Sitting upon the wheel; but none of us
Shall ever play such music now as theirs.
And Euphorion, in his treatise on the Isthmian Games, says, that the magadis is an ancient instrument, but that in latter times it was altered, and had the name also changed to that of the sambuca. And, that this instrument was very much used at Mitylene, so that one of the Muses was represented by an old statuary, whose name was Lesbothemis, as holding one in her hand. But Menæchmus, in his treatise on Artists, says that the [Greek: pêktis], which he calls identical with the magadis, was invented by Sappho. And Aristoxenus says that the magadis and the pectis were both played with the fingers without any plectrum; on which account Pindar, in his Scolium addressed to Hiero, having named the magadis, calls it a responsive harping ([Greek: psalmon antiphthongon]), because its music is accompanied in all its keys by two kinds of singers, namely, men and boys. And Phrynichus, in his Phœnician Women, has said—
Singing responsive songs on tuneful harps.
And Sophocles, in his Mysians, says—
There sounded too the Phrygian triangle,
With oft-repeated notes; to which responded
The well-struck strings of the soft Lydian pectis.
37. But some people raise a question how, as the magadis did not exist in the time of Anacreon (for instruments with many strings were never seen till after his time), Anacreon can possibly mention it, as he does when he says—
I hold my magadis and sing,
Striking loud the twentieth string,
Leucaspis.
But Posidonius asserts that Anacreon mentions three kinds of melodies, the Phrygian, the Dorian, and the Lydian; for that these were the only melodies with which he was acquainted. And as every one of these is executed on seven strings, he says that it was very nearly correct of Anacreon to speak of twenty strings, as he only omits one for the sake of speaking in round numbers. But Posidonius is ignorant that the magadis is an ancient instrument, though Pindar says plainly enough that Terpander invented the barbitos to correspond to, and answer the pectis in use among the Lydians—
