Not a flute

The aulos is not a flute. It is a reed instrument. In the form that fills Greek vases it is a pair of pipes, each with its own reed, played together. The Roman name is tibia. The sound was piercing, close to the voice, and loud enough for a theatre. Professional players, the auletai, accompanied drama, processions, and some sacrifices. The instrument belongs to a world in which music is work, not only a metaphor for order.

Plato, in the Republic, has the city send the aulos away and keep the lyre and the cithara. That is not a neutral remark about taste. The aulos is the instrument of the theatre and of a kind of excitement the dialogue wants under supervision. You can disagree with the policing and still learn from the distinction. The Greeks did not hear “wind instrument” as one family. A reed and a plucked string were different social facts.

Modern ears get a second chance whenever someone builds a pair of pipes and plays them, instead of substituting a recorder because it is easier to carry. The catalogue in this journal is for that kind of correction: a photograph when we have one, a description that does not launder the object, and a slot for a recording so the argument can be heard.

Until a recording is attached, the slot stays empty on purpose. Silence is more honest than a flute.