ich has become our accent in music. These three signs are
found in the French language, in the accent _aigu_, or high
accent, as in _passe_; the accent _grave_, or low accent,
as in _sincere_; or _circonflexe_, as in _Phaon_. The use of
dots[08] for punctuation is also ascribed to Aristophanes;
and our dots in musical notation, as well as the use of commas
to indicate breathings, may be traced to this system.

As I have said, all this tended toward technical skill and
analysis; what was lacking in inventive power it was sought
to cover by wonderful execution. The mania for flute playing,
for instance, seemed to spread all over the world; later we
even hear that the king of Egypt, Ptolemy Auletes (80-51 B.C.),
Cleopatra's father, was nicknamed "the flute player."

In Rome, this lack of poetic vitality seemed evident from the
beginning; for while Greece was represented by the tragedy
and comedy, the Romans' preference was for mere pantomime,
a species of farce of which they possessed three kinds:
(1) The simple pantomime without chorus, in which the actors
made the plot clear to the audience by means of gestures and
dancing. (2) Another which called for a band of instrumental
musicians on the stage to furnish an accompaniment to the
acting of the pantomimist. (3) The chorus pantomime, in
which the chorus and the orchestra were placed on the stage,
supplementing the gestures of the actors by singing a narrative
of the plot of the pantomime, and playing on their instruments.
The latter also were expressive of the non-ideal character of
the pantomime, as is indicated by the fact that the orchestra
was composed of cymbals, gongs, castanets, foot castanets,
rattles, flutes, bagpipes, gigantic lyres, and a kind of shell
or crockery cymbals, which were clashed together.

The Roman theatre itself was not a place connected with the
worship of the gods, as it was with the Greeks. The altar
to Dionysus had disappeared from the centre of the orchestra,
and the chorus, or rather the band, was placed upon the stage
with the actors. The bagpipe now appears for the first time in
musical history, although there is some question as to whether
it was not known to the Assyrians. It represents, perhaps, the
only remnant of Roman music that has survived, for the modern
Italian peasants probably play in much the same way as did their
forefathers. The Roman pipes were bound with brass, and had
about the same power of tone as was obtained f