I
Best known to us of all the ancient and exotic dances are those of the Greeks. In Greece dancing was an actual language, interpreting all sentiments and passions. Aristotle speaks of Saltators whose dances mirrored the manners, the passions and the actions of men. About three hundred years before the Augustan era dancing in Greece had reached an apotheosis that it has never reached in any other country in the history of ancient civilization. Accurate information about the ancient Greek dances is given not only in numerous fresco paintings, reliefs and sculptures, but in the works of Homer, Aristotle, Plato, Lucian, Aristophanes, Hesiod and many others.
That dancing was highly esteemed as an accomplishment for young ladies in the Heroic Age we may gather from the sixth book of the Odyssey, when gentle white-armed Nausicaa, the daughter of a king, is represented as leading her companions in the choral lay after they had washed their linen in the stream, and amused themselves awhile with a game of ball. Ulysses compliments her especially upon her choric skill, saying that if she should chance to be one of those mortals who dwell on earth her brother and venerable mother must be ever delighted when they behold her entering the dance. We read how Ulysses was entertained at the court of Alcinous, the father of the young lady who had befriended him, and whose dancing he had so greatly admired. The admiration of the wanderer was excited by the rapid and skillful movements of the dancers, who were not maidens only, but youths in the prime of life. Presently two of the most accomplished youths, Halius and Laodamus, were selected by Alcinous to exhibit their skill in a dance, during which one performer threw a ball high in the air while the other caught it between his feet before it reached the ground. From the further description it appears that this was a true dance and not a mere acrobatic performance, and that the purple ball was used by the participants simply as an accessory.
The twenty-third book of the same poem tells us that dancing among the guests at wedding festivals formed in these early times an essential part of the ceremonies. The wanderer, having been recognized by the faithful Penelope, tells his son, Telemachus, to let the divine bard who has the tuneful harp lead the sportive dance, so that anyone hearing it from without may say it is a marriage. Homer thought so highly of dancing that in the ‘Iliad’ he calls it ‘irreproachable.’ In describing various scenes which Vulcan wrought on the shield of Achilles, he associates dancing with hymeneal festivities. No Athenian festivals were ever celebrated without dancing. The design with which the gods used to adorn the shields of heroes represented the dance contrived by Dædalus for fair-haired Ariadne. In this dance youths with tunics and golden swords suspended from silver belts, and virgins clothed in fine linen robes and wearing beautiful garlands, danced together, holding each other by the wrists. They danced in a circle, bounding nimbly with skilled feet, as when a potter, sitting, shall make trial of a wheel fitted to his hands, whether it will run; and at other times they ran back to their places between one another.
Galen complained that ‘so much do they give themselves up to this pleasure, with such activity do they pursue it, that the necessary arts are neglected.’ The Greek festivals in which dancing was a feature were innumerable. The Pythian, Marathon, Olympic and all other great national games opened with and ended with dancing. The funeral feats of Androgeonia and Pollux, the festivals of Bacchus, Jupiter, Minerva, Diana, Apollo, and the Feasts of the Muses and of Naxos were celebrated predominantly with dancing ceremonies. According to Scaliger dancing played an important part in the Pythian games, representations which may be looked upon as the first utterances of the dramatic Muse, as they were divided into five acts, and were composed of poetic narrative with imitative music performed by choruses and dances. Lucian assures us that if dancing formed no part of the program in the Olympian games, it was because the Greeks thought no prizes could adequately reward it. Socrates danced with Aspasia and Aristides danced at a banquet given by Dionysius of Syracuse.
The Greeks danced always and everywhere. They danced in the temples, in the woods and in the fields. Every social or family event, birth, marriage and death, gave occasion for a dance. Cybele, the mother of the Immortals, taught dancing to the Corybantes upon Mount Ida and to the Curetes in the island of Crete. Apollo dictated choreographic laws through the mouths of his priestesses. Priapus, one of the Titans, taught the god of war how to dance before instructing him in strategics. The heroes followed the example of the gods. Theseus celebrated his victory over the Minotaur with dances. Castor and Pollux created the Caryatis, a nude dance performed by Spartan maids on the banks of the Eurotas.
It is written that Æschylus and Aristophanes danced in public in their own plays. Philip of Macedonia married a dancer by whom he had a son who succeeded Alexander. Nicomedes, King of Pithynia, was the son of a dancing girl. This art was so esteemed that great dancers and ballet masters were chosen to act as public men. The best Greek dancers came from the Arcadians. The main aim of the Greek dancers was to contrive the most perfect plastic lines in the various poses of the human body, and in this sculpture was their ideal. It is said that the divine sculpture of Greece was inspired by the high standard of national choreography.
Though we know little of the Greek dance music, yet occasional allusions inform us that it was instrumental and vocal. Thus Athenæus says: ‘The Hyporchematic Dance is that in which the chorus dances while singing.’ Xenophon writes in his sixth book of ‘Anabasis’ as follows: ‘After libations were made, and the guests had sung a pæan, there rose up first the Thracians, and danced in arms to the music of a flute, and jumped up very high with light jumps, and used their swords. And at last one of them strikes another, so that it seemed to everyone that the man was wounded; and he fell down in a very clever manner, and all the bystanders raised an outcry. And he who struck him, having stripped him of his arms, went out singing sitacles; and others of the Thracians carried out his antagonist as if he were dead, but in reality he was not hurt. After this some Ænianians and Magnesians rose up, who danced the dance called Carpæa, they, too, being in armor. And the fashion of the dance was like this: One man, having laid aside his arms, is sowing and driving a yoke of oxen, constantly looking around, as if he were afraid. Then comes up a robber; but the sower, as soon as he sees him, snatches up his arms, and fights in defence of his team in regular time to the music of the flute, and at last the robber, having bound the man, carries off the team; but sometimes the sower conquers the robber, and then, binding him alongside his oxen, he ties his hands behind him and drives him forward.’
Another ancient Greek dance is graphically described by Xenophon as it was given by Callias to entertain his guests, among whom was Socrates. The dance represented the marriage of Dionysos and Ariadne. ‘Ariadne, dressed like a bride, comes in and takes her place. Dionysos enters, dancing to the music. The spectators did all admire the young man’s carriage, and Ariadne herself is so affected with the sight that she may hardly sit. After a while Dionysos, beholding Ariadne, and, incensed with love, bowing to her knees, embraces and kisses her first, and kisses her with grace. She embraces him again, and kisses him with the like affection.’
The nature of the Greek religion was such that many of their sacred dances would, according to our conventions, be far more shocking than those which they performed socially. In the Homeric hymn to Apollo we read how the Ionians with their wives and children were accustomed to assemble in honor of the god, and delight him with their singing and dancing. The poet describes that dancing was at that time an art in which everybody could join, and that it was by no means cultivated only by professional artists. Though the Ionians contributed much to the development of the art of dancing, yet in later years these degenerated into voluptuous gesticulations and sensuous poses known by the Romans as ‘Ionic Movements.’ In another part of the same poem Homer depicts ‘the fair-haired Graces, the wise Hours and Harmony, and Hebe and Venus, the daughter of Jove, dance, holding each other by the wrists. Apollo strikes the harp, taking grand and lofty steps, and a shining haze surrounds him, and the light glitters on his feet and on his well-fitted tunic.’ Pan, who was considered by the Greeks as well as by the Egyptians one of the greater gods, is represented by Homer as going hither and thither in the midst of the dancers moving rapidly with his feet. However, his dancing must have been singularly devoid of grace, as most of the designs known to us depict him as a patron of shepherds in Arcadia, gay and old-fashioned. All other gods and goddesses of the first order were supposed to be accomplished artists in dancing. The recently found bronze vase in a Phœnician sarcophagus, on the island of Crete, contains designs of unusually soft forms of naked dancing girls following Apollo. This best illustration of the Apollo ceremony goes to show that the Phœnicians had learned dancing from the Greeks and imitated them successfully.
As thorough as were all the Greek gods and goddesses in their knowledge and talent of dancing, yet they were far surpassed by Terpsichore, the real goddess of dancing and one of the nine Muses who always surrounded Apollo. Most of the recovered Greek drawings and sculptures represent Terpsichore either sitting or standing, but always with a lyre in her hand. The invention of the lyre was attributed to her. A painting, discovered in the excavated city, Herculaneum, represents her standing with the lyre in her uplifted hand. Another smaller drawing describes her with a wreath on her head while executing a graceful dance with other Muses. Various mediæval artists represented in their works Terpsichore dancing with a flower in her hand and an ethereal veil floating around her head. One of the Greek legends tells us that she was the mother of the singing Sirens.