During this period, Aristophanes of Alexandria (350 B.C.), called “the grammarian,” devised a means for indicating the inflection of the voice in speaking, by which the cadences which orators found necessary in impassioned speech could be classified, at least to some extent.  When the voice was to fall, a downward stroke [\] was placed above the syllable; when the voice was to be raised, an upward stroke [/] indicated it; and when the voice was to rise and fall, the sign was [/\], which has become our accent in music.  These three signs are found in the French language, in the accent aigu, or high accent, as in passe; the accent grave, or low accent, as in sincere; or circonflexe, as in Phaon.  The use of dots[08] for punctuation is also ascribed to Aristophanes; and our dots in musical notation, as well as the use of commas to indicate breathings, may be traced to this system.

As I have said, all this tended toward technical skill and analysis; what was lacking in inventive power it was sought to cover by wonderful execution.  The mania for flute playing, for instance, seemed to spread all over the world; later we even hear that the king of Egypt, Ptolemy Auletes (80-51 B.C.), Cleopatra’s father, was nicknamed “the flute player.”

In Rome, this lack of poetic vitality seemed evident from the beginning; for while Greece was represented by the tragedy and comedy, the Romans’ preference was for mere pantomime, a species of farce of which they possessed three kinds:  (1) The simple pantomime without chorus, in which the actors made the plot clear to the audience by means of gestures and dancing. (2) Another which called for a band of instrumental musicians on the stage to furnish an accompaniment to the acting of the pantomimist. (3) The chorus pantomime, in which the chorus and the orchestra were placed on the stage, supplementing the gestures of the actors by singing a narrative of the plot of the pantomime, and playing on their instruments.  The latter also were expressive of the non-ideal character of the pantomime, as is indicated by the fact that the orchestra was composed of cymbals, gongs, castanets, foot castanets, rattles, flutes, bagpipes, gigantic lyres, and a kind of shell or crockery cymbals, which were clashed together.

The Roman theatre itself was not a place connected with the worship of the gods, as it was with the Greeks.  The altar to Dionysus had disappeared from the centre of the orchestra, and the chorus, or rather the band, was placed upon the stage with the actors.  The bagpipe now appears for the first time in musical history, although there is some question as to whether it was not known to the Assyrians.  It represents, perhaps, the only remnant of Roman music that has survived, for the modern Italian peasants probably play in much the same way as did their forefathers.  The Roman pipes were bound with brass, and had about the same power of tone as was obtained from the trumpet.