New since 2026: WEAVE-Project (DFG/FWO) in cooperation mit Prof. Dr. Stefan Schorn (Leuven, Belgium): „Aristoxenus in Fragments: Between Biography, Philosophy, and Music. Edition, Translation, and Commentary”

The goal of this WEAVE project is to produce a complete edition of all extant fragments (and testimonies) by the Greek biographer, historian, philosopher, and music theorist Aristoxenus of Tarentum (370/65–300 BCE) with an English translation and comprehensive commentary, and to publish it (in print and as an online resource) in two volumes. Aristoxenus’ biographies of philosophers, his so-called “antiquarian” writings, and his musicological treatises—cited by a wide variety of ancient authors —are today largely preserved only in fragments; however, they provided important impetus for the establishment of the genre of ancient biography both in antiquity and in the centuries that followed, established new insights in music theory, and commemorated and transmitted important historical events and constellations. A contemporary collection and analysis of all currently known Aristoxenus fragments that meets the methodological standards of the latest fragment research, as well as a commentary that explains and contextualizes all biographical, antiquarian, philosophical, and musicological fragments in detail, is currently lacking.

This project, which is demanding from philological, historical, philosophical, and musicological perspectives, is to be developed by an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers with diverse expertise and competencies in Tübingen (Irmgard Männlein; for papyrological expertise, Kilian Fleischer), Leuven (Stefan Schorn), and Lecce (Massimo Raffa) in close cooperation, and will facilitate access to Aristoxenus’s rich literary output for specialists, students, and even interested laypeople, even without knowledge of Ancient Greek. Based on the results of the commentary, a comprehensive reinterpretation of Aristoxenus is also to be presented (in the introductions to the two volumes).