Music in Society
In spite of the purported lack of musical originality on the part of the Romans, they did enjoy music greatly and used it for many activities. Scott recounts the obvious military uses of the tuba for signaling, as well as music for funerals, private gatherings, public performances on the stage and large gladiatorial spectacles. Music was also used in religious ceremonies. The Romans cultivated music as a sign of education. Music contests were quite common and attracted a wide range of competition, including Nero himself, who performed widely as an amateur and once traveled to Greece to compete.
There are also numerous references (cited in Scott) to the pervasive presence of music in ancient Rome, music even on a very large scale — hundreds of trumpeters and pipers playing together at massive games and festivals — and even of normally hand-held citharas built as large as carriages.
Read more about this topic: Music Of Ancient Rome
Famous quotes containing the words music and/or society:
“See where my Love sits in the beds of spices,
Beset all round with camphor, myrrh, and roses,
And interlaced with curious devices
Which her apart from all the world incloses!
There doth she tune her lute for her delight,
And with sweet music makes the ground to move,
Whilst I, poor I, do sit in heavy plight,
Wailing alone my unrespected love;”
—Bartholomew Griffin (d. 1602)
“Although knaves win in every political struggle, although society seems to be delivered over from the hands of one set of criminals into the hands of another set of criminals, as fast as the government is changed, and the march of civilization is a train of felonies, yet, general ends are somehow answered.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)