that it was the custom for a
singer to lie on his back, with a sheet of lead upon his breast,
to correct unsteadiness in breathing, and to abstain from food
for two days together to clear his voice, often denying himself
fruit and sweet pastry. The degraded state of the theatre may
well be imagined from the fact that under Nero the custom of
hiring professional applause was instituted. After his death,
which is so dramatically told by Suetonius, music never revived
in Rome.

In the meanwhile, however, a new kind of music had begun;
in the catacombs and underground vaults, the early Christians
were chanting their first hymns. Like all that we call "new,"
this music had its roots in the old. The hymns sung by the
Christians were mainly Hebrew temple songs, strangely changed
into an uncouth imitation of the ancient Greek drama or worship
of Dionysus; for example, Philo of Alexandria, as well as Pliny
the Younger, speaks of the Christians as accompanying their
songs with gestures, and with steps forward and backward. This
Greek influence is still further implied by the order of one
of the earliest of the Church fathers, Clement of Alexandria
(about 300 A.D.), who forbade the use of the chromatic style in
the hymns, as tending too much toward paganism. Some writers
even go so far as to identify many of the Christian myths and
symbols with those of Greece. For instance, they see, in the
story of Daniel in the lions' den, another form of the legend of
Orpheus taming the wild beasts; in Jonah, they recognize Arion
and the dolphin; and the symbol of the Good Shepherd, carrying
home the stray lamb on his shoulders, is considered another
form of the familiar Greek figure of Hermes carrying the goat.

Be this as it may, it is certain that this crude beginning
of Christian music arose from a vital necessity, and was
accompanied by an indomitable faith. If we look back, we note
that until now music had either been the servant of ignoble
masters, looked upon as a mathematical problem to be solved
scientifically, or used according to methods prescribed by
the state. It had been dragged down to the lowest depths of
sensuality by the dance, and its divine origin forgotten in
lilting rhythms and soft, lulling rhymes.

On the other hand, the mathematicians, in their cold
calculation, reduced music to the utilitarianism of algebra,
and even viewed it as a kind of medicine for the nerves and
mind. When we think of the music of Pythago