Ancient Musical Writings as Persuasive Texts

Abstract

This contribution is meant to shed light on how ancient Greek music theorists structure argumentations and address their readership in order to be understandable, effective and persuasive. On the one hand, some of the most important treatises, e.g. Ptolemy’s Harmonics (with Porphyry’s Commentary) and what remains of Archytas’ and Theophrastus’ works, are taken as case studies; on the other hand, the paper deals with some argumentative patterns recurring in harmonics demonstrations, especially with reference to the usage of everyday life experience as evidence supporting acoustic and harmonic theories.