What Did Ancient Rome Sound Like?

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It's hard to imagine now, but in a world like the ancient Roman Empire, the very concept of sound and music was most likely incredibly different from what we know today. In the first of our guest video series, Andrew from Religion For Breakfast joins us to show how people may have experienced music over 1500 years ago, and what effect it would have had on their daily lives.
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Script: docs.google.co...
SOURCES:
Gerstel, Kyriakakis, Konstantinos, Spyridon, “Soundscapes of Byzantium,” Hesperia, Vol. 87, No. 1, 2018.
Huge thanks to our Elephant of the Month Club members:
Susan Jones
Jill Jones
Ron Jones
Howard Levine
Duck
Brian Etheredge
Gabi Ghita
Elaine Pratt
Ken Arnold
Khristofor Saraga
William (Bill) Boston
Owen Campbell-Moore
Mitchell Fund
Len Lanphar
Paul Ward
Benjamin DeLillo
Susan Lingenfelter
Anton Smyk
Chris Prentice
Jack Carlson
Dov Zazkis
James Treacy Bagshaw
Christopher Lucas
Hendrik Payer
Andrew Beals
Thomas Morley
Jacob Helwig
Duncan Dempsey
Patrick James Morley
Alex Knauth
Lukas Gigler
Tyler Leite
Paul Grieselhuber
And thanks as well to Corvi, Henry Reich, Gene Lushtak, Eugene Bulkin, Logan Jones, Abram Thiessen, Anna Work, Oliver, Jc Bq, Adam Neely, nico, Michael Fieseler, Rick Lees, Ben LaRose, Justin Donnell, rhandhom1, Dave Mayer, Thomás, Davis Sprague, Justin Aungst, Harold Gonzales, Paul Quine, Alex, Marc Himmelberger, Chris Borland, CodenaCrow, Nikolay Semyonov, Daniel Gilchrist, Arnas, Sarah Spath, Skylar J Eckdahl, billy roberts, Elliot Burke, Alex Atanasyan, Amlor, Greg Borenstein, Tim S., Elias Simon, Caroline Simpson, Michael Alan Dorman, Jerry D. Brown, Lauren Steely, Fabian, Nathan Petchell, Blake Boyd, Trevor, Michael McCormick, Lilith Dawn, Jonathan Beck, Dmitry Jemerov, Ian Seymour, Charles Gaskell, Luke Rihn, Rob Holton, Ohad Lutzky, Jon White, Kurtis Commanda, James A. Thornton, Benjamin Cooper, Kevin, Elliot Jay O'Neill, Elliot Winkler, Payden Nissen, Tom Evans, John Bejarano, Brian Dinger, Nervilis, Stefan Strohmaier, Adam Wurstmann, Kelsey Freese, Shadow Kat, Adam Kent, Max Wanderman, Lee Rennie, Richard T. Anderson, Angela Flierman, Mark Feaver, Tyler Lukasiewicz, Kevin Johnson, Brian McCue, Stephan Broek, Hape Company, Matt Giallourakis, Marcøs, Ryan Nicholls, ml cohen, Sylvain Chevalier, Darzzr, Roger Grosse, David Hardin, Rodrigo Roman, Francois LaPlante, Jeremy Zolner, Matthew Fox, Paper Coelacanth, Britt Ratliff, Koen Hoogendoorn, Tae Wook Kim, Eddie O'Rourke, Ryan, Jon Bauman, Vincent Sanders, John July, Volker Wegert, Paul Koester, Danny, Matthew Kallend, Patrick Callier, JH, Joshua Gleitze, Jake Lizzio, Ben Straubinger, Emilio Assteves, Alex Keeny, Alexey Fedotov, Charles Hill, Harry Hume, Valentin Lupachev, Joshua La Macchia, David Conrad, John Paul Welsh, Lisa Lyons, DSM, Gary Butterfield, Niko Albertus, Luke Wever, Elizabeth von Teig, Steve Brand, Rene Miklas, Connor Shannon, Chris Chapin, max thomas, Jamie Price, Kennedy Morrison, Red Uncle, Tiago de Caux, Toby M. Schreier, Daniel Garcia, Kirk Natoza, Doug Nottingham, Scott Howarth, Barendo, Smackdab, Nicholas Wolf, Ben Phillips, Hex86, Scott Nystrom, Douglas Anderson, ZagOnEm, Robert Beach, Todd Davidson, Fahzbehn, chaoticgeek, Lionel Dresta, veleum, and Kevin Boyce! Your support helps make 12tone even better!
Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold for proofreading the script to make sure this all makes sense hopefully!

[@ReligionForBreakfast]

Thanks 12tone for the invite to guest host! I'm happy to answer any questions here in the comments. This topic is my PhD dissertation research, so I think about it a lot!

[@awookieandagerman]

As an architecture major who's just come back from a year abroad in Rome (with visits around Italy, including Pompeii) who's also a die-hard music fanatic and connoisseur...this video rocks! Thank you 12tone and RFB!

[@mrsuperepicusername]

no questions, just want to tell you how interesting this video was! hope to see more from you.

[@BrunoNeureiter]

You look exactly like Religion for Breakfast would have looked in my mind

[@3kids2cats1dog]

My wife is in Israel right now, told her to consider the soundscape of where she is.

[@ZAIDAAS99]

thanks for this!

[@constantinosstylianou]

Yeah but that's Christian music, and the thumbnail fooled me into thinking it would be about ancient Roman (pre-Christian) music. Could you do a video on ancient music from places like Greece or Rome or Egypt? It would be so interesting!

[@evanc.1591]

Constantinos Stylianou I don’t think it would be too different. Christian music of the time drew from the existing musical framework.

[@constantinosstylianou]

Evan C. Yeah but that’s MUCH later, and nowhere near Rome. For the record, the hymn played in the video sounds very similar to modern Greek Orthodox Christian hymns, while ancient Greek music sounded quite different, and Rome (as we understand it, i.e. the city, not some territory of the empire) must’ve been even more distant to it.

[@aripocki]

@@constantinosstylianou I'm inclined to agree. Shivta is in Israel. I would have liked to hear some Roman libretto or instruments.

[@evanc.1591]

@@constantinosstylianou Perhaps - I'm no musical expert. Regarding Roman chant, you might find Ensemble Organum's work on Old Roman Chant interesting: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jmbboH2cjblkgrc

[@Alaplaya9]

Seconded. I'd be interested in what popular roman music sounded like. What was sung at an army camp/on a marketplace/played in a tavern. Christian music doesn't really interest me.

[@Tantacrul]

Very nice. Ancient Roman music has been something I've been intrigued about since I was a kid - especially reading books about the pre-Christian period, like 'I Claudius', with its stories of famous musicians being brought in from different countries to play private concerts for Augustus. I always wondered what it sounded like. Ditto ancient Egypt, where a new university has been set up just for this purpose.

[@cwtrain]

8 churches packed into one square kilometer? We still have that. It's called Utah.

[@johnt.mickevich2772]

Something that's so easy to forget - up until only 100 years ago, if you wanted to hear music, you had to be in the same space as someone playing a musical instrument (or singing). Only 100 years ago. Probably when your grandparents (or their parents) were alive. Crazy.

[@vr8652]

No, phonographs were around since the 1880s

[@spacecat3198]

More like your great, great grandparents.

[@brumd]

I am not at all convinced about how silent these old cities would have been. There was a lot of industrial activity: people happily hammering and chiseling away. Combine that with lots of animal noises, sounds of iron clad cart wheels on uneven cobbled roads, etc and I have serious doubts if religious music of some sort really would be audible at all.

[@Ezullof]

Yeah that's just an idyllic vision that doesn't really work. They also forget that the walls weren't always pure stone like that. Nowadays, ruined stone cities have a lot of echoes, but back in the days, they put different kinds of coatings in them (like in Pompei) so people would write and paint on the wall. Plus people don't just talked, they shouted, recited, etc. The religious singing very likely happened at specific times of the day when people gathered for the occasion. And if it's anything like music in pre-christian times, music was only there in the background while something else happened.

[@azn3000]

It's a wide generalization but i believe that point stands that overall the pre-Industrial world was so much more quieter than what we experience now. There would definitely be more room for detail if the video had been longer.

[@MsXizan]

Might have been slightly audible in the immediate vicinity of a temple, church or synagogue.

[@toomdog]

I don't really believe that ancient public spaces would be 70dB. Sure, some streets might, but in the bazaar where every merchant is trying to be heard above the others, it must get louder. I know from experience if you put four guys in a room, pretty soon they are shouting just to be heard over each other.

[@projectz975]

Ian from Smosh is really branching out here, trying new things. gotta respect that.

[@jinjunliu2401]

Tbh they don't really look alike

[@cernowaingreenman]

I would think that the public forums or agora would be fairly noisy with debates and/or commerce happening.

[@jacobdgm]

2:40 - did communities like these not have many musical instruments? Percussion instruments and brass instruments have been around for millennia, and they can put out some volume. Also, yay a video on soundscape research! Anyone who enjoyed this topic might want to check out the writing and music of Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer - his book The Tuning of the World has chapters full of commentary on ancient/historical soundscapes like this.

[@1yoshi426]

from what I know the earliest brass instruments probably were not that versitile when it comes to making music, plus I'm sure it takes time and recourses to make it so it could get pretty expensive

[@james_subosits]

@@1yoshi426 Yes, you're right on. I don't know much about what the situation was with percussion, but brass instruments being even slightly affordable is a relatively new concept. These instruments didn't have anything besides the overtone series for a very long time.

[@Ezullof]

Brass instruments were used on many occasions by the Romans, however it was still limited to those occasions, you didn't play a brass instrument just for your pleasure. It was the instrument of the military, funerals, theater (rather tragedy while flutes were for comedy), gladiator fights, but also (great) family reunions in generally. It probably sounded very "official" to Roman hears. See J. E. Scott, in "Roman Music" for example. Brass instruments were actually omnipresent in roman life. The argument that something is harder to make is generally a bad argument for anything later than the early neolithic. Brass instruments are nothing for a society that built things like this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycurgus_Cup

[@ErebosGR]

Also, there were marketplaces and shops with sellers yelling to attract customers, livestock animals (chickens, goats, horses), blacksmiths hammering away and public speakers soapboxing or debating political issues. People are loud, especially back then. Where do you think the stereotype of the loud Italian and Greek comes from? Claiming that every ancient Mediterranean city was near silent sounds like absolute bullshit to me.

[@lwilton]

@ErebosGR The first thing to consider is the definition of "a city" in earlier times. How big is "a city"? What differentiates it from "a town" or "a village"? Cities were relatively rare compared to towns and villages, and relatively small compared to any similar differentiations we make these days. While a city would have had carpenters and blacksmiths, a town or village might not. And loudmouths shouting to the skies in a town or village might have been "encouraged" to keep their voice down -- or move elsewhere. Things were also quieter after nightfall. Literature from the late 1800s tells of hearing the copper walking the street three blocks away in downtown London after midnight, while trying to sleep in a hot bedroom with the windows closed. Try that today. And if it was that quiet in London in 1890, how quiet was it in 1203 in a town with a population of 1800? How quiet would it have been a mile from the town in the hills, tending the sheep? Would you have heard the noon services at the church back in the town? Quite likely. When I was a kid, I heard the morning and noon church bells from the small church 2 miles away everyday. I could hear the small kids playing in the yard of the house 100 yards away across the street. Now the traffic noise is so much I can't make out what someone is shouting at 50 feet. Old literature tells of minor wars between the various churches in small towns about who got to have services when, so that they were not singing on top of each other. Each wanted a "clear channel" for their music to be heard in the town, and more importantly, each did NOT want to be hearing the competing congregation singing while they were trying to listen to their own priest preaching to them. That implies that you could easily hear the people in the building down the street from inside your own building.

[@evanc.1591]

As a Catholic, thank you for making a video that mentions the faith in a positive, or at least neutral way. I really appreciate it. It’s really quite sad that most Christians are completely unaware of their own musical heritage - Gregorian Chant is beautiful, and there are still plenty of churches around who use it. It’s a living tradition, but one that fewer people seem to know about.

[@Catman2123]

Imagine you go back to classical Rome in the imperial palace and bring a six string with you, play Feliz Navidad for Augustus, then dip and leave the guitar and then see what you do to history.

[@piperbrady8393]

Such a great video! I have one bone to pick though. I've worked in an airport, a factory, and on the road. I've heard some pretty loud sounds. But the loudest sounds I've heard have been from the roar of a crowd. I've been in an audience where, when the crowd erupted, my ears rang like a bomb had just gone off. So I think it's untrue that the loudest sounds most people could have heard in ancient Rome would have been distant thunder. Unamplified crowds can be insanely loud.

[@Agrivv]

2:54 Was I the only one who was thinking “ohhh so the chants were really to add cover for secret conversations!”

[@MaraK_dialmformara]

Then: new settings of a new religious canon Now: some dingus with an iHome taped to his bike handles

[@KannikCat]

As an architect, a music lover, and a big fan of chorale music, this video was triply exciting and fascinating! Great crossover episode, and great research. Makes me wonder if we, using the technology and techniques of the folks who did the re-creation of the Notre Dame de Paris soundscape, could re-create the acoustics of both the original churches and then how it propagated throughout the streets. That would be sweet, both for the experience and the opportunity for some cross-discipline collaboration. (While it didn't incorporate music unfortunately I worked on something similarly cross-discipline gathering for my thesis) Thank you both for this video!

[@awookieandagerman]

There's a book a read in the past year on recreating the choral mass music specific to St. Mark's in Venice that you would probably find fascinating if you haven't already read it!

[@KannikCat]

@@awookieandagerman Ooooh, that does sound interesting! I haven't found the book yet (though I did find a PDF of a paper called "Sacred Soundscapes: Music, Liturgy, and Architecture in Renaissance Venice"), do you have a title I could search on? :)

[@awookieandagerman]

@@KannikCat I believe it was called Sound and Space in Renaissance Venice :)

[@KannikCat]

@@awookieandagerman Sweet, thank you! Sadly out of print; I'll have to check the local and university libraries around here. :) I did find they have audio files of the experiments in the churches at the book's website, and that should be cool to listen to!

[@tedlis517]

Eight churches “packed” into a square kilometer? Just like the Carolinas, where there are slightly different sects of Christianity packed closely together.

[@benjaminmarks8765]

Yeah, and in parts, strip clubs in between. 😬

[@kuronosan]

Horns, drums, god dang bagpipes and their like. The ancient world had lots of loud stuff.

[@toboterxp8155]

Not to mention hammers and anvils, and the fact that a lot of people had conversations outside.

[@kuronosan]

@@toboterxp8155 And bells, how did I forget about 40 tonne bells.

[@FahlmanCascade]

pie jesu domine, (thump) dona eis requiem (thump)

[@Orphen01]

Andrew is the best! Religion For Breakfast has taught me so much, I love that he is interested in music theory as well!

[@Xidnaf]

how the actual hell am i only finding out about nebula now

[@ItsXDaniC]

Wasn't expecting seeing you here, love your channel as well :D

[@asloii_1749]

Hi Xidnaf I am a fan

[@alanhorton7300]

I can imagine it being really sonically trippy being in that village with the monasteries. I can imagine someone from pagan Hellenistic times being like "well this is cursed."

[@spacecat3198]

Can you imagine some upper class Roman dude who wanted to listen to music while working from home? Couldn’t stick on some music on your PC to play through your smart speakers or even a record player, oh no, you got your slaves and assembled a band.

[@theosib]

Too cool! I'm subscribed to both 12tone and Religion for Breakfast, but I never expected a crossover between them. Mind blown. What will happen next? Is Adam Neely going to do a collab with AronRa? Is Cosmic Skeptic going to do a crossover with 3Blue1Brown? Potholer54 with Vihart? Numberphile with Technology Connections? Ilmango with Film Theory?

[@TroisShakeuxDeTable]

this is a video i didnt knew i wanted

[@AB-wf8ek]

I imagine popular music sounded like outdoor fanfare played with brass & reeds with influences from the Middle East & Northern Africa. That's my guess.

[@chriscourville8098]

Yeah, I remember the good old days when I didn't have to whisper in public to have a private convo

[@Mayihavealick]

These videos blow my mind with how much knowledge is packed into six minutes it’s amazing love these videos!

[@gardiner_bryant]

I LOVE RELIGION FOR BREAKFAST. This is such an amazing crossover!

[@canerdeger60]

Cool but you did not talk about What tuning system they used, What were the compositional techniques they used etc...

[@mariocasali2817]

I was searching for Rome music before christianity, but this was also interesting.

[@zakattack8624]

Makes sense why Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and Nero would have been deadly afraid of thunder. I don't remember Suetonius mentioning Claudius being afraid of thunder. It also makes sense why Zeus (thunder), Vulcan (volcanos) and Poseidon (earthquakes) were seen as powerful gods ripping apart the world. Me and my modern ways make mw ignorant at times seeing people afraid of lightning and thunder being superstitious people, but the reality is that, thats the loudest thing they've heard. I have the privledge to blowing my ear drums out with extreme metal, like the band Autokrator.

[@5BBassist4Christ]

Music theory and religion co-vid. I dig it like an archeologist.

[@VendPrekmurec]

4:11 Symbol of god Perun, also known as Svarica in Slovenian prechristian mythology. "Shivta" also rather sounds to me as Vedic Shiva... a Shivaitic (Vedic) territory which was probably also taken over by Abrahamic (Abraham means "Anti Brahman" in Vedas) cult of death... of Osiris (=Vedic Asura), enemy of Slavic/Scythian & "Egyptian" god Hors or Heru ("Horus"), who was Deva (enemy of Asura in Vedas)

[@Yesica1993]

This was so interesting. I had never thought about the differences between ancient times/places and today, as far as noise pollution. That makes so much sense.

[@JeanOfmArc]

Very interesting, as always. Thanks for including the special guest!

[@Armakk]

Fascinating. I always thought part of the power of jazz and hip-hop is that they sound so much like cities. Whereas country and folk sound rural. It seems music is always designed to stand out against its sonic background, whatever that may be.

[@Looter92]

I read that in Classical Rome carts were banned from the city streets during the day so they had to make all the deliveries at night and that was noisy

[@craigcollings5568]

I grew up in NZ. I know it well. You can hear people speaking from the other side of the harbour.

[@sirorlandodecorsica6210]

Joke's on ancient people, they're missing out too.

[@sirorlandodecorsica6210]

Like, they're missing out on global warming. And shit.

[@AB-wf8ek]

I bet only 40-50 years ago there were plenty of small Middle Eastern towns & villages where you could still experience these kinds of soundscapes, until everything got bombed to hell.

[@RSReffuw]

Wow! So cool to see two of my favorite KZbinrs collabing

[@ronnie4697]

This video doesn’t address the question it poses. I liked it because it’s informative, but would’ve been nice to actually discuss the sounds of ancient Rome itself. Also, a bustling city like Rome must have been considerably louder than a place like Sivta. We can’t just make blanket statements about all ancient cities and call that good scholarship. E for effort.

[@kickass1437]

Holy shit, I had completely forgotten that I was watching 12tone.

[@douglashammann1987]

What about the sound of warfare?

[@dying_allthetime]

This video seems to be about early Christian music, not Roman music.

[@hhdhpublic]

Andrews beard rocks!

[@Ghastly_Grinner]

Ill never understand why people choose to live in cities when i first moved out to the country the silence hurt my ears

[@tikaal]

I really would like more videos like that :) great job

[@DutcherDog]

Geese and Foxes can be extremely loud ! Just adding to the conversation, thx .

[@tombradford7035]

Is that the Flower of the Alps symbol at 4:12 on the lintel?!

[@knasigboll]

damn, this was not the cross over i expected! Very nice!

[@lil_weasel219]

Could you do actual ancient Greek and ancient roman music. As well as ancient Scandinavian,Slavic, Baltic, Celtic? Sry may be too many, just many ideas and very curious

[@thrifikionor7603]

dog barking would be the loudest in everyday life? how about forging and stuff like that? Forging is pretty loud.

[@MuzikBike]

Was just watching 12tine and you uploaded!

[@patrickrichardson2518]

Hmm...was thinking that we would get to hear what Ancient Rome might've sounded like...not told what it DIDN'T sound like...

[@uamsnof]

Very interesting video, but the title is misleading, and sadly we still never got a sample of what he was talking about, just a description.

[@zacharygh]

I was expecting Pre-Christian Rome. I want to hear some dirty latin folk songs.

[@sonny12681]

What would Julius Caesar think if he had the chance to see what New York City or Tokyo looked like today.

[@istinapravda7956]

man, all that trouble just to sound as orthodox christian church music ie choir. That means that music style was not changed much from Byzantine...

[@robranney-blake8731]

Intriguing. Thank you.

[@everestjarvik5502]

A little more music in the music to history ratio might be nice, but maybe that's just me and my current mood.

[@TheElectra5000]

Nice! More history, please!

[@benjaminmarks8765]

Wonderful, thank you.

[@linkVIII]

Awesome video

[@MsXizan]

I DO NOT ike having the back skip, pause and forward skipp icons ON the middle of my screen! Put them BACK on the playbar WHERE THEY BELONG! That's TO the KZbin Powers That Be, not you, 12tone or your guest, *ReigionForBreakfast.*

[@timotejbernat462]

400-1100 years after Christ, yet Christianity is still "brand new" then, a strange concept

[@Ezullof]

Christianity didn't just pop up with the birth (or death) of Jesus Christ. In 400 CE, Christianity was still a brand new religion that was just unified under common rules (and that just eradicated all the beliefs and believers deemed "heretical", starting a long history of violence). The "paleo-christians" are an interesting topic that is too often instrumentalized by modern Christians "scientists" with teleological views (that is, they want the paleo-christians to announce the religion to come, but history could have been very different, and the unity of Christianity isn't something that was written in stone).

[@ferntheyoutuber9960]

Talk about ancient middle eastern music.

[@forgetful9845]

During Carthage maybe? I'm wonderin if there were any cultural crossovers between Rome and them

[@Markle2k]

@@forgetful9845 Crossovers between Punic Carthage and Rome? Aside from the 50,000 sold into slavery, not bloody likely. They were rivals for the millenium Carthage dominated the Mediterranean until Rome levelled the place in 146 BCE after Carthage called Hannibal back home. Julius Caesar's Carthage II could be a cultural crossover.

[@JulioLeonFandinho]

I'm not sure that the city of ancient Rome was a quiet place, in fact I'm sure it wasn't... maybe the town in this video was, seems like a small village. I didn't get the point of that speculation... anyway, that archeological research is, of course, fascinating

[@Ezullof]

Yeah they do have a very simplistic way to look at the problem of noise and music in the video. It's not just about ambient noise. It's also about walls and what was on the walls. For example we do know that medieval tapestry in medieval and Renaissance castles absorbed noise on the walls. In a Roman town, you would have the noise of the people (like merchants shouting), the animals (carrying carts), but also all kinds of jobs involving stones, not to forget street theaters and all kinds of activities. The soundscape of a Roman town was very similar to what you can still find in north african cities. You have the life of the street (which is generally quite loud even without motorized vehicles), and you have the quiet households. Roman houses were quite similar to traditional north african houses. It's also no accident if Roman theaters and amphitheaters were shaped this way. You wouldn't just go through the town hearing everything. But as a general rule, "Christian" scientists like to idealize their topics. It's just so cool to imagine those super-calm small towns where you could hear chanting at any time of the day, no matter where you are. But the truth was likely very different, with ceremonies held at specific times when everyone gathered in the same place, while the singing was just a "background noise" for something else.

[@mryes413]

Can you do Roundabout by Yes! next?

[@StoneKittyOfficial]

Ahhh his face it is here he is real!!!! What a beautiful beard!!!

[@12tone]

That's actually not me, it's Andrew. My face can be found in other videos, though, and I do have quite a beard as well!

[@StoneKittyOfficial]

I got to excited I realized that as soon as the shout out was mentioned at the end but that is awesome love your videos ^-^

[@lil_weasel219]

I wanted to know what Ancient Rome sounded like, not early medieval Gregorian chant-like stuff

[@LeSpectateur60s]

You forgot the most annoying sound of all. Crying Baby’s and screaming Kids playing in the Streets. Can get pretty loud between the tall buildings of heavily populated places. Louder than any dog

[@yuvalne]

Taking guest videos. Someone is trying to January Tom Scott their channel.

[@Holobrine]

Nebula is an interesting idea, but no one wants to pay to watch videos they can get for free.

[@Lamadesbois]

The paywall is a tall wall.

[@abramthiessen8749]

Too bad Nebula requires a credit card.

[@mackereltacos2850]

cover post-punk music in some fashion m8.

[@scartissue121]

Poptones

[@mackereltacos2850]

@@scartissue121 yes!

[@SOULJAJOE010]

we see the face!!

[@KarnKaul]

A very Tolkienesque lament! :)

[@PandA_show]

Clearly you never cranked it up to 11

[@moristar]

Sooo, basically, like any orthodox church. But yeah, quite unusual for an American listener.

[@the20thDoctor]

Huh. Neat.

[@robertbeach00]

I was disappointed that the video ended without playing for us a simulation of what it might have sounded like.

[@schattenfaust]

Salve Plebs!

[@johntaylor9381]

Ancient Christian chant > modern Christian devotional music.

[@armin0815]

2:50 Did Smith miss out on the idea of a smithy? 4:00 Why would you assume that there would be church service throughout the days?

[@matthewalexander1943]

3:19 This is nonsense. Do you know what sort of trades were practiced in open air shops? How about carts and animals? We have testimony from ancient authors about how noisy cities could be. Your entire premise here is false.

[@dxmxo9427]

So handsome nice face hair

[@Android480]

I'd love to hear pre-christian roman music. That opening chant seems completely Abrahamic, almost fantastically unspecific to any one of the big three religions. Music before the bible must have been very different. Also, we all know the christian roman empire is kinda lame. Gimi that good pagan shit.