(fl c440 bce). Greek poet and musician, the most famous of the Theban school of auletes. An epigram (Greek Anthology, xvi, no.28), perhaps early in date, celebrates the skill of these performers and the special pre-eminence of Pronomus. His renown was such that he gave lessons to Alcibiades (Athenaeus, iv, 184d); Aristophanes (Ecclesiazusae, 102) mentions him in passing, not unfavourably. Both Pausanias (ix.12.5–6) and Athenaeus (xiv, 631e) state that he was the first to play a number of modes (harmoniai) on one double Aulos. The former specified these as the familiar basic group consisting of Dorian, Phrygian and Lydian; Athenaeus referred simply to ‘the modes’. Schlesinger suggested that Pronomus might have achieved his feat by extending the reed mouthpiece, thus obtaining Phrygian and Lydian as species (eidē) of Dorian; this has been disputed. With the help of rotating bands, however, he could have produced true modes. Such fittings are known to have been in use from the middle of the 5th century bce; they served to cover or expose auxiliary finger-holes. Alternatively, his auloi may have had the finger-holes arranged in staggered rows, although Pollux (iv.80) states that Diodorus of Thebes introduced this modification. However perfected, the aulos of Pronomus's period was undoubtedly the instrument banned from Plato's ideal state because of its ‘panharmonic’ capacities (Republic, iii, 399d3–4).
When the Peloponnesian city of Messene was founded in 369 bce, the builders worked to the rival aulos melodies of Pronomus and the composer Sacadas of Argos (Pausanias, iv.27.7). A well-known vase of the late 5th century bce probably shows Pronomus (rather than his son, also named Pronomus), rehearsing in a room before the performance of a satyr-play. He would have been responsible for the music; by this time, any such setting would have been composed by the aulete, not by the dramatic poet.
A.A. Howard: ‘The Aulos or Tibia’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, iv (1893), 1–60
F. Greif: ‘Etudes sur la musique antique’, Revue des études grecques, xxiii (1910), 1–48, esp. 33–41
J.M. Edmonds, ed. and trans.: Lyra graeca, iii (London and Cambridge, MA, 1927, 2/1928/R), 268ff
A.W. Pickard-Cambridge: Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy (Oxford, 1927, rev. 2/1962 by T.B.L. Webster), 55, 312, pl.xiii
H. Huchzermeyer: Aulos und Kithara in der griechischen Musik bis zum Ausgang der klassischen Zeit (nach den literarische Quellen) (Emsdetten, 1931)
K. Schlesinger: The Greek Aulos (London, 1939/R), 70ff
N.B. Bodley: ‘The Auloi of Meroë: a Study of the Greek-Egyptian Auloi Found at Meroë, Egypt’, American Journal of Archaeology, l (1946), 217–40, pls.I–VIII
D.L. Page, ed.: Poetae melici graeci (Oxford, 1962), 396
J.G. Landels: ‘The Reconstruction of Ancient Greek Auloi’, World Archaeology, xii (1981), 298–302
WARREN ANDERSON/THOMAS J. MATHIESEN