On these alone doth Eros smile within those realms of night,
Where vulgar ghosts in shivering bands, all strangers to delight,
In leaky tub from Styx’s flood the icy waters bear,
Condemned, for woman’s lovely voice, its moaning sounds to hear.”[hear.”]
The teachers of music were divided into two classes: the Citharistæ, who simply played on the instrument, and the Citharœdi who accompanied themselves on the cithara with a song.[[610]] Of these the humble and poorer taught, as we have already observed, in the corners of the streets, while the abler and more fortunate opened schools of music or gave their lessons in the private dwellings of the great. The Cithara, however, was not anciently in use at Athens, if we may credit the tradition which attributes to Phrynis its introduction from Ionia.[[611]]
Damon the great Athenian musician[[612]] used to observe, that wherever the mind is susceptible of powerful emotions there will be the song and the dance, and that wherever men are free and honourable their amusements will be liberal and decorous, where men are otherwise the contrary. A very judicious remark was likewise made by Caphesias the flute-player. Observing one of his pupils striving to produce loud sounds, he stamped on the ground and said,—"Boy, that is not always good which is great; but that is great which is good."[[613]]
The power of music in assuaging passion and anger is well illustrated by an anecdote of Cleinias the Pythagorean philosopher, a man distinguished for his virtue and gentleness. If at any time he felt himself moved to wrath, taking up his lyre he would touch the chords and chaunt thereto some ode, and if any questioned why he did so, he would reply, “I am in search of serenity.”[[614]]
Like the Hebrews, also, the people of Hellas attributed to music still more marvellous virtues,[[615]] conceiving it to be able to cure diseases both of the mind and body. Thus the sounds of the flute were supposed to remove epilepsy, and sciatica, and faintness, and fear, and paroxysms of long-established madness,[[616]] which will probably remind the reader of David playing before Saul, when his mind was troubled.
In the later ages of the commonwealth drawing likewise, and the elements of art entered into the list of studies pursued by youths, partly with the view of diffusing a correct taste, and the ability to appreciate and enjoy the noble productions of the pencil and chisel, and partly, perhaps, from the mere love of novelty, and the desire which man always feels to enlarge the circle of his acquirements. Aristotle,[[617]] indeed, suggests a much humbler motive, observing that a knowledge of drawing would enable men to appreciate more accurately the productions of the useful arts; but this perhaps was said more in deference to that spirit of utilitarianism then beginning to show itself than from any conviction of its soundness.