Damon of Athens

Damon of Athens ( ancient Greek Δάμων) was a Greek musicologist and scholar of the fifth century BC. He gained importance and influence especially because he was one of the educators and later advisers of the statesman Pericles . He also acted as one of the masterminds for Plato's idea of the ideal state.

Life

Few facts have come down to us about Damon. His father Damonides came from Demos Oa in the Attica region . The musician and student of Pythagoras , Agathocles , has been handed down as one of his teachers . After political and cultural unrest, he was banned from his place of work in Athens for at least ten years.

Plato's text “Politeia” was strongly influenced by Damon's reflections on music

Music theory

In ancient times, music was seen as a unity of sound, movement and language. It was an integral part of culture and everyday life - especially for the citizens of the polis - and accompanied the people. Even slaves were associated with music, for example in the form of work chants, in everyday life. Whether religious rituals, political decisions, healing methods or worship of gods - actions with a certain scope always had a musical framework. Music therefore had an ethical as well as a political function in a certain way . For this reason, arts education was more than just a virtue for Greek citizens . Damon's idea was that music and the moral and ethical constitution of a society or a city-state interact. For him, every change in the musical form also led to a change in social and political structures. In this logic, music cements a group's ethical attitudes, and ethics, in turn, cement the music. Another insight Damon made was the relationship between sound and emotion. This led him to the conclusion that music not only influences human feelings, but feelings also influence what music the artist makes.

Teacher

According to Plutarch , Damon was one of Pericles' teachers and influenced him significantly as a mentor and teacher in his moral concepts. Pericles internalized Damon's ethics and ideas about the meaning of the musical. Around 470 BC There were political entanglements that ended in a rift between the two. Pericles did nothing to his old teacher in front of the ostracism to preserve. Damon was then sent into exile.

effect

Damon of Athens strongly influenced the work of Plato and his considerations in his work Politeia (The State). First of all, in the Politeia , Socrates emphasizes the need for musical education and its basis for healthy mental development. Especially for the training of rulers, musical education - alongside other content, of course - plays an important role. For Plato, music, understood as the unity of movement, sound and language, exerts an influence on the state even after adolescence, in which it interacts with the norms and laws of the state.

Knowledge of rhythms and melodies is important to Plato, so that songs for free citizens are not just entertainment or a pastime. He therefore rejects pure instrumental music just like multi-tone instruments. For citizens only the different forms of the lyre ( lyre , kithara and phorminx ) come into question. Lower groups, such as shepherds, are allowed to use the Syrinx to pass the time. Since, for Plato, music is part of mimesis (imitation), attention must be paid to ensuring that nothing bad or reprehensible is imitated, because in his logic this would contribute to the decline of morality and custom. From the Systema Téleion - the tone system of ancient Greece - only the Doric octave e′ – e as the epitome of bravery and martial masculinity and the Phrygian octave d′ – d as an expression of peaceful life can be considered. All other tone spaces stand for "negative" content such as sadness, softness, indolence or drunkenness.

In antiquity, Aristeides Quintilianus also resorted to Damon's work when he wrote his encyclopedia-like presentation and music theory of antiquity at the turn of the 1st to the 2nd century. He also elaborated on the moral-ethical aspect and the relationship between emotion and music from Damon's theory.

Archaeological sources

Four ostraka found in Athens - the pottery shards used for the dish of broken pottery - with Damon's name are dated to the 40s or 30s of the 5th century BC. Dated. They serve as evidence of the vote on his banishment. However, these finds are no proof of his actual banishment, but only show that around this time some voices came together for his banishment. Other finds of ostraka show that they can also be evidence of a failed attempt at banishment.

literature

Heinrich Lindlar : Dictionary of Music . Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-86047-785-4 .
Giulia Corrente: Mousikē and Mimēsis: Some Aspects of Western Greek Musical Culture . In: Heather L. Reid, Jeremy C. DeLong (eds.): The Many Faces of Mimesis - Selected Essays from the 2017 Symposium on the Hellenic Heritag of Western Greece , Parnassos Press 2018, p. 252.

Individual evidence

^ Wilhelm Schmid, Otto Stählin: History of Greek Literature . CH Beck, Munich 1946, p. 731 ( Google Books [accessed August 8, 2019]).
^ Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Michael Schramm (ed.): Music in ancient philosophy: An introduction . Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2010, ISBN 3-82603-393-0 , p. 117ff.
↑ Gottlob Benedikt von Schirach: Biographies of Plutarchs . Berlin 1777 ( digital collections of the Bavarian State Library [accessed on August 8, 2019]).
↑ Harald Seubert: Polis and Nomos . Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-42811-307-1 p. 290ff.
↑ Helmut Brand: Ethical evaluation of ancient Greek music. In: musikarchaeologie.de. January 31, 2008, accessed August 8, 2019 .
^ Karl von Jan : Damon 17 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Supplement volume III, Stuttgart 1918, Sp. 2072-2074.
^ Robert W. Wallace: Reconstructing Damon. Music, Wisdom Teaching, and Politics in Perikles' Athens. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-1996-8573-8 , p. 55.
↑ Anna Missiou: Literacy and Democracy in Fifth-Century Athens. Cambridge University Press, New York / New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-5211-2876-6 , p. 39.
↑ Gundula Lüdorf: The Lekane. Typology and chronology of a leading form of Attic utility ceramics of the 6th – 1st centuries. Century BC Chr. Verlag Marie Leidorf, Espelkamp 2000, p. 41.

personal data
SURNAME	Demon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Damon of Athens; Δάμων (ancient Greek); Δάμωνος (ancient Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Greek music theorist and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH	5th century BC Chr.
PLACE OF BIRTH	Attica region
DATE OF DEATH	5th century BC Chr.

[1] Wilhelm Schmid, Otto Stählin: History of Greek Literature . CH Beck, Munich 1946, p. 731 ( Google Books [accessed August 8, 2019]).

[2] Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Michael Schramm (ed.): Music in ancient philosophy: An introduction . Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 2010, ISBN 3-82603-393-0 , p. 117ff.

[3] Gottlob Benedikt von Schirach: Biographies of Plutarchs . Berlin 1777 ( digital collections of the Bavarian State Library [accessed on August 8, 2019]).

[4] Harald Seubert: Polis and Nomos . Duncker and Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-42811-307-1 p. 290ff.

[5] Helmut Brand: Ethical evaluation of ancient Greek music. In: musikarchaeologie.de. January 31, 2008, accessed August 8, 2019 .

[6] Karl von Jan : Damon 17 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Supplement volume III, Stuttgart 1918, Sp. 2072-2074.

[7] Robert W. Wallace: Reconstructing Damon. Music, Wisdom Teaching, and Politics in Perikles' Athens. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-1996-8573-8 , p. 55.

[8] Anna Missiou: Literacy and Democracy in Fifth-Century Athens. Cambridge University Press, New York / New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-5211-2876-6 , p. 39.

[9] Gundula Lüdorf: The Lekane. Typology and chronology of a leading form of Attic utility ceramics of the 6th – 1st centuries. Century BC Chr. Verlag Marie Leidorf, Espelkamp 2000, p. 41.