Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Psalterium

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

PSALTE'RIUM (ψαλτήριον). A psaltery, that is, a stringed instrument (Varro, ap. Non. s. Nervi, p. 215. Virg. Ciris, 179.), of mixed character, between the cithara and the harpa, to both of which it possessed certain points of affinity — to the former in having a hollow sounding belly formed of wood, over which the chords were stretched, but which, instead of being held downwards in the act of playing, as was usual with the cithara (see the woodcut s. v.), was carried upwards on the shoulder, so as to constitute the top rather than the bottom of the instrument (Isidor. Orig. iii. 21. 7. Cassiod. in Psalm. 150. August. in Psalm. 56.); and to the latter, in having a bent frame which kept the strings extended from its centre, so that the figure presented by the three parts, the strings, belly, and trunk, approximated to the form of a bow, if the juncture of the belly and trunk possessed a circular conformation, as in the engraving (Psalterium/1.1); or of a triangle, if the juncture was an angular one, as is the case with an original specimen of the same instrument, now preserved in the Paris collection of Egyptian antiquities. This account, collected from the different passages quoted above, with the assistance of the figures in the illustration, seems to leave no doubt respecting the identity of the instrument. The lower woodcut (Psalterium/1.2) represents an original in the British Museum, the belly of which is covered with leather, strained over it, and perforated with holes to allow the sounds to escape: the upper one, from a painting at Thebes, exemplifies the method of holding and playing the instrument.

2. ψαλτήριον ὄρθιον. The upright psaltery, mentioned by Athenaeus (iv. 81.) as a different instrument from the common one, was probably the same, or nearly similar to the HARPA: see the example s. v. p. 328., which strongly resembles the preceding figure from Thebes, when placed in an upright instead of a horizontal position.

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  Psalterium/1.1
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  Psalterium/1.2