Ancient History Magazine

MUSIC IN ROME

The mundanity of music is, in one way, unfortunate for historians. As music was something the Romans took for granted, they seldom bothered to describe it, simply assuming that everyone knew when it was played, how, and with what instruments.

Famous fiddlers

We can reconstruct something of the life of a professional musician from a parody by one Roman writer. He records how his subject received musical instruction as a youth,

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