Significance of Greek music--Greek conception of music; mythical records--Music in social life; folk song; general characteristics of Greek music--Systems and scales--Pythagoras’ theories; later theorists: Aristoxenus to Ptolemy--Periods of Greek composition: the nomoi; lyricism; choral dancing and choral lyricism; the drama--Greek instruments; notation. The importance of the music of the most ancient civilizations and its relevance to the history of music as an art may be questioned with some justification. Indeed, some historians, notably Riemann, in his scholarly _Handbuch der Musikgeschichte_, have practically foregone all reference to it. But an account of Greek music has unanimously been held an essential part of the scheme, for it has had an unquestioned influence upon the beginnings of our own art, and though misunderstood for centuries its theoretic system has served as the foundation of mediæval musical science. Moreover, the Greeks, in whose civilization antiquity reached its pinnacle, manifested an attitude toward the art distinctly different from that of the older nations, an æsthetic and humanistic attitude more akin to our own, which enabled them to realize something like the degree of beauty and perfection which they are conceded to have attained in the other arts. Therefore, though music is destitute of parallels to our glorious examples of the plastic arts of antiquity, a presentation of the few facts hinting at the true merits of this lost art is distinctly pertinent. I It is lamentable, indeed, that next to nothing has been preserved to us of Greek music. The few fragments which assiduous antiquarians have restored and deciphered are hardly sufficient to suggest its true quality, and even further restorations could do no more than confirm the present evidence, for manuscripts are but the skeleton records--the essence has been lost with the lyres and flutes, it has died with the voices of Anacreon and Sappho. While we moderns generally deny to music any direct correspondence with the realities of life, the Greeks held it to be the most 'imitative’ or representative of arts.[32] Not only states of feeling, but also ethical qualities and dispositions of mind were reproduced by musical 'imitation,’ and on the close correspondence between the copy and the original depended the importance of music in the formation of character. Aristotle in his 'Politics’ says: 'In rhythm and melodies we have the most realistic imitation of anger and mildness, as well as of courage, temperance, and all their opposites.’ Here is an important element in the Greek conception of music, radically different from our own. Its imputed educational value, its influence upon the character of the youth, and even its therapeutic powers are no less foreign to our modern ideas.