What Instrument Did Plato Use?

There is no reliable evidence that Plato played any musical instrument. None of his dialogues says that he did, and the ancient biographies that survive were written long after his death. What is well attested is something different: music (mousike) was a core part of an Athenian boy’s education, the lyre was the main instrument taught, and in Republic III (398c-399e) Plato discusses which scales and instruments a well-run city should allow. Statements that Plato “played the lyre” confuse these separate things.

Did Plato play the lyre?

Not on any evidence we have. Three points keep the question honest.

• Plato never writes himself into the dialogues as a musician. He names himself only a few times in the whole corpus (twice in the Apology and once in the Phaedo), and never in connection with music.
• The biographical tradition is late. Diogenes Laertius (III.4-5), writing several centuries after Plato, says he was taught letters and wrestling and took up painting and poetry, but names no music teacher. Other late sources (Pseudo-Plutarch, On Music 17, and Olympiodorus’ Life of Plato) say he learned music from Draco, a pupil of Damon. Such reports tell us what later writers thought a gentleman’s education would have contained, and they cannot be verified.
• It would be unsurprising if he had learned it. An Athenian of his class would normally have had some musical instruction. Still, being taught the lyre as a boy does not mean that Plato was a musician as an adult, and no source says that he performed.

The lyre does appear in his writing, but as a teaching subject and a metaphor.

What instruments did Greek education include?

In Plato’s own day the standard schooling for a boy of good family covered letters, music and gymnastics. In the Protagoras (325e-326b) the sophist describes how a teacher of the lyre (kitharistes) has the boys learn to play and to know the poets’ lyric songs, so that the rhythms and scales become habitual and make them gentler and better prepared for speech and action. The same education is assumed throughout the Republic (376e-377a). Socrates himself is shown in the Euthydemus (272c) as an old man learning the kithara from a teacher named Connus, which the dialogue treats as a comic detail.

The main instruments of the period were:

• The lyre and the kithara, both stringed instruments. The lyre had a tortoise-shell body and was the usual school and home instrument; the kithara was larger and used by professionals.
• The aulos, a double-piped reed instrument. It is often loosely translated “flute”, but it was played with reeds and sounded closer to an oboe. It accompanied drama, festivals and symposia.
• Other instruments, such as the pipes of Pan (syrinx), percussion and, later, many string variants.

What does the Republic say about instruments?

In Republic III (398c-399e) Socrates and Glaucon work out which music is acceptable for the city’s guardians. Plato’s concern throughout is the effect of music on character, and the passage covers three things.

1. Words, then scales. After settling what songs may say, they take up the “harmonies” (the scales, or modes). They reject the mournful ones (the mixed and tense Lydian) and the soft, drinking-party ones (Ionian and Lydian as named in the dialogue), and keep the Dorian and the Phrygian, one fitted to courage in danger and the other to calm, willing action (398e-399c).
2. Instruments that favour many notes. Socrates says the city will not need instruments with many strings and many scales (399c-d). Those that cover every mode are rejected.
3. What stays. The lyre and the kithara are allowed in the city, and the shepherds in the country may have a pipe (399d). The aulos and its makers are not welcomed; the passage cites Apollo’s victory over Marsyas as a precedent (399d-e).

The principle is not about instruments for their own sake. In 424b-c Plato adds that changes in musical style are never innocent, because they threaten the laws of the city (he credits this view to the music theorist Damon at 424c, and defers to Damon on rhythm at 400b-c). In the Laws (700a-701b) he blames lax musical standards for a wider decline in order. Some of the surviving detail is hard to interpret, because the ancient scale names do not map neatly onto modern ones. Aristotle, in the Politics (VIII, 1341a), also excludes the aulos from education, so Plato’s view was not unique.

Does music appear elsewhere in Plato’s philosophy?

Yes, often as a model rather than a topic.

• The lyre and the soul. In the Phaedo (85e-86d) Simmias suggests the soul might be like the attunement of a lyre, existing only while the strings are properly tuned. Socrates later argues against this (91c-95a). The image is about the soul’s nature and not evidence that Plato played.
• Harmony in the soul. In the Republic the just person brings the three parts of the soul into tune, like the notes of a scale (443d-e). See the person with a soul in harmony.
• Mathematics of music. In the Timaeus (35a-36b) the world-soul is built from numerical ratios corresponding to musical intervals. The study of harmonics is also one of the mathematical sciences in the Republic (530d-531c), though Plato criticises those who tune strings by ear alone.

Why does the “Plato played the lyre” claim spread?

Because the lyre is the instrument most often linked with Plato’s discussion of education, it is easy to slide from “the lyre appears in his writing” to “he played it”. The claim sounds natural, but it is an inference, and nothing in the evidence supports it.

Quick answer

• We do not know that Plato played any instrument, and no reliable source says he did.
• Greek boys were taught music, chiefly the lyre; Plato describes this education (Protagoras 325e-326b; Republic 376e-377a).
• The Republic (399c-d) keeps the lyre and kithara, allows a shepherd’s pipe, and excludes many-stringed and many-scaled instruments and the aulos.
• The lyre figures in his philosophy chiefly as an image of the soul’s attunement.