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Why did Pythagoras name each scale/modal degree off regions of Greece?

1.) Ionian 2.) Dorian 3.) Phyrigian 4.) Lydian 5.) Mixolydian 6.) Aeolian 7.) Locrian

Are they characteristics of the music of these regions of Greece? The foundation of Western music mainly lies on Pythagoras.

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  • What leads you to believe the names come from Pythagoras? As far as I know, the names came far, far later.
    – Aaron
    Commented Sep 28 at 4:34
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    Whoever it was, the question is still o.k.
    – Tim
    Commented Sep 28 at 8:30
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    “The foundation of Western music mainly lies on Pythagoras”: he gets a lot of credit, especially if we need to oversimplify to the point of naming only one name, but a lot of other people had things to say about music, and of course were making music for centuries before him.
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Sep 28 at 13:11
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    First of all be aware that you are talking about medieval chant theory, not ancient music theory. Actually Ionian, Aeolian and Locrian did not even exist in medieval theory and where later added for completeness. But then medieval theory is based on ancient greek theory (with many confusions and wrong translations, e.g. ancient greek scales were thought top to bottom, main greek scale was called Dorian, but would have been medieval Phrygian ...). The medieval system is mostly influenced by the systema teleion by Aristoxenus, but the connection to regions is believed to predate this.
    – Lazy
    Commented Sep 28 at 14:53
  • But quite frankly: We do not know where this comes from. It seems to be something that would have already been established by the time of the earliest known sources.
    – Lazy
    Commented Sep 28 at 14:55

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