Alypius (music Writer)
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Alypius of
Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...
() was a Greek writer on music who flourished in the 4th century CE. Of his works, only a small fragment has been preserved, under the title of ''Introduction to Music'' ().


Works

The work of Alypius consists wholly, with the exception of a short introduction, of lists of the symbols used (both for voice and instrument) to denote all the sounds in the forty-five scales produced by taking each of the fifteen modes in the three genera (
diatonic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair ...
,
chromatic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, es ...
,
enharmonic In music, two written notes have enharmonic equivalence if they produce the same pitch but are notated differently. Similarly, written intervals, chords, or key signatures are considered enharmonic if they represent identical pitches that ar ...
). It treats, therefore, in fact, of only one (the fifth, namely) of the seven branches into which the subject is, as usual, divided in the introduction; and may possibly be merely a fragment of a larger work. It would have been most valuable if any considerable number of examples had been left us of the actual use of the system of notation described in it; unfortunately very few remain, and they seem to belong to an earlier stage of the science. However, Alypius's work remains the best source of modern knowledge of the musical notes of the
Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...
, including a comprehensive account of the Greek system of scales, transpositions, and
musical notation Musical notation is any system used to visually represent music. Systems of notation generally represent the elements of a piece of music that are considered important for its performance in the context of a given musical tradition. The proce ...
, and serves to throw some light on the obscure history of the modes. The text, which seemed hopelessly corrupt to its first contemporary editor, classical scholar
Johannes Meursius Johannes Meursius (van Meurs) (9 February 1579 – 20 September 1639) was a Dutch classical philology, classical scholar and antiquary. Biography Meursius was born Johannes van Meurs at Loosduinen, near The Hague. He was extremely precocious, ...
, was nevertheless restored, apparently with success, by the Danish scholar Marcus Meibomius. ''Introduction to Music'' was printed with the tables of
notation In linguistics and semiotics, a notation system is a system of graphics or symbols, Character_(symbol), characters and abbreviated Expression (language), expressions, used (for example) in Artistic disciplines, artistic and scientific disciplines ...
in Meibomius' ''Antiquae Musicae Scriptores'', (in quarto, Amsterdam 1652). Meibomius not only made use of the manuscript belonging to
Joseph Scaliger Joseph Justus Scaliger (; 5 August 1540 – 21 January 1609) was a Franco-Italian Calvinist religious leader and scholar, known for expanding the notion of classical history from Greek and Ancient Roman history to include Persian, Babylonian, Je ...
,"Alypius". (2006). In ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved September 26, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9005972 but others also existing in England and Italy. Karl von Jan published an authoritative edition in ''Musici Scriptores Graeci'', 1895-1899.


Identity

There are no tolerably sure grounds for identifying Alypius with any one of the various persons who bore the name in the times of the later emperors, and of whose history anything is known. Jean-Benjamin de la Borde places him towards the end of the 4th century. According to the most plausible conjecture, he was that Alypius whom the writer Eunapius, in his ''Life of Iamblichus'', celebrates for his acute intellect () and diminutive stature, and who, being a friend of Iamblichus, probably flourished under the emperor
Julian the Apostate Julian (; ; 331 – 26 June 363) was the Caesar of the West from 355 to 360 and Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplatonic Hellenism ...
and his immediate successors, that is, during the 4th century. This Alypius was a native of
Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...
, and died there at an advanced age, and therefore can hardly have been the person whom the Roman historian
Ammianus Marcellinus Ammianus Marcellinus, occasionally anglicized as Ammian ( Greek: Αμμιανός Μαρκελλίνος; born , died 400), was a Greek and Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from antiquit ...
called "Alypius Antiochensis", who was employed by the emperor Julian in his attempt to rebuild the Jewish temple. Julian addresses two epistles (29 and 30) to Alypius (), in one of which he thanks him for a geographical treatise or chart; it would seem more likely that this was Alypius of Antioch, instead of the Alypius from Alexandria, although Meursius supposes the two were the same. Meursius, ''Not. ad Alyp.'' p. 186, &c. Iamblichus wrote a life of the Alexandrian Alypius, although it is no longer extant.


References


Sources

*Translation of this book into Modern Greek, along with comments and explanation notes, by Athanasios G. Siamakis, Archimandritis, published by Prespes 2003, second edition. pages 140. * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Alypius (Music Writer) 4th-century Greek writers Writers about music Ancient Greek music theorists