(Gr. ἀρπα), the generic name for an ancient musical instrument, varying in form and in the number of its strings, these being made to vibrate by twitching with the fingers, or with a plectrum held in the right hand. It is needless here to enter upon the fabled accounts of the origin of the Greek lyre, and its improvements. As to the manner of playing upon it, and bringing out its resources, ancient writers are silent. That the ancient lyre, even with very few strings, was capable of producing a great variety of sounds differing in pitch, by skilful stopping of the strings, seems certain; and this view of the matter was published at Parma, in 1798, by Vincenzo Requeno, in his Saggi sul Ristabilimento dell' arte armonica dei Greci e Romani Cantori. His words are:—"È un insigne pregiudizio di Burney e di quanti scrissero della Grecia musica prima di lui lo stimare di scarsi suoni le cetre, e le lire di poche corde. I Greci tastarono le corde, benché i loro strumenti non avessero il manico. Alcune lire de' Greci ci mostrano nelle pitture dell' Ercole uno tavolotto quadra, per la quale passavano quattro corde, e che, scorrendo per le medesime, alzava o calava il tono; in altre lire si intrecciavano rette le dita per mezzo delle quattro corde, e così si tastavano. Altri strumenti si tastavano in altre maniere, come a suo luogo dimostreremo" (tomo 1°, pp. 337–8). The writer of this article quoted the above passage in his paper, "Memoirs of Music," published in the New Edinburgh Review, April 1822. Since then two writers have claimed as a discovery what is really due to Requeno, of whom they take no notice. That lyres, or similar instruments, were known to the ancient Egyptians and to the Hebrews, seems certain; and that large harps were known to the former is proved beyond doubt by those paintings in the tombs at Thebes, drawings of which were published in the great French work, Description de l'Egypte, &c. (G. F. G.)