Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Vocals, music & arrangement by Farya Faraji. This is another historically informed approximation of what Ancient Roman music may have sounded like based on our current available evidence and research. The poetry of the Classical world is one of the first places to look for reconstructions, as their poetic style was inherenrly musical: Ancient Greek and Latin poetry made use of the short vs long vowel distinctions of their language and stress accent-pitch rules to create what effectively amounted to a form of rap. It is known their poetry was sung, meaning a poem on its own is effectively a skeleton of a musical score: the poem tells you where the pitch rises, where it falls, which syllables are accentuated, which are held longer, etc. A melodic outline is contained inherently within each poem, and what remains is to fill it with a musical composition, which in this case is an original melody written in the Hypodorian Chromatic mode of the ancient genus modal system. The chromatic modes of the ancients have a distinctly jazz or blues-like feel to our modern ears due to their close clustering of semitones paired with larger interval gaps.
For this reconstruction, I employed the theories of the likes of Stefan Hagel, Armand d'Angour, Barnaby Brown and others, who argue that the whole of ancient music may very well have used a harmonic, dichordal system. This system is only attested in two textual passages referring specifically to older styles found in more ancient Antiquity, but according to prof. Hagel among many others, it is possible the Roman period itself would have made use of such dichords. I thus forewent the largely monophonic arrangement style of the previous reconstructions to instead work with this dichordal model, where every note of the main melody is paired with a harmonising note, those ranging from fourths and fifths, to thirds and seconds, the latter both considered dissonant to the ancient ears, seconds being especially harsh dissonances to modern Western-trained ears.
The poem is by Catullus, a foundational poet of the Latin language, known for his interest in small-scale intimate poetry rather than great epics. The arrangement employs an ancient Greco-Roman lyra, aulos, frame drums, ancient cymbals, and a pan flute. The pronunciation employs restored Classical pronunciation accurate to Catullus' time.
Lyrics in Latin:
Quaeris quot mihi basiationes
tuae Lesbia sint satis superque
quam magnus numerus Libyssae harenae
lasarpiciferis iacet Cyrenis
oraclum Iovis inter aestuosi
et Batti veteris sacrum sepulcrum
aut quam sidera multa cum tacet nox
furtivos hominum vident amores
tam te basia multa basiare
vesano satis et super Catullo est
quae nec pernumerare curiosi
possint nec mala fascinare lingua.
Translation:
You ask how many kisses
Of yours, Lesbia, would be enough and more for me.
As great as the number of Libyan sands
That lie at Cyrene producing silphium
Between the oracle of sweltering Jupiter
And the sacred tomb of old Battus,[a]
Or as many as the stars that, when the night is silent,
See the secret love affairs of men:
For you to kiss so many kisses
is more than enough for crazy Catullus,
These kisses which neither the curious can count
Nor an evil tongue bewitch.
Vocals, music & arrangement by Farya Faraji. This is another historically informed approximation of what Ancient Roman music may have sounded like based on our current available evidence and research. The poetry of the Classical world is one of the first places to look for reconstructions, as their poetic style was inherenrly musical: Ancient Greek and Latin poetry made use of the short vs long vowel distinctions of their language and stress accent-pitch rules to create what effectively amounted to a form of rap. It is known their poetry was sung, meaning a poem on its own is effectively a skeleton of a musical score: the poem tells you where the pitch rises, where it falls, which syllables are accentuated, which are held longer, etc. A melodic outline is contained inherently within each poem, and what remains is to fill it with a musical composition, which in this case is an original melody written in the Hypodorian Chromatic mode of the ancient genus modal system. The chromatic modes of the ancients have a distinctly jazz or blues-like feel to our modern ears due to their close clustering of semitones paired with larger interval gaps.
For this reconstruction, I employed the theories of the likes of Stefan Hagel, Armand d'Angour, Barnaby Brown and others, who argue that the whole of ancient music may very well have used a harmonic, dichordal system. This system is only attested in two textual passages referring specifically to older styles found in more ancient Antiquity, but according to prof. Hagel among many others, it is possible the Roman period itself would have made use of such dichords. I thus forewent the largely monophonic arrangement style of the previous reconstructions to instead work with this dichordal model, where every note of the main melody is paired with a harmonising note, those ranging from fourths and fifths, to thirds and seconds, the latter both considered dissonant to the ancient ears, seconds being especially harsh dissonances to modern Western-trained ears.
The poem is by Catullus, a foundational poet of the Latin language, known for his interest in small-scale intimate poetry rather than great epics. The arrangement employs an ancient Greco-Roman lyra, aulos, frame drums, ancient cymbals, and a pan flute. The pronunciation employs restored Classical pronunciation accurate to Catullus' time.
Lyrics in Latin:
Quaeris quot mihi basiationes
tuae Lesbia sint satis superque
quam magnus numerus Libyssae harenae
lasarpiciferis iacet Cyrenis
oraclum Iovis inter aestuosi
et Batti veteris sacrum sepulcrum
aut quam sidera multa cum tacet nox
furtivos hominum vident amores
tam te basia multa basiare
vesano satis et super Catullo est
quae nec pernumerare curiosi
possint nec mala fascinare lingua.
Translation:
You ask how many kisses
Of yours, Lesbia, would be enough and more for me.
As great as the number of Libyan sands
That lie at Cyrene producing silphium
Between the oracle of sweltering Jupiter
And the sacred tomb of old Battus,[a]
Or as many as the stars that, when the night is silent,
See the secret love affairs of men:
For you to kiss so many kisses
is more than enough for crazy Catullus,
These kisses which neither the curious can count
Nor an evil tongue bewitch.
