Besides the lyres and citharae, among which we must certainly include the Homeric _Phorminx_, of which we find various kinds but all with the same main features, there are several other stringed instruments, to which we can, as a rule, assign the ancient names with some certainty, though we find a very great number of designations for these instruments in different writers, and apparently most of them were introduced into Greece from the East and from Egypt. One of the safest identifications relates to a large, many-stringed instrument, of a shape which closely resembles our modern harp (Fig. 136). This is played by the third woman in the centre, and is also found elsewhere (compare the vase painting, Fig. 137). We almost always find this instrument in the hands of women; they play it seated, resting the horizontal base on their laps, while the broader sounding-board which joins this at an angle, rests against the upper part of their body; they strike the short strings near them with the right hand, without a plectrum, and with the left hand the long strings which are further from them. The pictures sometimes show contrivances for tuning, shortening, or lengthening the strings; the number of strings varies. As the shape is usually triangular, we may probably assume that this instrument is the one called _Trigonon_. Possibly some of the examples may be instances of the _Sambuca_, since this, too, had a triangular form. [Illustration: FIG. 137.] We also hear of many other stringed instruments, of which we know only the names, some with a small number of strings--three or four, others with a large number--thirty to forty; but we know little or nothing about their shape, and, therefore, will not enter into details concerning them, especially as their use must have been very rare as compared with that of the instruments already described. We must just mention the _Barbiton_, since it seems probable that an instrument which appears very often on ancient monuments, very narrow and long, with a sounding-board closely resembling the lyre, but smaller, and with a very few strings, which was played with the hand and the plectrum, may have been the barbiton which was popular at festive gatherings, and for accompanying love-songs. [Illustration: FIG. 138.] Among wind instruments we must, in the first instance, consider the flute. Although for a time this was not popular in the most fashionable circles at Athens, still it was much in use in Boeotia, and also in the rest of Greece, even among amateurs, and at all times was of great importance, especially for choruses [Illustration: FIG. 139.]