The Dance (by An Antiquary) / Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D.

by Anonymous

Fig. 27: Bacchante. From a fresco, Pompeii, 1st century B.C.

Tiberius by a decree abolished the Saturnalia, and exiled the dancing teachers, but the many acts of the Senate to secure a better standard were useless against the foreign inhabitants of the Empire accustomed to sensuality and licence.

Perhaps the encouragement of the more brutal combats of the Coliseum did something to suppress the more delicate arts, but historians have told us, and it is common knowledge, what became of the great Empire, and the lyric with other arts were destroyed by licentious preferences.

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 1]: "Ann. Institut.": 1831, p. 321.

[Footnote 2]:"Etruria," vol. i., p. 380.

Fig. 28: Dancer. From a fresco in the Baths of Constantine, 4th century A.D.

CHAPTER IV.