Tibia
（
αὐλός). A pipe, the commonest musical instrument of the
Greeks and Romans. It was very frequently a hollow cane, perforated with holes in the proper
places. In other instances it was made of some kind of wood, especially box, and was bored
with a gimlet. When a single pipe was used by itself, the performer upon it, as well as the
instrument, was called
monaulos. Among the varieties of the single pipe
the most remarkable were the bagpipe, the performer upon which was called
utricularius or
ἀσκαύλης: and the
αὐλὸς πλάγιος or
πλαγίαυλος,
which, as its name implies, had a mouth-piece inserted into it at right angles. Pan was the
reputed inventor of this kind of tibia as well as of the
fistula or
syrinx. (See
Syrinx.) But among
the Greeks and Romans it was much more usual to play on two pipes at the same time. Hence a
performance (
tibicinium) on this instrument, even when executed by a
single person, was called
canere or
cantare tibiis.
This act is exhibited in very numerous works of ancient art, and often in such a way as to
make it manifest that the two pipes were perfectly distinct, and not connected, as some have
supposed, by a common mouth-piece. The mouth-pieces of the two pipes often
passed through a
capistrum. See
Capistrum.
Three different kinds of pipes were originally used to produce music in the Dorian,
Phrygian, and Lydian modes. It appears, also, that to produce the Phrygian mode the pipe had
only two holes (τρυπήματα) above and that it terminated in a
horn bending upwards. It thus approached to
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Tibiae and Syrinx
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the nature of a trumpet, and produced slow, grave, and solemn tunes. The Lydian mode
was much quicker, and more varied and animating. Horace mentions “Lydian
pipes” as a proper accompaniment when he is celebrating the praise of ancient
heroes. The Lydians themselves used this instrument in leading their troops to battle; and the
pipes employed for the purpose are distinguished by Herodotus as “male and
female”—i. e. probably bass and treble—corresponding to the
ordinary sexual difference in the human voice. The corresponding Latin terms are
tibia dextra and
sinistra: the respective instruments
are supposed to have been so called because the former was more properly held in the right
hand and the latter in the left. The
tibia dextra was used to lead or
commence a piece of music, and the
sinistra followed it as an
accompaniment. The comedies of Terence having been accompanied by the pipe, the following
notices are prefixed to explain the kind of music appropriate to each:
tibiis
paribus, i. e. with pipes in the same mode;
tibiis imparibus,
pipes in different modes;
tibiis duabus dextris, two pipes of low pitch;
tibiis paribus dextris et sinistris, pipes in the same mode, and of both
low and high pitch. The use of the pipe among the Greeks and Romans was
three-fold—viz. at sacrifices (
tibiae sacrificae),
entertainments (
ludicrae), and funerals. (See
Funus.) The pipe was not confined anciently to the male sex, but
αὐλητρίδες, or female
tibicines, were very
common. See Gevaert,
Histoire et Théorie de la Musique dans
l'Antiquité, ii. pp. 270 foll. and 647 foll.
(Ghent, 1881).
