From the way in which the lyre is praised by Homer (or by other poets under his great name), it is evident that the instrument was already ancient. Olympus the elder, and Orpheus the Thracian, were centuries earlier than Homer; two centuries later Terpander comes into recognition historically, and his lyre had but four strings when he gained the prize in his first musical contest at the feast of Apollo in Sparta, B.C. 676, so that from these dates we learn that for many centuries the lyre had remained a simple instrument of four strings, producing but four sounds. Some say that these elder musicians limited themselves to three strings, and that one Linus by name it was who added the fourth string. However Terpander as he grew in renown became dissatisfied, and greatly daring increased the number of the strings to seven. Cleonidas in the _Introduction to Music_ (ascribed to Euclid), has preserved for us two lines from a poem as spoken by Terpander himself, which Mr. Wm. Chappell translates as follows:— “But we loving no more the tetrachordal chant Will sing aloud new hymns to a seven-toned lyre.” Sappho used a lyre of six strings, Pythagorus about B.C. 520 added an eighth string, Phrynis added a ninth, Anacreon a tenth, his lyre was supposed to be a Lydian _magadis_, capable of so dividing the string in playing that by an intermediate bar, against which each string could be pressed, octave sounds could be given; then we hear of Timotheus (the younger) in B.C. 446 adding four strings to the Spartan lyre, an audacity which was so great an affront that the Spartan Ephori cut away the four strings, confiscated the lyre and suspended it in the temple as a warning to all innovators, and there it was to be seen by citizens and by travellers in the round building known as the _Skeias_. Concerning these inventions there are other claimants, and many conflicting statements; the legendary lore also comes in to the confusion of dates, Hermes the old Egyptian God is one of the reputed inventors of the lyre, and he furnished it offhand with the _seven strings_ obtained from the land tortoise, so that chronology is a hazardous topic, baffling the most patient of investigators. The Egyptians themselves only admit of three strings being in the original invention, these representing the three seasons into which their year was divided. The instrument has many forms, little differences in structure giving rise to new names. The Phorminx, Cithara, Kitharis, Chelys, Barbitos, Psalterion, Trigon, and numerous others; the principle being the same in all I class them under the general term, lyre.