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hydrostatic type,165 and the little Aquincum organ seems to have operated without water, since no trace of a cistern was found. By the fourth century, however, more massive bag organs were being built. The emperor Julian describes one in an epigram: it has a 'cavern' of oxhide, and the organist's young assistants 'squeeze out' the music by 'dancing', whether on the wind bag or on the bellows.166 Ammianus Marcellinus writes of the construction of carriage-sized organs and lyres; Claudian of the organ's countless voices and thunderous tones.167 Finally we hear of the organ having a wind chest made from two elephant hides and being fed by twelve bellows, producing a roar like thunder that could be heard more than a mile away.168 |
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The hydrostatic organ was ousted by the pneumatic type; it was the latter that returned to western Europe from Byzantium in the eighth century and evolved by degrees into the modern organ.169 But Ctesibius' basic conceptionthe provision of a continuous wind supply to an array of tuned pipes, controlled from a keyboard remains unchanged to this day. |
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It is by courtesy that we give attention to this instrument, as it was not used for musical purposes but only for giving signals, especially for battle and in certain ritual and ceremonial contexts. |
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The Greek trumpet (salpinx) consisted of a fairly long, straight tube of narrow, cylindrical bore, ending in a prominent tulip-shaped bell. It was generally of bronze, with (according to Pollux) a bone mouthpiece. Vase-paintings suggest a length of 80 to 120 cm. The trumpeter usually holds the instrument in one hand and plants the other hand on his hip or the side of his rib-cage. He is not in-frequently shown wearing a phorbeia (cf. p. 89).170 This device, as |
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165 Poll. 4. 70. |
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166Anth. Pal. 9. 365 (misinterpreted by Nonnus, Dion. 3. 236-8, as if the 'dancing' were that of the player's fingers). Theodoretus (PG lxxxiii. 589b) also refers to the wind bag being 'squeezed out' by human feet, and this is depicted on the obelisk set up in 390 by Theodosius in the Hippodrome at Constantinople: the bag trails out of the organ along the ground, and two children are standing on it (Perrot, op. cit. 112 and pl. IV). Cf. also the illustration from a 12th-c. MS in St John's College, Cambridge, Perrot, 349f. and pl. XXV. 3. |
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167 Amm. Marc. 14. 6. 18, Claud. Carm. 17. 316-19. |
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168 Ps.-Hieron. Ep. 23. 1 (PL xxx. 213 b); Perrot, op. cit. 192 f. with the MS illustration pl. XXII. 2. |
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169 Cf. Degering and Perrot (as n. 153); Tittel, RE ix. 73, 77; NG viii. 835, xiii. 724-7. |
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170 See Pl. 30; Paquette 74-83; Poll. 4. 85. The 7th-c. Aristonothus crater (Paquette, 79 T8) appears to show a trumpet of exceptional length, at least 150 cm., |
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(Footnote continued on next page) |
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