A Treatise on the Art of Dancing

by Giovanni-Andrea Gallini

This solves, in a great measure, the seeming absurdity of their interference with the subject of the drama: being deemed so indispensable a part of the performance, that the scene itself was hardly more so: consequently, there was no secret supposed to be more violated by speaking before them, than before the inanimate scene itself. But what was at least excusable, on this footing, in the antients, would be an unpardonable absurdity in the moderns.

Athenæus, who has left us an account of many of the antient dances, as the Mactrismus, a dance entirely for the female sex, the Molossic, the Persian Sicinnis, &c. observes, that in the earliest ages of antiquity, dancing was esteemed an exercise, not only not inconsistent with decency and gravity,

but practised by persons of the greatest worth and honor. Socrates himself, learnt the art, when he was already advanced in years.

Cautious as I am of using a false argument, I should say, that the making dances a part of their religious ceremonies, was a mark of their attributing even a degree of sanctity to them; but that I am aware there were many things that found a place in their festivals and games, which, among those heathens, were so far from having any thing of sacred in them, that they did not even show a respect for common decency or morality.

But as to dancing, it may be presumed, that that exercise was considered as having nothing intrinsically in it, contrary to purity of manners or chastity,

since it made a considerable part of the worship paid to the presiding goddess of that virtue, Diana, in the festivals consecrated to her. Her altar was held in the highest veneration by the antients. Temples of the greatest magnificence were erected in honor of this goddess. Who does not know the great Diana of Ephesus? The assemblies in her temples were solemn, and at stated periods. None were admitted but virgins of the most spotless character. They executed dances before the altar, in honor of the deity, with a most graceful decency; invoking her continual inspiration of pure thoughts, and her protection of their chastity. Those of them, who distinguished themselves above the rest, by superior graces of performance, received rewards not only from the priestess of Diana, but from their own parents. Nor were the young

men but curiously inquisitive, as to who particularly excelled on these occasions. Distinction in these dances was a great incentive to love, and produced many happy unions.

Such of these virgins as married, retained, in quality of wives, such a veneration for this sort of worship, that they formed an assembly of matrons, who on set days, performed much the same devotion, imploring, in concert, of the goddess, a continuance of her gifts, and of that spirit of purity, the fittest to make them edifying examples of conjugal love and maternal tenderness.

Innocent amusements having been ever reputed allowable, and even necessary expedients for relaxing both mind

and body from the fatigue of serious or robust occupations, Diana had her temples, especially in countries proper for hunting, where the parents used to resort with their children, and encouraged them to partake of the diversions in which dancing had a principal share.