- cular also they aimed at graceful and gentlemanlike motions,
comprehending what was great in what was well done. And from these motions of the hands they transferred some figures to the dances, and from the dances to the palæstra; for they sought to improve their manliness by music and by paying attention to their persons. And they practised to the accompaniment of song with reference to their movements when under arms; and it was from this practice that the dance called the Pyrrhic dance originated, and every other dance of this kind, and all the others which have the same name or any similar one with a slight change: such as the Cretan dances called [Greek: orsitês] and [Greek: epikrêdios]; and that dance, too, which is named [Greek: apokinos], (and it is mentioned under this name by Cratinus in his Nemesis, and by Cephisodorus in his Amazons, and by Aristophanes in his Centaur, and by several other poets,) though afterwards it came to be called [Greek: maktrismos]; and many women used to dance it, who, I am aware, were afterwards called [Greek: marktypiai].
27. But the more sedate kinds of dance, both the more varied kinds and those too whose figures are more simple, are the following:—The Dactylus, the Iambic, the Molossian, the Emmelea, the Cordax, the Sicinnis, the Persian, the Phrygian, the Nibatismus, the Thracian, the Calabrismus, the Telesias (and this is a Macedonian dance which Ptolemy was practising when he slew Alexander the brother of Philip, as Marsyas relates in the third book of his History of Macedon). The following dances are of a frantic kind:—The Cernophorus, and the Mongas, and the Thermaustris. There was also a kind of dance in use among private individuals, called the [Greek: anthema], and they used to dance this while repeating the following form of words with a sort of mimicking gesture, saying—
Where are my roses, and where are my violets?
Where is my beautiful parsley?
Are these then my roses, are these then my violets?
And is this my beautiful parsley?
Among the Syracusans there was a kind of dance called the Chitoneas, sacred to Diana, and it is a peculiar kind of dance, accompanied with the flute. There was also an Ionian kind of dance practised at drinking parties. They also practised the dance called [Greek: angelikê] at their drinking parties. And there is another kind of dance called the Burning of the
