And while some were discussing music in this manner, and others of the guests saying different things every day, but all praising the pastime, Masurius, who excelled in everything, and was a man of universal wisdom, (for as an interpreter of the laws he was inferior to no one, and he was always devoting some of his attention to music, for indeed he was able himself to play on some musical instruments,) said, —My good friends, Eupolis the comic poet says—
And music is a deep and subtle science,on which account Anaxilas, in his Hyacinthus, says—
And always finding out some novelty
For those who 're capable of comprehending it;
For, by the gods I swear, music, like Libya,for, my dear fellows, “Music,” as the Harp-player of Theophilus says, “is a great and lasting treasure to all who have learnt it and know anything about it;” for it ameliorates the disposition, and softens those who are passionate and quarrelsome in their tempers. Accordingly, “Clinias the Pythagorean,” as Chamæleon of Pontus relates, “who was a most unimpeachable man [p. 995] both in his actual conduct and also in his disposition, if ever it happened to him to get out of temper or indignant at anything, would take up his lyre and play upon it. And when people asked him the reason of this conduct, he used to say, 'I am pacifying myself.' And so, too, the Achilles of Homer was mollified by the music of the harp, which is all that Homer allots to him out of the spoils of Eetion,1 as being able to check his fiery temper. And he is the only hero in the whole Iliad who indulges in this music.” Now, that music can heal diseases, Theophrastus asserts in his treatise on Enthusiasm, where he says that men with diseases in the loins become free from pain if any one plays a Phrygian air opposite to the part affected. And the Phrygians are the first people who invented and employed the harmony which goes by their name; owing to which circumstance it is that the flute-players among the Greeks have usually Phrygian and servile-sounding names, such as Sambas in Aleman, and Adon, and Telus. And in Hipponax we find Cion, and Codalus, and Babys, from whom the proverb arose about men who play worse and worse,—“He plays worse than Babys.” But Aristoxenus ascribes the invention of this harmony to Hyagnis the Phrygian.
Brings forth each year some novel prodigy;