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likely to have been a reedless pipe, since the pitch of a reed pipe would be more liable to inconstancy. If it was the same as the tonarium on which C. Gracchus had a slave quietly give him appropriate pitch levels while he was orating,149 it could sound different notes. It was presumably a kind of flute. |
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The organ was invented by the brilliant engineer Ctesibius, who worked in Alexandria in the time of Ptolemy II.150 His wife may have given recitals on it.151 Apart from that, we do not know by what stages it achieved popularity. But from the first century BC it does begin to appear as an instrument with some currency, and it enjoyed great favour at Rome and in the imperial provinces. It was usually known as the hydraulis, hydraulos, or hydraulikon organon ('hydraulic instrument').152 |
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Our knowledge of its construction is derived mainly from detailed descriptions by Heron of Alexandria and (a more advanced model) Vitruvius. There are over two dozen artistic representations, which give us a good idea of its external appearance. And we have all the metal parts from a small organ which was presented to the fire brigade at Aquincum near Budapest in AD 228 and which met its end when, sadly, their premises burned down.153 |
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Sound production was through a set of bronze pipes, graded in length as in the late Hellenistic panpipe and standing upright over the keyboard. Their tops are usually shown as making a straight diagonal line, but occasionally describe an upward curve. In most representations the longer pipes are to the player's left. In many organs of the Roman period there were several ranks of pipes. Vitruvius appears to speak of organs with four, six, or eight ranks. The |
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149 Cic. De Or. 3. 225, Quint. Inst. 1. 10.27. |
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150 No credence can be given to the attribution to a later barber of the same name (Aristocles ap. Ath. 174b-e). See K. Tittel, RE ix. 63-7; J. Perrot, L'Orgue de ses origines hellénistiques à la fin du XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1965), 26-32. |
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151 If it is legitimate to transfer to Ctesibius the engineer what Aristocles said of Ctesibius the barber, that he taught his wife Thais to play the instrument. |
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152 Two 3rd-c. sources abbreviate it to hydra, while from the 4th c. on it is some-times called simply organum. Pollux 4. 70 for some unexplained reason calls it the 'Etruscan aulos'. |
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153 Heron, Pneumatica 1. 42, Vitr. 10. 8; H. Degering, Die Orgel: ihre Erfindung und ihre Geschichte bis zur Karolingerzeit (Münster, 1905), 67-86 and plates; Perrot, op. cit. 103-40; W. Walcker-Mayer, Die römische Orgel von Aquincum (Stuttgart, 1970): M. Kaba, same title (Musicologia Hungarica n.f. 6, Kassel, Basle, and London, 1980). |
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