A trumpet-like instrument of the ancient Greeks (classified as an Aerophone). It consists of a straight bronze tube of small diameter, shorter than the Roman tuba (see Tuba (ii)), with a bone mouthpiece and ending in a bell whose shape was variable. It was altogether less frequently encountered in Greek musical life than was the tuba in Etruscan and Roman musical life: it was mentioned only twice by Homer and did not become at all common in Greek literature and art until the classical period. It was then depicted on a number of vases, usually being played by a soldier. In some cases the Phorbeia, a mouthband often employed by Aulos players, was represented (see illustration). The 5th-century tragedians described the salpinx as tyrrhenos (‘Etruscan’) on several occasions. Bronze instruments were certainly important among the Etruscans, but these references cannot be taken as proof of the Etruscan origins of the instrument, since there are scattered references to it before the Greeks had contact with the Etruscans. The 5th-century authors also associated it with war, where its piercing sound made it an ideal signalling device; the same quality enabled it to perform a variety of functions such as summoning a large crowd or beginning a chariot race.
See also Greece, §I, 5(ii)(d).
SachsH
M. Wegner: Griechenland, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, ii/4 (Leipzig, 1963, 2/1970)
M.L. West: Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1992), 118–21
T.J. Mathiesen: Apollo’s Lyre: Greek Music and Music Theory in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Lincoln, NE, 1999), 230–34
JAMES W. McKINNON