MUSI C. 
m 
Indeed the Romans were later in cultivating arts and 
fciences than any other great and powerful people ; and 
none of them feem to have been the natural growth of the 
foil, except the art of war: all the rell were brought in 
by conqueft. For it has been Ihown already, that before 
their acquaintance with the Greeks they had all their re¬ 
finements from the Etrufcans, a people very early civi¬ 
lized and poliilied. Cicero, in his fiecond Book of Laws, 
tells us, that before Greece and her arts were well known 
to the Romans, it was a cultom for them to fend their 
fons for inftruCfion into Etruria, And thence they had 
the firft ideas, not only of religion but of poetry, painting, 
fculpture, and mufic, according to the confeflion even of 
their own hiftorians. 
With refpedt to Eirufcan mufic, whoever regards the 
great number of inftruments reprefented in the fine col¬ 
lection of antiquities publifhed under the patronage of 
fir William Hamilton, as well as in that publifhed at 
Rome, fince, by Paflerio, muff be convinced that the an¬ 
cient inhabitants of Etruria were extremely attached to 
mufic; for every fpecies of mufical inffrument that is to 
be found in the remains of ancient Greek fculpture is de¬ 
lineated on the vafes of thefe collections; though the an¬ 
tiquity of l'otne of them is imagined to be much higher 
than the general ufe of the inftruments reprefented upon 
them was, even in Greece. 
Befides the obligations which the Romans had to the 
Etrufcans and Greeks for their tafte and knowledge in 
the fine arts, the conqueft of Sicily 200 years before the 
Chriltian sera, contributed greatly to their acquaintance 
with them. Indeed there was no ftate of Greece which 
produced men of more eminence in .all the arts and fci¬ 
ences than Sicily, which was a part of Magna Grtecia, 
and which, having been peopled 719 years B.C. by a 
colony of Greeks from Corinth, their defeendants long 
after cherifhed and cultivated fcience of all kinds, in 
which they greatly diftinguifhed themfelves, even under 
all the tyranny of government with which they were op- 
prefl'ed. Fabricius gives a lift of feventy Sicilians who 
have been celebrated in antiquity for learning and genius, 
among whom we find the weli known names of Atfchylus, 
Diodorus Siculus, Empedocles, Gorgias, Euclid, Archi¬ 
medes, Epicharmus, and Theocritus. To the Sicilians 
is given not only the invention of paftoral poetry, but of 
'the wind-inftruments with which the fliepherds and cow¬ 
herds ufed to accompany their rural fongs. 
After the conqueft of Greece, the Romans had the tafte 
to admire and adopt the Grecian arts. And Montelquieu 
remarks, that one of the chief caufes of the Roman gran¬ 
deur, was their method of abandoning their ancient cuf- 
toms, and adopting thole of the people whom they had 
vanquilhed, whenever they found them fuperior to their 
own. 
With refpeCl to the mufical inftruments ufed by the 
Romans, as they invented none themfelves, all that are 
mentioned by their w'rifers, can be traced from the Etruf¬ 
cans and Greeks. Indeed the Romans had few authors 
who wrote profelfedly upon the lubjeCt of mufic, except 
St. Auguftine, Martianus Capella, Boethius, and Caflio- 
dorus ; who, though they lived in the decline of the em¬ 
pire, yet made ufe of Greek principles, and explained 
thole principles by Greek mufical terms. Of thefe, St. 
Auguftine was born in Africa, A. C. 354, and died 430. 
Befides the fix books written by him upon mufic, which 
are printed in the folio edition of his works at Lyons, 
1586, there is a MS. traCl of his writing, in the Bodleian 
Library at Oxford, entitled De Mufic a; but it is nothing 
more than a fermon in praife of church-mulic ; nor do his 
fix books contain any other rules than thofe of metre 
and rhythm. Martianus Capella, who flourilhed in 470, 
was likewife an African. He, as well as St. Auftin, wrote 
upon the feven liberal arts. His ninth book, the only one 
which concerns mufic, has been commented by Mei- 
bomius, at the end of the third Book of Ariftides Quin- 
tilianus, from whom it is almoft wholly taken. Boethius 
1 
was born at Rome, in 470, and put to death by order of 
Theodoric, the-Goth, in 525. He wrote five books on 
mufic, which were firft printed in black letter, with his 
Treatifes on Arithmetic and Geometry, at Venice, 1499. 
Caiiiodorus flourilhed in the time of Theodoric, in the 
fixth century, and died in 562, at the age of 93. He wrote 
of the Seven Liberal Arts, De Jeptem Difciplinis. The 
w'hole of his mufical work, which is hardly the Ikeleton 
of a treatife, is a repetition of what his predeceflors have 
laid on the iubjeCt ; and all thefe Latin mufical trails are 
but bullets of the fame caliber. They teach no part of 
mufic but the alphabet, nor can any thing be acquired 
by the moll intenfe ftudy of them, (fays Dr. Burney,) 
except defpair and the bead-ach. 
Vitruvius, in his Treatife upon Architecture, has in¬ 
ferred a chapter upon mufic, in which he has given the har- 
monical fyftem of Ariltoxenus ; but he introduces it with a 
complaintoftheunavoidableobfcurity of mufical literature, 
on account of the deficiency of terms in the Latin tongue 
to explain his ideas. “ The fcience of mufic, in itfelf ob- 
feure, fays he, is particularly fo to fuch as underftand not 
the Greek language.” This writer, therefore, who feems to 
have been the firft that had treated of mufic in the Roman 
language, confelfes the neceflity he was under of ufing 
Greek appellatives, not only for the notes, but for other 
parts of the art; which lliows, if not the low ftate of mufic 
at Rome w’hen he wrote, which was in the Auguftan age, 
at leaft whence their mufic came; and borrowing implies 
inferiority. Indeed, the writings of Cicero Ihow that phi- 
lofophy, and all the arts and fciences, were wholly fur- 
nilhed to the Romans from Greece, even in the molt en¬ 
lightened time. 
Mufic was, however, in great favour at Rome, during 
the latter end of the republic, and the voluptuous times 
of the emperors : the Itage then flourilhed; the temples 
were crowded ; feftivals frequent; and banquets fplendid : 
fo that w’e may luppofe it to have been very much ufed 
both upon public and private occafions, in fo rich, popu¬ 
lous, and flourifhing, a city as Rome, the miftrefs of the 
world. 
Livy mentions a hymn compofed by P. Licinius Tegula, 
in the 552d year from the building of the city, onoccalion 
of fome prodigies which, from a luppolition that the gods 
were angry, had greatly alarmed the citizens. This hymn 
was fung by twenty-feven virgins in proceflion through 
the ftreets of Rome. The Carmen Seculare of Horace, 
'more efpecially his Dianam tenerce, are very curious relics 
of vocal poetry; of verfes written for mufic; and, as the 
form and meafures of his odes are Greek, the mufic may 
fairly be fuppofed to have been in the Greek ltyle. Catul¬ 
lus’s Hymn to Diana is another remain of the fame kind. 
A palfage in Cicero would incline us to imagine that 
the laws of contrail, of light and lhade, of loud and foft, 
of fwelling and diminifning founds, were underftood by 
the muficians of his time as well as by thofe of the prefenf. 
For, after fpeaking of the ufe of contraji in oratory, poetry, 
and theatrical declamation, he adds : “ Even muficians 
have known its power ; as is manifeft from the care they 
take to lefi'en the found of inftruments, in order to aug¬ 
ment it afterwards: to diminilh, to fwell, to vary, and to 
diverfify.” De Oratore, lib. iii. c. 102. 
This orator frequently mentions, in his Familiar Let¬ 
ters, Philofophical Works, and even Orations, the keep¬ 
ing a band of muficians as a general pracliCjj’ailiOng per- 
fons of rank: thefe were called fervi jymphoniaci, and pueri 
J'ymp/ioniaci. In his Oration in Q, Cacilium, quaeftor to 
Verres, fpeaking of the extortions and abufes of Verres 
and his quaeftor, he mentions Caecilius protecting the 
admiral of Anthony, who had by violence taken from a 
Sicilian lady, named Agonis, her fervos fymphoniacus, in 
order to make ufe of them on-board his fleet. 
The Ihepherd’s oaten pipe, among the Romans, feems to 
have been lometimes made ufe of in their public aflem- 
blies to exprefs difapprobation : it was certainly louder 
and more powerful than hiding could be, and gave a harlh, 
jarring, 
