Provisional Abstract. Roman authors and inscriptions tell us of musical instruments called tuba, cornu, buccina and lituus. In the military sphere the tuba was important in transmitting signals, by both the infantry and the cavalry. Tuba players (tubicines) were generally professional musicians and served in the military or, in civilian life. During the Empire some cult musicians (the tubicines Sacrorum populi Romani) were equivalent to priests, and enjoyed similar privileges. On special holy days and in times of war instruments were subjected to ritual purification. In contrast to the tuba, the cornu was not used to signal directly to the soldiers but rather to the bearers of the military insignia. In battle the two instruments were used together. Military units engaged both types of musician (cornicines, singular: cornicen, and tubicines), which therefore indicates that they probably served different tasks. In the civilian sector cornicines also played a role, in directing gladiatorial combats, funerals and other events. (Many of these professionals were members of a collegium.) At sacrificial ceremonies and funerals the cornu and tuba seem only to have sounded if it was a state occasion. In the private sector their use seems to have been unusual, or at least the pictures and written sources give no indication of it. In the ‘soundscape’ of state the use of brass instruments seems to have characterised major sacrificial ceremonies and processions, public funerals, pageants, parades and musical entertainment, at the games as well as in the public spaces of the arena and theatre. Brass music in the Roman world – and its survival in medieval Byzantium – thus served to establish direct connections between religion, entertainment, military life and political expression. This may have been due to their loudness as well as to the relative ease with which the instruments can be taught. Their sounds were described as hot, proud, loud, shrill, sonorous, solemn and glorious. In Byzantium, Biblical association no doubt played a role also. The instruments and their music suggested direct links between pride, amusement, faith, representation, command and violence, and continued to do so even in times of political flux. Their symbolic use, however, seems to have been subject to change.