FĀRĀBĪ HAD AN ARABIC TRANSLATION OF PTOLEMY’S HARMONICS, AND HE READ IT VERY CAREFULLY

Abstract Fārābī had an Arabic translation of Ptolemy’s Harmonics and was deeply immersed in it. The evidence is internal to Kitāb al-Mūsīqā al-kabīr . A passage can be found at the end of the first book of the madḫal in which Ptolemy is mentioned by name and his treatise on music also receives explicit mention. The puzzle is that, according to Fārābī, Ptolemy acknowledges directly in the Harmonics that he could not discriminate different patterns of attunement by ear, but Ptolemy nowhere makes any comment about his level of musicianship. The best way to understand Fārābī’s puzzling claim is as an inference from Ptolemy’s attempt to disprove Aristoxenus’ argument that the fourth is equal to two and a half tones. The paper argues that the inference is plausible, that Fārābī drew it and that he could not have drawn it without being intimately familiar with Ptolemy’s Harmonics .