The original lyre of Apollo is of this style, fashioned in the same simplicity, a little more slim, since four strings only were at first given. Looking over the 3,000 gems in the British Museum, the bronzes, and the Sculptures, and the multitude of Vases, from earliest to latest periods, and amidst varied and ornate styles in advanced art, we see that still the same simple form remains a cherished favourite not to be displaced from the people’s choice by the newer patterns, religion and tradition had made this the companion of the ever youthful Apollo, and we find that the artists kept up the association in their representations of the well-known Homeric chronicles of gods and men.
From the way in which the lyre is praised by Homer (or by other poets under his great name), it is evident that the instrument was already ancient. Olympus the elder, and Orpheus the Thracian, were centuries earlier than Homer; two centuries later Terpander comes into recognition historically, and his lyre had but four strings when he gained the prize in his first musical contest at the feast of Apollo in Sparta, B.C. 676, so that from these dates we learn that for many centuries the lyre had remained a simple instrument of four strings, producing but four sounds. Some say that these elder musicians limited themselves to three strings, and that one Linus by name it was who added the fourth string. However Terpander as he grew in renown became dissatisfied, and greatly daring increased the number of the strings to seven. Cleonidas in the Introduction to Music (ascribed to Euclid), has preserved for us two lines from a poem as spoken by Terpander himself, which Mr. Wm. Chappell translates as follows:—
“But we loving no more the tetrachordal chant
Will sing aloud new hymns to a seven-toned lyre.”
Sappho used a lyre of six strings, Pythagorus about B.C. 520 added an eighth string, Phrynis added a ninth, Anacreon a tenth, his lyre was supposed to be a Lydian magadis, capable of so dividing the string in playing that by an intermediate bar, against which each string could be pressed, octave sounds could be given; then we hear of Timotheus (the younger) in B.C. 446 adding four strings to the Spartan lyre, an audacity which was so great an affront that the Spartan Ephori cut away the four strings, confiscated the lyre and suspended it in the temple as a warning to all innovators, and there it was to be seen by citizens and by travellers in the round building known as the Skeias.
Concerning these inventions there are other claimants, and many conflicting statements; the legendary lore also comes in to the confusion of dates, Hermes the old Egyptian God is one of the reputed inventors of the lyre, and he furnished it offhand with the seven strings obtained from the land tortoise, so that chronology is a hazardous topic, baffling the most patient of investigators. The Egyptians themselves only admit of three strings being in the original invention, these representing the three seasons into which their year was divided.
The instrument has many forms, little differences in structure giving rise to new names. The Phorminx, Cithara, Kitharis, Chelys, Barbitos, Psalterion, Trigon, and numerous others; the principle being the same in all I class them under the general term, lyre.
The information given to us in ancient treatises on musical matters affords very little light upon the structure, manipulation, tuning and other details which we in these days are curious about. It is indeed difficult to arrive at reasonable conclusions, having, in default of the actual examples of the Greek Lyres, to rely upon artistic representations often, as we notice, conventional only, as in our day, for artists are ruled by the eye, and seek little beyond appearance; hence fixed types suit them, and this sufficiency accounts for the absence of representations of many instruments which we know by verbal reference alone.
How were the instruments strung? How were they tuned? How played? The utmost obscurity clouds these enquiries.
In order to show the steps in development that took place, I have selected a few illustrations, each change, no doubt had a purpose although there is no record left to enlighten us. The writers of the ancient treatises on music busied themselves with scholastic subtleties concerning scales and tetrachordal divisions, and if they were musicians, perhaps were as indifferent as our composers and musicians too generally have shewn themselves to be to the practical comprehension of the nature and construction of the instruments they used. Much that was written we cannot understand, probably because the terms they used had to them meanings and associations of ideas other than those obvious to modern interpreters. The makers of lyres and the skilled players, those who knew the things we would learn did not write, and the writers who did not know,—they explained things, or undertook to do so, which is another matter, and the consequence is that no man at the present day can speak with certainty upon the most interesting questions connected with these Greek instruments.