It was until recently accepted, not only by non-specialists but also by distinguished musicologists, that music in the cultural life of ancient Greece had played a lesser part than sculpture, poetry, theatre or architecture. Furthermore, that it by no means could claim achievements equal to the other arts. This misbelief was based both on a limited knowledge of ancient Greek music, and on the mishandling of the subject, since scholars had tried to study and evaluate it by comparing it with classical, western music. As a result they could not reach any positive conclusions. European scholars in the past had mainly based their study on the interpretation of ancient texts that led at that time to contradictory conclusions.