Scan 98
The heart of music; the story of the violin, 1906
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1In Pagan Rome
3as other ancient monarchies crumbled and died in a blaze of voluptuous and ineffectual flame,—as Greece decayed to decadence,—so Rome too, most arrogant of powers, pulled rose garlands over her shirt of mail and learned to play the fidicula and lute.
5This fidicula, a lyre, is generally considered the legitimate ancestor of the violin of to-day. This theory, of course, is based on the assumption that the instrument was evolved gradually in Occidental countries, and not imported from the East, as many persons believe, during the Crusades by the Moorish occupation of Spain, and through other inroads of Oriental civilisation upon Europe. The word "fidicula" of the ancient Romans was derived primarily from fides, a string, and meant simply an instrument with strings. It was quite an ordinary lyre, as a matter of fact, closely resembling the instruments of Egypt, Assyria, Phoenicia, and Greece. It does not seem to have been particularly remarkable either in construction or effect. Its chief value as a signboard of instrumental development is the peculiarly prominent place it held in the social and political life of Rome. There is also a certain interest in the fact that this primitive lyre, wherein there seems to have been no single
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