Notice particularly the interval b ‿ ——d as it plays an important part in the history of music. It was a flute-pipe interval, older than Terpander. Olympus was the first to introduce the disjunct form, and from b to e he compasses a tetrachord.

Olympus was a contemporary of Terpander, and we may consider that the two scales were in favour at the same time, one as the orthodox and the other as the secular system.

Pythagoras about 530 B.C., added an eighth string, and it is evident that the string he introduced was that of the missing c, since, as to extent, the octave already existed on the lyre.

e ‿ f——g——a——b ‿ c——d——e
* x

Therefore two complete tetrachords, but disjunct. It is plainly to be seen that he wanted a fifth to the f, to make his scheme of fifths perfect. It was a marked advance. The doings of Pythagoras with the monochord though of great interest, need not be told here, as they belong to another branch of investigation, to be treated subsequently.

Ion of Chios, about 430 B.C., enlarged the scale of the lyre to ten sounds, and was the author of the Conjunct or Lesser System complete. It consisted of three tetrachords conjoined and one note added, to complete the octave below, from mese the middle note a. Greek names would bewilder, and it will be the best plan to keep to the method of distinguishing the notes by letters.

1
 2
 3
a——b ‿ c——d——e ‿ f——g——a ‿ b♭——c——d
*

Notice the return to the Terpander scale with the b flat. I have seen the addition of the three notes below e attributed to Terpander, but considering the period the statement is not convincing. The eleven notes here given may possibly be those of the Lesbian lyre of Timotheus the celebrated poet-musician who according to Pausanias excited the Spartan censure (mentioned page 312 ante), by his eleven strings. The low a first seen in the system was called the proslambanomenos, meaning a note taken into the scale to complete the octave.

This was the state at which after two hundred years the Greek scale had arrived. After Ion there came a period of controversy.

Archytas, 400 B.C., challenged the Pythagorean third, which was extremely sharp, and he was the first to shew that c——e should bear the ratio 5/4.