Didymus the Musician

Who is Didymus the Musician?

Didymus the Musician was a music theorist in Rome of the end of the 1st century BC or beginning of the 1st century AD, who combined elements of earlier theoretical approaches with an appreciation of the aspect of performance. Formerly assumed to be identical with the Alexandrian grammarian and lexicographer Didymus Chalcenterus, because Ptolemy and Porphyry referred to him as Didymus ho mousikos, classical scholars now believe that this Didymus was a younger grammarian and musician working in Rome at the time of Nero. According to Andrew Barker, his intention was to revive and produce contemporary performances of the music of Greek antiquity. The syntonic comma of 81/80 is sometimes called the comma of Didymus after him.

Among his works was On the Difference between the Aristoxenians and the Pythagoreans.