Achilleas G. Chaldæakes, “Plato’s Influences in the Greek Religious Music Theory”, in E. Karamalengou (†), I. G. Kalogerakos & Z. Wang (eds.), Jixia Academy and Plato’s Academy. Essays in Ancient Chinese and Ancient Greek Philosophy and Culture. Pages 299-319. Athens 2026: National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Press.
In the Timaeus, Plato presents the Creator who “gave the world the shape ‘which was suitable and akin to its nature’, i.e. a rounded spherical shape, ‘because he believed that likeness is incalculably more excellent than unlikeness’. The Creator then assigned to the world a rotatory or circular movement, ‘which is the most appropriate to mind and intelligence’…” Timaeus in particular mentions: The construction of the world used up the whole of the four elements. For the creator constructed it of all the fire and water and air and earth there was, leaving over no part or power of any of them, reasoning in the following way […] to make this world as whole and complete as possible […] As for the shape, he gave it one that was suitable and akin to its nature. A suitable shape for a living being that was to contain within itself all living beings would be a figure that contains all possible figures within itself. Therefore, he gave it a rounded spherical shape, with the extremes equidistant in all directions from the centre. This of all shapes is the most complete and most like itself, which he gave to it because he believed that likeness is incalculably more excellent than unlikeness […] He then assigned to it the movement suited to its body, that one of the seven motions [meaning, apart from rotary, the “linear motions, in connection with the dimensions of space, that is up and down, backwards and forwards, right and left and vice versa”] which is especially associated with the mind and intelligence. And he set it turning continuously in the same place, spinning around upon itself, freed from the wandering of all other six motions which were taken away.
The present paper is dealing with the symbol of the circle, a shape that symbolizes the universe which surrounds us; a small reflection of the harmony of the world in which we live, a world that is driven by circular movements. The principle of “circularity” is “a key element in the Pythagorean view of the world” and is carried forward by Plato where it “becomes a predominant pattern in platonic astronomy”. At the same time, the circle is a symbol of crucial importance for the Greek Religious Music Theory as well; through a circle, the so-called Wheel of the Eight Modes, the masters of Greek Music used to teach the Theory of Greek Music and one can grasp the philosophical background and the inmost symbolism connected to this circular shape’s ancient use reflected in the inner sense of the entire Greek Religious Music.
The above-mentioned approach of the present paper is specifically undertaken in conjunction with the music education and theoretical inheritance in Plato’s Academy, as it is transmitted through a Pythagorean Philosopher, Theon of Smyrna, in his well-known work Mathematics Useful for Understanding Plato.
