrios quoted the Timaeus commentary several times, sometimes in detail, in his commentary on the theory of harmony by Klaudios Ptolemaios . Ailianos probably did not comment on the entire Timaeus , but only dealt with the passages relevant to music theory. Thus his work belonged to the genre of special commentaries.

Porphyrios considered a music-theoretical concept of Ailianos reproduced by him as Pythagorean . Since Ailianos cited Pythagorean teachings with approval, it can be assumed that he was actually close to this direction. This is also supported by his particular interest in musicology.

Ailianos commented on Plato's brief statements about the creation of acoustic perceptions in the context of his musical-harmonic concept. He attributed the different types of sound to different movements. In his opinion, which he substantiated with many examples, fast movements produce high notes and slow movements produce low notes. He also analyzed the relationship between interval (Greek diástēma ) and harmony (Greek symphōnía ). He showed that not every interval is harmonious. According to his understanding, an interval only becomes a chord when the high and low notes are mixed into one unit and neither drowns out the others; then a third tone arises. Only the chords correspond to measurable numerical proportions. Ailianos assumed that there were six such chords.

Edition and translation

  • Marie-Luise Lakmann (Ed.): Platonici minores. 1st century BC - 2nd century AD. Prosopography, fragments and testimony with German translation (= Philosophia antiqua , volume 145). Brill, Leiden / Boston 2017, ISBN 978-90-04-31533-4 , p. 37 f., 260-271 (critical edition)

literature

Remarks

  1. See on the dating Marie-Luise Lakmann (Ed.): Platonici minores. 1st century BC BC - 2nd century AD , Leiden / Boston 2017, p. 37.
  2. Porphyrios, Commentary on Ptolemy's theory of harmony , ed. Ingemar Düring, Göteborg 1932, p. 33 line 16 - p. 37 line 5, p. 94 lines 16-19, p. 96 lines 7-15, perhaps also p. 96 lines 21-28; Further mention of Ailianos p. 91 line 12. See Ingemar Düring: Ptolemaios and Porphyrios on music , Göteborg 1934, p. 158.
  3. ^ Heinrich Dörrie , Matthias Baltes : Platonism in antiquity , Volume 3, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1993, p. 217; Franco Ferrari: Ailianos. In: Christoph Riedweg et al. (Ed.): Philosophy of the Imperial Era and Late Antiquity (= Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity. Volume 5/1), Basel 2018, p. 642.
  4. ^ Marie-Luise Lakmann (ed.): Platonici minores. 1st century BC BC - 2nd century AD , Leiden / Boston 2017, p. 37.
  5. ^ Franco Ferrari: Ailianos. In: Christoph Riedweg et al. (Ed.): Philosophy of the Imperial Era and Late Antiquity (= Outline of the History of Philosophy. The Philosophy of Antiquity. Volume 5/1), Basel 2018, p. 642; Marie-Luise Lakmann (Ed.): Platonici minores. 1st century BC - 2nd century AD , Leiden / Boston 2017, p. 38.