(fl 3rd century ce). Roman grammarian and philosopher. He is known today for his On the Day of Birth (De die natali), a treatise on birthday lore and other subjects composed for the 49th birthday of his patron, Qu. Caerellius, in 238 ce. According to Cassiodorus (Institutiones, ii.5.10) and Priscian (Institutiones grammaticae, i.16–17; xiv.6, 40–41), Censorinus also composed treatises on grammar and accents. These works seem not to have survived, although some portions may appear in the so-called Fragmentum Censorini, which was transmitted along with On the Day of Birth in manuscripts and early editions until Louis Carrion separated and reorganized them in his edition of 1583. On the Day of Birth and the Fragmentum are preserved in whole or part in at least 24 manuscripts; the earliest is D-KNd 166 (formerly Darmstadiensis 2191), dating from the 8th century.
Censorinus states that he drew his treatise from earlier commentaries, and much of On the Day of Birth is commonly assumed to have been derived from the lost encyclopedic works of Marcus Terentius Varro (fl 1st century bce), the author most frequently cited by Censorinus. Nevertheless, Censorinus may also have had direct knowledge of some of the works by the more than one hundred authors to whom he refers, including Anaxagoras, Aristotle, Aristoxenus, Epicurus, Eratosthenes, Heraclitus, Hippocrates, Parmenides, Philolaus, Plato, Pythagoras and Theophrastus.
The treatise has by tradition been arranged into 24 ‘sections’, but it is written as a single concise exposition on the measures and cycles of time as manifested in days, months, years, periods of gestation and the ages and durations of life. These measures and cycles are clearly exhibited in number, planetary motions and the zodiac, and in section 10, Censorinus seeks to clarify them by briefly commenting on the ‘rules of music and particularly those that have been ignored by musicians themselves’. Most of the definitions of this chapter are in fact common in earlier sources, but the definition of music itself (‘musica est scientia bene modulandi’) is particularly noteworthy because it also appears in the writings of Augustine of Hippo (De musica, i.2), Cassiodorus (Institutiones, ii.5, where it is specifically ascribed to Censorinus), and is paraphrased slightly in Martianus Capella (De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, ix.930), Isidore (Etymologiae, iii.15) and Aurelian of Réôme (Musica disciplina, 2). Definitions of pitch, interval, consonance and the three primary consonant ratios (4:3, 3:2 and 2:1) measured in both Aristoxenian and Pythagorean terms lead to a review of the discovery of the Pythagorean harmonia (6:8:9:12), which is employed in section 11 to explain why seven and ten months were thought to be the normal periods for human gestation (cf Aristotle, History of Animals, vii.3–4; Aristides Quintilianus draws similar associations in his treatise On Music, iii.18).
Section 12 briefly reviews the common associations of music with the gods and humankind, including the influence of music on the human body and soul, while section 13 describes the musical ratios discerned in the Greek planetary system. Observing that the charms of music have delayed him in his discourse, Censorinus states that even an entire book could not exhaust the subject. The balance of On the Day of Birth makes no further reference to music.
The Fragmentum Censorini is traditionally arranged in 15 sections: section 9 lists the names of various famous melic poets and later musicians; sections 10 and 13–15 provide a useful summary of Latin rhythmics and metrics, with examples; and sections 11–12 list and briefly define the traditional divisions of music (harmonica, organica, rhythmica and crusmatica), 13 of the tonoi, the Greek note names and terms such as modus, carmen, tempus and modulatio. Section 12 also includes brief comment on the development of the kithara by Apollo, Terpander and Timotheus (cf Boethius, De institutione musica, i.20).
O. Jahn, ed.: De die natali liber (Berlin, 1845/R)
F. Hultsch, ed.: De die natali liber (Leipzig, 1867)
J. Cholodniak, ed.: De die natali liber (St Petersburg, 1889) [without Fragmentum]
G. Rocca-Serra, trans.: Le jour natal (Paris, 1980)
N. Sallmann, ed.: De die natali liber ad Q. Caerellium, accedit anoymi cuiusdam epitoma disciplinarum (Fragmentum Censorini) (Leipzig, 1983)
K. Sallmann, trans.: Betrachtungen zum Tag der Geburt (Weinheim, 1988) [Ger. and Lat. on facing pages]
This list is limited to works concentrating on the musical or metric aspects of Censorinus's writings. For a comprehensive bibliography of the vast quantity of literature on Censorinus, see the edition of N. Sallmann, pp.xxv–xxxv.
W. Christ: Metrik der Griechen und Römer (Leipzig, 1874, 2/1879/R)
P. Tannery: ‘Censorinus de die natali’, Revue de philologie, xiii (1889), 69–70
K. von Jan: ‘Harmonie der Sphären’, Philologus, lii (1894), 13–37
T. Reinach: ‘Musique des sphères’, Revue des études grecques, xiii (1900), 432–49
H. Oppermann: ‘Eine Pythagoraslegende’, Bonner Jb, cxxx (1925), 284–301
A. Delatte: ‘Les harmonies dans l'embryologie hippocratique’, Mélanges Paul Thomas (Bruges, 1930), 160–71
C. Bouvet: ‘Censorinus et la musique’, RdM, xvii (1933), 65–73
A. Machabey: ‘A propos de Censorinus’, RdM, xvii (1933), 218–19
P. Boyancé: Etudes sur le Songe de Scipion: essais d'histoire et de psychologie religieuses (Limoges, 1936)
O.J. Gombosi: Tonarten und Stimmungen der antiken Musik (Copenhagen, 1939)
B.L. van der Waerden: ‘Die Harmonielehre der Pythagoreer’, Hermes, lxxviii (1943), 163–99
G. Junge: ‘Die Sphärenharmonie und pythagoreisch-platonische Zahlenlehre’, Classica et mediaevalia, ix (1947), 183–94
W. Burkert: ‘Hellenistische Pseudopythagorica’, Philologus, cv (1961), 16–43, 226–46
L. Richter: Zur Wissenschaftslehre von der Musik bei Platon und Aristoteles (Berlin, 1961)
W. Burkert: Weisheit und Wissenschaft: Studien zu Pythagoras, Philolaos und Platon (Nürnberg, 1962)
L. Richter: ‘Griechische Traditionen im Musikschrifttum der Römer: Censorinus de die natali Kapitel 10’, AMw, xxii (1965), 69–98
G. Wille: Musica romana (Amsterdam, 1967)
L. Richter: ‘Die Geburtstagsschrift des Censorinus als musiktheoretische Quelle’, Studien zur Geschichte und Philosophie des Altertums, ed. J. Harmatta (Budapest and Amsterdam, 1968), 215–23
W.F. Kümmel: Musik und Medizin: ihre Wechselbeziehung in Theorie und Praxis von 800 bis 1800 (Freiburg, 1977)
A. Barbera: The Persistence of Pythagorean Mathematics in Ancient Musical Thought (diss., U. of North Carolina, 1980)
A.K. Holbrook: The Concept of Musical Consonance in Greek Antiquity and its Application in the Earliest Medieval Descriptions of Polyphony (diss., U. of Washington, 1983)
M. Huglo: ‘The Study of Ancient Sources of Music Theory in Medieval Universities’, Music Theory and its Sources: Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Notre Dame, IN, 1987, 150–72
N. Phillips: ‘Classical and Late Latin Sources for Ninth-Century Treatises on Music’, ibid., 100–135
T.J. Mathiesen: Apollo's Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Lincoln, NE, 1999), 614–16
THOMAS J. MATHIESEN