Noel Putnik

DE HARMONIA MUNDI: THE

EARLY GREEK NOTIONS OF
HARMONY AND SYMMETRY

Abstract. The notions of harmony and symmetry played a pivotal

role in early Greek mathematics as well as in philosophy, science, reli-
gion and art. Since all these areas of intellect were not sharply divided
and separated in ancient Greece as they are today, their meanings and
connotations tended to overlap and intersect. The essay offers a brief
historical-philological examination of the terms harmonía and sym-
metría in ancient Greek thought, with a comparative look at some
cognate terms such as métron, lógos and analogía. By examining these
terms from the vantage point of etymology, semantics and intellectual
history, it is possible to acquire a more comprehensive understanding
of their multilayered meanings in different fields, from mathematics to
art. The analysis focuses more closely on the concept of harmony in
the Pythagoreans and Plato, who applied this term in their doctrines
of the harmony of the spheres.

Mathematics Subject Classification (2020): 00A65, 01A20

Keywords: harmonía, symmetría, métron, the harmony of the

spheres, musica universalis, Homer, Heraclitus, Plato, Pythagore-
anism
The Institute of Ethnography SASA, Belgrade, Serbia
[email protected]
ORCID: 0000-0002-9233-2605
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18485/mi_sanu_zr.2024.29.21.ch8
 Contents
1. Introduction: the harmony of the world 110
2. In search of the deepest layers of meaning 111
3. Building a raft: the original meaning of harmony 113
4. A shift to cosmological and ontological meanings 114
5. Pythagoras and the harmony of the spheres 115
6. Measure, symmetry, harmony 117
7. Plato’s harmony of spheres 119
8. Conclusions 122
Acknowledgement 123
References 123

1. Introduction: the harmony of the world

This essay borrows a part of its title from a philosophical treatise written in early
16th century: Francesco Giorgi Veneto (1466–1540), a Venetian Franciscan frier,
renowned theologian and proponent of Christian Kabbalah, published a lengthy
work in 1525 titled De harmonia mundi totius [The harmony of the whole world].
In addition to being attracted to Jewish Kabbalist tradition, which he attempted
to appropriate and Christianize, Giorgi was strongly influenced by Renaissance
Neoplatonism, and through it by the ancient philosophers Plato and Pythagoras [30,
p. 33–42]. In his treatise, Giorgi developed a concept of harmony that God bestowed
upon the world at the moment of creation. This harmony is based on number and
measure, that is, on the numerical and mathematical laws of proportion. According
to the Venetian friar, the Universe was built and structured by the divine Architect
as a temple of perfect proportions, in accordance with the immutable principles of
cosmic geometry and arithmetic. It was created as a primordial unity from which
all things proceed by four ways: arithmetic, geometric, harmonic and musical [29,
p. 112–119][26, p. 126–140]. In consonance with the Neoplatonic idea of cosmic
correspondences, such a structure of the Universe enabled man-the-microcosm to
harmonize with the macrocosm [22, p. 151–187], which is one of the main topics of
De harmonia mundi.
Francesco Giorgi was far from being the only philosopher with such views. The
Platonic–Pythagorean notion of the harmony of the world flourished especially
in the Renaissance and the early modern period: one finds it in the works of
many other authors such as Marsilio Ficino, Cornelius Agrippa, Athanasius Kircher,
110
 THE EARLY GREEK NOTIONS OF HARMONY AND SYMMETRY 111

Robert Fludd etc., and it continues to influence modern science, art and culture in
a variety of ways.
One of the most important early modern proponents of this notion was Johannes
Kepler (1571–1630), the famous German matematician and astronomer who dis-
covered the laws of planetary motion and was one of the key figures in the Scientific
Revolution. In 1619 Kepler published a book with almost the same title as that
of Francesco Giorgi – Harmonices mundi libri V [Five books on the harmony of
the world] – in which he analyzed various forms of cosmic harmony, above all the
harmony of the planetary motions, and linked them to the concept of musica uni-
versalis, musical consonance. He based his idea of musical consonance on the geo-
metrical ratios and angular velocities of the planets, but also on the well-established
ancient and medieval notion of musica universalis that goes back to Pythagoras’
and Plato’s harmony of spheres1. This notion was conveyed to the Middle Ages
and, later, to the early modern period through Boethius and his educational system
of quadrivium, as well as through Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and his doctrine
of the angelic hierarchies [28, p. 59–60].2 Thus, it had deep philosophical as well as
religious roots [2, p. 88–113].
Kepler developed his theory of the universal harmony from his examination of
regular polygons and the five Platonic solids, which he believed formed the geo-
metric basis of the universe: in another, much earlier work, the Mysterium Cosmo-
graphicum [Cosmographic mystery, 1596], Kepler argued that the planetary orbits
were determined by the Platonic solids inscribed and circumscribed by spherical
orbs [7, p. 60–66]. In conjunction with his analysis of planetary motions, especially
relationships between orbital velocity and orbital distance from the Sun, this con-
viction led him to postulate the idea of musical harmony that resulted from the
tones made by the six known planets (Figure 1).
Coming back to the religious roots of Kepler’s theory of the cosmic harmony,
founded on his theological convictions about the connection between the physical
and the spiritual, it is important to add that this theory was not based only on
observation and analysis, but also on certain irrational factors. Namely, in sev-
eral instances Kepler claimed that his discoveries had come to him as a result of
epiphany, some sort of divine revelation: one of such epiphanies came to him on
the 19th of July 1595, just prior to writing the Mysterium Cosmographicum. As
I will show below, this motif of divine revelation concerning the structure of the
cosmos appeared regularly in other, much older doctrines of musica universalis.

2. In search of the deepest layers of meaning

In order to better understand this ancient link between mathematics, music and
philosophy, it is important to gain a deeper insight into the etymological origins
1 In a 1597 letter to Galileo, Kepler referred to Plato and Pythagoras as “our true masters”
[4, p. 41].
2 Some sources suggest that Kepler even tried to compose the music of the spheres, even
though he believed it was inaudible to the ordinary human beings [7, p. 47]. A number of modern
composers have been influenced by Kepler’s concept of musica universalis (Rued Langgaard, Paul
Hindemith, Philip A. Sparke and others).
112 NOEL PUTNIK

Figure 1. Planetary musical scales from Kepler’s Harmonices

mundi (1596) [32].

and the earliest meanings of the Greek lexemes ἁρμονία [harmonía] and συμμετρία
[symmetría], which preserve the basic mental images related to these lexemes.3
Various meanings attributed to harmony and symmetry played important roles in
several areas of Greek spirit: in mathematics and science, in philosophy, religion and
mysticism, as well as in arts, especially music, architecture and visual arts. This is
particularly emphasized by the fact that these areas were not sharply divided and
compartmentalized in ancient Greek thought as they are in our time; instead, they
overlapped, intersected and cross-fertilized, allowing various terms and concepts to
shift between areas, which is precisely why at the present time we operate with
so many different usages of the terms in question. All these usages come down
to several basic meanings or, as I call them, mental images that informed the
traditional concepts of harmony and symmetry.
Thus, the vantage point of my analysis is primarily that of etymology, semantics
and intellectual history. By tracing the historical development of the concepts of
harmony and symmetry as attested in the surviving ancient Greek and Roman
literature, it is possible to uncover the oldest layers of their meanings that have
become integral parts of their usage in vastly diverse fields and disciplines. The
3 On numerous applications of the terms harmony and symmetry in mathematics and music,
see [8].
 THE EARLY GREEK NOTIONS OF HARMONY AND SYMMETRY 113

analysis reveals that the basic, original meanings of the terms in question were
not abstract, as they would become in the later phases of development, but rather
surprisingly concrete and linked to everyday life. However, as already said, the
mental images related to these concrete meanings were gradually transferred to the
abstract meanings, too.

3. Building a raft: the original meaning of harmony

The earliest attested meaning of the lexeme harmonía in Greek literature comes
from the Odyssey (8th –7th century BC): it is found in the episode in which Odysseus
builds a raft to continue his long journey to Ithaca. He spent seven years as a
captive of the nymph Calypso on the mythical island of Ogygia. The enamored
nymph did not want to let him go, promising him immortality in exchange for love.
Only after the intervention of the gods she allowed him to leave and continue his
journey. Moreover, she was forced to provide him with clothes, food and water
for the journey, as well as to help him build a raft. This is how Homer (Od. V
244–248) describes the process of building the raft:
εἴκοσι δ᾿ ἔκβαλε πάντα, πελέκκησεν δ᾿ ἄρα χαλκῷ,
ξέσσε δ᾿ ἐπισταμένως καὶ ἐπὶ στάθμην ἴθυνεν.
τόφρα δ᾿ ἔνεικε τέρετρα Καλυψώ, δῖα θεάων:
τέτρηνεν δ᾿ ἄρα πάντα καὶ ἥρμοσεν ἀλλήλοισιν, [hérmosen alléloisin]
γόμφοισιν δ᾿ ἄρα τήν γε καὶ ἁρμονίῃσιν ἄρασσεν. [harmoníesin árasen]4 [33]
Twenty trees in all did he fell, and trimmed them with the axe; then he cunningly
smoothed them all and made them straight to the line. Meanwhile Calypso, the
beautiful goddess, brought him augers; and he bored all the pieces and fitted them
to one another, and with pegs and mortises did he hammer it together.5
These verses tell how Odysseus processes, stacks and joins wooden logs with the
tools he received from Calypso. For the present discussion, the most important
part of the description is the way he fits the logs to one another by using wooden
pegs: he unites them into a harmonious whole, which will be able to sail the sea
(until the angry Poseidon wrecks the raft). Here Homer uses the nouns γόμφος
(peg, tenon, nail) and ἁρμονίη (harmoníe, the Ionic Greek equivalent of ἁρμονία),
which Murray translates as “mortise”, while other English translators (e.g. [12])
render it as “rivets”, “bonds” or “joints”. Whatever the translators’ word choice,
the earliest attested meaning of harmonía in Greek is “bond”, “joint”, “means of
joining”, “connection”, something that connects and binds things in a harmonious
way [17, p. 244]) (Image 2).
Two other important words that Homer uses in this passage are the verbs ἥρ-
μοσεν [hérmosen], a past tense of ἁρμόζω [harmódzo], and ἄρασσεν [árasen], a past
tense of ἀραρίσκω [ararísko], both with the meaning “to bind”, “to join”, “to fit
together” [17, p. 234, 243]. They are both etymologically and semantically akin to
“harmonía”. Their reconstructed Proto–Indo–European root is ∗h2 er- [9, p. 128,
4 The relevant words in the standard Perseus online Greek edition are marked in bold and their
pronounciation is given in square brackets. It is a digital version of the text given in Homer 1919.
5 This is a digital version of A. T. Murray’s translation [11].
114 NOEL PUTNIK

Figure 2. A mortise and tenon joint – the original meaning of

harmonía [35].

145] [5, p. 123, 134–135], with the general meaning “to bind”, “to fit together” 6. We
thus come to the earliest, Proto–Indo–European meaning of the word “harmony”,
whose root is also ∗h2 er-: it pertained to the act of binding or fitting together and
this mental image was the core of all later meanings of the word. It can also be
noticed in some words with the same root in Greek and other languages, such as
ἄρθρον [árthron], “joint”, “wrist” (hence arthritis), or the Latin artus / articulus,
“joint”, “knot”, “knuckle”, and artare, “to press close together”, etc.

4. A shift to cosmological and ontological meanings

It appears that the term harmonía started to acquire more abstract meanings
during the 6th century BC with the activities of the first philosophers of nature
and protoscientists in ancient Ionia. It is in the extant fragments of thinkers such
as Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes of Miletus that we first find rationally
articulated ideas about cosmology and a universe governed by the immutable cosmic
order and its laws [3, p. 53–100]. During this period, the notion of cosmic order
was linked to and expressed through the terms ἁρμονία, μέτρον [métron] and λόγος
[lógos]. One of the earliest testimonies of the term harmonía with the abstract
meaning of cosmic order comes from Heraclitus of Ephesus (6th –5th century BC),
whose fragment 54 reads as follows:
ἁρμονίη ἀφανὴς φανερῆς κρείττων. [Harmoníe afanés fanerés kreíton]
An unapparent connection (or: harmony) is stronger (or: better) than
one which is obvious [25, p. 39–40].
Although in his translation of Heraclitus T. M. Robinson sticks to the earliest,
literal meaning of harmonía (or harmoníe in the Ionic rendering) as “connection”,
it is often directly rendered as “harmony” [3, p. 169], which implies that by Her-
aclitus’s time, or in his own usage, the term had acquired an abstract meaning
referring to the invisible cosmic order. In the context of the Heraclitan philosophy
of constant flux and change and his concept of the conflict and unity of opposites,
6 It is important to note that Butler renders the words ἁρμονίῃσιν ἄρασσεν [harmoníesin árasen]
more precisely than Murray: instead of “he hammered it together”, which is a visually striking
image, Butler translates this place as “he fitted the timbers together”, conveying the original
meaning of the root ∗h2er-.
 THE EARLY GREEK NOTIONS OF HARMONY AND SYMMETRY 115

harmony appears as a force that reconciles and unifies the opposites. The conflict
of opposites, which is the primum movens of Heraclitus’s world, is brought into
balance by that “unapparent” or hidden harmony which, in Robinson’s words, can
be interpreted
as the greater power and/or acceptability of the Pythagorean “har-
mony of the spheres” (God-made, and unheard) than that of man-
made harmoníe, or the greater power and/or acceptability of the
deep, unifying structure of the real (God-made, and unseen) than
that of man-made structures [25, p, 118–119].
As Robinson implies, it is quite possible that Heraclitus adopted such a concept
of harmony from Pythagoras, although he did not have many nice words for the
legendary philosopher (see, for instance, frag. 40, [25, p. 30–31] [3, p. 165].
There is another term in Heraclitus that resembles that of harmony
– the word μέτρον [métron] with the abstract meaning of “proper
measure”: The sun (god) will not overstep (his) measures (μέτρα).
Otherwise (the) avenging Furies, ministers of Justice, will find him
out (frag. 94, [25, p. 96–97]).
In other words, every single element and aspect of the universe is harmonized
and synchronized with the others, perfectly fitted into the whole, even though
everything is in constant flow and subject to change, or – in Heraclitus’s view –
in war with one another (Frag. 80. [25, p. 48–49]). Interestingly enough, this idea
of harmony as a union, balance and consonance of opposites also appears in early
Greek mythology: it was personalized as the Theban queen Harmonia, the wife
of Cadmus, the founder of the mythical Thebes. Harmonia was the daughter of
the gods Ares and Aphrodite [27, p. 446]. In other words, she had a divine origin
and was united to a man – a theme later interpreted as implying the harmony of
the macrocosm and the microcosm. More importantly, Harmony was the child of
gods who symbolized the exact opposites: Ares was the god of war, Aphrodite the
goddess of love. Their daughter reconciled the opposites and thus ensured the unity
of the world.

5. Pythagoras and the harmony of the spheres

The concept of cosmic harmony is, above all, associated with the name of
Pythagoras (c. 570–c. 495 BC), the philosopher-mystic from the island of Samos.
From the earliest times, his name was conjoined with the doctrine of the universe
as a harmonious system of numbers and their relationships. According to many
ancient sources (referred to in [16, p. 273–274]), Pythagoras and his followers re-
garded number as the essence of all things and believed that mathematical relations
permeate the cosmos and express its timeless, eternal principles. The Greek tra-
dition maintains that Pythagoras was the first philosopher who realized that the
planets move according to certain mathematical laws and that in their motion they
create the harmonious tones of a cosmic music (musica universalis) inaudible to
ordinary people. That early concept would later become known as the harmony of
116 NOEL PUTNIK

the spheres [21, p. 277–278].7 The Pythagorean idea of the “harmony in the uni-
verse” (ἁρμονία ἐν κόσμῳ) implied that the cosmic music created by the motions of
the celestial objects was a system (σύστημα) of three consonant tones – a quarter,
a fifth and an octave [15, p. 207] (Image 3).

Figure 3. The intervals and harmonies of the Pythagorean

spheres [36].

According to legend, Pythagoras discovered a mathematical relation between

numbers and music once while passing blacksmiths at work. He heard the different
tones produced by the hammer hitting the anvil and realized that these differences
were directly related to the different sizes of the hammers [24, p. 27–28]. This is how
he concluded that music was mathematical in nature. Pythagoras or his followers
were also credited with discovering that a taut string, when pressed exactly halfway,
produced a tone an octave higher; if it is pressed in the ratio 3:2, it gives a fifth, and
in the ratio 4:3 a fourth – the so-called συμφωνίαι [symphoníai ], the basic musical
intervals. Allegedly, Pythagoras and his students experimented with sound on a
monochord: by varying the length of the string standing under constant tension,
they discovered that halving the length gave an octave, while shortening it to two-
thirds corresponded to a fifth, and to three-quarters a quart [8, p. 38–39].
Of course, the problem historians of philosophy have with Pythagoras is that he
left no written record behind. It is very likely that, like Socrates, he simply did not
write anything. This also seems to be indicated by the formula the Pythagoreans
used to settle all disputes among themselves – αὐτὸς ἔφα [autós éfa], “he personally
said” [3, p. 335]. We find fragmentary information about Pythagoras – more about

7 As Rackham puts it, “occasionally Pythagoras draws on the theory of music, and designates
the distance between the Earth and the Moon as a whole tone, that between the Moon and
Mercury as a semitone, (...) the seven tones thus producing the so-called diapason, i.e. a universal
harmony”.
 THE EARLY GREEK NOTIONS OF HARMONY AND SYMMETRY 117

his teachings than about his personality – in Plato, Aristotle and other writers, but
the oldest surviving biographies date back to the 3rd century CE, eight centuries
after Pythagoras’ time. These biographies of Pythagoras came from the doxogra-
pher Diogenes Laertius [16, p. 267–280], the Neoplatonist Porphyry of Tyre (3rd –4th
century CE) and by Iamblichus, a Neoplatonist from the same era [13, p. 5].
Notwithstanding these temporal differences, all the ancient sources clearly indi-
cate that, among the Pythagoreans, mathematics and music were at least as much
in the domain of mysticism as in the domain of rational thought, if not more so [1,
p. 315]. The Pythagoreans gave mystical meaning to mathematical relationships.
According to these sources, Pythagoras himself did not come to his discoveries
through rational thinking but through some kind of mystical insight, and his figure
was more prophetic than philosophical [16, p. 268–271].8

6. Measure, symmetry, harmony

Before I proceed with the discussion on the development of the concept of har-
mony in ancient Greece, once again I return to Heraclitus and his notion of measure,
since it is an idea very similar to the idea of harmony and should also be examined
in terms of etymology and semantics. The lexeme μέτρον [métron] shows a similar
pattern of semantic development like harmonía, from the most concrete to highly
abstract meanings.
The basic meaning of the word métron, deeply rooted in everyday life, was
“measure” as an object (e.g. a scoop), in other words “that by which anything is
measured” [17, p. 1123]. Its root has been reconstructed as ∗meh1 - [5, p. 939–940][9,
p. 220–221], “measure”, and can be found in many Greek compounds such as σύμ-
μετρος [sýmmetros], “with the same measure, measured, appropriate, symmetrical”,
συμμετρία [symmetría], “symmetry, harmony”, περίμετρον [perímetron], “circumfer-
ence”, etc. It is also found in other Indo–European languages, e.g. the Latin
mensura, “measure / measuring”, and metiri, “to measure”, or the Serbian “mera”
and “meriti”, with the same meanings retrospectively.
In its oldest attested, non-abstract meanings, métron signifies objects for mea-
suring or a measure of some quantity, as found in Homer:
δῶκεν μέθυ χίλια μέτρα (Il. VII 471) [dóken méthy hília métra]
[Euneus] gave wine [to be brought them, even] a thousand mea-
sures;
ὕδατος εἴκοσι μέτρα χεῦε (Od. IX 209) [hýdatos eíkosi métra heúe]
He would fill [one cup and] pour it into twenty measures of water.
A similar meaning, but pertaining to any measured or measurable space (= di-
mensions), can be found in the Odyssey (IV 389) – μέτρα κελεύθου [métra keleúthu],
“the measure of [thy] path” – or in Hesiod (Works and Days, 648) – μέτρα θαλάσσης
[métra thaláses], “the measures (= dimensions) of the sea”. In Aratus, a didactic
poet from the 4th –3rd century BC, one also finds this word in the sense of temporal
8 There is a striking parallel with Kepler in this regard: he also claimed that some important
discoveries, such as his third law of planetary motion, came to him through an epiphany, i.e. a
mystical insight [19, p. 80]; see more on this below.
118 NOEL PUTNIK

span: μέτρα νυκτός [métra nyktós], “the measures (= duration) of night” (Phenom-
ena, 731).
However, just as the lexeme harmonía gradually developed abstract meanings,
the same was the case with métron: in addition to signifying measuring objects,
measurements and quantities, it acquired qualitative overtones too, mostly in the
ethical, aesthetic and epistemological spheres. Thus, the meaning of “right mea-
sure”, temperance, moderation and balance can be found already in Hesiod (Works
and Days, 694): μέτρα φυλάσεσθαι [métra fýlasesthai ], “[take care] to keep things
moderate”.9 Another telling example comes from Theognis of Megara, a lyric
poet from the 6th century BC. Speaking of wine and how to drink it properly, he
says πίνειν ὑπέρ μέτρον [pínein hypér métron], “[Wine makes light the mind of
wise and foolish alike when they] drink beyond their measure”. It is important to
note that, in this semantic shift, the lexeme métron no longer signified something
measured by man but something measured for man (either by gods and destiny or
by social norms and laws) and assigned to him as his share.10
With the Athenian sophists of the 5th century and their philosophical relativism,
métron acquired a new layer of abstract meanings, not only ethical but also epis-
temological and aesthetic. Determining the measure again passed into the hands
of man, this time not in terms of quantity but quality: the sophists believed that
human perception and attitudes were those “scoops” by which everything in life is
measured, including good and evil, beauty and ugliness [14, p. 23–26]. This mean-
ing of métron was famously inaugurated by Protagoras of Abdera (5th century BC)
in the following way:
Πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος: τῶν μὲν ὄντων ὡς ἔστιν, τῶν
δὲ οὐκ ὄντων ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν. [Pánton hremáton métron ánthropos:
tón mén ónton hos éstin, tón dé uk ónton hos uk éstin.]11
Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they
are, of the things that are not, that they are not [6, p. 57].
This broadened field of meanings attributed to métron and linked to the idea
of balance, moderation and harmony led to the formation of the compound noun
συμμετρία [symmetría] from the preposition σύν (“with”) and the noun μέτρον, lit-
erally “[the quality of being] with measure”, commensurability. The term acquired
the general meaning of harmony or due proportion as one of the characteristics of
beauty and goodness [17, p. 1679], as e.g. in Democritus (frag. 191): βίου συμμετρίῃ
[bíu symetríe], “by harmony of life”. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the com-
pound symmetría, understood in the sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion
and balance [10, p. 9–10], found its way to Greek philosophy, as we shall see in
more detail below, and to mathematics, where it primarily referred to an object
that is invariant under some transformations such as translation and rotation. The

9 Note the Greek proverb Μέτρον ἄριστον [métron áriston], “Moderation is best”, which Dio-
genes Laertius attributed to the poet and sage Cleobulus [16, p. 31].
10 The Greek word for destiny εἱμαρμένη [heimarméne] literally means “that which one receives
as one’s share”, implying the idea of measuring [17, p. 1093].
11The statement was preserved in Plato’s Theaetetus, 152a.
 THE EARLY GREEK NOTIONS OF HARMONY AND SYMMETRY 119

fact that an object was considered “symmetric” if it could be divided into two or
more identical pieces that are arranged in an organized fashion [18, p. 14] implied
precisely its inner or immanent harmony.12

7. Plato’s harmony of spheres

One of the most prominent immediate successors of Pythagoras was Philolaus
from Croton (5th –4th century BC). It seems that in his lost writings Philolaus, who
is often credited as the first proponent of heliocentrism, advocated the idea of two
principles on which the world rests – the limiting and limitless – and of harmony as
the force that unites them and enables the existence of the world. He linked man’s
epistemological potential to the idea of number as the basis of the world: one can
understand only what one can measure [3, p. 326–335]. It is also believed that
Philolaus introduced the idea of cosmic harmony into his mathematical analysis of
the octave. The tradition holds it was Philolaus who influenced Plato the most
concerning the Pythagorean elements in his Timaeus. In fact, Dionysius Laertius
conveys rumors that Plato bought Philolaus’s books and wrote the work based on
them, thus commiting some sort of plagiarism [16, p. 291].13
Plato (c. 427–348 BC) is the most important source of our knowledge of the
Pythagorean teachings. Many of his philosophical concepts are of Pythagorean ori-
gin, including his understanding of harmony and symmetry, as well as of geometry
and mathematics in general. This also applies to some other crucial Pythagorean
tenets, not directly relevant for this discussion, such as anthropological dualism, the
immortality of the soul and metempsychosis (reincarnation), which are discussed
in a number of Plato’s writings.
We owe Plato the oldest surviving description and interpretation of the harmony
of the spheres, coming from Book X of the Republic (614–621). As part of his
discussion on the immortality of the soul, Socrates tells the story of a Pamphylian
soldier called Er, who fell on the battlefield. His comrades find him ten days
later and, thinking he is dead, take him with the corpses of other soldiers with
the intention of cremating him. However, Er is not dead: he wakes up on the
pyre and tells what he experienced on the other side. His soul left his body and,
together with many others, stood before the Judges od the dead. In his vision, Er
also traveled across the universe and, among other things, observed the immense
cosmic machinery: the spindle of Necessity (Ananke) whose rotation moved the
eight concentric celestial circles and thus created the cosmic music. In Plato’s
words:
12 A synonym for symmetría was ἀναλογία [analogía], a compound of the noun λόγος [lógos],
as can be found e.g. in Plato’s Timaeus 32c. Given the sheer complexity of the word lógos, its
analysis would surpass the scope of my essay. Suffice it to mention that Marcus Terentius Varro
and Cicero rendered analogía in Latin as proportio – a compound derived from the noun pars,
“part”, again connected with the idea of measuring and sharing.
13 Some scholars, including Barnet [3, p. 328–334], downplay Philolaus’s role in conveying and
articulating the Pythagorean teachings, but it is of less importance for the present discussion, since
it is beyond doubt that Plato inherited a number of Pythagorean concepts either from Philolaus
or from some other Pythagoreans.
120 NOEL PUTNIK

And from the extremities was stretched the spindle of Necessity,

through which all the orbits turned. (. . . ) And the spindle turned
on the knees of Necessity, and up above on each of the rims of the
circles a Siren stood, borne around in its revolution and uttering
one sound, one note, and from all the eight there was the concord
of a single harmony (616c–617b).14
What one finds in Plato’s description, then, is a mythologized version of the idea
of harmonia mundi, which is a symphony of sounds sung by the Sirens standing on
the rims of the circles (not spheres in Plato’s interpretation).15 He believed that the
idea of harmony should be recognized in the mathematical principles of numerical
relationships, and not in imperfect musical practice. The beauty of music is only a
reflection of an order that is essentially formal and mathematical in nature.
As shown at the beginning of this essay, the notion of musica universalis became
a highly influential philosophical concept in Antiquity and later. As an example, I
quote a passage from Cicero’s infuential work Dream of Scipio (Somnium Scipio-
nis), which is actually the sixth book of his Republic (De re publica). It describes
a dream vision of Scipio Aemilianus, the Roman general who destroyed Carthage
in 146 BC. Cicero deliberately modelled his tale on the myth of Er. In his dream,
Scipio has an out-of-body experience and travels across the universe made up of
nine celestial spheres. Suddenly he hears an overwhelming but pleasant sound and
asks his guide (the spirit of his grandfather) about it:
“What”, I asked, “what is this sound that fills my ears, so loud
and sweet?” “This”, he replied, “is that sound which, divided in
intervals, unequal, indeed, yet still exactly measured in their fixed
proportion (pro rata parte ratione), is produced by the impetus
and movement of the spheres themselves, and blending sharp tones
with grave, therewith makes changing symphonies (concentus) in
unvarying harmony (De re publica VI, 10) [38], [31, p. 1–36].
It is important to note that neither Er nor Scipio experienced their journey
through the universe in the normal state of consciousness: Er was badly wounded
in battle and in a coma, while Scipio was asleep. This motif fits perfectly into the
above-mentioned pattern: Pythagoras allegedly reached his conclusions about the
universe through some kind of mystical insight, and the same was the case with
Kepler and his epiphanies. It can be interpreted as a symbolic link between the
rational and the irrational, between the domains of mathematics and science on
the one hand and religious experience and artistic imagination on the other.
Back to Plato, we find more on harmony and symmetry in his Timaeus, probably
the most influential of all his writings in the West due to the fact that it was

14 It is interesting to note that Aristotle, who did not accept the notion of a music of the
spheres, reported the Pythagorean explanation that we do not hear it because we have been
accustomed to it from birth (De caelo 290 b 12 ff). As mentioned above, something similar was
later claimed by Kepler.
15 On Plato’s custom to express his ideas through the so-called philosophical myth see [23,
p. 79–81].
 THE EARLY GREEK NOTIONS OF HARMONY AND SYMMETRY 121

Plato’s only work preserved in Latin translations throughout the Middle Ages. In
his account of the creation of the universe and the world-soul (Timaeus 29e–36d),
Plato describes the world-soul in terms of musical relations and harmony. Central
to Plato’s cosmogony is the figure of the Demiurge, a divine entity who did not
actually create the world ex nihilo but fashioned and shaped the already existing,
chaotic matter, “all that was visible (...) in a state of discordant and disorderly
motion” (Timaeus, 30a) – that is, in a state od disharmony. In the context of
Plato’s highly complex mathematical cosmogony and cosmology (on which see [15,
p. 207–238]), it is of crucial importance to note the term Plato uses to qualify the
Demiurge: he is described as ὁ συνιστάς [ho synistás], literally “the one who puts
together”, from the verb συνίστημι [synístemi ], “to put together”, “to unite” [17,
p. 1718]. In other words, this verb is synonymous with the above-analyzed verbs
harmódzo and ararísko, “to bind”, “to fit together”. The conclusion is that Plato
preserves the Homeric meaning and mental image of harmonía as the core of his
highly abstract term synistás: the Demiurge is he who fits together in a harmonious
way the disorganized and disparate pieces of primordial matter and thus turns the
chaos into the cosmos, much like Odysseus who fitted together separate logs into a
raft as a functional whole. It is precisely the newly formed harmonious whole that
turns Plato’s universe into a sentient living being.
Just as the body of the universe and its world-soul are harmonious, so should
be the human body and soul (Timaeus, 88b–e). In his articulation of this idea
Plato significantly employed the term symmetría, “a due measure”, in the sense
discussed above. The body and soul should be in a harmonious relation, developed
“symmetrically” – that is, in congruity and balance:
all that is good is beautiful, and what is beautiful is not ill-
proportioned (ἄμετρον). Hence we must take it that if a living thing
is to be in good condition, it will be well-proportioned (σύμμετρον)
(87c [20, p. 1286]).
In this passage one comes across the adjective σύμμετρον [sýmmetron], “well-
proportioned”, “with measure”, and its opposite ἄμετρον [ámmetron], “ill-propor-
tioned”, “without measure”, which clearly implies the original meaning of métron in
the core of these concepts. However, one also finds here a highly abstract sense of
métron: Plato masterfully connects three different domains of intellect: the harmo-
nious living being is “good” (the ethical level), “beautiful” (the aesthetic level) and
created as a reflection of the macrocosmic harmony and symmetry (the ontological
level). Moreover, man’s inner harmony and symmetry pertain to the domain of
medicine and psychology as well, for it is through these concepts that Plato defines
physical and mental health (ὑγίεια):
For with respect to health and disease, virtue and vice, there is
no symmetry or lack of symmetry (συμμετρία καὶ ἀμμετρία) greater
than that which exists between the soul itself and the body itself
(87d; [20, p. 1286]).
In this way, Plato laid the foundations for the doctrine of the harmony of the mi-
crocosm and the macrocosm, which the Neopythagoreans and Neoplatonists would
122 NOEL PUTNIK

later carry into the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: just as “the body of the
cosmos was harmonized by proportion (δι’ ἀναλογίας) and brought into existence”
(Timaeus, 32c), so were the individual bodies as a reflection of the macrocosm. The
bodies of living beings were made that way by the Demiurge, and artists should
strive to emulate him in their own creative work (Image 4).

Figure 4. A hydria from Attica, c. 500 BC (British Museum,

London). The symmetrical is both beautiful and good.

8. Conclusions
In this essay I offered a brief historical-philological examination of the terms
harmonía and symmetría in ancient Greek thought, with a comparative look at the
cognate term métron. All these terms and concepts based on them played a pivotal
role in Greek thought, from mathematics and early science to philosophy, religion
and art. Since these fields of intellect and spirit were not as sharply divided as they
are today, the analyzed terms overlapped and intersected across the fields, always
carrying something of their primary meaning, the lowest common denominator in
the semantic sense. Basing my approach on etymology, semantics and intellectual
history, I demonstrated that the primary or oldest attested meanings of the analyzed
terms, as well as the mental images related to them, have origins in the sphere of
non-abstract, everyday life, and that these meanings informed all the later concepts
of harmony and symmetry.
My analysis also focused on the concepts of harmony in the Pythagoreans and
Plato, who applied this term in developing their ideas about musica universalis.
Over time, these ideas shaped a powerful philosophical tradition, which was trans-
mitted through Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages until the early modern era
and even our time. It is important to emphasize the irrational aspect of the notion
of cosmic harmony: in all considered cases, the knowledge about it was given to
individuals in states of altered consciousness. Pythagoras received it as part of his
 THE EARLY GREEK NOTIONS OF HARMONY AND SYMMETRY 123

semi-divine powers. The Pamphylian soldier in Plato’s account received it after

he was wounded and his soul temporarily left the body. In Cicero’s account, the
Roman general had this revelation while asleep. Finally, Kepler was led to some
of his discoveries about the nature of the universe through his epiphanies. This
common motive points to the liminal character of that kind of knowledge: it is
both rational and irrational, mathematical and mystical, with music as the most
subtle bridge between these apparent extremes.
In this context, I return to Kepler and his alleged attempt to convey the har-
mony of the spheres with plain musical instruments. As the music sounded bad,
Kepler defended himself against mockery by claiming, just like Pythagoras many
centuries before him, that human ears were incapable of hearing the heavenly har-
mony. If only he had been reborn a few centuries later and seen the launch of
space probes to the planets of the solar system, he would have realized that his
theory was not entirely wrong: NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, launched in 1997, flew
past Jupiter in 2000 and detected waves in the thin gas of charged particles that
surround the planet [40]. The waves are in low radio frequencies, which have been
converted to sound waves to make the patterns audible. The result is a symphony
of wondrous, otherworldly noises that most resemble electronic ambient music. A
similar phenomenon has been detected in the electrically charged surroundings of
the Sun, Saturn and other planets. It may not be harmony, but it is definitely some
kind of cosmic music.
Acknowledgement. This work was written with the support of the Institute of
Ethnography SASA and financed by the Ministry of Science, Technological De-
velopment and Innovations of Republic of Serbia, based on the NIO Contract no.
451-03-66/2024-03/200173 from 5. 2. 2024.

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