If anyone presumed to transgress in any way
the rules of the good old music, they would not permit
this; but even Terpander, one of the oldest and the
best harp-player of his time as well as a devoted
admirer of the deeds of heroes, the Ephors none the
less fined, and carried away his instrument and
nailed it to a wall because he put in just one extra
string for the sake of the variety in the notes; for
they approved only the simpler melodies. Moreover,
when Timotheus was competing at the Carneian
Festival, one of the Ephors took a knife, and asked
him on which side he should cut out the superfluous
strings beyond the usual seven.1
1 For variant versions of the story see the note on Moralia, 220 c, supra.