§ 44. In education we never hear of the use of those more complicated instruments, such as the τρίγωνον, or harp, the double flute and others, which were used by professionals. On the other hand, the favorite syrinx, or pandean-pipe, was only in fashion among shepherds, and not in schools. We may assume that nothing was there admitted but the simplest form of stringed instrument, the lyre (λύρα), which was originally made by stretching strings across the inside of the back shell of a tortoise. These shells are often to be found dry and clean in river-courses through Greece. The tortoise when dead is eaten out by ants or other insects; the shells separate, and are carried away and cleaned by floods. This most primitive kind was, however, supplanted by a more elaborate form, which used the two shells of the tortoise, and fastened, in the position of its front legs, a pair of goat’s horns, which were spanned near their extremity by the ζύγον, or yoke, to which strings were drawn from the far end of the shell, over the nether surface, or breast shell, which was flat. This, with seven or at most ten strings, was the ordinary instrument used to teach Greek boys to play. The more elaborate cithara, which still survives, both in name and structure, among the Tyrolese, was a lyre with a sound-box built of thin wood or metal plates, and elongated into hollow arms (where the lyre only had horns, or solid wooden arms), so that the resonance was considerably greater. This, in the form called πηκτίς, had fifteen or more strings, and does not here concern us. The use of the bow for stringed instruments was unknown to the Greeks, but they used for playing the _plectrum_, which is still used by the Tyrolese for their _zither_. The favorite wind-instrument was not our flute, which was called πλαγίαυλος, or “cross-played aulos,” and which was not popular, but our clarinet, the αὐλός, which was held straight, was wide at the mouth, and produced its tone by means of a vibrating tongue in the mouthpiece. The ordinary aulos was played without any artificial aid; but for the double aulos, where two reeds of different pitch were blown from the same mouthpiece, a leather bandage was tied over the player’s mouth, into which the mouthpiece was fitted. This was the most extreme form of that disfigurement of which the Greeks complained in flute-playing. The tunes taught to boys are now lost, and we cannot hope to reproduce them. But there is good reason to think that they would not suit the developed taste of our day, and would be considered dull and even ugly. This we may infer from the few extant fragments of Greek tunes. FOOTNOTES: [41] ἔστι δὲ τέτταρα σχεδόν, ἃ παιδεύειν εἰώθασι, γράμματα καὶ γυμναστικὴν καὶ μουσικήν, καὶ τέταρτον ἔνιοι γραφικήν.--_Pol._, viii. p. 259. [42] Ὑπογράφεσθαι is the technical term for this drawing of models.