Deipnosophistae

But how much better, O most sagacious Ulpian, is this hydraulic organ, than the instrument which is called nabla; which Sopater the parodist, in his drama entitled Pylæ, says is also an invention of the Phoenicians, using the following expressions—

1. Nor is the noise of the Sidonian nabla,
2. Which from the throat doth flow, at all impair'd.

And in the Slave of Mystacus we find—

1. Among the instruments of harmony
2. The nablas comes, not over soft or sweet;
3. By its long sides a lifeless lotus fix'd
4. Sends forth a breathed music; and excites men,
5. Singing in Bacchic strain a merry song.

And Philemon says, in his Adulterer—

1. A. There should, O Parmeno, be here among us
2. A nablas or a female flute-player.
3. B. What is a nablas?
4. A. Don't you know? you idiot!
5. B. Indeed I don't.
6. A. What, do not know a nablas l
7. You know no good; perhaps a sambucistria
8. You ne'er have heard of either?

There is also an instrument called the triangle, which Juba mentions in the fourth book of his Theatrical History, and says it is an invention of the Syrians; as is also the sambuca, which is called λυροφοίνιξ. But this instrument Neanthes the Cyzicene, in the first book of his Seasons, says is an invention of Ibycus the Rhegian poet; as also the lyre called barbitos was of Anacreon. But since you are running all us Alexandrians down as unmusical, and keep mentioning the monaulos as our only national instrument, listen now to what I can tell you offhand about that.

For Juba, in the before-mentioned treatise, says that the Egyptians call the monaulos an invention of Osiris, just as they say that kind of plagiaulos is, which is called photinx, and that, too, I will presently show you is mentioned by a very illustrious author; for the photinx is the same as the flute, which is a national instrument. But Sophocles, in his Thamyras, speaks of the monaulos, saying—

1. For all the tuneful melodies of pipes (πήκτιδες)
2. Are lost, the lyre, and monaulos too.

* * * * And Araros, in his Birth of Pan, says—

1. But he, can you believe it? seized at once
2. On the monaulos, and leapt lightly forth.

And Anaxandrides, in his Treasure, says—

1. I the monaulos took, and sang a wedding song.

And in his Bottle-bearer he says—

1. A. What have you done, you Syrian, with your monaulos?
2. B. What monaulos?
3. A. The reed.

And Sopater, in his Bacchis, says—

1. And then he sang a song on the monaulos.

But Protagorides of Cyzicus, in the second book of his treatise on the Assemblies in Honour of Daphne, says, "He touched every kind of instrument, one after another, castanets, the weak-sounding pandurus, but he drew the sweetest harmony from the sweet monaulos. And Posidonius the Stoic philosopher, in the third book of his Histories, speaking of the war of the Apameans against the Larisæans, writes as follows—

Having taken short daggers sticking in their waists, and small lances covered with rust and dirt, and having put veils and curtains over their heads which produce a shade but do not hinder the wind from getting to their necks, dragging on asses laden with wine and every sort of meat, by the side of which were packed little photinges and little monauli, instruments of revelry, not of war.

But I am not ignorant that Amerias the Macedonian, in his Dialects, says, that the monaulos is called tityrinus. So here you have, O excellent Ulpian, a man who mentions the photinx. But that the monaulos was the same instrument which is now called calamaules, or reedfife, is clearly shown by Hedylus, in his Epigrams, where he says—

1. Beneath this mound the tuneful Theon lies,
2. Whom the monaulos knew its sweetest lord;
3. Scirpalus' son; age had destroy'd his sight,
4. And when he was a child his sire him call'd
5. Eupalamus in his first birthday ode,
6. Showing that he was a choice bouquet where
7. The virtues all had met. For well he sung
8. The Muses' sports amid their wine-glad revels;
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9. He sang to Battalus, an eager drinker
10. Of unmix'd wine, and Cotalus and Pæncalus.
11. Say then to Theon with his calamaules,
12. Farewell, O Theon, tune fullest of men.

As, therefore, they now call those who play on a pipe of reeds (κάλαμοι) calamaules, so also they call them now rapaules, according to the statement of Amerias the Macedonian, in his dialects.

But I wish you to know, my most excellent Ulpian, that a more musical and accomplished people than the Alexandrians is not mentioned. And I do not speak only of playing on the harp, with which even the poorest people among us, and those who do not make a profession of it, and who are utterly ignorant of every other kind of learning, are so familiarized that they can in a moment detect any error which has been made in striking the strings,—but especially are they skilful with the flute; and not only in those which are called girls' flutes and boys' flutes, but also in men's flutes, which are called perfect and superperfect; and also in those which are called harp-flutes and finger-flutes. For the flutes called elymi, which Sophocles mentions in his Niobe and in his Drummers, we do not understand to be anything but the common Phrygian flute. And these, too, the Alexandrians are very skilful in. They are acquainted also with the flute with two holes, and also with the intermediate flute, and with those which are called hypotreti, or bored underneath. And Callias also speaks of the flute called elymi, in his Pedetæ. But Juba says that they are an invention of the Phrygians, and that they were also called scytaliæ, from their resemblance in thickness to the scytale. And Cratinus the younger says that the Cyprians also use them, in his Thera- menes. We know, too, of some which are called half-bored, of which Anacreon says—

1. What lust has now seized thus upon your mind,
2. To wish to dance to tender half-bored flutes?

And these flutes are smaller than the perfect flutes. At all events, Aeschylus says, speaking metaphorically, in his Ixion—

1. But very soon the greater swallows up
2. The lesser and the half-bored flute.

And these half-bored flutes are the same as those which are called boys' flutes, which they use at banquets, not being fit for the games and public shows; on which account Anacreon called them tender.

I am acquainted, too, with other kinds of flutes, the tragic flute, and the lysiodic[*](αυσιῳδὸς, ὁ καὶ ἡ, a man who played women's characters in male attire; so called from Lysis, who wrote songs for such actor.—Liddell and Scott, in voc.) flute, and the harplike flute; all which are mentioned by Ephorus, in his Inventions and by Euphranor the Pythagorean, in his treatise on Flutes, and also by Alexon, who wrote another treatise on Flutes. But the flute made of reeds is called tityrinus among the Dorians in Italy, as Artemidorus the Aristophanian tells us, in the second book of his History of Doris. And the flute which is called magadis, which is also named palæo-magais, sends forth a sharp and a deep note at the same time, as Anaxandrides says in his Armed Fighter—

1. I will speak like a magadis, both loudly and gently

And the flutes called lotus flutes are the same which are called photinges by the Alexandrians; and they are made of the plant called the lotus; and this is a wood which grows in Libya. But Juba says that the flute which is ma e out of the leg bones of the kid is an invention of the Thebans; and Tryphon says that those flutes also which are called elphantine flutes were first bored among the Phoenicians. I know, too, that the magadis is a stringed instrument, as is the harp, the lyre, and the barbitos. But Euphorion the epic poet says in his book on the Isthmian Games—

Those men who are now called players on the nablas, and on the pandurus, and on the sambuca, do not use any new instrument, for the baromus and the barbitos (both of which are mentioned by Sappho and Anacreon), and the magadis, and the triangle, and the sambuca are all ancient instruments. At all events, a statue of one of the Muses was erected in Mitylee by Lesbothemis, holding a sambuca in her hand.

But Aristoxenus calls the following foreign instruments—phœnices, and pectides, and magadides, and sambucæ, and triagles, and clepsiambi, and scindapsi, and the instrument called the enneachord or nine-stringed instrument. But Plato, in the third book of his Polity, states—

' We shall not, hen,' said I, 'have much need of many strings or of much harmony in our songs and melodies.' 'I think not,' said he. 'But we

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shall have triangles, and pectides, and all sorts of instruments which have many strings and are very harmonious.'