Besides the artists who appeared either in sacred or classic dances, there existed in Greece a class of professional dancers called Heteræ. These were women of flirting and coquettish type. In our sense, they must have been a kind of Varieté or professional social dancers. During the time of Pericles there were 500 Heteræ in Athens. Thus Sappho, Aspasia and Cleonica were trained to be Heteræ dancers. At one time in Greek history the Heteræ became a danger to the family. Aspasia was the mistress of Pericles until she became his wife. Being well educated, the Heteræ were women of attractive type and most of the great Greek thinkers, artists or statesmen felt the spell of their charm. Sappho called her house the ‘home of the Muses,’ where plastic beauty rivalled with poetry and music. The tragedy of Sappho has inspired many writers, ancient and modern, to immortalize her in their works, particularly the story according to which she sang and flung herself down into the sea. Performed by great celebrities the dances of the Heteræ were by no means vulgar, but lyric and suggestively sensuous. They were performed with garments or without, with floating veils and to the music of a flute. The dancers of this class used to give performances at their homes or in specially established gardens. All the Hetera dances were dedicated to Aphrodite and the ambition of the performers was to imitate the lovely poses of the celebrated goddess. According to most descriptions they resembled our past century’s minuets, gavottes and pavanes.
Emmanuel, who has written an interesting work on the Greek choreography, maintains that the accuracy of rhythm was of foremost importance. A choreographic time-marker was attached to sandals that produced sounds modified to the changing sentiments of the action. A little tambourine or cymbals were occasionally employed. A special branch of dance instruction was the Chironomia, or the art of using the hands. Greek dancing was by no means predominantly gesturing with hands, as some people think, but it was the harmonious use of every limb of the human body, in connection with the corresponding art of pantomime. There were numerous dancing schools in Greece, and each of them had its particular method of instruction. The first exercise in a school was the learning of flexibility of the body, which lasted a few years. A special school dance was the Esclatism, which was chiefly a rhythmic gymnastic, on the order of Jaques-Dalcroze’s method at Hellerau. We know comparatively little of the details of the ancient technical mechanism of choreography. Unfortunately all the ancient dancing figures represent merely one moment of a dance, therefore it is extremely difficult to grasp the principal points of the vanished art.
CHAPTER VII
DANCING IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Æsthetic subservience to Greece; Pylades and Bathyllus; the Bellicrepa saltatio; the Ludiones; the Roman pantomime; the Lupercalia and Floralia; Bacchantic orgies; the Augustinian age; importations from Cadiz; famous dancers.
As with all their arts, the ancient Romans borrowed their dancing from the Greeks. A nation raised in adoration of military and aristocratic ideals, conceited, and with a strong tendency to materialism and formalities, the Romans contributed little to choreography. Their civilization was imitative rather than creative. Their art is void of ethnographic characteristics and a kind of artificial stiffness breathes from their best achievements. The only conspicuous contribution of the Roman dancers to the evolution of dance lies in their unique dramatic and ecclesiastic pantomimes and their celebrated masque dances. But it seems surprising that dancing was far more highly developed and esteemed in the earlier period of Roman history than in those days of luxury and vice which preceded the downfall of the empire. Under the republic, dancing was considered one of the foremost factors in education, and the children of patricians and statesmen were obliged to take lessons in Greek dancing. But of the social views of later centuries we read from Quintilian that ‘it disgraced the dignity of a man,’ or as Cicero said, ‘No sober man dances, unless he is mad.’ Horace rebukes the Romans for dancing as for an infamy. Various other Roman writers tell us how much the women of standing were criticized for their lack of virtue if they entertained a dancer at their house or shook hands with him.
On the other hand, we have an eloquent proof of the Roman frenzy for the stage dance in the exciting intrigues of Pylades and Bathyllus, which set the whole Republic in a ferment. De Jaulnaye, the great historian, writes that the rivalries of Pylades and Bathyllus occupied the Romans as much as the gravest affairs of state. Every citizen was a Bathyllian or a Pyladian. Glancing over the history of the disturbances created by these two mummers, we seem to be reading that of the volatile nation whose quarrels about music were so prolonged, so obstinate, and, above all, so senseless that no one knew what were the real points of dispute, when the philosopher of Geneva wrote the famous letter to which no serious reply was ever made. Augustus (the Emperor) reproved Pylades on one occasion for his perpetual quarrels with Bathyllus. ‘Cæsar,’ replied the dancer, ‘it is well for you that the people are engrossed by our disputes; their attention is thus diverted from your actions!’ While Pylades is described as a great tragic actor and dancer, Bathyllus is represented as having been endowed not only with extraordinary talent, but also with great personal beauty, and is said as having been the idol of the Roman ladies. It is said that the banishment of Pylades from Rome almost brought about a serious revolution, that was prevented by the recall of the imperial decree.
One of the most interesting ancient dances practised by the Romans was Bellicrepa saltatio, a military dance, instituted by Romulus after the seizure of the Sabine women, in order that a similar misfortune might never befall his own country. To Numa Pompilius, the gentle Sabine, who became king after the mysterious disappearance of Romulus, is ascribed the origin of Roman religious dances. Especially celebrated were the dancing priests of Mars, and the order of Salien priests, numbering twelve, who were selected from citizens of first rank. Their mission was to worship the gods by dances. As a sign of special distinction they wore in their ceremonials richly embroidered purple tunics, brazen breastplates and their heads covered with gilded helmets. In one hand they held a javelin, while the other carried the celestial shield called the ancilia. They beat the time with their swords upon this ancilia, and marched through the city singing hymns to the time of their solemn dancing.
According to Livy, pantomimes were invented to please the gods and to distract the people, horrified by the plague that created havoc in the sacred city of Rome. The Ludiones, the celebrated Roman bards, are said to have performed their dances first before the houses of the rich to the music of the flute, but later appeared in the circuses and in special show tents. Their example found followers among the Roman youth. All the Roman dancers gave performances masqued, and it was the custom that in the sacred, as well as in the great dramatic pantomimes women were excluded, though during the later period of the Empire, particularly during the reign of Nero, women dancers appeared.
The best known of the ancient Roman pantomimes were those performed at the festival of Pallas, of Pan and of Dionysus or Bacchus. Juvenal writes that Bathyllus, having composed a pantomime on the subject of Jupiter, performed it with such realism that the Roman women were profoundly moved. The same is said of the dances invented and performed by Pylades, some of which were later given by the priests of Apollo. The art of Roman pantomime developed gradually to classic standards and ranged over the whole domain of mythology, poetry and drama. Dancers, called Mimii, like Bathyllus and Pylades, translated the most subtle emotions by gestures and poses of extreme graphic power so that their audiences understood every meaning of their mute language. This plastic form of mute drama made the dancing of the Romans a great art. The Emperor Augustus is said to have been a great admirer of Bathyllus, and so also was Nero. It is said that an African ruler, while the guest of Nero, was so impressed by the dancer that he said to Nero that he would like to have such an artist for his court. ‘And what would you do with him?’ asked the Emperor. ‘I have around me,’ said the other, ‘several neighboring tribes who speak different languages, and as they are unable to understand mine, I thought, if I had this man with me, it would be quite possible for him to explain by gesture all that I wished to express.’