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Updated: June 16, 2025
Some say, Lycurgus died at Cirrha; but Apollothemis will have it, that he was brought to Elis and died there; and Timæus and Aristoxenus write, that he ended his days in Crete; nay, Aristoxenus adds, that the Cretans show his tomb at Pergamia, near the high road. We are told, he left an only son named Antiorus: and as he died without issue, the family was extinct.
The passage runs: "Aristoxenus, the musician, tells the following story about the Indians. One of these men met Socrates at Athens, and asked him what was the scope of his philosophy. 'An inquiry into human phenomena, replied Socrates. At this the Indian burst out laughing.
When Aristoxenus, the musician, and some others asked him what fault he had found with Plato, and why, he answered that absolute power, amongst its many evils, was especially unfortunate in this, that none of a despot's so-called friends dare to speak their mind openly. And he himself, he said, had been by such men deprived of the friendship of Plato.
But this is in point of fact not realized. For an architect ought not to be and cannot be such a philologian as was Aristarchus, although not illiterate; nor a musician like Aristoxenus, though not absolutely ignorant of music; nor a painter like Apelles, though not unskilful in drawing; nor a sculptor such as was Myron or Polyclitus, though not unacquainted with the plastic art; nor again a physician like Hippocrates, though not ignorant of medicine; nor in the other sciences need he excel in each, though he should not be unskilful in them.
This all the grave and well-bred men exceedingly admire; but soft and effeminate fellows, whose ears ignorance and ill-breeding hath corrupted, and who, as Aristoxenus phraseth it, are ready to vomit when they hear excellent harmony, reject it; and no wonder, when effeminacy prevails.
Again, the soul seems to Zeno the Stoic to be fire. X. But what I have said as to the heart, the blood, the brain, air, or fire being the soul, are common opinions: the others are only entertained by individuals; and, indeed, there were many among the ancients who held singular opinions on this subject, of whom the latest was Aristoxenus, a man who was both a musician and a philosopher.
His, indeed, would seem to have been a mind in which practical common-sense was strangely blended with the capacity for wide and imaginative generalization. As further evidence of his practicality, it is asserted that he was the first person who introduced measures and weights among the Greeks, this assertion being made on the authority of Aristoxenus.
And when Aristoxenus the musician, and several others, desired to know how Plato offended him, and what had been the ground of his displeasure with him, he made answer, that, of the many evils attaching to the condition of sovereignty, the one greatest infelicity was that none of those who were accounted friends would venture to speak freely, or tell the plain truth; and that by means of such he had been deprived of Plato's kindness.
From Cyrênê he proceeded to Egypt, interesting himself much in the antiquities of the country as well as in the conversation of the priests. In or about 394 B.C., if we may trust the statement of Aristoxenus about the military service of Plato at Corinth, he was again at Athens.
Hence, I will explain it as clearly as I can from the writings of Aristoxenus, append his scheme, and define the boundaries of the notes, so that with somewhat careful attention anybody may be able to understand it pretty easily.
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