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Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, by Kathleen Freeman, [1948], at

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37. DAMN OF ATHENS

DAMN of ATHENS was in his prime about 460 B.C.
His teaching seems to have been mainly oral, but he is said to
have incorporated his doctrines in an Areopagiticus (speech
purporting to be written for delivery to the Areopagus).
1. (CICERO: Damon treated music in a way that embraced not
merely the particular but the universal).
2. (PHILODEMUS: If Damon addressed the actual, and not a
fictitious Areopagus, he deceived them in saying that men of
taste should take up music).
3. Those who practise the licentious sport . . .
p. 71

4. (PHILODEMUS: If anyone inquires whether music advances

one in all the virtues or only in some, the answer is given that
Damon thinks that it is in all, for he says): in singing and
playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only
Courage and Moderation, but also Justice.
S. (PS.-PLUTARCH: The relaxed Lydian mode was discovered by

Damon).
6. Song and dance necessarily arise when the soul is in some
way moved; liberal and beautiful songs and dances create a
similar soul, and the reverse kind create a reverse kind of soul.
7. (ARISTEIDES QUINTILIANUS: Through similarity, the notes of a
continuous melody create a character that did not exist in boys
and in those more advanced in years, and also bring out the
latent character. This was the doctrine of Damon's school
also. In the harmonies handed down by him it is possible to
find in the sequences of notes that sometimes the female notes,
sometimes the male, either predominate or diminish or are
completely absent, obviously because a different harmony was
serviceable according to the character of each particular
soul).
8. (SOCRATES in the 'Laches' of Plato: Damon has much in
common with Prodicus, who excelled in the science of
nomenclature).
9. (SOCRATES in the 'Republic' of Plato: Socrates pretends to
have an uncertain recollection of Damon's teaching, in which
Damon analysed metres and their feet, using terms such as
'martial', 'dactylic', 'heroic', and described the iambus and the
trochee; he assigned praise and blame not only to the rhythms
for moral quality, but also to the feet, or to both together).
10. Musical modes are nowhere altered without (changes in)
the most important laws of the State.
Next: 38. Hippn of Samos

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