On Architecture

1. this having been settled with the greatest pains and skill, we must see to it, with still greater care, that a site has been selected where the voice has a gentle fall, and is not driven back with a recoil so as to convey an indistinct meaning to the ear. There are some places which from their very nature interfere with the course of the voice, as for instance the dissonant, which are termed in Greek kathxou=ntes; the circumsonant, which with them are named perihxou=ntes; again the resonant, which are termed a)nthxou=ntes; and the consonant, which they call sunhxou=ntes. The dissonant are those places in which the first sound uttered that is carried up high, strikes against solid bodies above, and, being driven back, checks as it sinks to the bottom the rise of the succeeding sound.