Musica, performance, identità a Selinunte

This paper collates the evidence on the production and fruition of music cand the traces of musical and choreographed performances in Selinous: fragments of musical instruments, and public spaces for ritual drama, processions and dance, identified both on the acropolis and in the area of the Gaggera. Added to the list may be, however, some elements from epigraphic texts (the lex sacra and the Getty hexame- ters), as well as some annotations on Selinuntine poetry (by Aristoxenus and Telestes). The central role attributed in the so-called New Music to the Phrygian aulos might be explained by Selinous’ proximity to the Elymians (elymos being the term for the Phrygian flute) and by the cultural contacts with Segesta. The overall picture is fragmentary but coherent, and points towards the possibility of imagining that Selinuntine musical practice had its own recognisable and identifiable nature that contributed to the formation of the city’s identity.