Musaeus, his pictures of a future life, 2. 363 D, E, 364 E.
Muses, the, Musaeus and Orpheus the children of, 2. 364 E.
Music, to be taught before gymnastic, 2. 376 E (cp. 3. 403 C); includes literature (λόγοι), 2. 376 E;
—in education, ib. 377 foll.; 3. 398 foll.; 7. 522 A (see Poetry, Poets, and cp. Protag. 326; Laws 2. 654, 660); complexity in, to be rejected, 3. 397 [cp. Laws 7. 812]; the severe and the vulgar kind, ibid. [cp. Laws 7. 802]; the end of, the love of beauty, ib. 403 C; like gymnastic, should be studied throughout life, ibid.; the simpler kinds of, foster temperance in the soul, ib. 404 A, 410 A; effect of excessive, ib. 410, 411; ancient forms of, not to be altered, 4. 424 [cp. Laws 2. 657; 7. 799, 801]; must be taught to women, 5. 452.
Music. [Music to the ancients had a far wider significance than to us. It was opposed to gymnastic as ‘mental’ to ‘bodily’ training, and included equally reading and writing, mathematics, harmony, poetry, and music strictly speaking: drawing, as Aristotle tells us (Pol. viii. 3, § 1), was sometimes made a separate division. I. Music (in this wider sense), Plato says, should precede gymnastic; and, according to a remarkable passage in the Protagoras (325 C), the pupils in a Greek school were actually instructed in reading and writing, made to learn poetry by heart, and taught to play on the lyre, before they went to the gymnasium. The ages at which children should commence these various studies are not stated in the Republic; but in the VIIth Book of the Laws, where the subject is treated more in detail, the children begin going to school at ten, and spend three years in learning to read and write, and another three years in music (Laws 7. 810). This agrees very fairly with the selection of the most promising youth at the age of twenty (Rep. 7. 537), as it would allow a corresponding period of three years for gymnastic training. II. *Music, strictly so called, plays a great part in Plato’s scheme of education. He hopes by its aid to make the lives of his youthful scholars harmonious and gracious,