TRUMPET, a musical instrument, the most noble of all portable ones of the wind kind; used chiefly in war, among the cavalry to direct them in the service. Each troop of cavalry has one. The cords of the trumpets are of crimson, mixed with the colours of the facings of the regiments.
As to the invention of the trumpet, some Greek historians ascribe it to the Tyrrhenians; but others, with greater probability, to the Egyptians; from whom it might have been transmitted to the Israelites. The trumpet was not in use among the Greeks at the time of the Trojan war; though it was in common use in the time of Homer. According to Potter (Arch. Græc. vol. ii. cap. 9), before the invention of trumpets, the first signals of battle in primitive wars were lighted torches; to these succeeded shells of fishes, which were found like trumpets. And when the trumpet became common in military use, it may well be imagined to have served at first only as a rough and noisy signal of battle, like that at present in Abyssinia and New Zealand, and perhaps with only one sound. But, even when more notes were produced from it, so noisy an instrument must have been an unfit accompaniment for the voice and poetry; so that it is probable the trumpet was the first solo instrument in use among the ancients.