ABSTRACT
Aristoxenus criticised or rejected the techniques of almost all his predecessors in the field of harmonics, yet it was not merely in reaction to them that the careful methodology of his treatise was constructed. The work is organised in such a way as to indicate a purpose of construction which goes beyond a mere series of diatribes against earlier scholarship. Under what influence, then, did Aristoxenus develop this structure? Because he left his Pythagorean teachers for the Lyceum, and because he rejected Pythagorean musical methodology, Aristotle's work is the obvious place to look. However, as Aristotle himself had no real musical expertise, and the Peripatetic school in general did not produce work on music even close to Aristoxenus' Harmonics in theoretical structure and discipline, this influence was clearly not in the form of a direct adoption of musical methodology. Rather, Aristoxenus has appropriated techniques of scientific discussion promoted by Aristotle in subjects other than music, and applied them to harmonics. This is most evident in Aristoxenus' defining ambition of developing an independent science from first principles.
