Quando il mondo era mousiké

The aim of this essay is to trace the origins of the relationship between law and music in Western culture, in Greece, where the history of the legal nomoi coincides at times with that of the musical nomoi. The connection, suggested by the use of the word “nomos” in both fields, must be analysed within the tension between politics and mousiké in archaic period. This relationships is testified by the elaboration of an ideal type of legislator “educated in the art of the song,” able to practice the “ancient art of legislation” who is inspired by the divine wisdom, and that influences the legislation in many poleis during the long period in which the city-states develops. In particular, the elaboration of this ideal type is observed in some places of the works by Hesiod and Homer, in the most significant traditions about archaic lawmakers, and in testimonies by and about Terpander, a mousikos who is active in Sparta in the seventh century B.C. Finally, the focus is to reading some autograph fragments by Solon, the last legislator-poet, archon at Athens in the 594-593.