Manifest from hence therefore it is, why the ancient
Greeks, with more reason than others, were so careful to
teach their children music. For they deemed it requisite
by the assistance of music to form and compose the minds of
youth to what was decent, sober, and virtuous; believing
the use of music beneficially efficacious to incite to all serious actions, especially to the adventuring upon warlike
dangers. To which purpose they made use of pipes or
flutes when they advanced in battle array against their
enemies; like the Lacedaemonians, who upon the same occasion caused the Castorean melody to be played before
their battalions. Others inflamed their courage with
harps, playing the same sort of harmony when they went
to look danger in the face, as the Cretans did for a long
time. Others, even to our own times, continue to use the
trumpet. The Argives made use of flutes at their wrestling matches called Stheneia; which sort of sport was first
instituted in honor of Danaus, but afterwards consecrated
to Jupiter Sthenius, or Jupiter the Mighty. And now at
[p. 122]
this day it is the custom to make use of flutes at the games
called Pentathla, although there is now nothing exquisite
or antique, nothing like what was customary among men
of old time, like the song composed by Hierax for this
very game; still, even though it is sorry stuff and nothing
exquisite, it is accompanied by flute-music.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.