This theory would explain the appearance of a common source of the art of both nations. It is probable, too, that Babylonian culture exercised a continuous, though perhaps slight, influence throughout the whole course of Egyptian history. That there was close intercourse between the two nations at various times is evident from many known facts in the history of both. Syria, which was saturated with Babylonian culture, was an Egyptian province; nor can the possibility be overlooked that the Hebrews, during their long sojourn in Egypt, brought to Egyptian art some of the influence of a culture that had its genesis in Babylonia. These speculations are given here because there is a general tendency to assume readily that Egypt was predominantly the influential factor in the growth of ancient culture, and because the representations of Egyptian and Assyrian musical performances show similarities which indicate that either may have strongly influenced the other.
Herodotus tells us of an Egyptian musical performance at which women beat on drums and men played on flutes, while a chorus sang and clapped their hands at the same time. This performance, it seems, was typical. The suggested effect is barbaric; but the monuments bear evidence that the Egyptians enjoyed musical performances of a much more refined character. We find represented, for example, such combinations as harp, two tambouras and double-pipe, and lyre, harp, double-pipe and chorus. In an interesting work on Egyptian antiquities edited by Lepsius[27]there is an illustration of an extraordinary concert of eight flutes. The players are divided into two sets. One man, differently dressed from the others, stands facing the group, and holds his flute as if he had either just finished playing or was just about to begin. Presumably he was either the conductor or a solo player. The illustration is taken from a tomb in the Pyramid of Gizeh and dates from the Fifth Dynasty, or before 2000 B. C. The Egyptians, obviously, adapted their music to the occasion, using different combinations of instruments for religious ceremonies, public celebrations, private entertainments, and military parades. There has been preserved on an imperfect fragment a representation of a military band consisting of a trumpet, a drum, some large instrument which is too much obliterated to be distinguished, and twocrotola.
Dancing, an important feature of Egyptian life, formed a part both of ceremonial observances and private entertainments. The Egyptians seem to have developed dancing into a much more sophisticated art than the Assyrians, and, unlike the latter, they showed a partiality for dances of a lively, spirited nature. These were usually performed by men, who, to judge from the monuments, were equipped with all the semi-acrobatic technique of the modern ballet-dancer—even to the pirouette. The slower dances were rendered by women and were, as a rule, languorous and erotic in character.
Much has been said of the influence of Egyptian music on the Greeks, and more than due importance, perhaps, has been attached to the supposition that Pythagoras (571-497 B. C.) learned music in Egypt.A posterioriinferences have been drawn as to the nature of Egyptian music which are hardly warranted by the evidence. Greek literature is not lacking in references to Egyptian influence. ‘The Greeks,’ says Burney,[28]‘who lost no merit by neglecting to claim it, confessthat most of their ancient musical instruments were of Egyptian invention.’ Greek notions of the origin of their ancient musical instruments, however, cannot be taken very seriously. The evidence inherent in the instruments themselves is more valuable and tends rather to contradict the supposition that they were of Egyptian origin. The beautifully proportioned and graceful Greek lyre is so markedly different from the clumsy and crude Egyptian instrument as to suggest an absolutely independent development. Significant, too, is the absence of the harp from all except one of the specimens of Greek art that have come down to us; though the beauty and grace of the Egyptian harp must have appealed strongly to Greek artists had they been at all familiar with it. The one exception is the representation of Polyhymnia with a harp, on a Greek vase in the Berlin Museum, and the harp in this case resembles more the Assyrian than the Egyptian instrument. It may be pointed out, however, that this vase belongs to the later period of Greek art, after the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander had exposed the classical civilization of Greece to the full force of Oriental influence. But the case for Asiatic influence does not depend upon this vase. There is significance in the fact that most of the famous Greek musicians were from Asia Minor or adjacent islands. Marsyas was a Phrygian; Terpander, Arion, and Sappho hailed from Lesbos; Olympus, the supposed inventor of the old enharmonic scale, was a native of Mysias. Strabo,[29]too, speaks of the derivation of Greek stringed instruments from Asia. On the other hand, we are informed by the ubiquitous and omniscient Herodotus that the Dorians came originally from Egypt. The statements of Herodotus, however, must be taken with a large amount of reservation. ‘The net result of Oriental research,’ Prof. Sayce warns us, ‘in its bearing on Herodotus is to show that the greater part of what he professes to tell us of the history of Egypt, Babylonia, and Persia is really a collection ofMärchen, or popular stories, current among the Greek loungers and half-caste dragomen on the skirts of the Persian empire.’[30]As a matter of fact, the statements of all Greek historians, except as to contemporary events, are totally untrustworthy. Excellent reporters they undoubtedly were; but they lacked the historical sense and were but scantily informed. There seems to have been in Greece a peculiar admiration for things Egyptian and a corresponding contempt for things Asiatic—the latter bred probably of the constant wars between Hellas and Persia that began with the conquest of the Lydian kingdom by Cyrus the Great. In default, therefore, of any more specific evidence the statements of Greek writers on the origins of Greek music are of little value; nor does the intrinsic evidence lead us to any more definite conclusion than the conjecture that Greek music was influenced somewhat by both Egyptian and Assyrian music, though to what extent and in what proportions it is impossible to determine.
We are equally ignorant of the nature of the Egyptian musical system. A well-defined system they had, without doubt—they systematized everything. The evidence seems to point to the fact that they used a diatonic scale, and the representations of their musical performances would indicate that they were acquainted with harmonic effects. A concert of eight flutes, for instance, in unison, or even in octaves, without other instruments of any sort to vary the monotony, would hardly have appealed to a taste as cultivated as theirs must have been. Fétis is of the opinion that the Egyptians possessed a system of musical notation, and sees in the resemblance to demotic characters of the musical notation used by the modern Greek Church evidence ofthe fact that it belonged to ancient Egypt.[31]The presence of a system of musical notation is no proof of the coincidence of an harmonic system, but it isprima facieevidence of a stage of artistic development which included a sense of something more than primitive and haphazard concords. Such a stage of development we may probably credit with safety to the ancient Egyptians, and, whatever their music may have been, we can surely conclude that it had acquired at least the elementary proportions of an art.
W. D. D.