Fig. 12.
The general appearance of these processions indicates that the Assyrians were in the habit of massing a large number of players upon important occasions. We have no idea what the effect of this music can have been, but upon the tonal side it cannot have had any great resonance or power. Enough if it satisfied the ears of the dignified players and those who employed their services as a part of the pageant of their great festivals.
CHAPTER III.
MUSIC AMONG THE ANCIENT GREEKS.
PON several accounts the development of the art of music among the ancient Greeks is both important and interesting. Our word "music" is theirs; it carries within its etymology the derivation from the Muses, the nine agreeable divinities who presided over the more becoming and nobler activities of the Greek mind. By music the Greeks meant much more than merely the tonal art itself. Under this term they included pretty much all that they had of a liberal education; grammar, history, rhetoric, mathematics, poetry and song—all were included in this one elastic and comprehensive term. Music itself, the art of tone-sequence, they called harmony.