It might be well to take a glance here at the state of music in Rome at the beginning of the Christian era. Roman music previous to the conquest of Greece (146 B. C.) had borrowed its forms from the Etruscans and the Greeks. Etruscan influences were probably predominant in the early centuries of the Republic.[44] The nature of these influences is not known to us. It would seem that the Etruscans were originally a Greek race, and the fountain-head of their musical art was consequently Hellenic. But they were, as their vases show, a race dowered with artistic ideals and genuine creative impulses, and they must have modelled their musical inheritance into something new, characteristic, and beautiful. But, if we are to believe Dionysius, Strabo, and other Roman writers who have touched on the subject, we must conclude that the Romans merely imitated such music of the Etruscans as was useful for religious and military purposes, choosing, presumably, the cruder forms of the art. We may accept this conclusion all the more readily since we know that the Romans, even down to Imperial times, remained obtuse and obtrusive Philistines. It does not seem that the Romans borrowed much directly from Greece until after Greece became a Roman province. They were not, in fact, interested at all in art. But, after repeated conquests had made them rich and luxurious, they began to cultivate--or rather patronize--art as a sort of fashionable and expensive luxury. The result was a gradual growth, among the leisure classes in Rome, of a very real literary and æsthetic taste. By the time of Augustus Rome was able to produce such excellent imitators of Greek models as Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Catullus. In music, however, the imperial people never rose so high. Hellenic music had already degenerated when Rome fell under its influence. 'Besides pantomime with chorus,’ says Gevaert, 'Greek musicians brought to Rome only the instrumental solo and the song with kithara or lyre accompaniment.’[45] This branch of the art flourished apace in Rome, where, however, like Italian opera in later centuries, it became distorted into a craze for meaningless virtuosity. We know less about the music itself than we know about the famous kithara players who were the favorites of emperors and were accorded the honors and dignity of princes. History speaks to us about Tigellius, the friend of Augustus, and Mesomedes, of Crete, the intimate of Hadrian. Nero gained a humorous immortality by his pretensions as a singer and kithara player. The story of his journey through Greece, where he won the kithara prize at the Olympic games and defeated in public competition the most famous performers in every city he visited, is surely one of the most ludicrous narratives in all history.