15
The ancients made use of it for its worth, as they did all other beneficial sciences. But our men of art, contemning its ancient majesty, instead of that manly, grave, heaven-born music, so acceptable to the Gods, have brought into the theatres a sort of effeminate musical tattling, mere sound without substance; which Plato utterly rejects in the third book of his commonwealth, refusing the Lydian harmony as fit only for lamentations. And they say that this was first instituted for doleful songs. Aristoxenus, in his first book of music, tells us how that Olympus sang an elegy upon the death of Python in the Lydian mood, though some will have Menalippides to be the author of that song. Pindar, in his paean on the nuptials of Niobe, asserts that the Lydian harmony was first used by Anthippus. Others affirm, that Torebus was the first that made use of that sort of harmony; among the rest, Dionysius the iambic writer.
16
The mixed Lydian moves the affections, and is fit for tragedies. This mood, as Aristoxenus alleges, was invented by Sappho, from whom the tragedians learned it and joined it with the Doric. The one becomes a majestic, lofty style, the other mollifies and stirs to pity; both which are the properties of tragedy. The history of music, however, made Pythoclides the flute-player to be the author of it; and Lysis reports that Lamprocles the Athenian, finding that the diazeuxis (or separation of two tetrachords) was not where almost all others thought it had been, but toward the treble, made such a scheme as is now from paramese to the highest hypate. But for the softer Lydian, being contrary to the mixed Lydian and like the Ionian, they say it was invented by Damon the Athenian.
