Life in ancient Greece was musical life. Soloists competed onstage for popular accolades, becoming centrepieces for cultural conversation and even leading Plato to recommend that certain forms of music be banned from his ideal society. And the music didn't stop when the audience left the theatre: melody and rhythm were woven into the whole fabric of daily existence for the Greeks. Vocal and instrumental songs were part of religious rituals, dramatic performances, dinner parties, and even military campaigns. Like Detroit in the 1960s or Vienna in the 18th century, Athens in the 400s BC was the hotspot where celebrated artists collaborated and diverse strands of musical tradition converged. The conversations and innovations that unfolded there would lay the groundwork for musical theory and practice in Greece and Rome for centuries to come. In this perfectly pitched introduction, Spencer Klavan explores Greek music's origins, forms, and place in society. In recent years, state-of-the-art research and digital technology have enabled us to decipher and understand Greek music with unprecedented precision. Yet many readers today cannot access the resources that would enable them to grapple with this richly rewarding subject. Arcane technical details and obscure jargon veil the subject - it is rarely known, for instance, that authentic melodies still survive from antiquity, helping us to imagine the vivid soundscapes of the Classical and Hellenistic eras. Music in Ancient Greece distills the latest discoveries into vivid prose so readers can come to grips with the basics as never before. With the tools in this book, beginners and specialists alike will learn to hear the ancient world afresh and come away with a new, musical perspective on their favourite classical texts.

The Greek Philosopher behind Nearly Every Bad Idea Two and half centuries ago, John Adams complained, “Our modern philosophers are all the low grovelling disciples of Epicurus.” That’s even truer today. The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus is—acknowledged or not—the source of secular “woke” liberalism. In his own time, Epicurus was a fringe thinker. He and his few followers speculated about how invisibly small entities of indivisible matter called “atoms,” hurtling endlessly through an infinite void according to fixed physical laws, could explain the world and everything in it. Most ancient philosophers thought his speculations abstruse and counterintuitive, and he gained few adherents. But today, the overwhelming success of modern science has turned Epicurus’ fringe philosophy into the governing worldview of nearly everyone. Atoms hurtling through a void—that is what everything is made of, according to our scientific gurus. Along with this new atomism has come a whole constellation of fashionable Epicurean ideas: that peace and contentment are the most important things in life, that reality is an infinite expanse of multiverses, that divine power has no part to play in human affairs. Epicureanism is the philosophy that now runs the world—and if we are to understand ourselves in the twenty-first century, we must understand Epicurus, who died in the third century B.C. In this convenient volume, the classicist Spencer A. Klavan presents core selections from Epicurus’ own writings and those of his most famous ancient disciple, the poet Lucretius. Listen in as the teacher outlines for his students how his system of physics, logic, and ethics works. Read the elegant presentations of these Epicurean ideas aimed at the Roman upper crust. And consider with Klavan how this philosophy has gripped the modern mind, why it is falling apart, and why it leaves confusion in its wake.

Life in ancient Greece was musical life. Soloists competed onstage for popular accolades, becoming centrepieces for cultural conversation and even leading Plato to recommend that certain forms of music be banned from his ideal society. And the music didn't stop when the audience left the theatre: melody and rhythm were woven into the whole fabric of daily existence for the Greeks. Vocal and instrumental songs were part of religious rituals, dramatic performances, dinner parties, and even military campaigns. Like Detroit in the 1960s or Vienna in the 18th century, Athens in the 400s BC was the hotspot where celebrated artists collaborated and diverse strands of musical tradition converged. The conversations and innovations that unfolded there would lay the groundwork for musical theory and practice in Greece and Rome for centuries to come. In this perfectly pitched introduction, Spencer Klavan explores Greek music's origins, forms, and place in society. In recent years, state-of-the-art research and digital technology have enabled us to decipher and understand Greek music with unprecedented precision. Yet many readers today cannot access the resources that would enable them to grapple with this richly rewarding subject. Arcane technical details and obscure jargon veil the subject - it is rarely known, for instance, that authentic melodies still survive from antiquity, helping us to imagine the vivid soundscapes of the Classical and Hellenistic eras. Music in Ancient Greece distills the latest discoveries into vivid prose so readers can come to grips with the basics as never before. With the tools in this book, beginners and specialists alike will learn to hear the ancient world afresh and come away with a new, musical perspective on their favourite classical texts.