Against Musical ἀτεχνία: Papyrus Hibeh I 13 and the Debate on τέχνη in Classical Greece

The oration preserved in Papyrus Hibeh I 13 consists in a harsh attack on some self-appointed harmonikoi. Although the importance of the speech for the knowledge of ancient Greek musical culture has been widely recognised, the role of this polemic in ancient philosophy, and in the interplay between music and philosophy, should be more properly defined. By attempting to reconstruct the intellectual context from which the Hibeh speech emerges, the paper argues that the text is a significant part of the debate on the notion of in the fifth and fourth centuries BC and should be considered together with other evidence at the intersection between technical content and rhetorical strategies.