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The ancients made use of it for its worth, as they
did all other beneficial sciences. But our men of art, contemning its ancient majesty, instead of that manly, grave,
heaven-born music, so acceptable to the Gods, have brought
into the theatres a sort of effeminate musical tattling, mere
sound without substance; which Plato utterly rejects in the
third book of his commonwealth, refusing the Lydian harmony as fit only for lamentations. And they say that this
was first instituted for doleful songs. Aristoxenus, in his first
book of music, tells us how that Olympus sang an elegy
upon the death of Python in the Lydian mood, though
some will have Menalippides to be the author of that song.
Pindar, in his paean on the nuptials of Niobe, asserts that
the Lydian harmony was first used by Anthippus. Others
affirm, that Torebus was the first that made use of that
sort of harmony; among the rest, Dionysius the iambic
writer.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 1.
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