The mythology of Greek music is too well known, for us to go into any details upon the subject; with this people every thing relating to music, was ennobled and enriched by an applicable legend, or a finely conceived poem. In fact music (mousiké), meant with the Greeks, all the æsthetics, and culture that were used in education of youth, and the strictly _musical_ part of the above training had special names, as _harmonia_, etc., to designate it. The subject of Greek music has given rise to more commentary and dispute, than any other in the entire realm of musical history. The mode of notation employed was peculiar; it consisted in placing the letters of the alphabet in various positions, straight, sideways, etc., and sometimes even, fragments of letters were used. There are in existence but three authentic Greek hymns[17] with music, viz: hymn to Calliope, to Apollo, and to Nemesis; there is also in existence, some music to the first eight verses of the first Pythian of Pindar, which Athanasius Kircher claimed to have discovered in a monastery near Messina, but the best authorities reject this as spurious. The copies of the above hymns are not older than the fifteenth century, and have probably been much perverted by the ignorance, or half-knowledge of the transcribers, who seeing a fragment of a letter, would restore the whole letter, or change its position, thereby greatly altering the character of the music. To this fact is to be attributed the dense fog, which has prevented us from fully understanding the ancient Greek music. On this slight foundation however, learned writers have built an edifice of erudition which consists of countless volumes of pedantry and ingenuity, mixed with a large amount of abuse for those who did not agree with their solution. As we intend to deal, in these articles, more with curious musical facts than with musical systems, we will dismiss this branch of the subject entirely by referring the reader to the best representative works of this monument of research, which are Chappell’s History of Music, vol. I., Ambros’ Geschichte der Musik, vol. I., pp. 218-513, Fetis’ Histoire Generale de la Musique, vol. III., pp. 1-418. Kiesewetter, and Drieberg also have written profoundly on the subject. These will give the different opinions held in the matter. The _scale_ of the Greeks, is however, definitely known, and was similar to our minor scale, although it contained no sharp seventh. Play on any pianoforte the notes, A B C D E F G, and you have played the Greek one octave diatonic scale. The nomenclature was however different, and some commentators have forgotten to explain the fact, that what the Greeks called the _highest note_, meant the longest string of the instrument, and consequently the _lowest_ tone.