The music theorist Damon was an important participant in the intellectual life of fifth-century Athens, credited with a wide-reaching activity ranging from discussions of poetic metre to innovations in the political arena. He is credited with having initiated studies in music's effects from a psychological as well as a behavioural and political perspective and influenced discussions in musical theory and ethos through the whole of antiquity. He was influential in politics and an advisor to Pericles, and said to have suggested the introduction of pay for participation in the public courts. It is remarkable that such an interesting and important intellectual from the fifth century is largely forgotten by all but the specialists. One reason is that he is known only through the works of others, most notably Plato. This book by W. is most welcome as the first comprehensive collection, including translations and critical discussions, of all the testimonia for Damon. This important contribution takes up the second part of the book (pp. 107–82). An introduction (pp. xix–xxiv) discusses Plato as source for Damon.
Beyond the presentation of Damon, this volume goes much further with a re-assessment of many issues concerning fifth-century Athens. In Part 1 (pp. 3–106) W. sets out to discuss not only Damon's life, work and his theories. It also leads to a stimulating and thought-provoking discussion of the political life in the city and of the status and career of Pericles as well as Damon's role as a teacher and counsellor. W. brings up several questions relating to Damon's place in the musical and political discussions of his time. Born around 500 b.c., he would have grown up in a cultural and social environment where musical innovation and experimentation had been important at least for a generation. Damon's own work and teaching as well as political activity is seen as products of the extraordinary and vibrant music scene of early fifth-century Athens.
W. argues that Damon and the other theorists/teachers started a second cultural revolution, inventing new research and higher education. The terms ‘new music’ and ‘sophist’, wrongly dated to the later fifth century because of more detailed evidence for that period, should thus be regarded as appearing earlier than what is usually thought. Plato and others present Damon as a respected teacher of high moral standards, and W., in the section on teaching and wisdom, places Damon in the role of teacher and ‘sophos’, teaching the role of metre and music on individuals' behaviour and mood as well as the effect of music on civic life. The sophoi/sophistai are here seen as a group of new political figures emerging in the early decades of the century as councillors to the political leaders. Damon follows this traditional role. He was active in public, studied the ethos of music not only as a musical theorist but in his role as advisor to Pericles for several decades and later to Nicias. This discussion also leads to a re-assessment of Pericles' career and relation to the intellectually leading personalities among the sophoi. Damon has sometimes been considered a sophist, a view that is challenged here. Instead W. argues that Plato's rather prejudicial use of the term sophistai should be discarded, since the sophoi were far more diverse than what Plato represents. Without belonging to one school or a single intellectual movement, they were concerned with wide-ranging problems of human life and culture, language, ethic, music and literary criticism, just to mention some perspectives. As W. formulates it: Damon was not one of Plato's ‘sophists’, but a sophos and sophistes, that is one in the tradition of ‘wise men’, advisors to community leaders, such as, for example, Solon was.
The êthos theories of music and poetic metre are treated in Chapter 2 (pp. 23–50), a rich and most interesting part of the volume. Damon's name is especially linked to theories of how music affects humans, human behaviour and morale as well as civic life and society. His work and research in this area is comparatively well known, since that was what drew Plato's interest. Plato attributes much of his argumentation on rhythm, metre and music to Damon and ascribes to him the theory that music has the power to affect human emotion and behaviour and through that to change the laws, the society and the government. W. finds support for Damon's close connection with the ethos theory also in later texts, suggesting that they go back to Heracleides of Pontus, who studied under Plato and later Aristotle. This origin in the fifth century is also supported by contemporary evidence, Euripides and other authors who touch on music's relation to the human psyche. This section widens out to a general discussion of the theory and how it was thought to be achieved with a discussion of relevant passages in Plato and other authors. The theory was particularly Damon's, something he studied formally and scientifically, W. suggests. But W. argues against the standard view that Damon correlated the different harmoniai with different emotions and ways of behaving. Instead, he states, each harmonia could be used in different ways, be played differently and reflect different moods and character. Other variable musical qualities, such as pitch, tempo, etc. seem also to have interested Damon, things that can make two versions of the same music sound totally different, giving rise to different emotions. W. finds no evidence for a correlation between ethos and metres that can be ascribed to Damon. His work with metres concerned dissecting their internal structures, classification and naming, and his research may have concerned metrical practices or variations, which can have consequences on êthos.
A very interesting section of the volume concerns music and politics (pp. 51–76), treating the close relation between Damon and Pericles against the political and social moods of the time, especially around the time of Damon's ostracism, probably around 442 b.c. W. finds no reason to doubt that. Even if it seems an unlikely fate for a musical theorist, as has been pointed out by others, he argues convincingly that Damon was attacked as a known friend and advisor and relative by marriage to Pericles due to his influence over someone feared as a potential tyrant. His position as a ‘secret advisor’ thought to lie behind many of Pericles' measures and his cleverness raised suspicions that he was far too able to mislead the ‘people’. W. rightly believes that this event must be seen against the political situation and the mood of the Athenians at the time, with the fights between followers and opponents to Pericles. As he formulates it, ‘Perikles proved untouchable. Damon was not’ (p. 75).
The chapter ‘Damon after Plato’ (pp. 77–100) explores the reception of Damon amongst the Epicureans, Virgil and the Neo-Pythagoreans. This includes a discussion of the evidence for ‘Areopagitikos’, a speech hypothesised to have been written by Damon. W. argues convincingly that reconstructions are mainly fabricated by modern scholarly ingenuity ‘down a path to fantasy and confusion’ (p. 79). Four appendices treat the lack of publications by Damon, the dating of him, the êthos theory and Pythagoreanism and four (in fact three) detailed problems. A conspectus of testimonia, index locorum and index are useful aids to the reader as well as a bibliography.
The volume goes far beyond its aim to be a comprehensive study of this very important theorist of music and poetic metre. W. makes important contributions to the study of classical Greek music and music theory and fifth-century philosophy but also to political history, such as discussions of democracy and Pericles. It is very important and welcome for all those studying musical theory and fifth-century Athens, stimulating, well-argued and not least – fun to read. It is highly recommended.
