Not that I would have any one believe from these words, that Homer
thought music useful only for pleasure and delight, there being a
profounder meaning concealed in the verse. For he brought in music to
be present at the banquets and revels of the ancients, as believing
it then to be of greatest use and advantage to repel and mitigate the
inflaming power of the wine. To which our Aristoxenus agrees, who
alleges that music was introduced at banquets for this reason, that as
wine intemperately drunk weakens both the body and mind, so music by
its harmonious order and symmetry assuages and reduces them to their
former constitution. And therefore it was that Homer reports that the
ancients made use of music at their solemn festivals.
44. But for all this, my most honored friends, methinks you have
forgot the chiefest thing of all, and that which renders music most
majestic. For Pythagoras, Archytas, Plato, and many others of the
ancient philosophers, were of opinion, that there could be no motion of
the world or rolling of the spheres without the assistance of music,
since the Supreme Deity created all things harmoniously. But it would
be unseasonable now to enter upon such a discourse, especially at this
time, when it would be absurd for Music to transgress her highest and
most musical office, which is to give the laws and limits of time and
measure to all things. Therefore after he had sung a paean, and offered
to Saturn and his offspring, with all the other Gods and the Muses, he
dismissed the company.