Art & MusicGreek → English
Aulos
/ˈaʊlɑs/noun
The double-reed wind instrument of ancient Greece, usually played as a pair of pipes at once.
The Greek roots
αὐλός
aulós
reed pipe, tube
Literally: “pipe”
Follow a root:αὐλός2 words
The story of the word
Translators for centuries wrote flute, which is wrong in the way that calling a bagpipe a recorder is wrong: the aulos had a reed and a hard, carrying, nasal tone closer to an oboe. It drove the chorus in tragedy, set the stroke rate for rowers and accompanied the dithyramb. Myth said Athena invented it and then threw it away in disgust at what blowing did to her cheeks, and that the satyr Marsyas picked it up and was flayed for challenging Apollo's lyre with it.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
Same family
hydraulicaulete
In a sentence
The reconstruction plays the aulos with a mouth band, exactly as the vase paintings show.