The trumpet and the games

Abstract

The musical accompaniment of sports is an outstanding feature of games in ancient Greece, either in training or in competitions. This accompaniment was done with wind instruments, namely the aulos and the salpinx (trumpet). Such accompaniment of athletic activities with aulos, mainly in the modalities of the pentathlon, widely represented in the iconography of blackand red-figure Attic vases (6th and 5th century B.C.), has received more attention from scholars. We aim here to deal with the presence of the trumpet in games, represented with a lower frequency in iconography, but informed by literary sources dating from different periods, mainly from the imperial times (namely Plutarch, Athenaeus and Pollux). We will analyze the following situations: musical accompaniment of races (foot and chariot races), supporting the rhythm of the movements; awards ceremony; advertisements through the emission of signals, with communicative function; and competitions for trumpet players, in relation with the constitution of a social profile of this musician-athlete based on the fame of his well above average strength. This superlative strength, mixed with bizarre customs, makes him a popular type in the Hellenistic-Roman world