16. They made use of a peculiar measure in their songs, when their armies were in their march towards an enemy, which being sung in a full choir to their flutes seemed proper to excite in them a generous courage and contempt of death. Lycurgus was the first who brought this warlike music into the field, that so he might moderate and soften the rage and fury of their minds in an engagement by solemn musical measures, and that their valor (which should be no boisterous and unruly thing) might always be under the government of their reason, and not of passion. To this end it was always their custom before the fight to sacrifice to the Muses, that they might behave themselves with as much good conduct as with courage, and do such actions as were worthy of memory, and which might challenge the applauses and commendations of every one. 17. And indeed so great an esteem and veneration had they for the gravity and simplicity of their ancient music, that no one was allowed to recede in the least from the established rules and measures of it, insomuch as the Ephori, upon complaint made to them, laid a severe mulct upon Terpander (a musician of great note and eminency for his incomparable skill and excellency in playing upon the harp, and who, as he had ever professed a great veneration for antiquity, so ever testified by his eulogiums and commendations the esteem he always had of virtuous and heroic actions), depriving him of his harp, and (as a peculiar punishment) exposing it to the censure of the people, by fixing it upon a nail, because he had added one string more to his instrument than was the usual and stated number, though done with no other design and advantage than to vary the sound, and to make it more useful and pleasant. That music was ever accounted among them the best, which was most grave, simple, and natural. And for this reason too, when Timotheus in their Carnean feasts, which were instituted in honor of Apollo, contended for a preference in his art, one of the Ephori took a knife in his hand, and cut the strings of his harp, for having exceeded the number of seven in it. So severely tenacious were they of their ancient customs and practices, that they would not suffer the least innovation, though in things that were indifferent and of no great importance, lest an indulgence in one thing might have introduced another, till at length by gradual and insensible alterations the whole body of their laws might be disregarded and contemned, and so the main pillar which did support the fabric of their government be weakened and undermined.