Complete Encyclopaedia of Music/A/Ancient musicians

Ancient musicians. Musicians win flourished before the introduction of Christianity, such as the Greeks and Romans, and their con-temporaries. The Egyptian flute was only a cow's horn with but three or four holes in it, and their harp or lyre had only three strings ; the Grecian lyre only seven strings, and was very small, being held in one hand ; the Jewish trumpets, that made the walls of Jericho fall down, were only rams' horns ; their flute was the same as the Egyptian. They had no other instrumental music than that by percussion ; of which the most boasted was that of the psaltery, a small triangular harp or lyre with wire string and struck with an iron needle or stick ; their sackbut was something like a bagpipe ; the timbrel was a tambourine ; and the dulcimer was a horizontal harp, with wire strings, and struck with a stick, like the psaltery. They had no written music ; had scarcely a vowel in their language ; and yet, according to Josephus, the Jews had two thou-sand musicians playing at the dedication of the temple of' Solomon.