Very unusual was the Roman festival of Pan, or the Lupercalia, at which half-naked youths danced about the streets with whips in their hands, lashing freely everyone whom they chanced to meet. The Roman women liked to be lashed on this occasion, as they believed it would keep them young. Another kind of Pan festival was celebrated by the peasants in the spring at which the young men and maidens joined in the dances, which took place in the woods or on the fields. They wore garlands of flowers and wreaths of oak on their heads. Similar dances, only more solemn and magnificent, were performed at the festival of Pallas by shepherds. Dancing and singing around blazing bonfires in a circle they worshipped the goddess of fruitfulness. Frequently the officiators were disreputable women who appeared dressed in long white robes, symbolic of chastity. Then there were the great Floralia or May Day festivals which in the beginning were of sufficiently decent manner but eventually degenerated into scenes of unbounded licentiousness. Still wilder than these were the orgies of Bacchus, which contributed greatly to the demoralization of the people until the consuls Albinus and Philippus banished them from Rome by a decree of the Senate.
On account of their sensuous character the Romans were unable to keep their art of dancing in such poetic and yet simple æsthetic frames as did the Greeks, for which reason all the Roman women characters in a pantomime were disguised young men. They lacked the ability of self-control in the stage art which in Greece had reached a standard of classic perfection. It is sufficient to say that they must have been wicked enough when a ruler like Tiberius commanded the dancers to be expelled from Rome. But Tacitus relates that, while publicly Tiberius reprimanded Sestius Gallus for the elaborate balls given at his house, privately he made arrangements to be his guest on the condition that he should himself be entertained in the usual manner. Of his successor, Caligula, Suetonius writes: ‘So fond was the emperor of singing and dancing that he could not refrain from singing with the tragedians and imitating the gestures of the dancers either by way of applause or correction.’
During the reign of Augustus the art of pantomime reached its zenith. The dances of this time were more spectacular and impressive on account of their carefully executed stage effects. As far as music was concerned, this was produced by flutes and harps, sometimes by singing voices. The Romans never cared for dancing itself, but they were fond of it as a spectacle. A great rôle in Roman life at this juncture was played by the female dancers from Cadiz, which were said to be so brilliant and passionate that poets declared it impossible to withstand the great charm these women exercised over the spectators. Some one says ‘they were all poetry and voluptuous charm.’ An English writer maintains that the famous Venus of Cailipyge was modelled from a Caditian dancer in high favor at Rome. Another noted writer calls the delicias caditanas the most fascinating performances that ever could be seen, and calls all other dances of the Romans and even the Greeks amateurish puerilities.
Of great Roman female dancers we know by name Lucceia, who was said to give performances when she was one hundred years old; Stephania, ‘the first to dance on the stage in comedy descriptive of Roman manners’; Galeria Copiola, who danced before Emperor Augustus ninety-one years after her first appearance; and Alliamatula, who danced before Nero at the age of one hundred and twenty. The most known of all the great women dancers in ancient Rome was Telethusa, a fascinating girl from Cadiz, to whose extraordinary beauty and art the poet Martial dedicated many of his songs.
CHAPTER VIII
DANCING IN THE MIDDLE AGES
The mediæval eclipse; ecclesiastical dancing in Spain; the strolling ballets of Spain and Italy; suppression of dancing by the church; dances of the mediæval nobility; Renaissance court ballets; the English masques; famous masques of the seventeenth century.
There is a lapse of time, nearly a thousand years, from the fall of the ancient civilization of Greece and Rome to the Grand Ballet of France, when the art of dancing was almost stifled by the Mediæval ecclesiastic scholasticism. Since we have practically no records of the dancing that was fostered in Cadiz, which was probably the most conspicuous at that time, we must confess that the greatly esteemed art of the ancients nearly came to a ruin. If it had not been for Spain, where dancing was introduced even into the churches, it might have taken centuries longer to revive the vanishing ideas of the ancient choreography and keep alive the plastic religion. We are told that a bishop of Valencia adopted certain sacred dances in the churches of Seville, Toledo and Valencia, which were performed before the altar. In Galicia a slow hymn-dance was performed by a tall priest, while carrying a gorgeously dressed boy on his shoulders, at the festival of Corpus Christi.
Much as the church fathers fought dancing in other countries, they had to admit it in Spain. It is said that the choir-boys of Seville Cathedral executed danzas during a part of the religious processions in mediæval Spain, and that this practice was authorized in 1439 by a Bull of Pope Eugenius IV. Of these choir-boy dancers Baron Davillier writes: ‘They are easily to be recognized in the streets of Seville by their red caps, their red cloaks adorned with red neckties, their black stockings, and shoes with rosettes and metal buttons. The hat (worn during the dance), slightly conical in shape, is turned up on one side, and fastened with a bow of white velvet, from which rises a tuft of blue and white feathers. The most characteristic feature of the costume is the golilla, a sort of lace ruff, starched and pleated, which encircles the neck. Lace cuffs, slashed trunk-hose or galzoncillo blue silk stockings and white shoes with rosettes, complete the costume of which Doré made a sketch when he saw it in Seville Cathedral, on the octave of the Conception. The dance of the boys attracts as many spectators to Seville as the ceremonies of Holy Week, and the immense cathedral is full to overflowing on the days when they are to figure in a function.’
Vuillier writes of another occasion of the Spanish temple dances: ‘One of these festivals is celebrated on the 15th of August, the day of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, the other on the following day, the feast of the patron of the village of Alaro. On these occasions a body of dancers called Els Cosiers play the principal part. It consists of six boys dressed in white, with ribbons of many colors, wearing on their heads caps trimmed with flowers. One of them, La Dama, disguised as a woman, carries a fan in one hand and a handkerchief in the other. Two others are dressed as demons with horns and cloven feet. The party is followed by some musicians playing on the cheremias, the tamborino, and the fabiol. After vespers the Cosiers join the procession as it leaves the church. Three of them take up positions on either side of the Virgin, who is preceded by a demon; every few yards they perform steps. Each demon is armed with a flexible rod with which he keeps off the crowd. The procession stops in all the squares and principal places, and there the Cosiers perform one of their dances to the sound of the tamborino and the fabiol. When the procession returns to the church they dance together round the statue of the Virgin.’