Do we imagine that if it had been considered commendable in Fabius,[3] a man of the highest rank, to paint, we should not have had many Polycleti and Parrhasii?
Honor nourishes art, and glory is the spur with all to studies; while those studies are always neglected in every nation which are looked upon disparagingly.

The Greeks held skill in vocal and instrumental music as a very important accomplishment, and therefore it is recorded of Epaminondas, who, in my opinion, was the greatest man among the Greeks, that he played excellently on the flute; and Themistocles, some years before, was deemed ignorant because at an entertainment he declined the lyre when it was offered to him.

For this reason musicians flourished in Greece; music was a general study; and whoever was unacquainted with it was not considered as fully instructed in learning.

Geometry was in high esteem with them, therefore none were more honorable than mathematicians.

But we have confined this art to bare measuring and calculating.
III.