THE RESONATORS DESCRIBED BY VITRUVIUS

According to the Roman author Vitruvius, many Greek stone theatres of his time were equipped with sets of tuned resonating jars, distributed in semicircles around the auditorium, which reinforced certain pitches (wooden theatre constructions as common in Rome, we are told, would not require such resonators, thanks to the elasticity of the material). Smaller auditoria had only one row, which merely emphasised the harmonic framework; in larger ones, two further rows introduced the chromatic and diatonic likhanoí (cf. Diagram 70). Vitruvius gives all the details within the terminology of the Perfect System, without specifying a particular tónos. It goes without saying that the resonators were of fixed pitch and would not be changed for pieces in various keys. Consequently we are to understand Vitruvius' note names in terms of the ‘natural’ tónos, the Lydian, in the manner that we know from Ptolemy and the hormasía.

Of the three rows, the first is associated with ‘harmonia’. By opposition to a chromatic and the diatonic row, we would expect that this term implies the enharmonic genus. Yet the resonators in question hold neither quartertones nor major thirds, but the ‘fixed’ notes of the Perfect System, including nḗtē synēmménōn (d), but not the proslambanómenos (A). Thus, the paramount notes of the citharodic octave, primarily its ‘harmonía’ e – a – b – e’, are supplemented by the fourths below, the fourth above, and those from mésē upwards.