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The Theban virtuoso Pronomus (c.400 BC) is credited with the invention of auloi on which several different modal scales could be played, previous auletes having had to keep a set of different instruments for this purpose.28 The improvement was no doubt achieved by means of rotatable collars which enabled holes to be opened or closed. This meant that auloi could be given a larger number of holes, from which the player could select the ones he needed for a particular scale. Some late auloi found at Meroe, Pompeii, and elsewhere were of this type. They had anything up to twenty-four holes, closed by collars which had hook-shaped levers on them for easier operation. Some of the holes were smaller than others, and often the small ones were on the side of the pipe. Certain holes were elongated, narrower at one end, and presumably the corresponding collar could be adjusted to expose either the wider or the narrower part of the opening.29 In Roman art we often see instruments with short subsidiary tubes rising like chimneys from several of their holes. They were apparently mounted on the rotating collars and could probably be alternated with ordinary holes; they could have had the effect of lowering the note, probably by a semitone.30 Another type of mechanism is represented in a bronze model aulos (presumably a votive offering) found at Pergamum, perhaps of the second century BC. Here the two lowest holes were opened or closed not by rotating collars but by half-collars that were pushed down by rods, which had buttons on them at the top end.31 |
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At its lower end the pipe sometimes opened out a little, or terminated in a definite flare or bell, for the better projection of low notes. This feature is quite prominent in many Archaic representations.32 It virtually disappears from Attic art after about 520 BC, but |
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(Footnote continued from previous page) |
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arrangement is quite incredible, and the finger-holes are too high up the instrument. Presumably the auloi were found in pieces and incorrectly restored. |
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28 Paus. 9. 12. 5, cf. Ath. 631 e. |
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29 See Howard, 5-8, 48-51; Reinach, 'Tibia', 308; T. L. Southgate, JHS 35 (1915), 14f., 20; Schlesinger, 74-9. According to Poll. 4. 80 it was Diodorus of Thebes (5th c.?) who first increased the number of the aulos' holes 'by opening up lateral paths for the air-stream'. Plutarch, Comp. Ar. et Men. 853 e, alludes to the production of loud and remarkable effects by 'pulling back the pantreton' ('all-perforated'). |
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30 See Gevaert, ii. 296; Howard, 8-11; Reinach, 'Tibia', 308f.; Schlesinger, pl. 14 facing p. 110. They may be what are called bombykes ('bass-pipes') in Plut. Quaest. conv. 713 a and Arcadius p. 188. 12 Barker. In earlier writers the word applies to the lowest part of the main pipe, or its lowest note, or to a particular variety of aulos. |
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31 See Fig. 4. 1; A. Conze, Berl. Abh. 1902(1), 7f. and pl. 1; Behn 101f. |
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32 e.g. Wegner, Bilder, 39, 65, 71, 75; Paquette, 39 A1, 47 A24-5, 49 A29. |
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