Throughout history, every society has searched for some way to express its feelings and beliefs.
             Music has been an integral part of virtually every culture, so it is quite natural for people to have
             written about this subject. More literature has survived than actual music, which leaves modern
             scholars with the job of translating, interpreting, and trying to understand the writings of people
             prior to modern musical notation. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius wrote and translated many
             books on subjects he felt were important to the education of future generations. Of particular
             interest is his book, The Fundamentals of Music (De institutione musica). Even though this book
             is no longer used as a basis for music education, it has had a lasting impact on music history and
             Boethius was born either in or around Rome sometime around the year 480 AD. His father
             died when he was only seven, and he was taken in and raised by one of the wealthiest aristocrats
             of the time, Symmachus. Boethius received an exceptional education, married Symmachus's
             daughter, and led an esteemed career as a politician, writer, and scholar until he was imprisoned
             and executed in 524. "Boethius's works may be divided into four categories, in chronological
             order: didactic works, treatises on the mathematical disciplines; the logical works, in essence
             translations or commentaries on Aristotle, Cicero, and Porphyry; the theological treatises, works
             expounding orthodox Christian doctrine by the philosophical method; and the Consolation of
             Philosophy, a purely philosophical treatise written in prison."1 It is the first category, which deals
             with the mathematical disciplines, that contains his Fundamentals of Music. At the time Boethius
             wrote these books, music was considered one of the mathematical subjects, along with arithmetic,
             geometry, and astronomy. "Boethius described these disciplines as...