In tragedy, such as it existed in the polished ages of Greece, the movements were slow and solemn, and, no doubt, full of dignity. The spirit of comedy required brisk and lively, and frequently tolerated, audaciously wanton dances; while the Chorus of the Satyric Drama would appear to have been rude and clownish rather than indecent, indulging in grotesque movements, ludicrous and extravagant gestures, and that rustic and farcical style of mimicry which may be supposed to have prevailed among the rough peasantry of Hellas.
In classing the various dances, it will, perhaps, be sufficient if we divide them into lively and serious,[[982]] joining with the latter all such as attempted to embody a symbol or an allegory.
In certain dramas of Phrynichos the Chorus represented a company of wrestlers,[[983]] who contrived by the quick, flexible, and varied movements of the dance, to imitate all the accidents of the palæstra. Sometimes they personated a party of scouts in the active look-out for the enemy, each with his right hand curved above the brow: this was one form of the Scops.[[984]] On other occasions the dancer mimicked the habits of the Scops, or mocking-owl, twirling about the head, and appearing to be absorbed in an ecstasy of imitation, until taken by the fowler. The performance of a piece like this, by a numerous Chorus, sometimes breaking off into a brisk gallopade, sometimes maintaining the same position, jigging, pirouetting, and ducking the crest, must, no doubt, have appeared infinitely comic; and yet it could have been nothing in comparison with the Morphasmos,[[985]] in which, not the characteristic peculiarities of a single owl, but those of the whole animal creation were “taken off.” Thus we may suppose that the Hegemon of the Chorus started as a baboon, his next-door neighbour as a hog, a third as a lion, a fourth as an ass, and so on, each man accommodating his voice to the character he had, pro tempore, assumed, and gibbering, grunting, roaring, braying, as he leaped, or gamboled, or bounded, or scampered about the orchestra. Anon the frisky foresters were transformed into slaves, who would seem to have been introduced to the audience pounding something, perhaps onions and garlick, in a mortar.
The Oclasma,[[986]] a dance borrowed from the Persians, reminds one strongly of the performances of the negroes in the interior of Africa, the whole Chorus alternately crouching upon its heels, and springing aloft, like the frogs of Aristophanes about the fens of Acheron. Not, perhaps, un-akin to this, were those three frenzied dances, alluded to rather than described by the ancients,—that is to say, the Thermaustris,[[987]] which seems to have consisted of a series of violent bounds, like the performances of the Hurons and Iroquois;[[988]] the Mongas, which, from the name, probably represented the friskings and caracollings of a jackass; and the Kernophoros,[[989]] or dance of the first-fruits, wherein the Chorus appeared upon the stage, some bearing censers, others fruit-baskets, evidently in a character resembling that of Bacchanals.
To this species of dance belonged, also, the Hecaterides, in which the performer interpreted his desires or passion by furious gestures of the hands. The Eclactisma was a female dance,[[990]] requiring the exertion of great force and agility, its characteristics consisting in flinging the heels backwards above the level of the shoulders. Corresponding, in some measure, to the Eclactisma, was the Skistas,[[991]] in which the dancer bounded aloft, crossing his legs several times while in the air. There was a dance, evidently of a very extraordinary description, which they performed to an air called Thyrocopicon,[[992]] or “knocking at doors,” possibly representing the frolics of such wild youths as anticipated the scape-graces of our own day. The Mothon was a loose dance, common among sailors; the Baukismos, Bactriasmos, Apokinos, Aposeisis, and Sobas,[[993]] were laughable, but lewd dances,[[994]] resembling the Bolero and Fandango of the Spaniards.[[995]]
The Heducomos was a dance expressive of the outbreaks of joy, and the Knismos,[[996]] represented the pinching, struggling, and quarrels of lovers. The Deimalea was a Laconian dance performed by Satyrs and Seileni, skipping and jumping about in a circle.[[997]] Another Spartan dance[[998]] was the Bryallika, of a ludicrous and licentious character, performed by women in grotesque masks, whence a courtezan at Sparta was denominated, Bryallika. The name of Hypogypones,[[999]] was bestowed on certain performers who imitated old men, flourishing their sticks about the stage, as we are informed they did in the play of Simermnos.[[1000]] Akin in spirit to these were the Gypones,[[1001]] who made their appearance in transparent Tarentine robes, and mounted on stilts probably in the form of goats’ feet, to give them a resemblance to the Ægipanes, worshipped as gods of the woods. A peculiar dance in honour of Artemis took its rise in the village of Carya in Laconia, where its invention was attributed to Castor and Polydeukes. No description of it, so far as I know, has come down to us; but the maidens by whom it was performed probably bore, and steadied with one hand, a basket of flowers on their heads, thus forming the model of those architectural figures, still from them called Caryatides.[[1002]] The representation of this performance was, doubtless, a favourite subject among Spartan artists or such as were employed by the Spartans, as may perhaps be fairly inferred from the circumstance, that the device on the ring, which, in return for a comb, was presented by Clearchus to Ctesias to be shown to his friends at Lacedæmon, was a dance of Caryatides.[[1003]]
Amid the laxity of morals which prevailed in the later ages of Greece, the Pyrrhic,[[1004]] once supposed to be peculiar to warriors, degenerated into a dance of Bacchanals, with thyrsi instead of spears, or carrying torches in one hand, while with the other they sportively cast light reeds at one another. The story told in this mimetic performance referred to remote antiquity, and was both curiously and elaborately intricate, comprehending all the adventures of Bacchos and his merry crew during the Indian expedition, and assuming towards the conclusion a tragical form, developing the sad story of Pentheus.[[1005]]
Among the dances of a grave character are enumerated the Gingra performed like the Podismos to slow and solemn music, the Lion and the Tetracomos,[[1006]] a warlike measure performed in honour of Heracles and supposed in its origin to have had some connexion with the Tetracomoi of Attica, that is, the Peiræeus, Phaleron, Oxypeteones, and Thymotadæ.[[1007]] We read, moreover, of dances in which the performers represented certain historic or mythological personages, such as Rhodope, Phædra, or Parthenope.[[1008]]
The Anthema,[[1009]] or Flower-dance, appears to have been chiefly performed in private parties by women, who acted certain characters and chanted, as they moved, the following verses:
Where is my lovely parsley, say?