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tympanum, which supplies the place of the tuba, or which is the tuba, at the sacrifices of Cybele;" observing, on authority, that the tuba was never used at her sacrifices: I then cannot conceive the propriety of the plural word initia. Besides, it seems strange that one instrument should supply the place of another so totally different. The tympanum, timbrel, or drum, was a thin leather, or parchment, stretched on a circle of iron, or wood; hence called terga cava tauri: from its orbicular form it was sacred to Cybele, the mother of the round earth; though more probably, because she is said to have invented it. Vossius deduces it from the Hebrew coph; but it was perhaps of Syrian origin; for, according to Juvenal, the Romans had it from Syria:

Jampridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes
Et linguam et mores, et cum tibicine chordas
Obliquas, nec non gentilia tympana secum
Vexit.'

The tuba is supposed to be the common trumpet, of a deep base tone, which we now use in military and solemn music: the same instruments were employed in the rites of Bacchus, as in those of Cybele. See Euripides, in Bac. and Strabo, Lib. 10. Lucretius, to whom I would refer my reader for a particular account of the goddess, and her mystic solemnities, reckons up the four instruments, which form the initia, or sacred utensils of Cybele; though some understand by initia, the playthings with which the deity amused herself in her infancy :

Tympana tenta sonant palmis, et cymbala circum
Concava, raucisonoque minantur cornua cantu,
Et Phrygio stimulat numero cava tibia mentes,
Telaque præportant violenti signa furoris.2

'Juv. Sat. 3.

2 Lucret. Lib. 2.

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