In Numa's Time - Ancient Roman Song

An original composition by Farya Faraji. The image is from the Etruscan Tomb of the Leopards. Many thanks to Luke Ranieri of the ScorpioMartianus channel for helping out with the Latin—make sure to check out both that channel and polýMATHY if you enjoy content about Ancient Rome and Greece.

This is my first attempt at a properly historically accurate reconstruction of Ancient Roman music. I chose to base this composition in the enharmonic modes of Ancient Greek music, mainly the Mixolydian enharmonic, with a small modification to one of the notes to make it even more microtonal. The enharmonic genus (category of mode) was the one defined by the usage of microtonality during and before the Hellenistic Era. Microtonality is any pitch found in between the space between tones and semitones (white and black key notes on a semitone); they are notes not found in Western European music, and therefore the sound of it can be extremey alien and out of tune to ears not from a tradition that uses them.

I purposefully leaned entirely into the microtonal aspect because I believe we can become complacent by only limiting ourselves to the Diatonic modes, the ones that sound like our modern Western European modes. Some scholars like Armand d’Angour espouse a view that the microtonal notes would have at most been passing notes that wouldn’t have been leaned into as pillars of the melody, and while I support this hypothesis as the most plausible given my own experience with Middle-Eastern music, where the microtonal notes are rarely the ones focused on and held long onto, I think we should be open to the possibility that the ancient, pre-Hellenistic Greek ear fully leaned into these frequencies and enjoyed these difficult-to-listen-to-notes.

Indeed, microtonality ended up becoming too difficuly even to the Hellenistic Greek ear, so that the genus ended up going out of use in that era. Therefore, the Romans of the Republic technically never used it as part of their musical system. They may have used it before, as Greek influence was widespread in Italy before and during the Hellenistic Era, but we have no data to back this up. In any case, my usage of the enharmonic mode here is thematic.

The lyrics are from Ovid’s Tristia; and in this specific passage I selected, he describes the long gone era of Numa Pompilius, the legendary second King of Rome. The Romans would have perceived the defunct, out of use enharmonic as a relic from olden times, and therefore I deemed it appropriate for expressing the sense of a time ancient even to Ovid’s; and it’s possible that Romans would have used enharmonic in extremely specific cases to express a concept of “old/ancient,” much like how Western operas may occasionally use scales unkown to Western Europe in order to express a sense of exoticism. This is why I chose an Etruscan image: though Numa himself was Sabine; Rome at the time lived in the shadow of the flourishing Etruscan civilisation, and many of its legendary kings were of that origin.

The orchestration uses the lyre, pandoura and aulos, as well as a frame-drum, all typical of the era. The lyrics are a modified and shortened version of the text found in Ovid’s Tristia, book 3, lines 29 to 30. I use Classical Latin pronunciation; the reconstructed pronunciation of Latin from the city of the Rome circa 100 B.C to 300 A.D, contemporary to Ovid’s time, and takes into account both vowel length and stress accent, although the elegiac metre of the original text was disregarded here.

Lyrics in Latin:
Hic locus Vestae est,
Qui servat pallada,
Haec fuit antīquī,
Rēgia parva Numae.

Hic stator hoc prīmum,
Condita Rōma loco est

English translation:
This is the place of Vesta,
That guards Pallas,
Here was once,
The tiny palace of Numa.

Here is Stator; here first,
On this spot, was Rome founded.

[faryafaraji]

An original composition by Farya Faraji. The image is from the Etruscan Tomb of the Leopards. Many thanks to Luke Ranieri of the ScorpioMartianus channel for helping out with the Latin—make sure to check out both that channel and polýMATHY if you enjoy content about Ancient Rome and Greece.

This is my first attempt at a properly historically accurate reconstruction of Ancient Roman music. I chose to base this composition in the enharmonic modes of Ancient Greek music, mainly the Mixolydian enharmonic, with a small modification to one of the notes to make it even more microtonal. The enharmonic genus (category of mode) was the one defined by the usage of microtonality during and before the Hellenistic Era. Microtonality is any pitch found in between the space between tones and semitones regardless of the temperament; they are notes not found in Western European music, and therefore the sound of it can be extremey alien and out of tune to ears not from a tradition that uses them.

I purposefully leaned entirely into the microtonal aspect because I believe we can become complacent by only limiting ourselves to the Diatonic modes, the ones that sound like our modern Western European modes. Some scholars like Armand d’Angour espouse a view that the microtonal notes would have at most been passing notes that wouldn’t have been leaned into as pillars of the melody, and while I support this hypothesis as the most plausible given my own experience with Middle-Eastern music, where the microtonal notes are rarely the ones focused on and held long onto, I think we should be open to the possibility that the ancient, pre-Hellenistic Greek ear fully leaned into these frequencies and enjoyed these difficult-to-listen-to-notes.

Indeed, microtonality ended up becoming too difficuly even to the Hellenistic Greek ear, so that the genus ended up going out of use in that era. Therefore, the Romans of the Republic technically never used it as part of their musical system. They may have used it before, as Greek influence was widespread in Italy before and during the Hellenistic Era, but we have no data to back this up. In any case, my usage of the enharmonic mode here is thematic.

The lyrics are from Ovid’s Tristia; and in this specific passage I selected, he describes the long gone era of Numa Pompilius, the legendary second King of Rome. The Romans would have perceived the defunct, out of use enharmonic as a relic from olden times, and therefore I deemed it appropriate for expressing the sense of a time ancient even to Ovid’s; and it’s possible that Romans would have used enharmonic in extremely specific cases to express a concept of “old/ancient, ” much like how Western operas may occasionally use scales unkown to Western Europe in order to express a sense of exoticism. This is why I chose an Etruscan image: though Numa himself was Sabine; Rome at the time lived in the shadow of the flourishing Etruscan civilisation, and many of its legendary kings were of that origin.

The orchestration uses the lyre, pandoura and aulos, as well as a frame-drum, all typical of the era. The lyrics are a modified and shortened version of the text found in Ovid’s Tristia, book 3, lines 29 to 30. I use Classical Latin pronunciation; the reconstructed pronunciation of Latin from the city of the Rome circa 100 B.C to 300 A.D, contemporary to Ovid’s time, and takes into account both vowel length and stress accent, although the elegiac metre of the original text was disregarded here.

Lyrics in Latin:
Hic locus Vestae est,
Qui servat pallada,
Haec fuit antīquī,
Rēgia parva Numae.

Hic stator hoc prīmum,
Condita Rōma loco est

English translation:
This is the place of Vesta,
That guards Pallas,
Here was once,
The tiny palace of Numa.

Here is Stator; here first,
On this spot, was Rome founded.

[ScorpioMartianus]

Optimē fēcistī, amīce! I did very little with your wonderful reworking of the lines by Ovid; it was all you. What really stands out is how well you showed us these amazing and strange modes of music. Summās grātiās tibi!

[Meevious]

Lyrics:
Hic locus Vestae est,
Qui servat pallada,
Haec fuit antīquī,
Rēgia parva Nu mā iei
Nu mā, nu mā iei
Nu mā, nu mā iei
Nu mā, nu mā, nu mā iei
Chipul tāu s̄i dragostea din tei
Mi-amintesc de ochii tāi

[shakabletax]

I freaking adore the edits where you put yourself into ancient art. Amazing music as always.

[SoulOfTheDesert]

wow this is a song that takes you back in time, i can imagine the ancient romans singing and dancing to these melodies, one of my favourites, i hope you will make more melodic roman music like this in the future. Great job Farya
p.s. I didn't know the Etruscans had animated paintings of Persian looking people singing in Latin 🤔

[archimedes]

You need to do some egyptian songs in the future. Great song as always!

[Neopagan-rz]

Absolutely lovely. Can't get enough Roman. Greco-Roman in general. Ever since I was a child I was obsessed. An obsession that never dies.

[justinianthegreat]

I can't just imagine that a descendant of Rome's accursed enemies is able to sing this piece so beautifully and perfectly

[mioaraducu]

When I see how talented you are, I'm glad there's still beauty in the world.

[xXxPontijPilatxXx]

This is the best thing I've seen in the new year. The author is well done, I adore you, never give up your work. (With greetings from Russia.)

[stoic_rooster]

I read through Plutarch’s chapter on Numa a few months ago. I love the music that you contribute to this platform and I liked seeing this title pop up last night. About to play it…

[polnocblog]

I really has that ancient touch to it, one can feel it. And it's great that you consult the linguistic part with such people like Luke Ranieri! Great job!

[etherialwell]

This channel is so much underrated but pure gold.

[weloveTM]

Your talent never fails to blow my mind! Not only is your music jaw-dropping but the editing of this video is off the charts. Like wow. So much talent!

[narrare.di.storia]

It's Epiphany here in Italy and the "Befana" usually brings coal to the bad kids, instead Farya brings this delicious video and music 😁😁😁😁😁😁 very good! Being sabine myself I easily appreciate every tribute to Numa :)

[a.m.]

The production, Farya!! Wow!! Loved it!!

[orthochristos]

Sick visuals, man. I am not going to even comment on the music at all. We all know that is top notch

[ImmanuelTheKing]

Excellent composition as always! And I love how made yourself look like an Etruscan painting come to life!!! Is there no end to your creativity??

[jeremias-serus]

Damn that editing was nice. Didn’t notice it at first, I’m in bed with my brightness turned all the down. But after I noticed it I just had to rewatch with more brightness 🤣

[aldomaguina]

Admiro tus composiciones, son como traer las voces del pasado al siglo XXI. La saga de temas de Roma y Grecia son grandiosas incluso las escucho jugando Civilization V y VI y son un estupendo Soundtrack. felicitaciones, saludos desde Perú!!!