Music played an essential role in ancient Greek culture, its presence was highly appreciated and expected in private and public festivities. The popularity of music in society led ancient Greek philosophers to worry about the nature of music and its effects on people, and they agreed that music could affect ethos (character) of a person. Ethos is an ancient Greek term used to describe the moral force of music in the education of an individual's soul, spirit and behaviors. In both the science and philosophy of music, principles were established about how music could transmit, reinforce, and create ethical states, and influence the musical practices of ancient Greece. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayThe Pythagoreans developed mathematical laws that governed music. They discovered that these same laws operated both in the cosmos and in the human soul, held in harmony by numerical relationships. Music can penetrate the soul and either restore or break its inner balance, thereby affecting a person's character and/or behavior. The idea that music was linked to the cosmos, rational order, and ethics was dominant in ancient Greece because it suggested that music could transform people. Music was believed to cause and cure restlessness. Aristotle's theory of imitation described how music had the ability to intensify and imitate human emotions (mimesis), and he argued that music could also "cure" certain emotions through its ability to induce a emotional release (catharsis). In Politics, Aristotle stated that music could represent and arouse emotions in an individual, and therefore influence their philosophy. He believed that music imitating "bad" emotions like violence could distort a person's character. Aristotle and Plato believed that music should be part of education because of the influence it has on the individual; however, they did not approve of virtuosity or listening to music for pleasure if not for educational purposes. Music was meant to serve the intellect and the soul, not the production of sounds. Plato loved religious and social music because of the ethical force that came from it. He said that music formed the ethos more deeply when people participated by dancing because of the direct impact that rhythm, meter and melody had on the individual. For example, choral dance songs required performers to participate in the ceremonial experience, and Plato believed that through movements, meter, melody, and tempo, the ethos of the music was reinforced. Each element taken in isolation would have had the same philosophy, but it would not have had as precise and powerful an impact on the listener. Plato said that choral singing educated those involved and, more specifically, enabled them to achieve moral excellence. The ethos of meter became important when poetic genres allowed for different or new metrical types. Plato criticized this phenomenon because it did not follow the expected pattern that would imitate approved virtue. There were different meters intended for a variety of effects like the dochmiac meter to show anxiety or despair, the anapaestic meter to convey dignity, the peonic meter to arouse excitement, and the epitrite meter to convey death. Obviously, the measure was carefully chosen for the music of funerals, festivals, »..