The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

248 SHEEP BREEDING AND
ceeding ages, the Arcadians never aspired. At the same time
there can be no doubt that they bestowed great care upon the
exhibition of dramatic compositions, though they did not at-
tempt to write them : of this fact we have sufficient proof in
the remains of the theatres found upon the sites of their prin-
cipal cities, and especially of the theatre of Megalopolis, which
was the greatest in all Greece*.
But with respect to their cultivation of music and its influ-
ence on their national character, we have upon record the full
and explicit testimony of one of their most distinguished cit-
izens, the historian Polybius, whose remarks will appear espe-
cially deserving of the reader's attention, when it is considered,
tliat he must himself have gone through the whole course of
discipline and instruction which he describes. Having had oc-
casion to mention the turbulent character as w^ell as the cruel
and perfidious conduct of the Cynsetheans, who occupied a city
and district in the north of Arcadia, he pro}x>ses to inquire why
it was that, although they were indeed Arcadians, they had
acted in a manner so entirely at variance with the usual habits
and manners of the Greeks, and he then proceeds ^Wth earnest-
ness and solemnity to explain upon the following principles the
cause of this extraordinary contrast. It was, as he states, that
the Cynsetheans were the only inhabitants of Arcadia who had
neglected to exercise themselves in music ; and he then gives
the following accomit of the established practice of the rest of
the Arcadians in devoting themselves to the study of real
music, by which he means the united arts of music, poetry, and
dancing, of all those elegant and graceful performances, over
which the Muses were supposed to preside. He informs us
that the Arcadians, whose general habits were very severe,
were requii'ed by law to go on improving themselves in music,
so understood, until their thirtieth year. " In childhood," says
he, " they are taught to sing in tune hymns and paans in
honor of the domestic heroes and divinities. They afterwards
learn the music of Philoxenus and Timotheus. They dance to
the pipe in the theatres at the annual festival of Bacchus ;
* Pausauias, 1. viii. 32. 1. Leake's Travels in the Morea,vol. ii. p. 32. 39, 40.
and