The importance of music,[605] in the education of the Greeks, is generally understood. It was employed to effect several purposes. First, to soothe and mollify the fierceness of the national character, and prepare the way for the lessons of the poets, which, delivered amid the sounding of melodious strings, when the soul was rapt and elevated by harmony, by the excitement of numbers, by the magic of the sweetest associations, took a firm hold upon the mind, and generally retained it during life. Secondly, it enabled the citizens gracefully to perform their part in the amusements of social life, every person being in his turn called upon at entertainments to sing or play upon the lyre. Thirdly, it was necessary to enable them to join in the sacred choruses, rendered frequent by the piety of the state, and for the due performance in old age of many offices of religion, the sacerdotal character belonging more or less to all the citizens of Athens. Fourthly, as much of the learning of a Greek was martial and designed to fit him for defending his country, he required some knowledge of music that on the field of battle his voice might harmoniously mingle with those of his countrymen, in chaunting those stirring, impetuous, and terrible melodies, called pæans, which preceded the first shock of fight. Footnote 605: Vid. Ilgen. de Scol. Poes. xiv.—“Post Persica demum bella musicæ assidue operatos Græcos dicit. Et præmia diebus festis nonnullis constituta iis pueris adolescentibusque, qui lyrica carmina Solonis aliorumque optime cecinissent.”—Creuzer. de Civ. Athen. Omn. Hum. Par. p. 55. seq.