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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/3/2018, SPi

Sextus Empiricus
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/3/2018, SPi
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/3/2018, SPi

Sextus Empiricus
Against Those in the Disciplines

Translated with introduction and notes by

Richard Bett

1
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/3/2018, SPi

3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/3/2018, SPi

Contents

List of Abbreviations vii

Introduction 1
Note on the Text and Translation 25
Outline of Argument 30

Sextus Empiricus: Against Those in the Disciplines

Book 1 39
Introduction to the entire work 39
General arguments against the disciplines 41
Against the Grammarians 49
Book 2: Against the Rhetoricians 127
Book 3: Against the Geometers 155
Book 4: Against the Arithmeticians 184
Book 5: Against the Astrologers 194
Book 6: Against the Musicians 219

Persons Referred to in Against Those in the Disciplines 237

Glossary 247
Parallels between Against Those in the Disciplines
and Other Works of Sextus 253
Bibliography 255
Index 261
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List of Abbreviations

Note: proposals for changes to the Greek text that are attributed in the
notes to scholars by last name alone, where those names are not included
in this list, are recorded in Mau’s apparatus criticus. Scholarly works
cited by author and date are included in the Bibliography.

Bekker Sextus Empiricus, ex recensione Immanuelis

Bekkeri (Berlin: Reimer, 1842)
Blank Sextus Empiricus, Against the Grammarians,
translated with an introduction and commentary
by David Blank (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998)
Bury Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors, with an
English translation by the Rev. R.G. Bury
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1949—vol. 4 of complete Loeb series of Sextus)
CAG Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (Berlin:
Reimer, 1882–1909, multiple volumes)
Davidson Greaves Sextus Empiricus, Against the Musicians: a new
critical text and translation on facing pages, with
an introduction, annotations, and indices
verborum and nominum et rerum by Denise
Davidson Greaves (Lincoln, NE: University of
Nebraska Press, 1986)
Diels Doxographi Graeci, collegit, recensuit,
prolegomenis indicibusque instruxit Hermannus
Diels (Berlin: Reimer, 1879)
DK H. Diels and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der
Vorsokratiker (Berlin: Weidmann, 6th edition
1951)
Fabricius Sexti Empirici Opera Graece et Latine:
Pyrrhoniarum institutionum libri III cum Henrici
Stephani versione et notis, Contra mathematicos
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viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

sive disciplinarum professores, libri VI, Contra

philosophos libri V, cum versione Gentiani
Herveti, Graeca ex mss. codicibus castigavit,
versiones emendavit supplevitque et toti operi
notas addidit Johannis Albertus Fabricius (Leipzig:
Kuehniana, revised edition 1840–1—originally
published 1718)
Heintz Werner Heintz, Studien zu Sextus Empiricus
(Halle: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1932)
Helmreich Claudii Galeni Pergameni Scripta Minora, vol. 3,
ed. Georg Helmreich (Leipzig: Teubner, 1893)
Jürß Sextus Empiricus, Gegen die Wissenschaftler Buch
1–6, aus dem Griechischen übersetzt, eingeleitet
und kommentiert von Fritz Jürß (Würzburg:
Königshausen & Neumann, 2001)
Kassel-Austin Poetae Comici Graeci, ed. R. Kassel and C. Austin
(Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1983)
Kock Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, ed. Theodor
Kock, 3 vols. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1880–8)
Kühn Galeni Opera Omnia, 20 vols. (Leipzig, 1819–33;
reissued 1965, Hildesheim)
LS A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic
Philosophers, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1987)
LSJ Liddell–Scott–Jones, A Greek–English Lexicon
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968 and subsequent
printings—revised supplement, 1996)
M Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos
(see Introduction, Section 1)
Mau Sexti Empirici Opera, vol. 3 (Leipzig: Teubner,
1961)
Nauck August Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum
Fragmenta, 2nd edition 1889, reprinted with a
supplement by Bruno Snell (Hildesheim: Georg
Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1964)
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ix

OCD S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth, and E. Edinow

(eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th edition
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)
OED The Compact Edition of the Oxford English
Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1971)
Pellegrin et al. Sextus Empiricus, Contre les professeurs:
introduction, glossaire et index par Pierre
Pellegrin, traduction par Catherine Dalimier,
Daniel Delattre, Joëlle Delattre, et Brigitte Pérez,
sous la direction de Pierre Pellegrin (Paris:
Éditions du Seuil, 2002)
Pfeiffer Callimachus, ed. Rudolf Pfeiffer (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1949–53)
PH Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism (see
Introduction, Section 1)
Spinelli Sesto Empirico, Contro gli astrologi, a cura di
Emidio Spinelli (Naples: Bibliopolis, 2000)
SVF H. von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta,
3 vols. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1903–5)
TLG Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (searchable online
corpus of all ancient Greek texts)
West² M.L. West, Iambi et elegi graeci, 2nd edition
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989–92)
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Introduction

1. Life and works

Sextus Empiricus is the only ancient Greek skeptic who composed
written works some of which have survived. The Greek word skeptikos
literally means “inquirer”, and that is what Sextus and those in his tra-
dition called themselves; another label they used for themselves was
“Pyrrhonist”, after Pyrrho of Elis, from whom they claimed inspiration.
Sextus stands near the end of this tradition, which lasted intermittently for
several centuries; we hear of a pupil of his named Saturninus (Diogenes
Laertius 9.116), but after that there are no identifiable Pyrrhonists in
antiquity. He is generally placed in the second century CE, but the complete
lack of reference to him in Galen (129–216 CE) suggests a slightly later
floruit, perhaps in the early third century. This is because he was a doctor—
that is the only really solid piece of autobiographical information he
gives us (PH 2.238, M 1.260, M 11.47)—and, to judge from his title, a
member of the Empiric school of medicine (as were other Pyrrhonists);
Diogenes Laertius also calls him “Sextus the Empiricist” (9.116), and the
pseudo-Galenic Introduction or Doctor actually refers to him as a head of
the school (Kühn XIV, 683–4). The matter is complicated by the fact that in
the one place in his surviving works where he actually discusses medical
Empiricism (PH 1.236–41), Sextus seems to distance himself from it and to
claim a closer affinity to skepticism for another school of medicine, the
Methodic school. But whatever the resolution of that issue,¹ Sextus was
clearly involved not just in medical practice, but in debates about medicine;

¹ The question is well treated in Allen 2010. One possibility is that Sextus does not mean
to repudiate Empiricism as a whole, but only one variety of Empiricism. But while the text
admits of this reading, that still leaves the preference for Methodism (rather than an
another, favored variety of Empiricism) to be accounted for.
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 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

besides the passage just mentioned, he refers to (now lost) works of his
called Medical Treatises (M 7.202) and Empirical Treatises (M 1.61).² Galen
wrote about both Empiricism and Methodism,³ had voluminous know-
ledge of the medical discussions of his time, and was not shy about naming
those whose ideas he was considering; for him to have had nothing to say
about Sextus would be very surprising—unless Sextus postdated him.
Beyond this (which is already more definite than many scholars would
be comfortable with), we really know nothing about Sextus the man.⁴
There are very few references to him by name in antiquity, and very few
indications of his works being read. Another curious point is that these
works seem to show no awareness of the philosophy of Sextus’ own day.
Even if one discounts Galen’s silence, Sextus refers in the past tense to the
emperor Tiberius (PH 1.84), which puts him no earlier than the middle
of the first century CE; and yet his knowledge of the history of philosophy,
to judge from those he names, seems to end in the early first century BCE.⁵
The revived Platonism and Aristotelianism that dominated late antiquity
were underway in Sextus’ lifetime (whenever precisely that was), but one
gets no hint of this from his works. This is just one of many questions
about Sextus that are likely to remain unanswered.⁶ In any case, his own

² These may or may not be distinct; they may be the same work under alternative titles,
or the latter may be a part of the former.
³ A good introduction is Frede 1985.
⁴ House 1980 details our comprehensive ignorance, and is also much more non-
committal about Sextus’ dates. On the latter, I have been influenced by Jouanna 2009;
although the argument from Galen’s silence is not new, and although arguments from
silence are never conclusive, Jouanna makes a strong case for how unlikely it would be for
Galen not to refer to Sextus if they were contemporaries. He also sets a terminus ante quem
by the dates of Hippolytus (c.170–c.236 CE), whose Refutation of all Heresies includes text
that is very close to a considerable amount of Sextus’ Against the Astrologers (M 5) and has
generally been thought to be copied from it with insignificant changes. But this is more
questionable; Hippolytus and Sextus could each be drawing on some now lost common
source. This has been argued for in particular by Janáček 1959, 1964 (although Janáček’s
case depends on a highly disputable view of Sextus’ stylistic development; see n. 13).
⁵ The Stoic Basilides is a possible exception (see M 8.258); a Stoic of this name is attested
as a teacher of Marcus Aurelius. But we also have a list of Stoics, seemingly ordered by
chronology, in which a Stoic Basilides shows up in a group from the second century BCE (see
Rose 1866, 370–1). Sextus could be referring to either one.
⁶ Sedley 2003 shows that Sextus was by no means alone in treating philosophy as
extending no later than the early first century BCE, and posits a major transformation of
philosophy, in the mid-first century BCE, towards a project of “recovering and understand-
ing the wisdom of the ancients” (36)—rather than oneself contributing new wisdom, as it
had been previously conceived. Sedley’s case is powerful and intriguing, but I do not think it
fully accounts for the case of Sextus. For Sextus clearly does not think of himself as
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INTRODUCTION 

obscurity was not permanent. Since the revival of interest in antiquity in

the Renaissance, his works have attracted much more attention; to pick
out just two points in what could be a long history of his reception, there
were Latin translations of all of them by the 1560s,⁷ and there is consid-
erable interest in them among contemporary epistemologists.
Of these works, the one presented in this volume is undoubtedly the
least well known, at any rate among philosophers. The reason for this is
no doubt because its subject matter is not directly philosophical. Sextus’
best-known work, Outlines of Pyrrhonism (abbreviated as PH, the trans-
literated initials of the Greek title), consists of one book expounding the
skeptical outlook in general terms, and two books examining the theories
of non-skeptics in the three traditional divisions of philosophy: logic,
physics, and ethics. Another work, consisting of two books Against the
Logicians, two Against the Physicists, and one Against the Ethicists, does
the second of these things at much greater length, but was also almost
certainly preceded by a lost book or books of general exposition, paral-
leling the first book of PH.⁸ In contrast to both these works, Against Those
in the Disciplines consists of six books, each dealing with a different
specialized non-philosophical field: grammar, rhetoric, geometry, arith-
metic, astrology, and music. As one might expect, Sextus frequently refers
to theories and ideas in these fields in the course of his treatment; the level
of technicality varies from one book to another, the first and by far the
longest book, Against the Grammarians, being the most challenging in this
respect. One of the functions of my notes to the translation is to aid the
reader in comprehending the details of the subjects under discussion.

recovering ancient wisdom; while he talks a lot about earlier philosophies, this is always in
the service of his own present brand of Pyrrhonism. Indeed, when it comes to documenting
the relations between earlier philosophers (even earlier Pyrrhonists) and his own thought,
he seems to go out of his way to distance them all from himself; this may even be a reaction
against the tendency in his day to appeal to founding figures from the past (on this, see Bett
2015a). If so, of course, he does have at least a general awareness of the contemporary
philosophical zeitgeist. However, since one of his goals is clearly to promote and publicize
Pyrrhonism, his lack of direct engagement with the alternative philosophies of his contem-
poraries is still very surprising.
⁷ See Floridi 2010.
⁸ The first sentence of Against the Logicians (M 7.1) refers back to just such a general
exposition. This was long thought to be a back-reference to PH. But PH as a whole is not a
general exposition—only its first book is; the reference must therefore be to a general
exposition originally preceding Against the Logicians as part of the same work. This was
established by Janáček 1963.
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 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

However, one does not need to be an expert in these fields in order

to appreciate that here, as in his more straightforwardly philosophical
works, Sextus is espousing a skeptical outlook of considerable interest.
The Greek title of this work, Pros mathêmatikous, or its Latinized
equivalent Adversus mathematicos (standardly abbreviated as M or, to
indicate its six books,⁹ M 1–6), has sometimes been rendered Against the
Professors. But the title “professor” has no exact equivalent in the ancient
world and may have misleading associations. In the past I have used
Against the Learned, appealing to the basic meaning (“learn”) of the root
math-. But I now prefer a translation picking up on the word that is the
immediate basis of mathêmatikos: the word mathêma, “discipline” or
“field of study” (literally, “thing learned”), which is much appealed to
in the introduction to the whole work (M 1.1–8). Sextus emphasizes here
that it is these disciplines, and their practitioners the mathêmatikoi,
that he is going to be dealing with;¹⁰ it seems appropriate for the title to
reflect that.
The order of composition of Sextus’ works has been a topic of con-
siderable debate, mostly centering around the question whether PH was
written before or after the longer work that covers broadly the same
ground.¹¹ Concerning M 1–6, it clearly comes after the longer of those
two works; it contains specific back references to Against the Physicists
(M 1.35, 3.116), and also references to identifiable passages of this work
under what is presumably Sextus’ title for the whole work: Skeptika
Hupomnêmata, Skeptical Treatises (M 1.26, 29, 6.52).¹² Since a number
of passages in M 1–6 have close parallels in this work, it may be of
interest to bear in mind which came first. The relation between M 1–6
and PH is much less clear; there are no explicit references to PH in M 1–6

⁹ Also to distinguish it from Against the Logicians, Physicists, and Ethicists; see n. 12.
¹⁰ Mathêma can sometimes refer to mathematical disciplines in particular, and we shall
see a few cases, in the context of the mathematical books (3 and 4), where this is probably
what Sextus means by the term. But the more general sense is the usual one in this work.
¹¹ I have discussed this question in the introductions to Bett 1997, Bett 2005, and Bett
2012.
¹² Perhaps because of the loss of the opening general book or books, the surviving books
of Skeptical Treatises came to be regarded as a continuation of M 1–6; hence Against the
Logicians is standardly abbreviated as M 7–8, Against the Physicists as M 9–10, and Against
the Ethicists as M 11. Although this makes no sense at all, since M 1–6 is a complete and
self-contained work on a quite distinct subject, this standard nomenclature is entrenched
and I shall adhere to it for purposes of reference.
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INTRODUCTION 

or vice versa.¹³ There are some passages where the same topics are treated
in both works, but with the possible exception of some general arguments
against teaching and learning—versions of which appear in all three
works (M 1.9–40, M 11.216–57, PH 3.252–72)—the parallels between M
1–6 and PH are less close than between M 1–6 and the longer work.
Nevertheless, PH, being the only one of Sextus’ three surviving works¹⁴ to
contain a general account of the skeptical outlook, is important for our
understanding of what his brand of Pyrrhonist skepticism is. I turn to this
matter next, before focusing on a number of key features of M 1–6 itself.

2. Sextus’ Pyrrhonist skepticism

Pyrrhonist skepticism is not the only variety of skepticism in ancient
Greek and Roman philosophy. The Academy, the school founded by
Plato, was for most of the Hellenistic period dominated by a skeptical
outlook; though these Academics did not call themselves skeptics—the
term itself seems to originate with the Pyrrhonists—their attitudes were
already recognized in antiquity as having much in common with
Pyrrhonism. The relations between Academic and Pyrrhonist skepticism
are complicated and, since Sextus discusses the Academics not infre-
quently, can sometimes be important for understanding what he is saying.
However, in M 1–6 the Academics make only one appearance—Sextus
appeals to their views on the uselessness of rhetoric (M 2.20–43)—and
they need not be further considered here.
As noted earlier, the Pyrrhonist tradition starts with Pyrrho of Elis
(c.360–c.270 BCE). Pyrrho wrote nothing, but his ideas and lifestyle were
recorded by his disciple Timon of Phlius (c.320–c.230 BCE) and perhaps

¹³ PH has generally been regarded as the earliest of the three works. But this view arose as
a result of a mistake; cf. n. 8. Karel Janáček, having exposed the mistake (see Janáček 1963),
nonetheless continued to argue on stylistic grounds that PH was written first; see Janáček
1972 and Janáček 2008 (a posthumous compilation of his smaller essays on Sextus and
skepticism). These studies are important in establishing stylistic differences among the
works—differences of a kind that do indeed point to their having been composed at
different times (on this point, see Bett 2015b, 35). But that does not tell us the order of
the works, and Janáček’s chronological suppositions are a house of cards; see Bett 1997,
Appendix C. In the commentary on chapter VII (with Appendix A) of the same work,
I argued on the basis of parallel passages that PH is the latest of the three works, but the case
is not conclusive.
¹⁴ Besides the lost medical works referred to earlier, Sextus also refers to a now lost work
of his On the Soul (M 6.55, M 10.284).
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 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

others. Timon’s writings have survived only in fragments, and the

reconstruction of Pyrrho’s thought is, to say the least, difficult and
controversial.¹⁵ In M 1–6 Sextus refers a few times to both Pyrrho and
Timon (M 1.53, 281–2, 305–6, 3.2, 6.66), generally signaling his agree-
ment with their approach to some topic; but neither here nor elsewhere
does he tell us in any detail what they said or thought. From his perspec-
tive, indeed, they are probably rather remote figures having no deep
connection with his own skeptical practice. The historical link itself is
somewhat tenuous. After a generation or so of immediate followers,
interest in Pyrrho seems to have lapsed until, in the early first century
BCE, he was adopted as a figurehead for a new skeptical movement by
Aenesidemus of Cnossos, himself a former member of the Academy. Our
information on Aenesidemus is also scanty (though we know that, unlike
Pyrrho, he did write books);¹⁶ but there is no clear evidence that Aene-
sidemus’ choice to call himself and his colleagues “followers of Pyrrho”
(hoi apo Purrônos) was based on detailed consideration of Pyrrho’s
thought, rather than a general sense of common attitudes and demeanor.
In any case, the movement started by Aenesidemus is the Pyrrhonism to
which Sextus later belonged. We have no other writings from it besides
those of Sextus—beyond our very limited evidence on Aenesidemus,
virtually all we know about this Pyrrhonism prior to Sextus are the
names of a few other adherents.
As suggested earlier, Sextus’ version of Pyrrhonism is best approached
by way of the first book of PH. Early in this book Sextus offers and
explains the following one-sentence description of what skepticism is:
“The skeptical ability is one that produces oppositions among things that
appear and things that are thought in any way whatsoever, one from
which, because of the equal strength in the opposing objects and
accounts, we come first to suspension of judgement, and after that to
tranquility” (PH 1.8). A three-stage procedure is sketched here. In the
first stage, one collects impressions (“things that appear”, which may
refer to sensory impressions or more generally to any way in which
things strike one unreflectively) and opinions or arguments (“things
that are thought”) on any given question. These impressions, opinions,

¹⁵ For a brief account of the issues, see Bett 2014a.

¹⁶ Our access to this evidence has been greatly improved by Polito 2014.
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INTRODUCTION 

and arguments exhibit oppositions among one another; there may be

contradictory impressions of the same thing, or contradictory arguments
about it, or an unreflective impression may be contradicted by an argu-
ment on the same subject—this multiplicity is the force of “in any way
whatsoever”. Now, faced with such oppositions among the impressions,
opinions, and arguments on any given question, what is one to do? One
might try to decide among them and so discover the truth about the
matter. But according to Sextus, this will not succeed. This is because the
opposing perspectives exhibit the feature of “equal strength” (isostheneia).
That is, one has no greater inclination to opt for any one of them than
for any other; each one strikes one as having equal weight. In this
situation, the only possible result is that one suspends judgement; this is
the second stage.
The third stage, tranquility, can wait for a moment; several questions
need to be addressed about the story so far. First, how are we to understand
this notion of “equal strength”? Is it that one judges the opposing positions
to be of equal rational merit, and one suspends judgement because one
draws the conclusion that one ought rationally to do so? Or is it a purely
psychological process, where one simply finds oneself equally inclined or
disinclined towards either side (or every side) of the case, and given that
situation, finds oneself declining to assent to any of the alternatives? Both
interpretations have their adherents.¹⁷ A difficulty for the first, rational
interpretation is that the standards of rationality appealed to would seem
themselves to be fodder for the skeptic’s “ability” at assembling opposi-
tions. On the other hand, Sextus does talk of the necessity of suspending
judgement, and this is at times hard not to read as referring to rational
necessity, a necessity imposed by the merit of the arguments. This is
particularly true when it comes to the groups of standardized arguments
known as the Modes (PH 1.35–179).¹⁸
Second, whichever reading of “equal strength” we adopt, why is Sextus
so sure that “equal strength” will in fact be produced on every topic? The
answer, I take it, has to do with the skeptic’s “ability” (dunamis): the skeptic

¹⁷ For the first, rational interpretation see Perin 2010, chapter 2; Vogt 2012, chapter 5.3.
For the second, psychological interpretation see Williams 2010.
¹⁸ See Bett 2011a. Here I illustrate why the Modes are hard to fit with the psychological
interpretation, while also expressing a general preference for that interpretation.
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 SEXTUS EMPIRICUS : AGAINST THOSE IN THE DISCIPLINES

is someone who is very good at accumulating opposing perspectives in

such a way that they exhibit such “equal strength”. Of course, a set of
oppositions that one audience finds of “equal strength”, another audience
may not; hence it seems that the procedure will need to be sensitive to
whom one is talking to, and Sextus confirms this point (PH 3.280–1).
A natural worry is that there is liable to be a large measure of contrivance
or manipulation in this process; the skeptic is set on generating a certain
type of attitude, regardless of the actual merits of the issue under discus-
sion. But the skeptic’s response would no doubt be to challenge the norms
of rationality, logical validity, etc. on which this worry depends.
Third, I have said that the procedure can be applied “on any given
question”, but what is the scope of this? One thing that is clear is that
Pyrrhonist skepticism is not a stance specifically within epistemology, as
are most forms of skepticism in contemporary philosophy. One can, of
course, apply the procedure to questions concerning the nature and
extent of our knowledge, and at times Sextus does so (in the ancient
taxonomy what we call epistemology falls under logic). But there is no
inherent limitation to this or to any other particular subject matter, and
the subjects considered in M 1–6 are a good example of this. A more
controversial matter is, as one might put it, the level at which these
questions are to be addressed. Does Pyrrhonist skepticism apply only to
the intellectual postures of philosophers or other theorists, or also to the
non-theoretical beliefs of ordinary people? Sextus sometimes suggests
that he is a supporter of everyday attitudes or practices as against the
abstractions of theorists, and, as we shall see, M 1–6 includes several
examples of this tendency. But sometimes ordinary people’s views them-
selves figure among the items placed in opposition. It may be that Sextus
vacillates on this question.
Finally, Sextus’ characterization of skepticism as an ability points
to another important contrast with the way skepticism is understood
in philosophy today. Pyrrhonist skepticism is not a theory or a conclu-
sion but, as I have called it several times, a process or a procedure. The
Pyrrhonist skeptic does not assert or deny some set of propositions, but
does something—namely, brings about suspension of judgement. And
this, incidentally, is an activity that has to be kept up; whereas one might
develop some theory or reach some conclusion and be done with the
matter, suspension of judgement needs to be maintained over time (in
oneself or in others) by ever-renewed exercise of the “ability”.
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/3/2018, SPi

INTRODUCTION 

The effect of this activity, as Sextus concludes by saying, is tranquility

(ataraxia). More specifically, as he tells us elsewhere (PH 1.25–30,
M 11.141–4), he is talking about tranquility in matters of opinion. All
of us, skeptics included, suffer hunger, thirst, pain, etc. (although skep-
tics, it turns out, are better off than others even here—the reasons would
take us too far afield). But the holding of opinions can also be a source of
disturbance, and suspension of judgement—which is, precisely, the
withdrawal from opinions—can therefore release one from disturbance.
As for why this should be, Sextus seems to tell two somewhat different
stories. His initial mention of ataraxia suggests that suspension of
judgement quite generally brings tranquility, and the following sections
shed a little more light on this. He tells us that the skeptic is someone
who initially tries to discover the truth, thinking to attain ataraxia in
that way (PH 1.26, 28–9, cf. 12). But this does not happen; being faced
with the “equal strength” of the opposing considerations, he is forced to
suspend judgement instead. However, it turns out that this suspension
of judgement produces the very tranquility he was seeking in the first
place.¹⁹ It sounds, then, as if wanting to discover the truth but being
unsure about it is upsetting; one initially tries to achieve tranquility
through discovery, but one actually achieves it by suspending judge-
ment and thus giving up on the worrisome and unsuccessful search.
And all this applies regardless of the subject matter. On the other hand,
whenever Sextus explicitly addresses the question why suspension of
judgement yields tranquility, his answer always concerns beliefs about
one specific subject matter: whether or not certain things are by nature
good and others by nature bad. Beliefs to the effect that there are such
things, he claims, make one care far too much about getting the good
and avoiding the bad (PH 1.27–8, 30, 3.235–8, M 11.110–67). The
skeptic, by contrast, is tranquil because of not having these beliefs;
if one does not hold that anything is good or bad by nature, the stakes
are just much lower. It may be possible to reconcile these two stories,
but one might wish Sextus had done more to explain how they relate

¹⁹ Of course, a further account would be needed of how this initial attainment of

tranquility through suspension of judgement is transformed into the skeptic’s settled
“ability” to generate suspension of judgement (and thereby tranquility). Sextus does
not supply this, but I think it is not too hard to imagine an account that would fill
the gap.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Scotch and Welsh Tunes

The Scotch and Welsh also have a very rich store of folk song and
ballads. Along with the Irish they are children of the early Celts and
have brought down to us the music of early times. In all this music
we find the pentatonic scale, and a rhythm of this character

a dotted note followed by a note of shorter value,

which gives a real lilt to Irish, Welsh and Scotch music. We told you
about the Welsh bards and their queer violin without a neck, called a
crwth, and their little harp that was handed around their banquet
tables from guest to guest.
The Gaelic music, or that of the Scotch Highlands, dates back to
prehistoric times. You have seen a Scotch Highlander in his plaid and
kilties playing on his bagpipe, and it has a special kind of scale (two
pentatonic scales put together) like this:

G A B D E G
A B C♯ E F♯ A

and a drone bass (one tone that does not change and is played all
through the piece) which makes it hard to get the same effect on the
piano. Scotch bagpipes are heard in districts where the milk-maids
and serving folk get together in the “ingle,” and still “lilt” in the good
old-fashioned way.
The thing that makes us know Scotch music from any other is a
queer little trick of the rhythm called the snap in which a note of
short value is followed by a dotted note of longer value, instead of the
other way around which is more commonly found. Thus:

but the two ways are always combined, thus:

and so on. If you want to make up a real Scotch tune yourself, just
play this rhythm up and down the black keys of the piano from F# to
the next F#!
Many of the lovely poems of Robert Burns have been set to old
Scotch airs. He saved many of the old songs, for he gathered the
remains of unpublished old ballads and songs, and snatches of
popular melodies, and with genius gave life to the fragments he
found. In his own words, “I have collected, begged, borrowed and
stolen all the songs I could meet with.”
 Canadian Folk Songs

Canada has the folk songs of the habitant which are French in
character. They are very beautiful and full of romance and many of
them can be traced back to France. Many, however, were born in
Canada and reveal the hearts of people who lived in the great lonely
spaces of a new country.
 English Folk Songs

Most of the English folk songs are very practical accounts of the
doings of the people. The English seemed more interested in human
beings than in Nature, like the Scotch and Irish, or in romantic love
songs like the Latin races in Spain, France and Italy. The English had
to be practical for they were always leaders and at the head of things,
while the Scots and Irish were further away from the center and rush
of life and so went to Nature for their subjects.
There are about five thousand English folk songs which sing of the
English milk-maid and her work, the carpenter, the hunter and his
hounds, and hunting calls. They have the Morris Dance tunes, the
May-day songs, the sailor’s chanties, they even sing of criminals
famous in history and always very definitely tell the full name and
whereabouts of a character in a song. They also have songs of
poachers (those who hunt on land forbidden them), of murderers
and hangmen as well as shepherds and sailors. But England’s finest
songs are the Christmas carols which sing of the birth of Jesus. So, if
they sang little of Nature they did sing of man and God and have
given us much that is beautiful and worth while.
 OLD ENGLISH CAROL
From the Time of Henry IV, or Earlier

Lullay! lullay! lytel child, myn owyn dere fode,

How xalt thou sufferin be nayled on the rode.
So blyssid be the tyme!

Lullay! lullay! lytel child, myn owyn dere smerte,

How xalt thou sufferin the sharp spere to Thi herte?
So blyssid be the tyme!

Lullay! lullay! lytel child, I synge all for Thi sake,

Many on is the scharpe schour to This body is schape.
So blyssid be the tyme!

Lullay! lullay! lytel child, fayre happis the befalle,

How xalt thou sufferin to drynke ezyl and galle?
So blyssid be the tyme!

Lullay! lullay! lytel child, I synge al beforn,

How xalt thou sufferin the scharp garlong of thorn?
So blyssid be the tyme!

Lullay! lullay! lytel child, gwy wepy Thou so sore,

Thou art bothin God and man, gwat woldyst Thou be more?
So blyssid be the tyme!

(From the Sloane MSS. Quoted from The Study of Folk Songs, by Countess
Martinengo-Cesaresco).

American Folk Music

We come now to a question that has been the subject of many

arguments and debates. Many claim that we have no folk music in
the United States, and others claim that we have. It would take a
whole volume to present both sides and we must reduce it to a sugar-
coated capsule.
Although we know that Stephen Foster wrote Old Folks at Home,
The Old Kentucky Home, Uncle Ned, Massa’s in the Cold, Cold
Ground, and Old Black Joe, they express so perfectly the mood and
spirit of the people that they are true folk songs. Harold Vincent
Milligan in his book on Stephen Foster says: “Every folk-song is first
born in the heart and brain of some one person, whose spirit is so
finely attuned to the voice of that inward struggle which is the history
of the soul of man, that when he seeks for his own self-expression he
at the same time gives a voice to that vast ‘mute multitude who die
and give no sign.’”
And again speaking of Stephen Foster, Mr. Milligan says:
“Although purists may question their right to the title ‘folk songs’ his
melodies are truly the songs of the American people.”
The folk music of which we have told you has been the music
portraits of different peoples such as the Russian, the Polish, the
French, the German, the English, the Irish and so on. If there has
been a mixture of peoples or tribes as in England where there were
Britons, Danes, Angles, Saxons and Normans, it happened so long
ago that they have become molded into one race. We are all
Americans but we are not of one race, and we are still in the process
of being molded into one type.
We unite people of all nations under one flag and one government,
but we have been sung to sleep and amused as children by the folk
songs of the European nations to which our parents and
grandparents belonged! And so we have heard from childhood Sur le
Pont d’Avignon, Schlaf Kindlein Schlaf, Wurmland, The Volga Boat
Song, Sally in our Alley, or The Wearing of the Green, none of which
is American.
In spite of all these obstacles to the growth of a folk music in
America, we have several sources from which they have come.
As our earliest settlers in Virginia and New England were English,
they brought with them many of their folk songs and some of these
have remained unchanged in the districts where people of other
nations have not penetrated. The Lonesome Tunes of the Kentucky
mountains, also of Tennessee, the Carolinas and Vermont are
examples of this kind of English folk song in America.
In Louisiana which was settled by the French, we find a type of folk
song that is very charming. It is a combination of old French folk
song with negro spiritual, and is brought to us by the Creoles.
 In California there is a strong Spanish flavor in some of the old
ballads that date from the time of the Spanish Missions. There are
also mining songs of the “days of ’49,” including Oh Susannah, by
Stephen Foster, and we defy you to get rid of the tune if once it “gets
you!”
Then there are cow-boy songs of the Plains, The Texas Rangers,
The Ship that Never Returned, The Cow-boy’s Lament and Bury Me
Not on the Lone Prairie; the Lumberjack songs of Maine; the well
known air of the Arkansas Traveller, which was a funny little sketch
for theatre of a conversation between the Arkansas traveller and a
squatter which is interrupted by snatches of a tune; and in addition a
whole book full of songs sung in the backwoods settlements, hunting
cabins and lumber camps in northern Pennsylvania.
So if you seek, you can find a large number of folk songs without
going to the Indian or the Negro.
The Civil War brought out a number of new national songs among
them Glory Hallelujah and Dixie. Dixie was written in 1859 as a song
and “walk-around” by the famous minstrel Dan Emmett, and became
a war song by accident. It had dash and a care-free spirit, and the
rollicking way it pictured plantation life attracted the soldiers of the
South when they were in the cold winter camps in the North. Its
rhythm is so irresistible that it makes your hands and feet go in spite
of yourself. Besides these two the soldiers of the Civil War marched
to Rally Round the Flag, Boys, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are
Marching, Home, Sweet Home, Lily Dale, The Girl I Left Behind Me,
Hail Columbia and The Star Spangled Banner.
We have told you so much about the Indian and his song that it is
unnecessary now to dwell at length on his music. Of course some
American composers have used Indian folk legend and music, but
after all it remains the musical portrait of the Red Man and has not
become the heart language of the white man.
We have, however, a real folk-expression that has had a great deal
of influence on our popular music and will probably help to create a
serious music to which we can attach the label “Made in America,”
and that is the music of the American Negro.
In Chapter II we showed you what the Negro had brought from his
native Africa, and also that he had been influenced by his contact
with the white race. His music is not the result of conscious art and
of study but is a natural outburst in which he expresses his joys and
sorrows, his tragedies and racial oppression. Also we find rhythms,
melody and form that have grown as a wild flower grows, and are
different from any we have met heretofore.
Mr. Krehbiel in his book Afro-American Folksongs says of the
Negro slave songs: “They contain idioms which were transplanted
hither from Africa, but as song they are the product of American
institutions; of the social, political and geographical environment
within which their creators were placed in America, of the influences
to which they were subjected in America, of the joys, sorrows and
experiences which fell to their lot in America.”
The Negro has cultivated, like all races, songs and dances. As we
said of the Russian, his song is sad and full of tragedy, but the dance
is gay, wild and primitive. From the dance of the Negro we borrowed
the rhythm formerly called ragtime, which is now jazz. The principle
of the Negro rhythm is syncopation, that is, the accent is shifted to
the unaccented part of a measure or of a beat, like this,—

, , . All sorts of
combinations are possible in this rhythm, and it is this variety that is
fascinating in a good jazz tune.
The banjo is the instrument of the southern plantation Negro, and
when a crowd gathers for a “sing” or a dance, the hands and feet take
the place of drums and keep time to the syncopated tune and is
called, “patting Juba.”
A curious dance was the “shout” which flourished in slave days. It
took place on Sunday or on prayer meeting nights and was
accompanied by hymn singing and shouting that sounded from a
distance like a melancholy wail. After the meeting the benches were
pushed back, old and young, men and women, stood in the middle of
the floor and when the “sperichel” (or spiritual) was started they
shuffled around in a ring. Sometimes the dancers sang the
“sperichel” or they sang only the chorus, and for a distance of half a
mile from the praise house the endless thud, thud of the feet was
heard.
 In the beautiful Spiritual, the song of the Negro, we see also the
syncopated rhythm. The religious song is practically the only song he
has, and he sings it at work, at play, at prayer, when he is sick and his
friends sing it after he is dead. To our ears the words are crude and
homely, but always reveal a fervent religious nature as well as a
childlike faith.
No doubt you have heard Nobody Knows the Trouble I See, Deep
River, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Go Down Moses, Weeping Mary
and many others.
Such a wealth of feeling and beauty could not fail to leave its mark
in the land where it was born.
Just how it will bear fruit we cannot say, but it is making its appeal
more and more, not only to the American, but to the foreign
composers as well, and they believe that this music,—the syncopated
rhythm that the American is at last developing in his own way—in
spite of its humble origin, is the one new thing that America has
given to the growth of music, and they envy us that wealth of rhythm
that seems to be born in the American.
Music Becomes a Youth
 CHAPTER XI
Makers of Motets and Madrigals—Rise of Schools 15th and 16th
Centuries

Don’t you think it strange that we have not told you of any pieces
written for the lute alone, or for the viol or any other instrument?
The reason is that until 1700, there was little music for a solo
instrument, but only for voices alone or for voice and instrument
together.
The main sport of composers of this time, was to take a popular
tune and write music around it. The popular tune was called the
cantus firmus (subject or fixed song) and the composer who did the
fanciest things with the tune was hailed as great. So instead of
wanting to make up tunes as we do, they were anxious to see what
they could do with old tunes. Times change, don’t they?
“Like children who break their toys to see how they work, they
learned to break up the musical phrases into little bits which they
repeated, which they moved from one part to another; in this way the
dividing of themes (tunes) came, which led them to the use of
imitation and of canon; these early and innocent gardeners finally
learned how to make the trees of the enchanted garden of music bear
fruit. Still timid, they kept the custom for three centuries of making
all their pieces from parts of plain-song or of a popular song, instead
of inventing subjects for themselves; thus, what is prized today above
every thing else—the making of original melodies—was secondary in
the minds of the musicians, so busy were they trying to organize their
art, so earnestly were they trying to learn the use of their tools.”
(Translated from the French from Palestrina, by Michel Brenet).
By spending their time this way, they added much to the science of
music. If it was not pretty, at least it was full of interesting
discoveries which composers used later, as we shall see, in fugues,
canons, suites and many other forms.
The most popular forms of composition during these two centuries
(the 15th and the 16th) were the motet for Church and the madrigal
for outside the Church.
 What a Motet is

The motet probably gets its name from a kind of profane song (not
sacred) that was called in Italian mottetto, and translated into
French bon mot, means a jest. It dates back to the 13th century, and
was disliked by the Church. The first motets used in the Church in
the early 14th century are very crude to our ears, but interesting
historically. The composers of the different schools of this period
wrote many of them. Motets were usually those parts of the church
ritual which depended on the day or season. They were not the
regular unaltered parts like the mass itself.
This motet, or part-song, used as its central theme a tune already
familiar to its hearers; this tune, the cantus firmus was sometimes a
bit from a Gregorian chant or from a mass, but more often it was a
snatch from a dance song or a folk song with very vulgar words, or it
may have been a troubadour love song with anything but the right
kind of words for the Church. The words for one part were often from
the Bible and for other parts very coarse words from popular tunes.
Imagine singing them at the same time! Still funnier, the words of
the sacred song were sung in Latin and the popular song was sung in
whatever language it happened to be written! Can you think of
anything more ridiculous? The masses came to be known by the
names from which the tune was taken and nearly every composer
including the great Palestrina wrote masses on a popular tune of the
day, L’homme armé (The Man in Armor). Yet they were all quite
different, so varied had become the science of writing counterpoint.
Josquin des Près (1450–1521) the Flemish composer wrote a
motet, Victimae Paschali, which is written around an old Gregorian
plainchant, interwoven with two popular rondelli (in French roundel
from which comes our terms roundelay and rondo) and a Stabat
Mater of his. The cantus firmus, or subject of this motet is another
secular or popular air.
The popular composers returned the compliment and took themes
or tunes from church music and put secular words to them. History
repeats itself, for we today take a tune from Handel’s Messiah and
use it in Yes, We Have No Bananas and we jazz the beautiful and
noble music of Chopin, Beethoven, Schubert and many others.
Yet this music,—the child we are watching grow up—because of
mixing up sacred and profane music soon gets a big reprimand.
The northern part of France seems to have been the birthplace of
the motet; a little later it found its way into Italy where some of the
finest music of the period was written, and the Italian influence
reached into Spain in the middle of the 15th century; at the end of
the century the Venetian school had spread its work into Germany.
In the 17th century the name motet was given to a kind of
composition between a cantata and an oratorio, but it had nothing to
do with the famous motet of the 15th and 16th centuries which we
are discussing.
To show you how clever the men were in these days, one composer
wrote a motet in thirty-six parts!
In the Library of the Sistine Chapel in Rome are volumes
containing the motets of the 14th century, copied, of course, by hand
in notes large enough to be seen and read by the whole choir! These
books are beautifully decorated in gold and lovely colors, or
illuminated, and are of great value.
 Madrigals or Popular Motets

All music of this period not composed for the Church had the
general name of Madrigal, but a real madrigal was a vocal
composition for from three to six parts written on a secular subject,
which often gave to the work a grace and lightness not in the motet.
The vocal madrigals were to the music lovers of that day what
chamber music is today, for instruments were not yet used without
singing. Later, the lute played the chief melody with the voice, and it
was only a step to have other instruments play the other parts of the
madrigal. The instruments played a section of the composition alone
while waiting for a solo singer to appear. He sang a part of the
madrigal that was later called the air and the instrumental part was
called the ritournelle, which literally meant that in this section of the
work, the singer returned from “off-stage” where he had awaited his
turn. By the end of the 16th century it had become the custom for
motets as well as madrigals to have a solo air or aria, and an
instrumental ritournelle, and this was the beginning of chamber
music,—a very great oak which grew from a very little acorn.
In the first printed music books are many of the madrigals of the
early period. We will tell you of the composers of this period
separately, but remember that they all wrote practically the same
kind of music,—masses, motets, and madrigals, but all with the
subject borrowed from something they knew and with many parts for
the voices. Often, too, the same tunes were used for Church and
outside the Church. For this reason much music was published
without the words, so that the singers could use sacred or profane
words as they wished.
Strange as it may seem, it was the folk songs and ballads and not
the learned church music, that had originality and came freely and
sincerely from the hearts of the people.
 Songs in Dance Form

Because these contrapuntal writings were heavy (can you imagine

dancing to a canon?) a new kind influenced by folk music grew up
among these people who were naturally gay and jolly and wished to
be entertained. Songs for three and four parts appeared, more
popular in style and simpler in form than the church motet and were
the descendants of the music of the troubadours. These were in
dance form, such as the French chanson, the vilanelle, the Italian
canzona, canzonetta or little canzona, frottola, strambottes and the
German lied. Many of these songs in dance form later inspired
composers to write music for instruments alone, so that people
danced to music without singing. These dance songs were called
branles, pavanes, gaillardes, courantes, forlanes, rigaudons
sarabandes, gigues, gavottes and many other names.
 The Lute

The favorite instrument of the 15th and 16th centuries was the
lute. It fought for first place with the vielle, the viole, the harp, the
psalterion and the portative organ, but won the fight and took its
place beside the most famous singers of the day, sometimes for
accompanying and again reaching the dignity of soloist, as we told
you above. In the 15th century it took the form, which we see most
often represented in pictures and in museums, with its six strings,
graceful round body, and long neck bent back as you can see in plate
opposite page 127 already described. As time went on this lute was
made larger and strings were added until at the beginning of the 17th
century, it was replaced by an instrument called the arch-lute or
theorbo, which had twenty-four strings, a double neck, and two sets
of tuning pins.
The spinets or virginals, the great-aunts of our pianofortes first
came into vogue in the 15th and 16th centuries.
 Tablature

There was a notation called Tablature used in the 16th and 17th
centuries to write down the music for lute and other stringed
instruments such as the viol, cittern, theorbo. You will find, in
pictures of Tablature, lines which look like our staff, but they do not
form a staff, but simply represent the strings of the instrument.
These lines vary according to the number of strings, from four for the
cittern to six for the lute. The notation showed, not the position and
fingering as we write music, but the position and fingering of frets
and strings. Instead of neumes or notes you will find the alphabet up
to the letter j, figures and queer dots and lines and slurs, but each
sign had its own meaning and was important to the lutenist.
 Rise of Schools

As music outgrows childhood, Schools of Music are started. But

these are not like the schools to which we go every day, but are rather
music groups or centers. Suppose you were a composer and lived in
New York and knew a dozen or so musicians who were writing the
same kind of music as you; the music, if good enough to be known
and played, would be called the New York School, or it might be
called the 1925 School! Or, if you were important enough to be
imitated by your followers, it would be called the Smith School, if
that happened to be your name, just as those who imitate Wagner
are said to be the Wagner School, and so it goes. Not a school to go
to, but a school to belong to!
“What makes these schools start?” we can hear you ask. Many
things. Sometimes people are oppressed by their rulers and in trying
to forget their troubles, they naturally want to express themselves in
the art they know, and in this way groups get together and a school
grows. Sometimes the Church is the cause of schools of music,
literature, and art, and we shall see in this chapter how the Church
influenced the schools of music of this time and made it one of the
most important periods in this story. Sometimes, too, the climate has
caused the development of different styles as we told you in the
chapter on folk music. It often happens too, that a great man or a
great school in one country affects other countries.
 Franco-Flemish School

The first real group of composers to be called a “School” lived in

the part of Europe that today covers the north of France, Belgium
and the Netherlands. The composers who were born from 1400 to
about 1530, in the so-called Low Countries belonged to this school.
Some writers claim that there were three schools, and that the
Franco-Flemish (Gallo-Belgic) is a bridge between the Paris school of
the 14th century and the Netherlands school of the 16th. But it would
be impossible to say when one school began and another ended, as
they all wrote the same kind of music. As the older composers were
the teachers of the younger, the interesting thing to know is that
many of these masters of the north of Europe went to Italy, Spain,
France, and to Germany, and spread the knowledge of the “new art”
of counterpoint and vocal poly-melody (many melodies) and filled
positions of importance in the churches. They were considered such
splendid teachers, that many of the young students of other
nationalities went to Holland and Belgium to be taught.
Zeelandia, a Hollander, an important master in this new school,
tried to get rid of the awkward intervals, fourths and fifths, which
were used in organum (see Chapter VII), and was the first composer
to give the subject or cantus firmus to the soprano voice instead of
the tenor. Doesn’t it seem strange that it took so long to let the
soprano have the main tune?
But the most important composer of his period (1400–1474) was
Guillaume Dufay, from Flanders, who was a chorister in the Papal
choir (choir of the Pope) in Rome. He made the rules and imitation
for the canon (a grown up round) and he was the first composer to
use the folk song L’homme armé (The Man in Armor) in a mass.
The next important name is Jan Okeghem (1430–1495), a
Hollander, who improved the science of counterpoint and of fugue
writing. We have already mentioned his canon for thirty-six voices
(page 149), and he wrote some puzzle canons, for use in secret guilds.
No one could solve these without the key and they were much harder
than the world’s best cross-word puzzles. He tried to make music
express the beauty he felt, and not merely be mathematical problems