Apollo tuned the lyre,—the Muses round,
With voice alternate, aid the silver sound.[72]
For it was desirable that they should leave off their quarrels and dissensions, as we have said. And most people seem to attribute the practice of this art to banquets for the sake of setting things right, and of the general mutual advantage. And, besides these other occasions, the ancients also established by customs and laws that at feasts all men should sing hymns to the gods, in order by these means to preserve order and decency among us; for as all songs proceed according to harmony, the consideration of the gods being added to this harmony, elevates the feelings of each individual. And Philochorus says that the ancients, when making their libations, did not always use dithyrambic hymns, but "when they pour libations, they celebrate Bacchus with wine and drunkenness, but Apollo with tranquillity and good order." Accordingly Archilochus says—
I, all excited in my mind with wine,
Am skilful in the dithyrambic, knowing
The noble melodies of the sovereign Bacchus.
And Epicharmus, in his Philoctetes, says—
A water-drinker knows no dithyrambics.
So, that it was not merely with a view to superficial and vulgar pleasure, as some assert, that music was originally introduced into entertainments, is plain from what has been said above. But the Lacedæmonians do not assert that they used to learn music as a science, but they do profess to be able to judge well of what is done in the art; and they say that they have already three times preserved it when it was in danger of being lost.
DANCING.