The musical instruments of the ancients have always been found a difficult subject to treat upon; and for several reasons. The first is, because only a limited number of the instruments named by classical authors can be thoroughly identified. This is partly owing to the absence of cotemporary representations in sculpture or in paintings; and even when such are to be found, too much poetical license has not infrequently been taken with their forms, and they are rarely accompanied by distinctive names. Such allusions to them as are to be found in the texts are generally casual and brief, and often very indefinite. In these cases, other notices have to be sought for, sometimes far and wide; they are then to be collected together, and to be compared.

When all this has been done, the descriptions have often an appearance of being contradictory, and the next step must be to endeavour to trace the source of this seeming contradiction. Sometimes it will be found that a name has been varied on account of a slight, and, perhaps, unimportant difference of pattern, or in the material of which the instrument was made. It is next to impossible to distinguish such differences in sculpture, and hardly less so in paintings, without a previous minute knowledge of what is to be sought for. Again, the same material may have supplied names to widely differing instruments; and, lastly, some even of the ancients, who undertook to describe them, were not musically qualified for the task.