glory of Bacchus were the Dionysia; the Iambic was sacred to Mars, the Caryatis, a dance symbolising innocence, and danced nude, to Diana. Hercules, Theseus, the daughters of Jupiter, Castor and Pollux were so honoured—each dance having its special identification of movement, meaning or costume.
Semirelated to the religious group were the dances of mourning. Unlike certain modern dances of the same intent, these are not recorded as having been primarily an individual’s pantomimic dance representing qualities of the deceased, or illustrating his relations during life with friends and family; although there was a time in which the cortège was headed by an individual dressed in the clothes of the deceased, imitating his virtues and sometimes also his failings. Regularly, however, the dancing was strictly ritualistic, forming a solemn decorative concomitant of the vocal and instrumental music. (At what point in his evolution did the Occidental determine that his ritualistic expressions should be directed almost exclusively to the ear?) A corps of fifteen girls danced before the funeral car, which was surrounded by a band of youths. Naturally the brilliancy of the function was more or less proportionate to the station and estate of the departed.
On dances of war the Greeks relied as an important element in the soldier’s training. In their pantomime the veteran lived over the moments of combat, while his children and even his wife caught anew the spirit of Hellenic arms.
Plutarch wrote: “The military dance was an indefinable stimulus which inflamed courage and gave strength to persevere in the paths of honour and valour.” It is still known that a body of men moving in step feel fatigue distinctly less than when walking out of step. One of the things learned by the long-distance runner, the wood-cutter, or any other performer of continued work, is the importance of establishing as quickly as possible a regular rhythmic relation between the separate parts of a complete movement, including the intake and expulsion of breath among those parts. Such a rhythm once established, movement succeeds movement with something like momentum; the several steps, or blows of the axe, do not each require a separate effort of the will. Something of this was Plutarch’s “indefinable stimulus.”
Apart from efficiency of the individual, experience has shown that a command moving “in time” is unified in the fullest sense, with each soldier more or less perfectly proof against any impulse at variance with the esprit de corps. To weld a number of men ever more closely into the condition of a military unit is one of the purposes of drill. Drill is in great part a matter of keeping in step. The Greeks carried to a high pitch the unification of a military body in respect to all the movements of attack and defence. History repeatedly records the demoralisation of the enemy, carried by the assaults of the perfectly organised Greek fighting bodies. But undoubtedly an important value of the study for perfection of corps unity was the disciplinary effect on the Greek soldier himself.
As a means toward such perfection, Greek law prescribed dancing for the soldier. An obvious benefit from his practice of the art was the advantage due to mere muscular exercise; and that in itself is no small thing when the dance is performed in full armour, as the Greek soldier performed it.