We do not intend in this place to discuss the history and theory of ancient music, but only to supplement what has been said already about the musical instruction of youth, by indicating the most important branches of music which were studied in Greece and describing the instruments in use. We shall pass over vocal music entirely, since it played no great part in antiquity apart from instrumental accompaniment, and its chief purpose was for song and the drama.

The commonest instruments in ordinary use were stringed. These were well suited for solo-playing as well as for accompanying songs, and the singer could accompany himself with them, which would have been impossible in the case of wind instruments. The stringed instruments used in Greece were all played by striking or thrumming, and not by means of a bow; in fact, it is a disputed point whether the ancients, and in particular the Egyptians, were at all acquainted with the bow; in any case we do not find it in classical antiquity. Among the various kinds of stringed instruments which had either existed in Greece since the oldest times or been introduced from foreign countries, especially from the East or from Egypt, there were only two which were of special importance for educational and ordinary purposes. These were the lyre and the cithara, which were closely related to one another, and only distinguished by the effect of the sound. Of these the simpler, and probably also the older, was the lyre, which, according to a Greek legend, was an invention of Hermes, who constructed the first lyre out of a tortoise, which he used as a sounding-board, stretching cords across it. Even in later times tortoise-shells seem to have been actually used in the construction of lyres, and on works of art, especially vase pictures (compare the “Bowl of Duris,” which represents school teaching in Attica, Fig. 75), we can plainly distinguish the markings of the tortoise on the outer side of the instrument. It must, however, have been more usual to construct the sounding-board of wood, and only adorn it externally with tortoise-shell or other decorative materials; the writers mention boxwood and ilex as the principal materials for lyres, as well as ivory, which last was probably used for decorative purposes. In the Homeric hymn to Hermes, in which the invention of the lyre by the god is described in detail, Hermes cuts little stems of reed, which he fastens into the shell in gridiron fashion and covers with ox-skin, and by this means obtains the necessary covering for the sounding-board. In later times the proceeding was probably different, since the usual material for the sounding-board was undoubtedly wood, and the covering was, no doubt, made of wood also. But the shape of the sounding-board always remained the same; the outer side was a good deal raised, while the inner side on which the strings were attached was a level surface. Into this sounding-board two arms were fixed, which are almost always represented on Greek monuments as merely curved pieces of wood fastened on the inner side of the sounding-board; but the custom which in later times, especially in the Alexandrine and Roman periods, became very common, of not merely constructing these arms in the shape of horns, but even making them of real horns of chamois or gazelles, no doubt existed even in the ancient Greek period.

At their upper ends the two arms, which might be called horns, were fastened together by a cross-piece, called the yoke, which was usually constructed of hard wood, and on to this the strings, constructed of sheep-guts, were stretched. Of these the lyre usually had seven, all of equal length, which was also the case in the cithara. These strings, as we can clearly see in the lyres of the above-mentioned bowl (Fig. 75), passed downwards over a bridge consisting of a piece of reed fixed on the flat covering of the sounding-board, and were then fastened singly, probably to a little square board, such as we see on the lyre hanging on the wall in Fig. 75. Probably this little board could be taken out, and thus, if a string were to break, the injury could be easily repaired. Occasionally the strings were merely tied to the yoke; but, as this primitive method would make it impossible to tune them, we must assume that there was usually some other contrivance, though neither writers nor monuments give us sufficient information about it. On the lyres in Fig. 75, and also in other pictures of stringed instruments, we perceive at the upper ends of the strings, longish rolls which in other places are shaped more like rings or discs, and are probably set at an angle to the stretched strings. An hypothesis has been set up by Von Jan, who infers, from ancient writers, after comparing similar contrivances in Nubian stringed instruments, that these rolls were constructed of thick skin or hide, taken from the backs of oxen or sheep; the strings were fastened into these adhesive covers and twisted along with them round the yoke of the lyre until they attained the right tune, and they were then fastened into their proper position by strongly pressing down these rolls of hide. Still, this rough mode of fastening which could only permit of very superficial tuning of the strings, does not appear very satisfactory; indeed, Von Jan himself calls attention to a far more artistic contrivance observed in some of the pictures which has not yet, however, been satisfactorily explained. There seems also to have been a third mode of fastening; sometimes the whole yoke was divided into as many little pulleys connected by pegs as there were strings, so that each string had, as it were, its own yoke, by the tightening of which it could be tuned without the other strings being affected. We have no further details about this construction.

On the vase painting represented in Fig. 136, which presents a number of women with musical instruments, perhaps Muses, one is leaning back comfortably in her easy-chair, and playing on the lyre, here represented with six strings; the woman standing in front of her seems about to tune the strings of her cithara. The cithara differed from the lyre chiefly in the form and structure of the sounding-board. This was constructed of wood, often artistically decorated and adorned with valuable materials, precious stones, etc., and was much larger and more arched than the sounding-board of the lyre. It usually had a straight base, and sometimes sounding holes, which was less often the case with the lyre, and its arms were far wider and squarer, and, being also hollow, seem to have helped to strengthen the sound. On some

instruments it is clear that the sounding-board and the arms which rise out of it were constructed out of a single piece, and that, consequently, the cavities are in connection; on some the arms are of a different colour from the sounding-board, usually white, which would suggest ivory; still, we must not on this account conclude that they were constructed separately, since it is possible that the different colouring was only an external ornamentation or veneer for the arms, and need not lead us to assume a different material for the whole structure. The arms were usually slightly curved outwards, but turned inwards again at the top. The instrument in Fig. 136 is one of the simplest, since the arms are quite plain; on other examples we often see elaborate carving. The bridge which unites the two arms is either a perfectly simple rod, as in the case of the lyre (compare Fig. 136), or else the arms have at their projecting ends solid handles or crooks, which probably assisted the tuning. The number of strings was originally limited in the cithara; seven was at first the usual number, and this number was even fixed by law at Sparta, but in other places nine, ten, or eleven strings were used. The writers and pictures give us no more accurate information about the mode in which these strings were fastened to the yoke and to the sounding-board than they do about the lyre; the pictures dating from the Roman period are much clearer in that respect, but we cannot safely use them as authorities.

The lyre was generally played sitting. This instrument, which was a light one, was held close to the left side, as we see in Figs. 75 and 136, and supported by the seat of the chair. The cithara was played standing, and it was therefore necessary, on account of the considerable weight of the instrument, to suspend it by a band over the shoulders. This band is seldom represented in works of art, but it must always be assumed to be there, since the mode in which the stringed instruments were played would not leave a hand free for holding it. Both lyre and cithara were played in such a manner that the strings were thrummed from without by the left hand, but struck from within by an instrument called plectrum, held in the right hand, and constructed of wood, ivory, or some half-precious stone. This plectrum was fastened by a string to the instrument (compare again Fig. 75). There were, however, exceptions to this mode of playing; thus, a woman in Fig. 136 apparently does not use the plectrum, but thrums the strings of the lyre with both hands, and at other times it seems as though the left hand and the plectrum, which was held in the right, were not used at the same time, but in turns. Thus, in Fig. 75, both teacher and pupil are only thrumming the instrument with their left hand, and leaving the plectrum at rest. The practical object of fastening the plectrum to the instrument was that it enabled the player at any moment to pass from the use of the plectrum to the fingers of the right hand, and vice versa. An hypothesis based on works of art, and apparently very plausible, has been made by Von Jan, who supposes that musicians, as a rule, accompanied their song with the play of the left hand, and only used the plectrum in the pauses.

Besides the lyres and citharae, among which we must certainly include the Homeric Phorminx, of which we find various kinds but all with the same main features, there are several other stringed instruments, to which we can, as a rule, assign the ancient names with some certainty, though we find a very great number of designations for these instruments in different writers, and apparently most of them were introduced into Greece from the East and from Egypt. One of the safest identifications relates to a large, many-stringed instrument, of a shape which closely resembles our modern harp (Fig. 136). This is played by the third woman in the centre, and is also found elsewhere (compare the vase painting, Fig. 137). We almost always find this instrument in the hands of women; they play it seated, resting the horizontal base on their laps, while the broader sounding-board which joins this at an angle, rests against the upper part of their body; they strike the short strings near them with the right hand, without a plectrum, and with the left hand the long strings which are further from them. The pictures sometimes show contrivances for tuning, shortening, or lengthening the strings; the number of strings varies. As the shape is usually triangular, we may probably assume that this instrument is the one called Trigonon. Possibly some of the examples may be instances of the Sambuca, since this, too, had a triangular form.

Fig. 137.