TRUMPET (Gr. σπράβας, Lat. turba, a spiral shell, according to Ménage), 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. 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 battles in the primitive wars were lighted torches; to these succeeded shells of fishes, which were sounded like trumpets.