ARISTOXENUS, a Peripatetic philosopher, and native of Tarentum. He studied under Lamprus, Xenophilus, and Aristotle; and, according to Suidas, was the author of 453 works on music, philosophy, and history. The only one of these that is now known is his Elements of Harmonics, in three books, of which Meibomius published an edition with Latin translation and notes in his Antiqua Musica Auctores, Amsterdam, 1652. This is considered the best edition of Aristoxenus's work, although it is imperfect; for part of each book is wanting, and great confusion occurs from transposition of passages. The Abate J. Morelli, librarian of St Mark's
library at Venice, published fragments of Aristoxenus's Elements of Rhythm from a MS. in that library, Venice, 1785. By the term apporia, the ancient Greeks did not mean harmony in the modern sense of that word as applied to music, but the system of sounds upon which melody for voice or instrument was founded. It is remarkable that Aristoxenus, after asserting that the ear is the sole judge of harmonic [melodic] intervals, should have plunged into a system of false calculations of these intervals. He, like the other Greek writers on music, has given us no information regarding the practical parts of the art, either in composition or performance.