Philodemus

Philodemus of Gadara was an Epicurean philosopher, poet and music critic, born in Gadara around 110–100 BCE. His importance for the history of ancient music rests above all on a treatise On Music that survives, largely thanks to the Herculaneum papyri, which were buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE.

Around 65 BCE he moved to Italy, where he remained until his death, which is placed between 40 and 35 BCE at Herculaneum, although this latter date is considered uncertain. The first papyri came to light in the mid-eighteenth century, and from the end of that century attempts to reconstruct the text have been published. In 1884 Johann Kemke proposed an arrangement of the treatise in four books: the first would set out the musical theories of the Academy, the Peripatetics and the Stoics, including Diogenes of Babylon; the next two would expand on the Academic and Peripatetic theory, and the fourth would contain Philodemus's polemic against Diogenes and other Stoics. For decades this reading served as the basis for scholarship, although its arrangement did not escape objections.

Since the work of Rispoli, Neubecker and Delattre, Kemke's proposal has been largely superseded. Delattre holds that all the fragments belong to the fourth book and that the treatise may not have been confined to four books. According to his reconstruction, the first forty-seven columns summarise the theory of Diogenes of Babylon, and the rest is devoted to refuting the arguments of the Stoics.

For Philodemus, music was irrational and could not influence the choice or rejection of an action; when it accompanied a text, it merely added pleasure to the ear. His reflections on the powerful effects of music seemed to him simple nonsense. Although his tone can appear dogmatic and excessively vehement, his treatise retains value as a reflection of the late stages of the theory of ethos and provides relevant information about Damon. Delattre's complete critical edition, whose publication is still pending, is expected to force a revision of much of the existing scholarship.