CHROMATIC

, a species of music which proceeds by semitones and minor thirds. The word is derived from the Greek xrwma, which signifies colour, and perliaps the shade or intermediate shades of colour, which mingle and connect colours, like as the small intervals in this scale easily slide or run into each other.

Boethius and Zarlin ascribe the invention of the chromatic genus to Timotheus, a Milesian, in the time of Alexander the Great. The Spartans banished it their city on account of its softness. The character of this genus, according to Aristides Quintillianus, was sweetness and pathos.