The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-13
ROME'S MUSICAL
 TASTE INHERITED The Influence of the Greeks Always Dominant. AN INITIATIVE PEOPLE Romulus and Remus Among the Earlier Musicians.
Article XI.

Although the Romans owed much to the Greeks in their fine arts, 1t does not follow that the Romans had not originally a music of their own though coarse and rude, They bor- rowed from the -Etruscans such mus ic as was suitable for the wants of their armies and the service of their temples.
 Dionysius Halicarnassensis tells us that the religious cermeonies of the Pelasgians who were inhabitants of Faleri and Fescennia, two ancient cit ies of Etruria were of the same kind as those of the people of Argos. Holy women," he tells, "served in the temple, and a girl unmarried, called Canephoros or Basket-bearer, began the sacrifce;' besides which, there were choruses of virgins, who hymned the goddess in songs of their country" Therefore, since the Romans were in correspondence with the Etrurians before they became intimate with the Greeks, it is natural to conclude that they borrowed from the Etrurians their religious ceremonies and with them their music. According to the same writer, the Arcadians were the first who brought into Italy the use of the Greek letters and instrumental music, performed on the Tyre and thsoe instruments called the Trigon and also the Lydian, an instrument for which, no doubt, the Greeks were originally indebted to their Adriatic neighbors of Lydia
 Romulus and Remus, Dionysius in forms us on the authority of many old authors, receiving their education at Gabii, a town near Palatium, were instructed in Greek learning which in cluded music. Plutarch tells us that the Greek spoken by the Romans in the time of Romulus was perfectly pure. Whatever knowledge of mus ical science or skill in musical per fOrmance the Roman might originally have acquired from the Etrurians, all their subsequent improvement In mus ic, both vocal and instrumental was derived from the Greeks w hatever were their musical powers, the soon found employment for them. In their first triumphal procession, in honor of the victory of Romulus over the Caeninenses, the whole army followed ,-the conqueror, singing hymns to their gods in songs of their country and celebrating teir genehral in extempor- ized verses.
 We here see the origin of the Im- provisatori or extemporary versifiers of Italy. A custom that to this day is common among the Italians was, we find practiced in the fourth year of Rome.
 On some solemn pensions they add ed to their own priests and priestesses those of other countries. In the wor- ship they paid to Cybele, Phrygian musicians attended, striking their cymbals and blowing their flutes throughout the procession.
 Rousseau says on the subject of the Scolia, or Grecian songs, that they passed from the Greeks to the Ron1- ans, and pertinently observes that many of the odes of Horace are Bac- chanalian and love songs. But this nation" says he, more military than sensual, for a long while made but a very coarse use of music and songs and in these particulars never ap- preached the voluptuous grace and elegance of the Greeks. It seems as if, among the Romans, melody always remained in an unrefined state Their Hymeneal odes were rather noise and clamor than airs and it is hardly to be presumed that the satirical songs of the soldiers in the triumphs of their generals, consisted of a very agreeable melody"
 We find, however, from Servius, Macrobius and Horace, that the orig inal nuptial songs were after a time refined and polished into epithalami- ums. Rousseau in his complaint of the occasional coarseness of the anci-