Choreutika. Performing and theorising dance in ancient Greece 8862279507, 9788862279505

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BIBLIOTECA «QUADERNI DI

CULTURA

DI

URBINATI CLASSICA »

Collana fondata da Bruno Gentili, diretta da Paola Bernardini e Carmine Catenacci

13.

CHOREUTIKA PERFORMING AND THEORISING DANCE IN ANCIENT GREECE EDITED

LAURA

BY

GIANVITTORIO

OS PISA: FABRIZIO

ROMA

SERRA MMXVII

EDITORE

Volume pubblicato con il contributo dell’Austrian Science Fund (FWP), dell’Institut für Klassische Philologie, Mittel- und Neulatein dell’Universitä di Vienna e del Dipartimento di Lettere, Arti e Scienze sociali, Universita “G. d’Annunzio”, Chieti-Pescara. *

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ὁ χορὸς ὅσιος Eur. Ir. 328

CONTENTS Foreword by Carmine Catenacci

11

Contributors Acknowledgements

21 23

1. LAURA GIANVITTORIO, Introduction. Ancient dance as a research topic

25

PART PERFORMING

CHORAL

ONE.

DANCE:

TEXTS

AND

CONTEXTS

2. FREDERICK G. NAEREBOUT, Moving in unison. The Greek

chorus in performance 3. PATRICK

39

J. Fincuass, Dancing with Stesichorus

4. Laura GIANVITTORIO, A dance of death. Evidence about a tragic dance of mourning 5. Eric Csapo, /magining the shape of choral dance and inventing the cultic in Euripides’ later tragedies

67 go 119

PART TWO. ELEMENTS

OF

ANCIENT

DANCE

THEORY

6. SOPHIE MARIANNE BOCKSBERGER, Dance as silent poetry, poetry as speaking dance: the poetics of orchesis 7. ELEONORA Roccont, Moving the soul through the immov-

able: dance and mimesis in fourth-century Greece 8. STEFAN view

HAGEL,

178

Language and dance: a non-Platonising

9. ANASTASIA-ERASMIA dance

159

198

ΡΈΡΟΝΙ, Aristotle’s definition of 215

FOREWORD CARMINE

CATENACCI

I r is with great interest and pleasure that Paola Bernardini and I welcome Choreutika. Performing and Theorizing Dance in Ancient Greece, edited by Laura Gianvittorio, in the “Biblioteca

dei Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica”. Throughout their editorial history, the QUCC have always given special attention to the performance aspects of Greek poetry and to the related historical and cultural contexts. As is well known, in ancient Greece, the art of the Muses (mousike) combined word,

music and dance. By expanding the perspective, we can rightly claim that dance was a central component

of cultural and of

civic, religious and social life. Despite this, few studies have been carried out on the subject. It is not hard to understand one of the main reasons for this void, namely the consider-

able difficulty in reconstructing a performing art form which we only know through its pale reflections on literary texts, figurative works and theoretical reflections. Nevertheless, although the data by ancient dance stimulating and on the topic and

at our disposal appear as shadows projected on the bottom of the cave, it is important, even necessary to tread new research paths try and turn our gaze towards the original

phenomenon. After all, as Laura Gianvittorio says in the Introduction, the situation is not all that different from other fields of study, like ancient music or even ancient dramaturgy. No community exists (whether large or small) which, as such, can do without three expressions of personal and collective identity: history, poetry and dance. No community can exist without sharing of a common memory. No community

can exist without sharing a ritualized verbal language which produces

a sense

through

sound.

No

community

can

exist

without the rhythmic semantics — this too shared and ritualized — of body movements generally accompanied by music. And while this is true for all human groups and cultures, an-

12

CARMINE

CATENACCI

cient Greece provides a meaningful,

complex

and articulated

picture of the phenomenon, whose manifold artistic and doctrinal declinations have not failed to make their effects felt on the development of Western culture.

To highlight the main aspects only, dance in its various forms would mark with public value the fundamental steps in the lives of individuals, such as the passage to a different age group, marriage and death. As an essential element of the ritual dimension, dance accompanied festivities and public occasions, such as celebrations to honour the gods and heroes, to praise athletic and military victories and to mark the agricultural calendar and other work activities. With its combination of rhythm, harmony and physical dexterity, dance was an

excellent pedagogical tool for training the body and educating young people, for enabling the individual to work in synergy

with the group. The participation in a chorus (of boys or girls, of women, of adult citizens) was one of the most effective and

powerful expressions of integration in the community. Without dance,

choral lyrics and theatre are not conceivable,

as

their primary structure is the chorus. Through rhythmic and orchestic formalization, gestures are enhanced with symbolic values such as, for example, in martial dances, but also in those

which, inspired by animal behaviour, reflect the ambiguous and dramatic relationship between human beings and nature as they mirror and distinguish each other. Mimesis

through

rhythmic gestures can build up a stylized narrative and even work as a paradigmatic narrative, as we read for example in Xenophon’s Anabasis (6, 1, 2). Dance performances, with

their delighting function and ethical content, also animated more confined and local civic spaces, the symposium above all

(again, Xenophon provides vivid examples in the Symposium). And of course, in all the performances referred to above, the artistic component was active. Greek dance, in its performative reality, is irretrievably lost to us forever. We have scattered pieces of technical information on the different names, types and figures (schemata). But such information is often of catalogue and antiquarian

interest, comes mainly from literary sources of Hellenistic and

FOREWORD

13

imperial times and does not take account of the extreme geographic and historical dissemination of the phenomenon. What is more, body movement

extraneous

mediation

is described through the inevitably

(though not inevitably misleading

or

insignificant) of verbal language. Similar considerations apply

to iconographic testimonies, which are in turn conditioned by the codes of figurative representation. Yet, of course, recogniz-

ing the heterogeneous and partial nature of the sources is not equivalent to saying -- with totally modern haughtiness — that they are automatically to be considered wrong, without validity and useless. A more substantial and less problematic corpus of documents concerns the reflection on the functions and on the

physical, socio-religious, ethical and aesthetic values which the ancients gave to dance. Between the fifth and sixth centuries B.C., a real theoretical discourse developed. Suffice it to mention the musicologist Damon, Pericle’s teacher, who sustained that a link existed between the character of the individual and the character of dance or singing (Athen. 14, 648c), and,

similarly, in the seventh book of the Laws, Plato carried out a rigorous study of the οὐδοῦ of dance within his project of a perfect State. Or it might be useful to mention Sophocles, who was not only trained in dance by his teacher Lamprus and led the chorus of boys performing the paean for the victory of Salamis, but also wrote the lost treatise On the Chorus: an occurrence which, were it necessary, confirms just how much “dancing” there was in the “theatrical performance” and just how much the choreographic apparatus had been involved in

it since the very start. In the centuries to come, the discussion found important crystallizations in Plutarch’s works (especially the Quaestiones convivales), in Lucian’s De saltatione and in various digressions of Athenaeus’s Deipnosophisis, to recall only the most famous titles.

In the archaic period and for much

of the classical age,

testimonies show us dance in action rather than in theoretical contexts. Such action takes shape in the descriptions of orchestic movements, in concrete situations such as festivals, rituals

or banquets, and in images and metaphors which highlight

14

CARMINE

CATENACCI

the civic message and the emotional importance attributed to dance. Several elements, which from the sixth and fifth centuties B.C. become part of a wider discussion, are contained in

nuce in archaic and late-archaic poetry, starting with Homer’s poems. What follow shall survey a number of exemplary cases

in order to shed light on some salient features of ancient Greek dance in a historical perspective. In that world en abyme which is Achilles’ shield in the Ziad,

we find a joyful dance during the wedding processions (18, 494) and a grape-harvest dance accompanied by the performance of Linus’ song (569 ff.); more detailed is the lively movement -

sometimes circular, sometimes straight -- of boys and girls, preceded by two virtuoso solo dancers amid the admiration

of the crowd, which Ephaestus devises, resuming what had already been done by Daedalus in Crete for Ariadne (590 ff.): a performance perhaps in relationship with that which became known as the “dance of the cranes”, etiologically linked to the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur and performed, in historic times, within the rituals at Delos.’

Apart from the evident ritual and public character, recurring elements in this and other descriptions are the festive atmosphere which envelops the performance and the wonder of the crowd attending the show. Joyfulness also animated the

wedding procession and the procession of young people in the Shield of Heracles (272 ff.) attributed to Hesiod. The delightful effect, as a connotative trait of dance, is often linked to convivial contexts in a sort of synesthetic pleasure: “singing and dancing are banquet ornamentation” (Hom. Od. 1, 152). They integrate, with the senses of hearing and sight, the pleasure

of taste and also smell (there are various osmophoric elements in the banquet). Excellence in banquets, pleasures and in par-

ticular in dance distinguishes the utopian life of the Phaeacians * Dicaearch. fr. 85 Wehrli ap. Plut. Thes. 21, 1; Call. Hymn. Del. 307 ff.; cf. Schol. Hom.

11. 18, 591-2; Eust. in 11, 1166, 16 ff.; the scene on

the Francois crater (ca. 570 B.C.) probably makes reference to the crane dance, showing Theseus with the lyre and Ariadne together with six girls and seven boys, while they disembark from a ship; cf. also the ark of Cypselus (Paus. 5, 9, 1).

FOREWORD

15

(Od. 8, 248 ff.) and characterizes the utopian condition in other authors, such as, for example the blessed life of the Hyperboreans in Pindar’s Pythian 10 (37 ff.) where girl choruses swirl

everywhere amid sounds of the lyre and the aulos, in joyful gatherings, without illnesses and death, without strain and warts.

In the dance performance by the Phaeacians, the presence of nine judges (aisymnetai) chosen by the people (Od. 8, 258 f.) would appear to point to some sort of competition. This is

another typical trait, shared with archaic Greek culture as a whole and impacting on the educational system. The tendency to compete was, if we might put it that way, a cultural instinct of the Greeks, to which a fundamental pedagogical tool like dance did not fail to conform. Precious, albeit enigmatic

references to dance competitions are in several archaic inscriptions. Among these are the oinochoe of Dipylon (ca. 720 B.C.) from Athens, offered as prize for the best dancer,’ the aryballos from Corinth (ca. 580 B.C.) which celebrated Pyrrhias* and the

graffiti (dating from the sixth century B.C.) on the rocks near the gymnasium of Thera with orchestic, agonistic and erotic acclamations of young dancers.’ I should like to point out that on the aryballos of Corinth, Pyrrhias is painted while he dances

at the head of the chorus and is engaged in lively orchestic evolutions which recall the scenes depicted on Achilles’ shield in the Z/iad (18, 604 ff.).

Among the historical competitions, suffice it to recall the weapon dance agones which mimicked attack and defence movements in combat, like the pyrrhic dance performed at the Panathenaic Games in Athens* and split into the three catego* P. A. Hansen, Carmina Epigraphica Graeca τ, Berlin-New York 1983, NO. 432. * See M. Guarducci, L’epigrafia greca dalle origini al tardo impero, Roma 1987, 55 ff. (with photo); R. Wachter, Non-Attic Greek Vase Inscriptions, Oxford 2001, 44 ff.

3 For an introduction see B. B. Powell, Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet, Cambridge 1991, 171 ff. * Among the testimonies see Lys. 21, 1; 4, but also Ar. Nub. 988-9; Av. 1169.

16

CARMINE

CATENACCI

ties of boys (paides), youths (ageneioi) and men (andres).' In the

Homeric poems, skill in dancing can be at odds with warrior strength* and Priam keeps brave Hector well distinguished from the array of other dancing sons (//. 24, 261). Nevertheless,

again in the Homeric poems, we find a first example of choreography in arms in the funerary context: the Achaean princes swirled vigorously in arms, on foot and on horseback, around Achilles’ pyre.’ Hector himself associates war and dance in an effective image when he boasts of knowing how to move in battle and “knowing how to dance in a duel for cruel Ares”.* And memorable in the poetry of Archilocus (fr. 304 West) is the dance of joy which Pyrrhus Neoptolemus, after killing

Eurypylos, performs in arms on the body of his enemy: a legendary exemplum in which it is not hard to imagine the poet projecting his historic reality or his own expectations. The origins of dances in arms and, in particular, of the pyrrhic dance, were already discussed in antiquity.’ In any

case, the educational aspect was soon promoted, especially in relation to the ideology of the polis and the practices of the gymnasiums. Armed dances presupposed good physical train-

ing, together with an adequate coordination of movement (including group coordination). The mimetic display of combat gestures in front of an audience and as part of competitions

has a clearly exemplary function. It aims at exalting the virtue of martial courage through the stimulus of competition and

community

approval.

Imagining

an ideal city, in the Laws

Plato underscores the importance of music and armed dance

in preparing boys, but also girls (796c; 8136), for civic life. Polybius (4, 20), while describing the politeia of the Arcadians and opposing Ephorus, who considered music a deceitful art, recalls the dance competitions of the Arcadians and praises the * IG 2311, 71 fi.

* Il. 3, 392 ff.; 15, 508; 16, 745.

3 See Od. 24, 68 ff., but also 12. 23, 13 ff.

4 Zl. 7, 238 ff. Ambivalent is Aeneas’ invective against Meriones (16, 610 ff.): the definition of dancer appears

offensive, but it is thanks

to

agile movement that Meriones manages to avoid his enemy’s lance. 5 See P. Ceccarelli, La pirrica nell’antichita greco romana. Studi sulla danza armata, Pisa-Roma 1998.

FOREWORD

17

martial dances that boys and youths perform yearly before the public in theatres at public expense. If dance can be the expression of a virtuous nature, it can

also show the less praiseworthy aspects of a personality. Again in the Laws (814e ff.), Plato expressly distinguishes the dances which tend towards what is noble and those which imitate the most shameful bodies and tend towards what is vile. One ex-

ample of connection between indecent dances and moral degradation can already be found in Herodotus’ Histories (6, 129),

in the famous episode of the marriage which failed to take place between Agariste, the daughter of Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon, and young Hippocleides, a member of the Philaidae (an

episode which, at least according to the chronology of the protagonists, can be traced back to the first half of the 6th century B.C.). Despite having dominated all competitions for a year, Hippocleides loses the agon for the hand of Agariste because, drunk, in the final symposium he performs indecorous dances: in so doing, Cleisthenes tells him, he has “danced away”, or

“thrown way”, the rich marriage. The prompt answer of the young man was to become proverbial: “Hippocleides couldn’t care less”. Once again a precedent can be found in the Homeric poems: “wine excites me, it makes one foolish and in-

duces even wise men to sing and laugh lightly, prompts them to dance and say words best left unsaid”: so spoke Odysseus,

in fact anything but drunk, in Eumaeus’ hut (Od. 14, 465).' It is obvious that the communicative power of dance is based on aesthetic and psychological properties, pleasure and suasion. To praise the beauty of Nausicaa, Odysseus can find nothing better than, after comparing her to a goddess, evoking

the joy and warmth aroused by “such a bud moved to dance” (Od. 6, 157). The clearest and most suggestive example of the combination of beauty, dancing grace and learning aptitude is

in the work of Sappho. A central place in her world of values is occupied by beauty, elegance of manners and education in * In Hom. 71. 13, 731 dancing skill is listed alongside other capital virtues, inspired to men by the gods, but almost certainly the verse is an addition with respect to the original text.

18

CARMINE

CATENACCI

these values. For such purpose, song and dance, enhanced by cultic context, play a crucial role. Here and there, from the fragments spark ritual dance scenes: “The moon was full, / and the girls positioned themselves around the altar” (154 Voigt) and “so one day Cretan girls danced / to the rhythm

with tender feet around the beautiful altar / lightly pressing the tender grass flower”.' An anonymous epigram of the Alexandrian age shows how dance, guided by Sappho’s poetry, represented a particular group activity: “Come to the splendid temple of cow-eyed Hera, / women of Lesbos, moving tender steps with your feet. / Dance there gracefully for the goddess: you will be guided by / Sappho with golden lyre in hand. / Beats of happy dance, you think you hear / the sweet song of Calliope in person” (Anth. Pal. 9, 189). But the most evoca-

tive testimony is in the words of Sappho herself, in an image enclosed in just one verse which, in the ruin of been recently recovered. Inviting the girls to gifts of the Muses and enumerating the signs of body, Sappho complains that “her knees, once like fawns” no longer sustain her.”

her work, has celebrate the old age on her agile to dance

Dance, as appears from these few cues, is a very complex, varied and elusive research topic, but one of crucial importance for understanding Greek culture and society. Choreutika is not, nor is supposed to be, a thorough dissertation on the subject. It represents, however, a valid and original contribu-

tion to the definition of the phenomenon and to the analysis of a number of its aspects between the archaic period and the end of the classical age, focusing above all from on the relations of dance with poetry and ancient theoretical reflection. The book is a collection of ideas of specialists. In a common awareness of the limits, but also of the potential of the testimonies in

our possession, the authors introduce an inter-disciplinary dis* Tt is hard to doubt that this fragment (Jue. auct. 16 Voigt) passed down in anonymous form does not belong to Sappho. Other references to dance in frr. 70, 10 and 94, 27 (if chores is integrated with Lobel and Page); mention must also go to Ine. auct. 35, 8 Voigt.

2 POxy. 1787 (= 58, 11-22 Voigt) + PKöln. 21351 + 21376 fr. τὶ col. τὶ (M. Gronewald - R. W. Daniel, ZPE 147, 2004, 1-8; 149, 2004, 1-4).

FOREWORD

19

course which provides both a good overview of different perspectives (methodological, historical-literary, lexical, religious

and philosophical) and punctual, innovative interpretations of specific texts, seen in the light of the most recent critical acquisitions. This is a work which we hope will prove to be a stimulus for future research developments and for the dialogue

under way with other disciplines as well, such as iconography and artistic research.

CONTRIBUTORS Sophie Marianne Bocksberger is departmental lecturer and tu-

tor at Somerville College, Oxford. She is a professional dancer, and the co-leader of Ancient Dance in Modern Dancers, a practicebased research project on ancient Roman pantomime. She is currently preparing a monograph on the figure of Telamonian

Ajax in archaic and classical Greece. Eric Csapo is Professor of Classics at the University of Sydney. He has published widely on Greek literature and culture, especially ancient drama and theatre history. In collaboration with

Peter Wilson he is preparing a multi-volume history of the Classical Greek theatre to be published by Cambridge University Press.

Patrick J. Finglass is Professor of Greek and Head of the School of Humanities at the University of Nottingham, and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. His editions of Stesichotus (2014), of Pindar’s Pythian Eleven (2007), and of Sophocles’ Electra (2007), Ajax (2011), and Oedipus the King (2017) are published by Cambridge University Press. Laura Gianvittorio is research fellow of the Austrian Science

Fund and Post-Doc in Classics at the University of Vienna, where she currently runs the project Aeschylus’ Diegetic Drama. Over the past decade, she has been working at Italian, Aus-

trian, and German universities, publishing on Pre-Socratic philosophy and on Greek drama. Stefan Hagel is classical scholar at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, with focus on ancient Greek music and metre, in-

cluding reconstructions of instruments and performance techniques. His most prominent publication is Ancient Greek Music. A New Technical History (CUP). He also creates scholarly softwarte; his Classical Text Editor received the European Academic Software Award.

Frederick G. Naerebout is lecturer at the Department of Ancient History at Leiden University. He has published widely

22

CONTRIBUTORS

on ancient religion and on culture contact in the Hellenistic and Roman world, and is an editor of the distinguished series ‘Religions in the Graeco-Roman World’. Dance in Antiquity,

and its reception, has been his special interest for many years. Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi is Professor of Classics at Stanford University. She writes on issues of aesthetic perception and judgment, ancient and modern lyric poetry, Plato, dance, and

the relationship between the verbal and the visual. Among her publications are Frontiers of Pleasure: Models of Aesthetic Response in Archaic and Classical Greek. Thought (Oxford University Press, 2012) and (ed.) Performance and Culture in Plato’s Laws (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Eleonora

Rocconi

is Associate

Professor

of Ancient

Greek

Language and Literature at the University of Pavia (Italy). She is charter member

of MOISA.

International Society for the Study

of Ancient Greek Music and its Cultural Heritage, and member of the editorial board of Greek and Roman Musical Studies. Her research interests focus on ancient Greek music and drama.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS HE idea and the intrinsic motivation of this book arose within a research project which, oddly enough, had noth-

ing to do with ancient Greek dance, but was concerned with a theory of narrativity in early tragedy. Working on this project allowed me to experience first-hand something that is widely recognized since the so-called performative turn, namely the risks of abstracting texts from their performances. When fully preserved texts are in the spotlight, lost performances are eas-

ily relegated to the shadows, and dance has been confined to one of the peripheries that Classical scholars shun the most. The publication of this book has been supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWP), by the Institut für Klassische

Philologie, Mittel- und Neulatein of the University of Vienna, and by the generous funding of the Dipartimento di Lettere, Arti e Scienze Sociali of the University “G. d’Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara. First and foremost, I am grateful to all authors of this volume for their contribution, for having always been open, over the past months, to share views and drafts, and not least for taking care of the proofreading of their own English manuscripts, which I could not correct at native-speaker level. Iowe many thanks to the director of Ouaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica, Prof. Carmine Catenacci, and to Prof. Paola Bernardini, who

from the very start welcomed this volume into the book series related to this journal, to my colleague Prof. Alfred Dunshirn,

who helped me proofing the ancient sources and quotations in the manuscripts, to Prof. Maria (Gabriella) Colantonio, who was in charge of the layout, and to the anonymous reviewers

of all the papers. Finally, I would like to thank my husband, Alexander Wilhelm Ungar, and our little son, Hector Aencas,

for being very cooperative throughout my maternity leave - a time in which many

new things were, quite literally, taking

shape, this book being among them. L. G.

1. INTRODUCTION. ANCIENT DANCE AS A RESEARCH TOPIC LAURA BACKGROUND

F

GIANVITTORIO AND

AIMS

OF

THE

VOLUME

AMOUSLY defined as a “song and dance culture”,' archaic and classical Greece is unanimously recognized as a culture

where dance held a position of central importance on a civic, ritual, artistic, and pedagogical level. Considering such felicitous premises, it is quite disappointing to remark how scarcely Greek dance has been actually investigated. Against this ten-

dency, the present volume aims at providing fresh insights into dance as one essential component of Greek performance arts - such as theatre, choral poetry, and music — and as a topic of ancient theoretical speculation. Although the serious methodological fallacies of previous approaches to ancient dance and the need for further research have been assessed already twenty years ago,” Classical studies still display a tacitly accepted habit to neglect dance. Claims about the chief role played by dance are frequent, but generic, and often fail to generate specific questions to be explored, wallowing in the mire of scholarly common places. Not even

the so-called performative turn, which shifted the general attention from text to performance in many disciplines within the Arts and Humanities, provided much help: while ancient music, poetry, and theatre performance have won the attention they deserve, ancient dance has been very much left behind. Such a compelling omission defies any straight explanation. As a non-verbal, purely ephemeral performance art, dance naturally eludes the text-centred investigations of philologists and * Herington 1985; cf. also Rutherford 2001, 3. * See the first chapter of Naerebout 1997.

26

LAURA

GIANVITTORIO

historians. Yet, the same could be said, for example, of ancient

music. In fact, the relevant data available concerning music and dance

are basically of the same kind: we can resort to

the theoretical texts centred on these arts, to the archacological evidence depicting the performers, and to the poems used

for actual performances. However, while a reassuringly broad and rapidly growing group of specialists chose Greek music as the focus of their research, Greek dance continues to receive limited attention. A further challenge is constituted by the use

of musical terminology in ancient theoretical approaches to dance, which makes it hard for modern readers to recognize them. Nonetheless, a substantial amount of information could be gained by considering the implications that literature on poetry and music have for dance.

It is both wise and realistic to acknowledge that, when it comes

to ancient dance, little can be ascertained in absolute

terms, and in particular that we cannot plausibly (i.e. verifiably) determine how dance performances looked like or how lost choreographies were danced, as Frederick Naerebout will

explain in the present volume. A classical scholar who would study ancient dance, music, or theatre with the aim of reconstructing lost choreographies, songs, and theatrical pieces in

the way they were originally performed might be compared to an astrophysicist who expects his own work to bring him to some distant planets: not only he would be counting on an outcome which is highly unlikely per se, but he also would fail to recognize that such is not the goal pursued by his discipline and that the object of his research will remain out of the reach of direct experience. So what can studies of ancient dance actually achieve? Just

to mention a few examples, they can give historical, political, religious, aesthetic, and philosophical account of the role and meaning of dance in ancient Greece, thus helping us understand its “song and dance culture”. They can provide practitioners such as choreographs, theatre directors, and dancers with reli-

able knowledge of ancient Greek dance within projects centred on so-called HIP, i.e. historically informed performance. They can recover and analyse dance-related evidence and match such

INTRODUCTION

27

evidence with that provided by enquiries on ancient theatre,

choral poetry, Greek music, aesthetics, and poetics. As far as this last task is concerned, the notion of Sherlockismus, which has been formulated with regard to a different area of classical research, applies to the study of Greek dance as well: “[t]he

challenge is to recover as much information as possible about the picture that lies behind the assortment of pieces presented to us”.' Even though such a process can seem unrewarding, it ultimately fulfils the important purpose of adding new pieces to the (lost) picture of several Greek performance arts. The most recent research outcomes on Greek dance are comparatively easy to overview and can be summarised as follows.* T'wentieth-century studies, even those concerned with chorus and choral poetry, pay little attention to dance, the most remarkable exceptions dating from the last part of the

century.’ Instead, two different research trends prove to be more productive: on the one hand, there are studies indebted to anthropological and ritual research, along the path showed by Claude Calame’s pioneer work on Alcman;* on the other, inspiration comes from the oral theories and from their application to Greek choral poetry, especially under the influence of Bruno Gentili and of the ‘Scuola Urbinate’.’ Less text-centred studies, such as those influenced by modern literary theories

(ranging from the German Idealism to Bertolt Brecht’s epic theatre), tend to focus on the nature and meaning of the “collective body” and look at it from a religious, philosophical or political perspective, rather than from a choreographic and theatrical standpoint. This leads to highly sophisticated theo-

ties about “the Greek Chorus” seen as some kind of abstract and often vague concept, but does not help much in under* Sommerstein 2010, 63, who writes about the hypothetical reconstruction of fragmentary plays. * See Naerebout 1997 and 2003 for a detailed discussion of the scholatly approaches to ancient dance.

3 4 > tion

E.g. Mullen Calame 1977 E.g. Gentili by Thomas

1982; Henrichs 1996; Naerebout 1997; Ceccarelli 1998. (and later editions). See also Lonsdale 1993. 1984 (and later editions, including the English translaCole).

28

LAURA

GIANVITTORIO

standing choruses as dancing groups and in enlightening any aspect

of their performances.

Investigations

on

chorality have multiplied and almost boomed

chorus

and

in the twen-

ty-first-century,' but the issue of dance still tends to be neglected.* Recent enquiries have analysed the problematic role

of the chorus in modern theatre and drama theory’ as well as in re-performances of ancient drama,* even surveying the Rezeptionsgeschichte of the would-be “ancient dances” recreated by modern choreographers.’ As a consequence of the renewed interest in non-canonical theatre, considerable attention has

been paid to pantomime, a genre especially popular during the Roman period, consisting of dumb shows by one single performer who, through body and hand schemata, impersonates different characters.° Far less light, however, has been shed on other dance genres. Furthermore, the artistic research concerned with ancient dance continues to be very much alive not only in Greece but also, for example, at the London-based

Thiasos Theatre Company directed by Y. Zarifi-Sistovari and M. J. Coldiron, and within the project Ancient Dance in Modern Dancers carried out in Oxford.

While considering this research background,

the focus of

Choreutika is, on the one hand, on Greek dance seen as an es-

sential component of choric and theatre performance and, on the other, on ancient concepts and notions regarding dance.

In particular, within this field of investigation, it is the archaic and classical age from the seventh until the end of the fourth

century B.C. that earned our attention. In this period, choral and dramatic poems are usually danced by the choruses. Poetry, music, and dance interplay closely with each other, build* See for example Wilson 2000; Bierl 2001; Perusino-Colantonio 2007; Swift 2010; Athanassaki-Bowie 2011; Billings-Budelmann-Macintosh 2013; Gagné-Hopman 2013.

* For exceptions see e.g. Lazou-Raftis-Borowska 2003; David 2006; Csapo 2008. 3 See Billings-Budelmann-Macintosh 2013. 4 For example Baur 1999; Heeg 2006; Lee 2013; Bodenburg ef aliae 2016. > Naerebout 1997; McIntosh 2012. ° E.g. Easterling 1997; Lada-Richards 2007; Garelli 2007; Webb 2008; Hall-Wyles 2008; Schlapbach 2009; Hall 2013; Petrides 2013; Gianvittorio 2016.

INTRODUCTION

29

ing those inter-medial performance arts to which the Greeks referred through terms that are rather difficult to translate into modern

languages,

such as mousike, molpe, and choreia. Once

living memories of such ephemeral arts are lost, texts are virtually all that remains. For this reason, the poetic texts that accompanied dance performances -- often explicitly introducing, praising, and commenting on them - can be regarded as a key resource to understand the meanings, contexts, and functions of archaic and classical dance. In addition to this, we shall consider those philosophical and theoretical texts (mostly written by Plato, Aristotle, and Aristoxenus) that reflect on poetry and

music and that are therefore concerned more or less explicitly with dance as well. From a methodological standpoint, the idea of resorting to texts to understand performances may sound paradoxical for scholars who are familiar with present-day theatre and performance studies. However, in Classical studies, textual sources take on an importance that can hardly be overestimated, just

because they are all that is available (even though only partially), while other evidence of performance is completely lost.

As it has been rightly pointed out, in our discipline the performative turn simply yielded a novel, performance-oriented way of interpreting texts.’ Book

The

volume

STRUCTURE

consists

of two

AND

CONTENTS

parts. The

first, “Performing

Choral Dance: Texts and Contexts”, reconsiders Greek poetry

from the perspective of dance. After establishing some methodological essentials of research on ancient dance, this part examines a sample of authors and works, from the archaic time until the end of the classical era, whose performance relied on dance: namely the (choral) poetry of Stesichorus and the choral songs of Aeschylus and Euripides. The second part of the volume, “Elements of Ancient Dance Theory”, offers a selection of ancient theoretical approaches to dance. Here, the * Perris 2010, 182.

30

LAURA

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label “ancient dance theory” is not intended to suggest that the Greeks developed a homogeneous system or a shared body of

knowledge about dance. The expression refers to what must have been, at the very least, a significant quantity of thoughts, technical terms, and notions that, though not necessarily referring to one another in an explicit fashion and in spite of

being disseminated within theories of mousike and choreia, were nonetheless all concerned with dance. As a matter of fact, dance was a topic of serious investigation both for the most successful dance practitioners and for the most brilliant theo-

rists: just to mention the best known examples on each side, one might think of Sophocles’ lost treatise On the Chorus and of Plato’s Laws.‘ Like any other complex research object, Greek dance needs to be observed from different points of view and to be approached in an interdisciplinary way. The authors of the pre-

sent volume can be expected to meet this requirement. The work of these classical scholars focuses on a variety of dancerelated fields, such as history of dance (Frederick Naerebout), choral poetry (Patrick Finglass), classical theatre (Eric Csapo, Laura Gianvittorio), artistic rescarch concerned with dance (Sophie Bocksberger), ancient music (Stefan Hagel, Eleonora Rocconi), and ancient aesthetics (Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi). Most of these research focuses will also emerge from the pa-

pers collected here. The following paragraphs outline the main contents of each contribution.

The volume opens with Frederick Naerebout’s survey of the so-called Greek

“dancescape”

and with a clear-cut methodo-

logical manifesto. According to this, scholars of ancient dance should resist the temptation to read mismatched pieces of in-

formation about ancient dance as if they built a synchronic and consistent corpus, keeping in mind that a great number of choruses and choral performances existed even though the relevant evidence is lost. Under such premises, Naerebout assesses * Dance-related aspects of this Platonic dialogue have been recently and thoroughly discussed in Peponi 2013 (here see especially Chapter Two).

INTRODUCTION

31

with great conceptual sharpness which questions can sensibly be asked concerning ancient dance - and, just as importantly, which ones cannot. His enquiry centres on the complex rela-

tionship between choral performance and religion, and eventually deepens into non-theatrical choral dance performed in religious contexts. After defining choruses as “group|[s] of mostly non-professional dancers moving in unison”, he considers spatial arrangement, number, gender, and age of the dancers. Moving on to consider poems that were actually danced, the cases of Stesichorus, Aeschylus, and Euripides are discussed in chronological order. Relying on his own critical edition

of Stesichorus’ fragments, Patrick Finglass engages with the much debated problems of whether or not Stesichorus was a choral poet and whether his poems were danced chorally. Such questions are of manifest importance not only with regard to

choral poetry in general, but also to archaic dance practice in particular. To answer them, Finglass examines three types of evidence: the references to dance within Stesichorus’ fragments, the performance culture of his homeland in Southern Italy, and above all the historicity and the implications of

Stesichorus’ speaking name as “Chorus Trainer”. To carry out this last task, Finglass reviews the earliest literary and scholarly writings that mention the poet and his works. In the face of such evidence, and against some trends in Anglo-Saxon Stesichorean scholarship, the onus of proof lies firmly on those who would exclude chorality. Chapters four and five interpret, respectively, some hidden and some prominent references by tragic choruses to their own dancing. From the apparently incoherent occurrences of eresso “to row” in two choral dirges, namely Aeschylus’ Persians (1046) and Seven (855), Laura Gianvittorio infers that, at

the end of the two earliest surviving tragedies, the mourning choruses performed what may be called a “rowing dance”. She then recovers and discusses evidence of such a mourning dance. Seven 854-60 clearly shows that the rowing dance

was supposed to re-enact the journey of the souls across the Acheron towards Hades. Interestingly, Aristophanes seems to parody such a dance in eminently paratragic situations, such as

32

LAURA

GIANVITTORIO

Frogs 197-268, where Dionysus, during his Aarabasis, comically rows across the underworld marsh. Finally, looking for pos-

sible iconographic evidence of this dance, Gianvittorio offers a novel interpretation of the Basel krater: while the vase is usually regarded as representing a tragic necromantic ritual, a

mourning situation is actually more likely. On the other hand, Eric Csapo investigates the striking references of Euripides’ (later) choruses to circular dancing. To

this end, he first explains the cultic and artistic conventions underlying circular choral formations. The widespread idea that dithyrambic choruses are consistently circular while dramatic

choruses are rectangular is a clear oversimplification. Even so, it is puzzling how often Euripidean choruses speak of circular dance. They do so either by imparting choreographic selfinstructions, which is frequent in cultic songs, by imagining

themselves as dancing in cultic contexts, or by singing of choruses other than themselves, thus “embedding” fictional, mostly cultic choruses (e.g. Nereids, Kouretes, etc.) within their

own performance. Csapo argues convincingly that Euripides insists deliberately on circular dance to stress the cultic, Bacchic and Eleusinian roots of his own art: by flaunting choric

hypertraditionalism and the related religious connotations, he meets the artistic and ethical charges moved by conservative

critics against the New Music he has embraced. The second part of the volume is devoted, as stated above, to various aspects of ancient dance theory. Due to the inter-

mediality of poetic performance in the archaic and classical time, the discourse about dance can hardly be held apart from that about poetry and music, and the contributions included into part two can be seen as analysing the coalescence of these

domains. In particular, chapters six and seven focus on the Greek terminology of dance, while chapters eight and nine give an account of the fundamental connection between dance and rhythm.

Sophie Marianne Bocksberger rethinks the complex relationship of dance and poetics from an unconventional perspective, and argues that it is the dance vocabulary that shapes the (meta-)language of Greek literary criticism. In her view,

INTRODUCTION

33

terms such as schema, trope, pezos (logos), and metaphora originally referred to bodily properties and dance movements and were

borrowed into the literary vocabulary only later. In particular, metaphora would is said by means with Aristotle’s object in front

indicate the process of making visible what of dancing - an explanation which fits well understanding of metaphora as “creating the of the eyes”. Once poetic performance was

replaced by written texts, the meaning of such terms gradually shifted from the semantic field of dance to that of literary criticism. By looking at the semantic history of these words, we may thus catch a glimpse of what has once been the core

of Greek poetry, namely the embodiment of music and dance performance. There is, however, only one Greek word that, by the end of the classical time, shows a plainly recognizable and well-es-

tablished technical meaning within the semantic field of dance, and that is schema. Eleonora Rocconi offers a new analysis of this crucial term, drawing on works such as Maria Luisa Catoni’s, and suggests that, in spite of the obvious necessity of bodily movement in dance performance, schema is chiefly

conceptualised as a motionless pose. In theoretical discourses about dance (e.g. by Aristoxenus), the abstract notion of nonkinetic poses would allow analysing dance into its minimal

components, comparably to how alphabetical letters are used to dissect language and notes to examine melody. With regard to performance, such poses may help in realising distinctive dramatic effects: for example in the dance parody at the end of Aristophanes’ Wasps and, presumably, in Callias’ lost Alphabetic Show. The last two chapters are devoted to rhythm, the most es-

sential link connecting Greek dance, music, and poetry. After defining dance as bodily expression of rhythm,

Stefan Hagel

enquires into what we actually know about it. The widely accepted, princeps-based model holds that long syllables are strong rhythmical positions. With regard to dance, this would imply

that syllables principes and strong rhythmical movements, such as feet stamping, should naturally coincide. Yet, if that holds

true, how could have asymmetrical rhythms like that of the

34

LAURA

GIANVITTORIO

Aeolic metres been been danced? Following the princeps-model, short syllables should carry the rhythmical accent and yield

highly irregular dance patterns. However, this is incompatible with the fact that traditional dances are predictably repetitive.

Challenging the common assumption about the unity of text and music in the so-called Old Music, Hagel reconsiders the (thin) evidence on which scholars have built such belief and suggests that song rhythm does not always follow that of spoken language.

Finally, Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi examines Aristotle’s brief yet influential definition of “the art of the dancers” and focuses on an opaque but key phrase that refers to the function

of rhythm in dance. In light of fourth-century B.C. and later discourses, Peponi argues that through the composite phrase schematizomenos rhythmos, which brings together the aural and the visual aspects of rhythmic movement, Aristotle captured

the essence of dance as a synesthetic activity while also hinting at the kinesthetic impact of rhythm. She also argues that, unlike other discourses that used the term schema as a fixed entity, Aristotle, by using instead the participle schematizomenos with rhythm as its subject, was able to capture “shaping” as

a dynamic process in dance. Translating the phrase into modern languages is difficult, yet it can be effectively paraphrased as “through the rhythms as they are being turned into visual structures”.

Together, these papers enhance our knowledge of the strong ties dating from the archaic until the end of the classical age that bound dance to such diverse domains as religion, choral poetry, theatre, poetics, music, philosophy, and aesthetics. In

so doing, they shed light on the two sides of Greek dance, presenting it not only as a fascinating performance art but also as a topic of ancient theoretical investigation. Ultimately, it is the synergy of such different approaches that helps us today to

grasp the vibrant complexity of ancient Greek dance.

INTRODUCTION

35

LITERATURE

Athanassaki L. - Bowie E. (eds.), 2011: Archaic and Classical Choral

Song: Performance, Politics and Dissemination, Berlin-Boston. Baur D., 1999: Der Chor im Theater des 20. Jahrhunderts, Tübingen. Bierl A., 2001: Der Chor in der Alten Komödie. Ritual und Performativital unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Aristophanes’ Thesmophoria-

zusen und der Phalloslieder fr. 851 PMG, Minchen-Leipzig. Billings J. - Budelmann F. - Macintosh F. (eds.), 2013: Choruses, Ancient and Modern, Oxford.

Bodenburg J. - Grabbe K. - Haitzinger N. (eds.) 2016, Chor-Piguren. Transdisziplinäre Beiträge, Freiburg. Calame C., 1977: Les cheurs de jeunes filles en Gröce archaigue phologie, fonction religieuse et sociale, Roma.

1. Mor-

Ceccarelli P., 1998: La pirrica nell’antichita Greco-romana. Studi sulla danza armata, Roma. Csapo E., 2008: Star Choruses: Eleusis, Orphism, and New Musical Imagery and Dance, in M. Revermann - P. Wilson (eds.), Performance, Iconography, Reception: Studies in Honour of Oliver Taplin, Oxford, 262-90. David A. P., 2006: The Dance of the Muses. Choral Theory and Ancient Greek Poetics, Oxford. Easterling P., 1997: From Repertoire to Canon, in eadem (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy, Cambridge, 36-53. Gangné R. - Hopman M. G., 2013: Choral Mediations in Greek Trag-

edy, Cambridge. Garelli M. H., 2007: Danser le mythe: la pantomime et sa réception dans la culture antique, Louvain. Gianvittorio L., 2016: Erzählen durch Pantomime. Zu Nonnos, Dionysiaka 19, 136-299, in G. Danek - E. Klecker - R. Merker (eds.), Trilogie. Epos-Drama-Eipos, Wien, 347-70.

Gentili B., 1984: Poesia e pubblico nella Grecia antica. Da Omero al V secolo, Roma. Hall E. - Wyles R. (eds.), 2008: New Directions in Ancient Pantomime,

Oxford. Hall E., 2013: Pantomime. Visualising Myth in the Roman W. M. Harrison - V. Liapis (eds.), Performance in Greek Theatre, Leiden-Boston, 451-73. Heeg G., 2006: Chorzeit. Sechs Miniaturen zur Wiederkehr der Gegenwart, in Theater der Zeit. Zeitschrift für Politik 61/4, 19-23.

Empire, in and Roman des Chors in und Theater,

36

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GIANVITTORIO

Henrichs A., 1996: ‘Warum soll ich denn tanzen?’ Dionysisches im Chor der griechischen Tragödie, Stuttgart-Leipzig. Herington J., 1985: Poetry into Drama, Berkeley-Los Angeles-London. Lada-Richards I., 2007: Silent Eloquence: Lucian and Pantomime Daneing, London. Lazou A. - Raftis A. - Borowska M. (eds.), 2003: Orchesis. Texts on Ancient Greek Dance, Athens. Lee J.-M., 2013: Theorie und Praxis des Chors in der Moderne, Frankfurt a. M.

Lonsdale S. H., 1993: Dance and Ritual Play in Greek Religion, Baltimore, London. McIntosh F. (ed.), 2012:

The Ancient Dancer

in the Modern

World,

Oxford. Mullen W., 1982: Choreia. Pindar and Dance, Princeton nj. Naerebout F., 1997: Attractive Performances: Ancient Greek Dance, Amsterdam. Naerebout F., 2003: Dance in ancient Greece: anything new? in A. Lazou - A. Raftis - M. Borowska (eds.), Orchesis. Texts on ancient Greek dance, Athens, 139-62. A.-E. Peponi (ed.), 2013: Performance and Culture in Plato’s Law, Cam-

bridge. Perris S., 2010: Performance Reception and the “Textual Twist”, in E. Hall - S. Harrop (eds.), Theorising Performance. Greek Drama, Cultural History and Critical Practice, London, 181-91. Perusino F. - Colantonio M., 2007: Dalla lirica corale alla poesia drammatica, Pisa.

Petrides A. K., 2013: Lucian’s On Dance and the Poetics of the Pantomime Mask, in W. M. Harrison - V. Liapis (eds.), Performance in Greek and Roman Theatre, Leiden-Boston, 433-50. Rutherford C. L, 2001: Pindar’s Paeans. A Reading of the Fragments

with a Survey of the Genre, Oxford. Schlapbach K., 2009: Stoff und Performance in pantomimischen Mytheninszenierungen der Antike, in U. Dill - C. Walde (eds.), Antike Mythen. Medien,

Transformationen, Konstruktionen, Berlin-New York,

740-56.

Sommerstein A. H., 2010: Sherlockismus and Fragmentary Plays, in idem, The Tangled Ways of Zeus, Oxford, 61-81. Swift L., 2010: The Hidden Chorus. Echoes of Genres in Tragic Lyric,

Oxford. Webb

R., 2008: Demons and Dancers: Performance in Late Antiquity,

Cambridge Ma. Wilson P., 2000: The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: The Chorus, the City and the Stage, Cambridge.

PART

ONE.

PERFORMING CHORAL DANCE: TEXTS AND CONTEXTS

2. MOVING IN UNISON. THE GREEK CHORUS IN PERFORMANCE FREDERICK

N

G.

NAEREBOUT

or so long ago, Simon Goldhill urged his readers to consider choral song as an important part of the soundscape

of the ancient city. An attractive idea: I imagine a constant clatter of hoofs, the braying, neighing, bleating and barking of animals, the clanging and banging from countless little workshops, the whispers at the fountain house and the shouts from the gymnasium, children at play ... and above this grandiose

basso continuo there rises a melody: a work song, a drunken revellers’ song,

or, most

engaging

of all: a choral

song,

a

beautiful blending of voices honouring the gods. When that music entices you to go out into the street, there are not just

the sounds, but also the sights. The choruses of boys and girls, of men and women, dressed in their finery, are dancing to the rhythm of their song. Spectators crowd around. The ancient city is not only a soundscape, it is also a performative space where the singers of those enchanting choral songs move about: a grid of processional routes and of (impromptu) dance

floors. Choruses do not only contribute to the soundscape of the city, but also to its dancescape.' In a modern

city in the

* Goldhill 2013. Goldhill repeatedly speaks of “the soundscape of the

city” (ibid. 101, 102, 115, 125, 129). Cf. Bettini 2008 (however, much of the fonosfera discussed by Bettini concerns animal sounds; there is rather less about humans and the singing chorus is all but absent). Raymond Murray Schafer’s fruitful concept of ‘soundscape’ has been around for half a century. Dancescape is more recent: OED does not have an entry ‘dancescape’. Wiktionary has, with three quotes from 1991 onwards (https:// en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dancescape, accessed 10-05-2016): “A figurative landscape of dancing or dance trends”. The way I introduce the word here, it is both figurative (all dance going on in a community) and literal (the dance venues mapped across a city). This touches upon issues of ritual space and territoriality: see Cole 2004 and Naerebout 2009. Dancescape seems a useful addition to studies of ritual space.

40

FREDERICK

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western world, there is no longer a dancescape — at least not

in public space. We may encounter breakdancers on a street, an extemporaneous dance in the park, a carnival parade: but these are mere incidents against an urban background and do not add up to a dancescape. The ancient city, however, was regularly traversed by dancers whose performances were instrumental in creating a sense of place. Already in the “Πα a city at peace is characterized in large part by the dances that are performed within its walls (18, 494; 571; 590 ff.). This contrast between the present and the past is one of the things that

motivate my interest in dance in the ancient world, an interest which I will pursue below by discussing some important aspects of choral dancing in the ancient Greek world, in order to get some things straight and to advocate a better appreciation of choruses on the part of the non-specialist. First, let me present working definitions of the vocabulary that I will use: a) dance/dancing: intentional movement of the

whole body, rhythmized and patterned;' obviously, this is a * Discussed at length in Naerebout 1997, 155-66. Moore 2012, 114 n. 19 tejects my definition of dance, because he argues that movement might be restricted to the upper body: the old cheironomia-idea. Although Moore concedes my point that the notion that Greek dance consisted mostly of cheironomia is a misconception arising from late sources that deal with

pantomime,

and

not with

dance

in general,

he thinks

that

cheironomia was vety important nevertheless, and that sometimes dancers may have been standing still while gesturing. Now there is nothing unusual in dancers standing still — but not for an entire choreography. My argument was, of course, that the dancer’s body travels in space (more or less space; actually it might be many yards in a processional dance, but it might also be a few inches: dancers moving their legs on the spot) in the course of a complete choreography. Anyhow, I think “the whole body” makes sense. As to the subject of standing and dancing, with the Greek vocabulary for standing actually implying dancing, there is an extensive and illuminating discussion in Alonge 2005. As to cheironomia, this is first found in Athenaeus,

Plutarch

and Lucian,

and is almost a

synonym for pantomime. For earlier periods, it would be wisest to stick to ‘gesturing’ and avoid cheironomia altogether. Undoubtedly, there was gesturing going on, sometimes of a mimic nature, but when one looks at all the evidence I think one must conclude that it was relatively unimportant. However, in the end its (un)importance is beyond proof. Finally, Moore seems to misunderstand what an etic definition is. An etic definition cannot be faulted for ignoring some phenomenon, because it

THE

GREEK

CHORUS

IN

PERFORMANCE

41

reductionist approach, because the dance movement would be

part of a multi-medial event. From an ancient Greek point of view, dance would, inzer alia, be seen as the kinetic component of mousike, the unity of poetry (a sung text), music (the human voice and instrumental accompaniment) and dance. When

I speak of dance, I foreground the movement, but the other components should be understood to be present even when not explicitly mentioned; b) choreography: a sequence of dance movements that is considered to be a distinct, bounded unit of performance — what, especially for non-theatrical dance, would commonly be called “a dance”, a usage that I

will largely avoid;* c) chorus: the Greek choros in the specific sense of a group of dancers (and not the dance venue, or the/a dance, other possible translations of the word). Hence: choral dance/dancing. Choral dancing undoubtedly was the most prevalent form of

dancing in public space. Partnered dancing by couples seems mostly

absent,

except

for professional

entertainment.’

Solo

is in fact designed in order to do so: if there would be performers who gesture, but do not move their legs, my definition excludes them from the domain of dance (in the same way in which my definition might include some instances of what other would call marching or striding). Whether it is sensible to do so is an entirely different question. * What Christopher Small has called “musicking” (Small 1998): alas, the word seems not to have caught on, but in its felicitous approach to-

wards music as an activity (including listening and dancing) rather than a thing, it deserves much wider currency. As to foregrounding movement, that is also what happens

in Greek parlance: choros, choreuein, orcheuma,

orcheomai and much related vocabulary is used where mousike would be in order. The way dance is conceptualized in the western world seems very much influenced by the Greek way of doing so. * Emphatically not in the sense in which the word is used by Goldhill 2013, 101: “I use the term ‘choreography’ to indicate the way in which the chorus moves through a performance — not in the sense of its specific dance steps, which are almost entirely lost to us, but in the

sense of the emotional, intellectual, and physical transitions enacted by the chorus through the course of the drama”. A choreography (of which the most important part cannot be anything but the sum total of “the steps”; “physical transitions” unrelated to “the steps” are difficult to imagine) that is unknown should not be treated as if non-existent. 3 An example in Xen. Symp. 9, 2-7.

42

FREDERICK

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performance seems equally rare, before the days of pantomime,

though here again professional entertainers are the exception that proves the rule.’ The foregoing does not imply that professional dancers would perform only non-choral dancing. Professionals did not have to be (mere) entertainers who were restricted to the private sphere; they could also perform as a chorus in public space. Still, choral dancing in the Greek world

was primarily a civic undertaking, citizens (and sometimes the non-citizen inhabitants) of a community performing as chorus members. Ordinarily, a chorus composed of citizens would perform in their own community, but in specific cases (the Zheoriai of Athenians to Delphi and to Delos come to mind) such a chorus would perform away from home — whether one would call this a citizens’ or a non-citizens’ chorus obviously depends on one’s point of view. Related is the question, especially de-

bated with reference to Pindar’s epinicia but of wider import, whether

self-reference by a chorus meant

that when

a poem

was sent abroad, a chorus was sent with it in order to perform it, or indeed whether it was performed by a chorus at all.’ Despite some such difficult and unresolved questions, one can

safely state that the citizen-chorus would continue throughout the history of Greek civic life, either surviving as an unbroken tradition or being revived at some moment in time.’ There has * Solo dancers: the entertainers at girls, see Starr 1978; Rocconi 2006. dancing by a non-professional is the ed by Herodotus (6, 126-30); Lavelle this dance, together with the whole

symposia, mainly aulos-girls, dance A very (in)famous instance of solo dancing by Hippokleides as report2014 has argued convincingly that story of Hippokleides at Sikyon, is

fiction. And even if it were the account of a historical event, the point

of the story is that a nobleman disgraces himself by dancing as a professional entertainer would. * See Naerebout 1997, 198-9. To the bibliography there, add: Tedeschi 1985, esp. 33-6. 3 For

the time

depth

I am

speaking

of, see Deshours

2011, and

to

show that this Hellenistic di indien (if that is what it was) went on and on: Lane Fox 1988; MacMullen 1981; Hopkins 2000, and recently and very persuasively Graf 2015, the first part of which deals with Greek, and not Roman festivals. There exists as yet no imperial period pendant

for the classics of heortology, Nilsson and Deubner, but there are excellent studies of a more regional scope, such as Picard 1923; Laumonier

THE

GREEK

CHORUS

IN

PERFORMANCE

43

often been posited a decline or disappearance of the civic chotus after the archaic and classical periods, because of changes

in religious and in civic life and because of a tendency towards more and new forms of entertainment (professionalization being one aspect of that). This has everything to do with a preoccupation with (Athenian) dramatic choruses and with certain poetic genres, such as the partheneion, and with giving too much

weight to changing fashions in representation (which does not mean that the falling off of several kinds of dance imagery after the classical period -- when imagery that is somehow related to actual performance is in large part replaced by ge-

neric imagery -- would not ask for some explanation). In fact, an open-minded look at the evidence, most of it epigraphic,

shows much

continuity." At the same time it is undeniable

that from the 3“! century B.C. we see ever more professionals offering their services. The rise and scope of the professional

performer cannot be discussed here, nor the exact nature of changes in performance practice and its (agonistic) context in imperial days.* What I would like to stress, is the importance 1958; Bruneau 1970 -- so magisterial, and so little mentioned in studies of ancient dancing; Wérrle 1988. Dealing specifically with choroi is Bowie 2006. Bowie shows that post-classical authors are aware of the importance of choruses - as a typically Greek way to bear out membership of the polis community and show deference to the gods (pace Kowalzig 2013) - and he accepts the survival or revival of choruses (also some citizen choruses). He is, however, extremely careful, and although some of the changes that he points out indeed call for reticence, I think we can be a bit bolder. Cf. also n. 2 below. * In addition to the epigraphic references in the works mentioned in the previous footnote there are also the publications by epigraphers with

an open eye for post-classical choruses as as Louis Robert and Angelos Chaniotis. left no trace. We should not succumb to you see is all there was” (I thank M. C.

an important part of cult, such Also, many choruses will have the wystarw syndrome: “What A. Macdonald for this variant

on the expression that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence:

Macdonald 2005, 49). I feel we can speak with some confidence about the great many choruses that performed all over the Greek world — including all those that are not documented. The undoubtedly large number of invisible choruses should not be overlooked. * Le Guen 2001; Aneziri 2003. For the Greek choral practices of the imperial period, see Bowie 2006, 83-92.

44

FREDERICK

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of looking at dance diachronically. The tendency to mix and

match sources from a wide range of periods is inherited from longstanding common practices in the Altertumswissenschaft: what I have once labeled the scrapyard approach.‘ However, it is even stronger amongst those studying the dance, seemingly

predicated on untenable ideas about the unchanging nature of ritual in general or of dance in particular. I will concentrate on choral dances in a religious context.

Most choral dances will have been of a religious nature, and certainly almost all documented choral dance falls into that category. Theatrical choruses, however, will not be treated in any detail. The way in which I have phrased the previous sentence should make clear that I do not exclude the theatrical chorus because it would be outside the religious sphere. In a sense, nothing can possibly be outside the religious sphere in the fundamentalist religious landscape of the Greek world. Still, if we

consider all of Greek life to be embedded in religion (rather than the other way round, as is frequently can distinguish between human behaviour with the communication between humans beings (behaviour that is religious in a strict

maintained),* we that is concerned and supernatural sense) and human

behaviour not expressly concerned with supernatural beings * Cf. Galinsky 2016, 27: “Modern scholars with our present resources can construct an ideal spectator or listener”. See also Versnel 2011, 33; 72 (from a different perspective), and many other works by the same author where this is a recurring concern. ? E.g., Bremmer 1994, 2-4, a typical formulation. Some refinement in

Kindt 2012, 16-9. Apparently, one of the main features of an embedded religion, is that there is no part of human society that is outside the sphere of religion. If that holds good for ancient Greek society, and I think it does, it makes more sense to see human life in all its aspects as

embedded in religion. For support for this notion, it seems I have to go back all the way to Max Weber. Nongbri 2008 (Dislodging “ Embedded” Religion: a Brief Note on a Scholarly Trope), a not so brief rejection of the notion of embedded religion, is actually an argument for using a redescriptive concept of religion and not a descriptive one (that is, etic, not

emic; nominally, not reifying). Embeddedness would lead astray, as it makes scholars reify religion. Apparently it did not lead me astray, as for me ‘religion’ or ‘a religion’ is my, etic, way of classifying certain aspects of human society and nothing more. I prefer to retain the concept, but I would like to return to the Weberian model of embeddedness.

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even if those always form the backdrop (behaviour situated towards the more profane pole of this continuum). Most likely, there will have been choral dancing (and, of course, nonchoral dancing) not immediately linked to a religious festival or performed at a sanctuary. As an example of choruses which,

although ritualized behaviour, are not or not necessarily intended or seen as strictly religious, I could mention dancing at rites de passage, or at some seasonal festive occasion that is not a religious festival as defined for the community by be-

ing included in a religious calendar. These will have been any Greek community’s ‘folk dances’ - about which we know next to nothing. But I readily admit this is a very thin red line - an

occasional, non-calendrical performance by a chorus might be a very religious affair after all, and I would be hesitant about deciding on which side of the line a partheneion, a bridal chorus, a funerary dirge, or a harvest dance should fall. The above is not a pointless digression, and its inconclusive-

ness is not be shied away from: that all choral dancing is religious, but that some choruses are more religious than others

is something to keep in mind even if it might be impossible to always make such distinctions. As far as the ancient Greek theatrical choruses are concerned, in fact I consider those as a

religious phenomenon in a strict sense. Not merely ritualistic in origin and/or ritualized in the manner in which it was conducted, but as an integral part of a religious festival." Debate about the religious nature of ancient drama has centered on both the context of its performance and on the contents of the preserved individual plays. Both are important, neither is conclusive. I would argue that the very presence of the chorus -from a modern perspective, a kind of Fremdkorper with which directors and dramaturgs struggle — which links the whole of ancient theatricals so closely to other kinds of choral danc-

ing, is in itself the strongest argument for considering ancient * There is no need to replicate that debate here. There seems

to be

a tendency away from looking at ancient drama as primarily entertainment, politics, identity formation, or socialization, and to stress its ritualized nature and its close ties to religion, at the least. See p. 46 n. 1.

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drama as being primarily a religious ritual (and yes, of course it was a lot of other things besides).' The actual reason for leaving the theatrical chorus to one side is that it did get its fair share of attention: it is about the theatrical chorus that we have an extensive literature.” Other choruses are not nearly so well served.’ “Non-dramatic ancient choruses are less familiar to non-classicists [and even to classicists, I would add, when we think of a chorus as more than a

text] than their tragic and comic counterparts, even though for the Greeks they were the default |my italics]”.* For those whose inter-

est lies primarily with the theatrical chorus, I can only say that non-theatrical choruses should be taken into account if one is to arrive at an understanding of the theatrical chorus at all. I also want to exclude not only the chorus of drama, but also the komos and the Dionysiac ¢hiasos.’ The Aomos I understand * I do not find this argument adduced explicitly in the debate about the religious nature of drama.

There

are, however,

recent publications

not directly addressing this debate, that come close to saying the same thing: Budelmann 2013, 97-8; Kowalzig 2007, 395-96; Ferrari 2008, 10626; Csapo-Miller 2007, passim, Seidensticker 2010, 229; Seidensticker 2003, 117-18. Ritual, however, is looked at in relationship to drama, a rela-

tionship that might be so intimate as to inspire the coining of the word ‘titual-drama’,

but which

still implies

a dichotomy,

with

ritual-drama

said to be situated more towards drama or more towards ritual. This may hold good for other times and places, but for ancient Greece I would like to maintain that drama ;s ritual. ? On the theatrical chorus: an endless sea of literature, much

of it

referenced in Billings-Budelmann-Macintosh 2013 — the title should have been: “Dramatic choruses”. I want to mention explicitly the following true essentials: Wilson 2000; Murray-Wilson 2004 and Wilson zoo7a. Add to Billings-Budelmann-Macintosh 2013 the following titles published after 2012: Fontaine-Scafuro Visvardi 2015.

2014; Shaw

2014; Powers

2014;

3 Specific type of chorus: see Naerebout 1997, 114-45 (bibliography); published since: Ceccarelli 1998; Naerebout 2001-02; Scanlon 2002 - on the doxteta;

Ferrari

2008

- on

the xadaStoxoc-dance,

slight; Smith 2010; Kowalzig-Wilson

2013; Wannagat

etc., somewhat

2015 — the last

three all on komasts; D’Acunto 2016 — on the yépavoc-dance.

4 Budelmann 2013, 81-2. ’ This is not to say that such Greek vocabulary as I exclude here could not have been used in a more general sense to indicate whatever kind of dancing, including the dancing by a chorus. Thus Pindar refers

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as a revellers’ procession to music that was so designated.’ Although such processions have strong Dionysiac links, I think their religious nature can be doubted. More importantly, a komos is no chorus in the sense of a group of dancers engaged in choral dancing. A chorus is characterized by moving in unison.* In a ἔξοχος on the other hand every participant does

his or her own thing — by which I do not mean to say that this would be purely spontaneous uncoordinated movement. repeatedly to the ἔξοχος, e.g. Ol. 4, 9; 6, 98; 8, 10; 14, 16, which might stand for choral dancing. It should be noted, however, that Pindar never

refers to a choros, which led some to conclude that his victory odes were not choral at all (cf. p. 42 n. 2). However, everything points to these having been choral compositions — but referred to as Aomoi by their cteator. Still, some doubt lingers as to how this should be understood (possibly as a figurative manner of speaking, stressing the festive nature of the dance and not its formal characteristics?), see also p. 48 n. 2.

* This does not include the images of so-called komast dancers, whom I consider to be a religious chorus (but who have nothing to do with the classical omos — and whose name is likely to be something different from komasts but will probably always remain unknown to us), although it should be noted that these komasts too do not always move in unison. That is, unless the different poses that the dancers strike are subsequent moments from a single choreography (the basic idea behind the reconstructionist efforts of Maurice Emmanuel and Germaine Prudhommeau). This could then apply to any representation with multiple dancers variant poses. I will leave aside the issue that even if artists would

in in

this manner ‘deconstruct’ (part of) a choreography, the imagery still would be of no use in reconstructing movement sequences — which I have repeatedly argued and which is open to proof by turning this into an experiment with photographs. Of course, it is impossible to ascertain

if and how artists produced visual variety when depicting a group of dancers; what we do know is that they did represent choruses moving in unison. It seems reasonable to assume that when they purposefully show dancers not in harmony, they attempt to represent a dance event at which dancers moved not in sync (more reasonable than suggesting that such a scene is of a chorus as well, only with every chorus member portrayed at a different moment

in time and thus in a different part of

the choreography). Of course, for Dionysiac dancers in a state of ecstasy, we have a clear motivation for portraying these as not moving in unison, cf. p. 48 n. 1.

* Cf. Brown-Martinez-Parsons 2006. On the innate human ability to synchronize motor behaviour to the outside stimulus of structured sound, this rhythmic movement permitting a temporal synchronization among dancers. For the general concept: McNeill 1975.

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In the Romos too there might be, and most likely were, recurring patterns; also, the dancers will usually not have moved in splendid isolation, but will have coordinated their movements with others in the same Aomos. But they do not move in unison. The shiasos definitely has a pronounced religious nature,

but it is not a chorus either, for the same reason.’ The mythical or real-life followers of Dionysos in their enthousiasmos give

themselves over to very individualized movements. Certainly in a real life Dionysiac performance the dancing will have answered to certain rules, if not some choreography, and the performers will have taken into account their fellow dancers

(even trance dances the world over are usually not completely spontaneous, undisciplined affairs). But I think one of the rules governing their dancing was no to move in unison! Dancing in a group is not necessarily the same thing as choral dancing.

It depends on how the members of the group are performing. In a £omos and a ¢hiasos they do not operate as a unity. It is

illuminating to see that in the whole of the Greek text corpus komos, thiasos and choros hardly occur guish them), with the exception of we do find Zhiasos and choros in close 482, 511), something that need not

together (unless to distinEuripides’ Bakchai where proximity (21, 63, 114, 379, surprise, because here we

have a mythic Zhiasos and a real-life chorus that although not overlapping are nevertheless packaged together.” * We do not meet with groups of maenads and/or satyrs moving in unison — a remarkable contrast to some human choruses also encountered in a Dionysiac context: Isler-Kerényi 2015, 122-4. * As when we are told how one can please the god with Aomoi, and thiasoi, and dancing, and music, and singing: Maximus, Dialex. 32, 7c: καὶ οὐκ ἂν ἔδρα, εἰ μὴ δρῶν ἔχαιρεν. Αἱ μὲν γὰρ Διονύσου ἡδοναὶ καὶ τελετῆς χώραν ἔχουσιν, κῶμοι ἐκεῖνοι καὶ Dacor καὶ χορὸς καὶ αὐλοὶ καὶ ἄσματα: πάντα ταῦτα Διονύσου ἡδονῶν σχήματα ἐν μυστηρίοις ὀργιαζόμενα. Seidensticker 2010, 228

concludes that this is not a well-ordered dance by the whole chorus, and that Silenos’ announcement

of the paredos as a komos in Euripides, (γα.

36-40 “points in the same direction”. Ierand 1997, 268-9, comments on a case of supposed synonymity of chores and komos, but concludes: “Se, invece, si pensa al komos come a qualcosa di diverso da un coro, lo si intende come un corteo carnascialesco che sarebbe sfilato subito dopo il pompe vera e propria”. For the sake of completeness, we should also

point out the words molpe and melpomai: see Georgoudi 2001, esp. 154-5.

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We should return for a moment to the moving in unison. A chorus has a leader, and if modern examples provide a valid parallel, the dance leader may sometimes break out in a virtuoso performance. Apparently that is what we sce in some vase paintings where a single dancer is distinguished from the

chorus by some strenuous movement, usually jumping.’ Then we can also have musicians leading the dance - either walking in front, or joining in the dance; alternatively, they may

stand aside or in the centre. Of course, any chorus member may stand out as well, for his or her exceptional abilities, or beauty. But neither this, nor the presence of a recognizable leader, should detract from the general principle that the choral dancer becomes one with the other chorus members and rejects individual flamboyance in favour of unity and com-

monality. When discussing the importance of proportionality in all walks of life, Aristotle remarks that a chorodidaskalos will

expel from the chorus an individual who sings louder and better than the chorus as a whole.* So certain aspects of the chorus have already been established: a chorus is a group of mostly non-professional dancers

moving in unison. But moving how? With any possible kind of movement, and with any combination of movements. One could, for some choruses, be a bit more specific, in the sense * There is some room for doubt - the famous Pyrrhias aryballos (Roebuck-Roebuck 1955) might show the prochoreutes showing off to the quiet accompaniment of a chorus; but the other dancers may also be standing in line in order to one by one imitate, or emulate, his feat.

A musician/

singer can act as chorus leader (e.g. Ar. Av. 219 f.) or there is a lead dancer or lead dancers (e.g. Ar. Nub. 271). On choragos as choir leader/ poet/didaskalos in western Greek usage, see Wilson 2007c, esp. 359-60 (the whole piece is a masterful demonstration how from a mere handful of material a good case for a flourishing chorus-culture in Sicily/Magna Grecia can be constructed). See also Bell 1996, esp. go-1. * Pol. 1284b 7-13: δῆλον δὲ τοῦτο καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων τεχνῶν καὶ ἐπιστημῶν᾽ οὔτε γὰρ γραφεὺς ἐάσειεν ἂν τὸν ὑπερβάλλοντα πόδα τῆς συμμετρίας ἔχειν τὸ ζῷον, οὐδ᾽ εἰ διαφέροι τὸ κάλλος, οὔτε ναυπηγὸς πρύμναν ἣ τῶν ἄλλων τι μορίων τῶν τῆς νεώς, οὐδὲ δὴ χοροδιδάσκαλος τὸν μεῖζον καὶ κάλλιον τοῦ παντὸς χοροῦ φϑεγγόμενον ἐάσει συγχορεύειν. For this reference I thank Myers 2007. Lu-

cian, Salt. 16 attests to the fact that a chorus could comprise more and less able dancers.

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that their choreography would ask for stateliness, or liveliness. But that is still quite non-committal. Somewhat less non-committal is what there is to be said about the spatial arrangement of the dancers. In imagery, the oldest examples of a chorus are statuettes showing groups of dancers arranged in a circle. Un-

doubtedly then and later the circle dance was a very common form of choral dance.‘ Nevertheless, we should not be tempted

to proclaim the circular dance the original form of choral dancing and we definitely should not get into a state about the deeper significance of circles, encircling, the centre, and so on.”

The circle is a shape that offers itself for the arrangement of a group of people rather naturally.? But dancers will also have danced in single file or multiple files, in opposing ranks, and in square formation (or indeed other geometric shapes). * Albertocchi 2015. Her claim that the coroplastic examples of dancing groups have been neglected, is too strong: Wegner 1968 and Tolle 1964 refer to these terracotta statuettes (they are not in Albertocchi’s bibliography), and several are illustrated (better than in Albertocchi) in Andronikou e& aii 2003, nr. 16 (Iraklio M. H. 3903): restored as circle dance; nr. 17 (Iraklio M. H. 15073); nr. 95 (Delphi 16678); nr. 146 bronze (Athens X6236); nr. 147 (Lefkada AE3365): restored as circle dance (Albertocchi refers twice to the French edition of the same catalogue, Dons des Muses [Bruxelles 2003], apparently with the objects numbered differently). Bronzes: Bumke 2004, 30-40. Vases: see Wegner 1968; Tölle 1964; Franzius 1973; Webster 1970, 1-45. Most examples of three-dimensional representations of choruses arranged in a circle are early, but some are as late as the 4 century B.C. (terracotta statuettes from Corinth). * E.g. David 2006, 30: “the round dance, where the human animal may come to feel, in his erratic sinews, as he joins hands with his community, his measure of participation in the awesome circling of the divinity”. Cf. Wilson 2007b on the Ayklios choros (167-68): kyklios indicates shape and nothing else, it is not a specific genre, nor does it imply that the circle has some special cultic significance. ὁ Kathryn Bosher argues, convincingly, that circular dancing space was only introduced into theatres around the mid-4 century B.C., together with the word orchestra, and that previously dancing spaces in theatres were rectangular (Bosher 2008-09). However, a rectangular dancing space does not preclude the performance of round dances and why would one, when building permanent stone theatres, go for a round orchestra (which got its name then and there), if not because choral dances were overwhelmingly circular? I think we may extrapolate from theatrical choruses to all choruses here.

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There are many examples in decorated geometric pottery of rows of dancers moving towards each other (all male, all female, or a row of men and a row of women confronting): this may be a purely pictorial composition, it may be a representation of actual dance formations. Of course, the conventions of Greek imagery put some constraints on the depiction

of a chorus: dancers are usually shown as moving in a single file, where more intricate arrangements, or round dances for that matter, may have been intended or presupposed. Nor can

any other element be considered as ‘realistic? - in the sense of representing observable, real life phenomena. For instance, the number of individuals in a circle dance as portrayed in the

Olympia bronze groups, seven, cannot, I think, be taken as any indication of chorus sizes at the time. Something not usually stressed, but important, because undoubtedly a very common procedure, is for the one arrangement to morph into the

other, as when a chorus moves processionally, and then halts and performs a round dance. So a chorus could be any shape and also a shape-shifter. After the days of bronze and terracotta groups, and after the many choruses represented on geometric vases, we find depictions of choral dancing in nearly every medium, especially relief sculpture and vase painting. Still, all kinds

of conventions apply: even the three-dimensional representations cannot be regarded as true depictions of actual perfor* The images cannot be seen separate from 1}. 18, 593-95 (The Shield of Achilles). Wegner 1968 sees every departure from the single file arrangement and every case of men and women mixed (regularly or irregularly) as instances of painterly freedom. But Homer in the passage just quoted might imply youths and maidens alternating. For what it is worth

in this context, Lucian, δα,

12-13, mentions

the bormos, a chain

dance of youths and maidens alternating. Steven Lonsdale argues that we see such arrangements only seldomly because we have representations of cultic choruses, but not of the choruses of weddings, courtship

and other such social events (Lonsdale 1995, 276). He may be right, although comparative evidence from across time and space shows

that

at such events dancers tend to be separated according to gender (and that this does not necessarily impede courtship). All in all, two examples almost a millennium apart do not inspire much confidence that this was a common

arrangement.

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mance. Apart from some standard ways in which to indicate movement, there is shorthand for the dancing chorus: two or three dancers could be the image of a very small chorus, possibly the reflection of divine prototypes (three, sometimes four, nymphs or Charites dancing), but more likely they are an abbreviation for a much larger chorus (and we know of quite large real-life choruses, such as the chorus of fifty-one

at Delphi for Apollo). Most extreme, depictions of apparent solo dancers may portray individual other instance of pars pro toto.’

Now

chorus

members:

an-

that gender has been mentioned, we should delve a

bit deeper as far as the gender, and age group, composition of choruses is concerned. It is frequently stated that unmarried

girls, but of a marriageable age, were dominant. The shadow of Claude Calame looms large here, but in fact he himself is not dogmatic.* Choruses will have mirrored all of civic society: there will have been choruses of paides, children, of efeboi and parthenoi, male and female adolescents, and of gynaikes and andres, adult women and men. All are attested.’ In Plato’s ideal polis everybody between 3 and 60 years old performs in a chorus (Leges 664c-d): on the basis of the attested choruses it seems that Plato’s ideal in this instance is a reflection of

existing practice (even though Plato might not approve

of

* This has been suggested for so-called “mantle dancers” by Naerebout 2001-02. * Calame 1977, 62-3: “L’exécution chorale semble étre associée essentiellement ἃ la féminité”. This has been repeated by all and sundry. In fact Calame 1977, 63-4, states that all age categories are represented in choruses; because of the initiatory aspect of many choruses adolescents ate the most frequently encountered group, but choruses are also mirroring all of civic society (cf. Calame 1997, 26; there is also a 2001 revised English edition of Calame’s fundamental study). On the question of gender bias it can go either way: Parker 2005, 181-3, thinks that the lack of female choruses

in the Athenian epigraphic record is probably

the result of their non-existence. That would be strange indeed, so why not say that they are underrepresented? Which is difficult to explain (unless it is coincidental), but that should not be a reason to deny Athens the feminine choruses so prevalent in other places.

3 See Calame 1977. On the complementarity of male and female choruses, see Colas 2002.

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the actual performances). “Once a woman married, her danc-

ing days were generally over” is certainly not true.’ That the adolescents predominate need not surprise: they are probably

physically the fittest members of society, but even more importantly, the adolescents are the ideal representatives of the community.

Calame

argued that girls’ choruses predominate

because these would be examples of initiation, coming out and marriage market: what these choruses are all about. Such ideas are still being perpetuated,

even though

the heydays

of the

initiation paradigm seem to be over.’ Certainly, there will have been choruses which also fulfilled these functions, and some may have had an initiatory ritual as their primary purpose (and there will have been such for boys as well). But many choruses will have served other purposes, or other purposes at the same time, and celebration of the supernatural is likely to have been paramount in all cases.

From gender, age, numbers and spatial arrangements we can move on to performative quality.” Every performance can be

attractive with regard to the performance itself, and especially a particularly skillful performance will have been appreciated in its own right. But skill is also important because performing is a pious act: the gods are the primary audience to please. So it is one’s duty to perform in a proper manner and one’s wish * Quote taken from Shapiro 2004, 310. * This is not to say that the initiatory aspect is absent, see for instance the Didymean oracle (IMagne. 228, lines 6-10, 199/200 A.D.) on “girls uninitiated into marriage” who form a chorus for Hera, but the stress that Shapiro puts on stories of abduction of girls from a chorus, or of

love affairs blossoming on seeing girls dance at the sanctuary (Shapiro 2004, 302, 310-11) is surely unwarranted (these are narrative ploys); Goff 2004, 85-98, thinks (homo-)erotic display is the chorus’ primary function, which again seems rather one-dimensional. 3 Budelmann 2013, 88-93, rightly stresses that the text in all its aspects contributes to the performance as well: though one might ask to what extent an audience was able to appreciate the poetry on the seve-

ral different levels that Budelmann distinguishes. Nevertheless: the text should not be forgotten as an integral part of performance — making it a rather sad loss that in the case of many choruses we do not have a text, in the same way that we lack the music and lack the choreography.

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to do so in a highly skillful manner. To have dancers compete (the agonistic element that will be often present explicitly and always hovers in the background: judging and admiring skill implies comparison)’ will have people trying to outperform each other and themselves. It is rather obvious that this will also please a human audience -- which is composed in

large part of knowledgeable people who have been or are performers themselves. It is a crowd characterized by a so-called kinesthetic awareness that most of us nowadays have lost. This

is what I have called the crowd-pleasing, audience-drawing aspect: mousike as a mobilizing agent. One should not think of this as an alternative to communicating meaning: as soon

as an audience has gathered, communication is what happens, with many possible levels of intentionality and understanding

on the part of performers and of their audience. A performance may be a one off or it may be repeated, incidentally or as a recurrent event. We know that choreographies were reproduced, at their place of origin. But were they also put on elsewhere? Most choral songs are strongly linked to one specific context. Felix Budelmann has argued, however, that songs for a particular po/is and songs for a particular pantheon of gods were also appreciated as songs in their own

right, which paved the way for moving such songs into any other context.* However, this raises many questions. Here I * The audience will be comparing and judging (even if there is no formal judge or jury): for a marvelous example, see Ar. Nub. 988 f.: ὥστε μ᾽ ἀπάγχεσϑ᾽, ὅταν ὀρχεῖσϑαι Παναϑηναίοις δέον αὐτοὺς [τὴν ἀσπίδα τῆς κωλῆς προέχων ἀμελῇ τῆς Τριτογενείας. An audience member grumbles about

these weaklings dancing the pyrrhic, comparing them to the generation who fought at Marathon. * Budelmann 2013 distinguishes between song as ritual and song as art: a song is both at the same time, but in its original context it functions primarily as ritual, in a new context it is primarily appreciated as

art. I find Budelmann’s insistence (96) that our “conceptual tools” prevent us from seeing chorus-as-art and chorus-as-ritual as intermingled (1 would say complimentary - as better suited to Budelmann’s argument that we should not simply conflate both perspectives) as somewhat puz-

zling. With just enough personal memories of pre-Vatican II Catholicism, I have not the least problem in seeing a religious ritual also as

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do better than quote Budelmann:

55

“It is frustrating

that we know nothing about the contexts in which Athenians [I add: or other communities] re-performed foreign festival

choruses -- civic festival or private? In sacred space? In a competition? With a political point, stressing Athens’ attitudes vis-a-vis the city that produced the song ?”.' But before we can

even start asking questions such as these, we should ask what re-performing one’s own choreographies, foreign choreography actually implies.

or re-performing a

Certainly, it is clear that texts were disseminated well beyond their place of origin, but how about the music and the dance? Dance styles seem quite localized, as when in Xenophon’s Anabasis (6, 1, 10-12) we hear of mercenaries entertaining one anoth-

er by performing the characteristic weapon dance of their place of origin. At the same time this story of course illustrates that a dance style or even a choreography might be carried across

huge distances by for instance an invading army — but the question is not whether there were individuals who performed a dance they knew from back home somewhere (far) away from home, but whether they passed it on to future performers in that strange place. Despite the fact that we encounter dances

called “Persian” or “Cretan”, I think it quite unlikely that such dances actually had a recognizable foreign character based on their actual provenance. There might of course be some more or less tenuous link to the supposed place of origin, but the changes that any dance would undergo over time (in both the

place of origin and its new habitat) would mean that it would neither bear much relationship to the dance as it was when it

was first imported nor to the dance in its place of origin. It is equally possible, of course, that such names do not indicate any real provenance at all, but just an imagined genealogy as seems frequently the case in Greek notions about the hisart, entertainment, an opportunity for socializing, being socialized and an economic opportunity.

I would not even call this paradoxical (as do

others adduced by Budelmann 2013, 97). It is not the Greeks that I find difficult to understand here, but the long Western tradition that has been struggling with the supposed divide between aesthetics and ritual.

* Budelmann 2013, 87.

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tory of their music and dance -- which in that respect are not very different from the genealogies of individuals, families and

peoples seeking some link with an imagined past. The whole idea of re-performance can easily lead to misconceptions, such as the conviction that one could really redo a particular performance. In our present world, where we can record sound and moving image, many people think the live

performance is something that can be faithfully reproduced. But of course that is impossible: in a sense there is no cho-

reography that can be re-performed, as every performance is unique. The concern with reproducibility (and with conserv-

ing) might be a rather modern thing: a museum state of mind, asking for the ‘real’, the ‘authentic -- which one could argue are only to be found in each unique performance and not in an attempt to keep out change.’ There will be always change (unless we are in the museum mode; in the words of Eric Hobsbawm: “‘custom’ cannot afford to be invariant, because even in ‘traditional’ societies life is not so”*), but it may be either welcomed or denied. Commonly, in a religious context, continuity is cherished (even if change is unavoidable: such change can be unintended, denied, and indeed not perceived,

as when one performs a choral dance that is advertised as patrios).’ Alternatively, religion might crave innovation, because

it is in need of a public, and in that case innovation may be intended (for instance, asking a famous poet-composer to come up with something new).* Re-performance of the same choreography implies that the

chorus performs a sequence of movements that to an audience appears as a repeat-performance:

they recognize having seen

something like it before (putting on the same song with new music and/or a new choreography is of course also a possibility). John Herington argues for constant re-performance, which would help to preserve text, music and choreography.’ Indeed, * Naerebout 1994, and 2002. * Hobsbawm-sRanger 1983, 2. 3 E.g.: FD

3, 2, 48 = Syll3 7111,: πάτριος παιάν.

4 D’Angour 2012, esp. chapter 8: “a new song”. 5 Herington 1985, 48-50.

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that seems to be the only way to more or less safeguard a traditional performance (as long as a slow process of change is taken for granted -- see above: nothing can be preserved

unchanged, and certainly not if it is part of a living tradition). If one wanted to export a choreography in order to have it re-performed elsewhere, one had to send not merely a text, but

a human being: someone who knew the music and the dance. This is, in fact, the way choreographies are reproduced nowadays; it also is the generally accepted interpretation of Pindar, Οἱ. 6, 87-100, about one Aeneas who is to take the Aomos to Stymphalos and Syracuse.’ The task of Aeneas, whom the scholia identify as chorodidaskalos, to truthfully transmit words, music and choreography is expressed by the metaphor of the

skytala, the message-stick, or better, cipher-stick, of the Muses.’ For the dance, one would have to rely on kinetic memory — which fails us unless we train it.” Memorizing a text is so much easier, at least in a world that is literate. It does not

matter how many people could read or write; what matters is that a text could be transmitted in written form and that texts were at hand in order to be memorized. We should not forget that most reading in antiquity was memorizing.* So a * Herington 1985, 189-91. See the valuable appendices in Herington. * See P. Giannini, in Gentili e/ alii 2013, 470; cf. Naerebout 2006, esp. 50-5 (the skytala: p. 54). With Aeneas, compare Nicasippus (Pind. Lsthm. 2, 47): see Catenacci 1999.

3 Jennifer Larson (Larson 2016, 355 ἢ. 26) thinks I am overoptimistic about the ability of people in oral cultures to memorize words;

move-

ments however would be easier to memorize (but she admits that the movements ate not reproduced without change); Stephen Clark even calls my remark “uncharacteristically obtuse” (happily uncharacteristically!) (Clark 2016, 134). He invokes “body memory”: all these tasks that we can petform without even thinking. But he forgets that you have to perform those tasks countless times — especially longer and more complicated sequences of movements. See Doyon-Benali 2005: 21 days of practice are needed for a simple skill to reach the automatization phase

(when they have become part of our non-declarative memory, see StockGajsar-Giintiirkiin 2016). 4 See Thomas 1992, 69-71. Thomas notes that “Plato’s famous description of primary-school teaching, usually cited to show the teaching of literacy, actually says that the children are given poems of good poets to read and learn by heart (Protagoras 325e)” (92, her italics).

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text could be memorized, with the help of a written copy of that text. The music and the dance had to be memorized as

well, but this time without the help of an exterior memory, because it is likely that in most instances there existed no way to give music and dance a manuscript life. Musical notation was tare, dance notation did not exist at all. The existence of

detailed technical description is not impossible, but unlikely. We hear of ‘monographs’ on the chorus of drama, Aristokles’ Peri choron and Sophokles’ Peri chorou, but these may not have dealt with the dance movement at all - anyhow, if they did, it has left no trace. If technical treatises were available, they

are unlikely to have provided much in the way of reproducible movement sequences (let alone information which could be useful to ws). The dance imagery is static and conventional. So one should be familiar with the music and the dance: as already explained above, even nowadays, for dance more than

for music, despite the existence of dance notation and of moving images, the commonest way to export a choreography is

to have it taught by the original choreographer or by someone with an intimate knowledge of the piece deriving from practical experience. A single or even a repeated viewing will not have been enough to reproduce a choreography, at most

to imitate it in a somewhat comparable fashion. Joining in the dance would have been much more effective, but one would have had to do this repeatedly in order to really memorize the component parts of a choreography. An experienced dancer

or the choreographer-poet were the only ones who

would

have been able to more or less faithfully reproduce a chore-

ography with a new chorus in another locality.’ As to local * The only mitigating force here would be the existence of traditional movement sequences that always went with particular elements of the musical composition. Indeed, there may have been some such musical modes, kinds of melody or rhythmical structures that triggered a specific choreography. But we do not know of any real life examples. What we do know

is the price put upon innovation. That and the utter opacity

of the word ‘tradition’ would imply that the whole idea of ‘standard’, predictable

unities

with extreme care.

of traditional

music

and

dance

should

be handled

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re-performance, there will have been those with experience to teach any new chorus members. In concluding, I should stress, not for the first time, that according to me, there are no individual choreographies to know - the movement sequences are lost. Any of the more cautious reconstructions that suppose a foot lifted here, a turn around the dancer’s axis there, are in fact quite uninterest-

ing: what would we have expected ancient Greeks to do? We can read and see in images that they did some of the things

which you can do with a human body and which are done the world over. But as soon as moderns start stitching move-

ments together to produce ancient choreographies, it is pure speculation, because the sources have nothing on offer that allows us to do so. The likelihood of any such reconstruction

being even remotely like ‘the real thing’ is small indeed and we will never know whether someone accidentally got it tight. So we do not know any ‘dances’, except for their name,

sometimes their provenance, and in a very few instances a bit more: something about the general nature of the movement,

the text of a song, information about performers and specific occasions for performance, most interestingly the descriptive elements that can be derived from self-referential passages that have been sung by a chorus. But I daresay that when we put

all such information together (as I think can be seen in many cases were this has been done), this will result for a large part in platitudes, of the kind that the one dance was probably slow and the other more lively, that chorus members sometimes held hands and sometimes did not, and that the one chorus

performed for Apollo and the other for Demeter, and so on.' * Thave not mentioned metre: of course, what binds song, musical ac-

companiment and dance together is metre. Webster 1970 offers a lengthy attempt to use metre to say something about dance. The outcome is somewhat

disappointing:

we

have

faster

and

slower

movements,

we

have the suggestion of liveliness and of solemnity. The one thing that could lead potentially to more exciting conclusions is the recurrence of certain metrical patterns across different choral compositions: one might suppose that metrical correspondence would mean choreographic cor-

respondence. But when one comes to think of it, there is no reason why such a metrical correspondence (nor the use of the same music, or even

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As soon as people push on from there and try to exp/ain about such a dance, it will all end in speculation again, because without all elements being present (the movement, the music, the text, and the context), one will never be able to do any dance anthropology as social scientists understand it.’ So what can we do? We should speak about dance, and not about dances. Not about choreographies, but about the phe-

nomenon in general - that is what I have been doing above. We should illuminate the important position that dance held in Greek (religious) life, which tells us something about dance but a lot more about society and religion. In all questions about ancient religious life - how did it work, what were the

components, what is a festival or a sanctuary, what were the modalities of communication, and so on and so forth — dance would have to be part of the answer. And not as an aside or afterthought (the perfunctory sentence stating that “there

also was lot of dancing going on”, with a learned footnote listing some publications on ancient dance, maybe a couple of sources too), but as an integral part of religious life, e.g. “this was done by setting up a chorus”. I would like to express my

explicit disappointment that despite my own efforts and those of others who have written in a sophisticated manner about dance in the ancient world (several of them mentioned in the footnotes to this article) dance still has not made a come-back the same song) would produce an identical sequence of movements: at most a comparable one, in its general characteristics determined by the musical and metrical framework. Maybe that is all that Webster wanted to argue.

* When Spaltro 2011, 16 n. 46, states that “Lonsdale [Lonsdale 1993] and Naerebout acknowledge the field of dance anthropology, although neither incorporates

dance

anthropological models

or concepts

in any

substantive way”, he is mistaken: see Naerebout 1997, 310-6, and dance anthropological models and theory informing much of his text. Indeed, I would call the last third of my book an extended dance anthropological model adapted to a dance tradition where the movement is not known and not knowable. If Spaltro means that I (or Lonsdale) do not do dance anthropology in the same way as Kurath, Hanna, Kealiinohomoku ¢ alii, he is right: one cannot do any movement-based analysis without knowledge of the movements.

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in recent work on ancient religion in general (I am not speak-

ing of studies dealing with individual cults where at least a mentioning of dance might be inescapable - although in sev-

eral instances there is room for improvement there as well). I say come-back rather than first appearance, as there was quite

some dance present in the writings of James George Frazer, Jane Harrison, Erwin Rohde,

Kurt Latte, Martin P. Nilsson

and their contemporaries; the last traces of that awareness can be seen in the work of Walter Burkert. After that, dance is largely absent and does not even merit an entry in an index.’

May the choruses, those main denizens of the dancescape of the ancient world, make themselves again heard and seen.” LITERATURE

Albertocchi M., 2015: Shall We Dance? Terracotta Dancing Groups of the Archaic Period in the Aegean World, in S. Huysecom-Haxhi, - A. Muller (eds.), Figurines greeques en contexte. Présence muette dans Te sanctuaire, la tombe et la maison, Villeneuve d’Ascq, 13-24. Alonge M., 2005: The Palaikastro Hymn and the Modern Myth of the Cretan Zeus, in Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics (https:// www.princeton.edu/~pswpc/pdfs/alonge/120512.pdf, accessed 1005-2016). Andronikou E. ef alii (eds.), 2003: Geschenke der Musen. Musik und Tanz im antiken Griechenland / Mouson Dora. Mousiki ke chorevtiki apoichi apo tin archea Ellada, Athen. Aneziri S., 2003: Die Vereine der dionysischen Techniten im Kontext der * I give a selection of English-language general studies of ancient Greek/Athenian religion of the past twenty years which have (almost) no dance or chorus in their index: Parker 1996: a single mention of “choruses”; Price 1999: a single mention of “choirs”; Tripolitis 2002; Mikalson 2005; Parker 2005: a single mention of “chorus”; Ogden 2007; Kindt 2012. It is tell-tale that several source books of ancient Greek religion published in the same period do have an entry “dance” or “chorus(es)” in their indices: it seems a common conviction that in collecting and reviewing the sources the subject is unavoidable, but that in analysis it can be dispensed with. ? I thank the anonymous

peer reviewer of this paper for a number

of extremely constructive suggestions which have led me to add several important nuances or to clarify my argument. Of course, any remaining unclarities or mistakes are entirely my responsibility.

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hellenistischen Gesellschaft.

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Organisation

und Wirkung der hellenistischen Technitenvereine, Stuttgart. Bell 111 M., 1996: ἢ] canto del choreutes. Un bronzo greco dal Gianicolo, in E. M. Steinby (ed.), Laniculum -- Gianicolo. Storia, topografia, monumenti, leggende dall’antichita al rinascimento, Roma, 77-97. Bettini M., 2008: Vori. Antropologia sonora del mondo antico, Torino.

Billings J. - Budelmann F. - Macintosh F. (eds.), 2013: Choruses, Ancient and Modern, Oxford. Bosher K., 2008-09: To Dance in the Orchestra: A

Circular Argument,

ICS 33/34, 1-24. Bowie E., 2006: Choral Performances, in D. Konstan - S. Said (eds.), Greeks on Greekness. Viewing the Greek Past under the Roman Empire,

Cambridge, 61-92. Bremmer J. N., 1994: Greek Religion, Oxford. Brown S. - Martinez M. J. - Parsons L. M., 2006: The Neural Basis of Human Dance, Cerebral Cortex 16/8, 1157-67. Bruneau P., 1970: Recherches sur les cultes de Delos a P’époque hellénistique et a l’époque impériale, Paris. Budelmann F., 2013: Greek Festival Choruses in and out of Context, in

J. Billings - F. Budelmann - F. Macintosh (eds.), Choruses, Ancient and Modern, Oxford, 81-98. Bumke H., 2004: Statuarische Gruppen in der frühen griechischen Kunst, Berlin. Calame C., 1977: Les choeurs de jeunes filles en Gréce archaique τ, Roma.

Calame C., 1997: Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece. Their Morphology, Religions Role, and Social Functions, London.

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Ceccarelli P., 1998: La pirrica nell’antichita greco romana. Studi sulla danza armata, Pisa, Roma. Clark S. R. L., 2016: Plotinus: Myth, Metaphor, and Philosophical Prac-

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3. DANCING

WITH

PATRICK T

STESICHORUS

J. FINGLASS

HE unfortunate John Malalas, the sixth-century chronog-

rapher whose errors formed the target of Richard Bentley’s first major work of scholarship, at one point makes a reference to “Stesichorus and Bacchylides, who were inventors of the dance and poets”.' Bentley’s response is not encumbered by understatement:* Quid narras? nimirum nostra nos opinio fefellit, qui credidimus te

Antiochiae esse natum.

Siquidem auctor est Lucianus Antiochens-

es de saltatoribus optime omnium

iudicare potuisse: te autem cum

aliarum omnium, tum huius artis imperitissimum videmus. Rogo te, homo hominum ignavissime, numquam Sacras Scripturas lectitasti? nonne ibi frequens Saltationis mentio diu diuque, antequam Stesichorus nasceretur? quid? ne Homerum quidem per transennam aspexisti? iam ergo eum audias licet: Ὀρχηοτὺς μολπή te, τὰ περ τ᾽ ἀναθήματα δαιτός.’ "Arrow μὲν γὰρ ἔδωκε ϑεὸς πολεμήϊα ἔργα, "Arrow δ᾽ ὀρχηοτύν, ἑτέρῳ κίϑαριν καὶ ἀοιδήν.ἢ Scio tamen, quid in fraudem te impulit; nempe nomen Stesichori, tanquam si primus ἐστήσατο χορούς᾽ ἃς poemata quaedam Bacchylidis, quae Ὑπορχήματα inscripta sunt, & a Stobaeo citantur & Athenaeo lib. xtv. ‘H δ᾽ ὑπορχηματική Ectıv, ἐν ἦ ἄδων ὁ χορὸς ὀρχεῖται. φησὶ

γοῦν ὁ Βακχυλίδης: Οὐχ ἕδρας ἔργον οὐδ’ ἀμβολᾶς. Locus aliquanto * Iam grateful to Dr Laura Gianvittorio for the invitation to contribute to this volume, to her and to the anonymous referee for helpful comments,

and to the Leverhulme Trust for the award of a Philip Lev-

erhulme Prize during the tenure of which this chapter was written. For a briefer discussion of this topic see Finglass 2014a, 30-2. The fragments of Stesichorus are cited from Finglass zo14b. John Mal. 6, 27 (p. 131, 7-8 Thurn) Uryciyopoc καὶ Βακχυλίδης, ot Acav OeyAcewc εὑρεταὶ καὶ ποιηταί.

* Bentley 1691, 70, translated by Haugen 2011, 97 (slightly adapted). 3 Hom.

Od. 1, 152, where the text is actually μολπὴ τ᾽ ὀρχηοτύς τε" τὰ

γάρ τ᾽ ἀναϑήματα dartéc; Bentley’s version gives an equally good hexameter. 4 Hom. //. 13, 730-1.

68

PATRICK

integrior est apud Dionysium

J. FINGLASS Halicarnassensem.

Οὐχ ἕδρας ἔργον,

οὐδ’ ἀμβολᾶς, ἀλλὰ ypucatyıdoc. Ἰτωνίας χρὴ παρ᾽ εὐδαίδαλον ναὸν ἐλϑόντας ἁβρόν τι δεῖξαι. Omnes Cretici praeter unum pedem qui in Paeonem solutus est; adeo ut, cum hunc locum lego, coram oculis videre videor' ὑπορχουμένους & subsultantes. Nec tamen princeps

inventor hyporchematum Bacchylides; sed, ut quibusdam videtur, Pindarus; ut alii volunt, Xenodamus. Vide Clementem, Athenaeum, ἃς Plutarchum Περὶ moucıxÄc.

What are you saying? Clearly we were misinformed, because we thought you were born at Antioch. At least according to Lucian, the Antiochians should have known better about dancers than anyone else. You, however, along with all the other arts, we find grossly ignorant of this one. May I ask, you most lazy of men, did you never peruse the Holy Scriptures? Is there not frequent mention of dancing long, long before Stesichorus was born? So? Did you never look at Homer even “through a lattice”? Well, you might as well hear him now: Dancing and music, which are the delights of a feast God gives to one man the deeds of battle, To another dancing, to another the lyre and song. But I know what drove you to your imposture: the name of Stesichorus, as though he were the first who estésato chorous |“instituted choruses”] and further, certain poems of Bacchylides called Dancing

Songs, which are quoted by Stobaeus and also in Athenaeus book 14: “In the hypochematic, the chorus dances while singing: at any rate Bacchylides says “Chairs we need not, nor preludes’” [fr. 15, 4 S.-M.]. The passage appears in somewhat fuller form in Dionysius of Halicarnassus: “Chairs we need not, not preludes, but she of the

golden aegis: we must go to the well-wrought temple of Itonia and perform something graceful”. The meter is cretics, except for one foot resolved into a paeon, so that as I read this passage, I seem to

see them before my eyes dancing and leaping. However, Bacchylides was not even the originator and inventor of dancing songs; rather, as some say, it was Pindar, or as some others claim, Xenodamus. See Clement, Athenaeus, and Plutarch’s On Music.

Bentley is of course correct that Stesichorus, still less Bacchylides, was not the inventor of dancing. But he is perhaps * Corrected to videar in later editions.

DANCING

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excessively hard on Malalas, or on his source, since Stesicho-

rus was nevertheless closely associated with that art. His very name Στησίχορος means “he who sets up the chorus”, and a Greek χορός was primarily associated with song and dance; Ian Rutherford refers to archaic and classical Greece as a “song/dance culture”. We might think it an extraordinary coincidence that a choral poet should receive at birth a name that would so precisely reflect his occupation. According to the tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia, the Suda, the poet’s

name was given him as a sobriquet (Suda c 1095 Adler = Stes. Tbz Ercoles): ἐκλήϑη δὲ Στησίχορος ὅτι πρῶτος κιϑαρωιδίαι χορὸν Ectncev, ἐπεί τοι πρότερον Τειοίας ἐκαλεῖτο. He was called Stesichorus because he first set up a chorus to the ac-

companiment of citharody, since before that he was called Teisias.

This statement supports what we might have already have deduced, that Stesichorus was not the poet’s original name. We can be sure that the sobriquet was already known in the sixth century, thanks to a precious testimony in Simonides (fr. 273 Poltera): (Μελέαγροο) ὃς δουρὶ πάντας νίκαςε νέους δινάεντα βαλὼν "Avaupov ὕπερ πολυβότρυος ἐξ Ἰωλκοῦ: οὕτω γὰρ Ὅμηρος ἠδὲ Στηοίχορος ἄειος λαοῖο.

(Meleager) who defeated all the young men with his spear, hurling it beyond the eddying Anaurus out of Iolcus, rich in grapes. For thus Homer and Stesichorus sang to the peoples.

Writing perhaps only a generation after Stesichorus’ death, Simonides could not have called our poet ‘Stesichorus’ unless that name was already widely associated with him; it is easiest to assume that this association had arisen because that was * Rutherford 2001, 3 “Ancient Greece can be described as a song-dance culture, in so far as the performance of song and dance (translating the Greek μολπή) enjoyed an importance many times greater than what we find in any industrialized Western society today, but comparable to the position it still holds in some surviving traditional societies”.

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the name used by the poet himself as he travelled around the Greek world. “Teisias’ is an unremarkable name, commonly found in many places and periods, and so “probably preserves a genuine tradition, since it seems too unremarkable to be a

fiction”. So a poet originally called Teisias was given, or assumed, the name ‘Stesichorus’. This fact on its own suggests a par-

ticular connexion with the χορός, a body of dancing singers, or singing dancers. Such a name was hardly isolated in archaic onomastics. As Purley and Bremer say, “to ‘set up a chorus’ (χορὸν tctavar) for the performance of ritual songs became

the standard term for the inauguration of hymns in performance [...] Names such as Stesichoros, ‘Chorus-Trainer’ or Hagesichora, ‘Chorus-Leader’, Terpsichora (one of the Muses),

‘Chorus-lover’, point to the familiarity of the concept”.* Consequently, it is a natural enough inference, from Stesichorus’

name alone, that the performance of his poetry primarily involved singing and dancing, just as Hagesichora in Alcman’s First Partheneion (ft. 1 PMGF) was one of the leaders of a

singing and dancing chorus. Consistent with that inference, Stesichorus’ own poetry contains references to song and dance,

expressed through the term μολπή, which stands for both.’ So we are told by Chamaeleon that one of Stesichorus’ Palinodes began (fr. 90, 8-9 F.) Seve’ αὖτε Bed φιλόμολπε

Come here once more, goddess who delights in song/dance This was not the only time that Stesichorus associated his Muse with μολπή, since Athenaeus tells us that he called her (fr. 278 F.)* * Finglass 2014a, 15, citing the evidence for the name Teisias.

* Furley-Bremer 2001, I 9-10; see Finglass 2007, on Soph. HJ. 280 for parallels for χορὸν tetévat.

3 See Cingano 1993, 349-53, with many examples from epic onwards referring to both song and dance. Lloyd-Jones 1995, 420 = 2005, 402 claims that “μέλπω and its derivatives often connote song still more than they do dance”, but in none of the passages cited below does the context exclude the sense ‘dance’. * For other instances cf. Alcm. fr. Sı PMGF χρυοοκόμα φιλόμολπε

(if

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71

ἀρχεοίμολπον

she who begins the song/dance

In addition, Plutarch records the following snatch of Stesichorean lyric, combining the terms χόρευμα and μολπὴ (fr. 271 F.):' «χορεύ»ματά TOL μάλιοτα παιγμοούνας φιλεῖ μολπάς τ᾽ ᾿Απόλλων, rasen δὲ οτοναχάς τ᾽ ᾿Αἴΐδας ἔλαχε.

Apollo loves especially dance, play, and song, but Hades has grief and laments as his allotted portion

All these passages would have an attractively metapoetic significance if accompanied by song and dance. It is conceivable that the reference in each case is to song alone, but seeing that

the term regularly denoted both song and dance the onus of proof is on those who would exclude the latter sense. Moreover, the combination of χορεύματα (if correctly restored) and uorrat in the last passage seems especially striking, linking as

they do song and dance together, with the latter term probably standing for both. And παιγμοούνη too is frequently found in the context of dancing.*

Aside from μολπή, we might also note δαμώματα

in the

opening to Stesichorus’ Oresteia (fr. 173 F.): τοιάδε χρὴ Χαρίτων δαμώματα καλλικόμων ὑμνεῖν Φρύγιον μέλος ἐξευρόντα -ς» ἁβρῶς ἦρος ἐπερχομένου.

Such are the songs of the fair-tressed Graces that we must sing, devising a Phrygian melody in refined comfort, at spring’s approach. addressed to a Muse), Bacchyl. 6, 10-11 ἀναξιμόλπου | Οὐρανίας; also Pind. Pyih. 3, 90 μελπομενᾷν ... Morcäv. The noun is found at Pratinas fr. 708, 1 PMG, with reference to dancing, and perhaps sound too.

* yopev>uara is a relatively safe supplement/conjecture by Wilamowitz 1905, 128 = 1935-1972, Iv 181 in place of the μάλα found in the manuscripts of Plutarch. * CEG

1 432,

1,

Athens,

¢

740

hoc

νῦν

ὀρχεοτὸν

πάντον

ἀταλότατα

παίζει, Hom. Od. 23, 134 φιλοπαίγμονος ὀρχηϑμοῖο, [Hes.] fr. 10a, 19 M-W φιλοπαίγμονες ὀρχηοτῆρεο, cited by Cingano 1993, 352.

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Defined by the Aristophanic scholia (which preserve the lines) as τὰ δημοοίαι adoueva, “songs sung in public, sung for the people”, the term “suggests both choral performance and a notion that the narrative is public property”.* It does not give

any particular pointer about the place of dance within that choral performance

(ὑμνεῖν...

μέλος refers to song alone),

though, we might think, it is preferable to imagine that the Stesichorean chorus was energetically mobile rather than staid-

ly static as it described the coming of spring. Certainly, the Aristophanic

chorus

whose

lyrics are here

so influenced by

Stesichorus was a dancing entity; might even the choreography, like his language, have evoked the Sicilian master?’ But this latter point is no secure inference, since imitation of one aspect of an earlier work does not entail imitation of anything else.

A choral Stesichorus would not be an isolated or unusual phenomenon among archaic and classical poets from the Greek west. His younger contemporary Ibycus, from Rhegium on the toe of Italy, is said to have composed dithyrambs.* So too did Cleomenes, who was also from Rhegium.’ These dithyrambs,

which presumably contained relatively long heroic narratives, involved choral singing and dancing; it may be that Philoxenus of Cythera in the fourth century was the first to introduce monodies into this genre.° The works of another western poet, * Y Ar. Pac. 796-9 (p. 125 Holwerda); cf. Hesych. ὃ 212 (1 403 Latte) δαμώματα: κοινώματα, δημοοιώματα. Cf. δαμόομαι, attested at Pind. Lsthm. 8, 8 γλυκύ τι δαμωοόμεϑα καὶ μετὰ πόνον and Pl. 77. 16te.

* Thus Morgan 2012, 43; see further Cingano 1993, 354 with ἢ. 28; D’Alfonso 1994, 105-19. 3 For the influence of Stesichorus on that Aristophanic chorus and on Greek drama more generally see Finglass, forthcoming. 4 Cingano 1990, 215-19; D’Alessio 2013, 121 n. 38. Ibycus’ dithyrambs are not mentioned by Davies 1988, 53-4 in his argument that Ibycus was solely a monodic poet. 5 Cleomenes (fifth century): fr. 838 PMG, Kassel-Austin on Chionides fr.

4 PCG. ° ‘Thus [Plut.] De mus. 1142 a = Ar. fr. 953 PCG, although that depends on a far from certain supplement.

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Xenocritus of Locri, were alternatively classified as paeans or dithyrambs;' this too suggests choral performance.

Evidence for chorality in the Greek west is not limited to individual named poets, either.* A grave in south-east Sicily

yielded up a lead curse tablet from the earlier fifth century, which provides evidence for choral performances, probably theatrical in nature, from that region.’ Pausanias provides evidence, probably originating in the fifth century, for a chorus of thirty-five boys, a trainer and an aulos-player, sent every year by the people of Messana across the strait to a

local festival at Rhegium.* A lead tessera from Camarina dating to the middle of the fifth century preserves the boast of

Thrasys the Emmenid, who claims to be the “best singer of all the Doristomphoi”; this may indicate some kind of singing competition involving the community as a whole.’ All this evidence

comes

from

the fifth century, but that more

probably reflects the better documentation of the classical period in our sources than a shift towards chorality after Stesichorus’ time. Stesichorus’ name, poetry, and the culture of his homeland

all point towards choral performance of his work, and such choruses would have involved both singing and dancing. Nevertheless, over the years various arguments have been made against this view, in support of the idea that Stesichorus was a solo singer and that his poems were designed for this medium, to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre. The first scholar

known to me to take this latter position was Otto Kleine, nearly two centuries ago:° * See Finglass 2014a, 22-3. * See Finglass 20144, 29-30. 3 For the tablet see Jordan 2007; Wilson 2007b; Eidinow 2007, 156-63. 4 Paus.

5, 25, 2-4. After the loss at sea of one contingent,

Callon of

Elis (active late fifth century) was commissioned by the Messenians to produce a statue of the deceased troupe, for which Hippias (presumably the sophist Hippias of Elis, again from the late fifth century) was subsequently asked to compose an elegiac couplet. 5 SEG

42 § 846 (p. 245), Δοριοτόνφον

ἁπάντον ἐοτὶ ὑπέρτατος deidov

(1

owe this reference to Simon Hornblower); for a different text see SEG 44 § 758, and for discussion see Hornblower 2004, 191-2; Fisher 2010, 92 n. 55. 6. Kleine 1828, 53.

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iudicia illa et testimonia de Homeri et Stesichori similitudine quae in antecedentibus collegimus ut conferas cum ipsis huius reliquiis, sponte credes magnam partem ea lata esse de illis Stesichoriis odis, quibus lyricus - μελοποιός — data potius temporis vel loci opportunitate, ex veterum rhapsodorum more, festis diebus vel in publicis

ludis vel intra privatos denique parietes, rerum a diis heroibusque gestarum laude, lyra adsonante, audientes oblectaverit, quam ad proprios certosque deorum cultus in templis celebrandos quae choro adiuvante a veteribus poetis docebantur.

Those judgments and testimonies concerning er and Stesichorus which we gathered in the you could compare them with Stesichorus’ your own accord you will believe that, to a taken from those

Stesichorean poems,

the similarity of Homprevious pages so that actual fragments -- of great extent, they were

with which

the lyric poet,

given a suitable time or place, according to the custom of rhapsodes of old, on festival days or at public contests or indeed within private

dwellings, by praising the achievements of gods and heroes, to the accompaniment of the lyre would delight his audiences, rather than with a view to celebrating the particular and fixed cults of the gods in temples, which were narrated by ancient poets with the assistance

of a chorus.

Kleine is prompted by the similarity of Homer and Stesichorus, something often remarked on in antiquity, to posit that the per-

formance of their poetry must have taken a similar form, by a soloist, although in the case of the lyric verse of Stesichorus the

performer would have been accompanied on the lyre, something not found with epic recitation. Yet as noted above, similarity

of content does not entail similarity of performance style.’ Nor should we overestimate the dependence of Stesichorus on the epic poetry recited by the rhapsodes; indeed, often “the alignment with the hexameter heroic tradition ... pointedly draws attention to the distinctiveness of the lyric offering”.”

Moreover, Kleine’s view depends in part on the view that choral lyric is suited only for cultic performance, which is not * Cf. Curtis 2011, 24-6. * Carey 2015, 62. Careful consultation of Davies, Finglass 2014, should

reveal many

places

where

Stesichorus

is pointedly

different from what he found in epic poetry.

doing

something

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75

necessarily true (choral performance of Pindar’s epinicia, something accepted by the great majority of scholars today, would disprove it); even if it was, there is no reason not to think that some or all of Stesichorus’ poetry was indeed performed at festivals for the gods. Later Wilamowitz too challenged the choral hypothesis, but in a more limited way and on different grounds: Wenn Στησίχορος erst Beiname ist, besagt es nicht, daß dieser Mann

Reigen gestellt hat, sondern der, nach welchem er benannt war. Darin braucht noch nicht die Abfassung von Liedern fiir den Chorgesang zu liegen, wie die Scene im 9 lehrt. Denn die Muse Στησιχόρη

ist sicher in einer Rolle gedacht wie Demodokos bei Homer 9 264. Den Namen hat ja Klitias in seinem Hesiod Theog. 78 gelesen oder doch geglaubt, dort gelesen zu haben, ohne von einem Dichter Stesichoros zu wissen. Der Name beweist also durchaus noch nicht die Existenz der späteren chorischen Lyrik. Die Suidasvita hat einen Nachtrag ἐκλήθη δὲ Στησίχορος ὅτι πρῶτος κιϑαρωιδίαι χορὸν Ectncev, ἐπεί τοι πρότερον Τειοίας ἐκαλεῖτο. Darin ist eben jene

homerische Art der Verbindung von Kitharodie und Reigen gut bezeichnet.’ If “Stesichorus” is only an epithet, it does not mean that it was this man

(scil.

Stesichorus

the dithyrambic poet)

who

set up circular

dancing, but rather the one after whom he was named (scil. Stesichorus, the son of Hesiod). ‘The name does not require the composi-

tion of lyrics for choral song, as the scene in Odyssey book 8 shows. For the Muse ‘Stesichore’ is certainly imagined as taking on a role like that of Demodocus in Odyssey 8, 264. Clitias read the name, or thought that he had, in his copy of Hesiod’s Theogony at line 78,

without knowing about a poet called Stesichorus. So the name certainly does not prove the existence of choral lyric as known in later times. The Life in the Suda contains the postscript “He was called Stesichorus because he first set up a chorus to the accompaniment of

cithara-playing, since before that he was called ‘Teisias”. ‘There the Homeric phenomenon of the combination of singing to the accompaniment of the lyre and circular dancing is well indicated. Like Bentley before him, Wilamowitz rightly emphasises that Stesichorus did not invent dancing. His mention of Clitias * Wilamowitz 1913, 238.

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refers to the painter of the Francois vase of ¢. 570, where one

of the Muses is given the name “Stesichore” instead of the “Terpsichore” found in Hesiod’s 7eogony;' but we cannot rule out the possibility, as Wilamowitz does, that Clitias had heard

of the poet Stesichorus, since Stesichorus’ career could have been ongoing or even over by that date.* Wilamowitz’s most

important point is his reference to the portrayal of Demodocus in book eight of the Odyssey, something that we need to

examine in greater depth. During Odysseus’ stay among the Phaeacians, the bard Demodocus delivers three songs. The first, an account of the quarrel between Odysseus and Achilles, is sung after a banquet at Alcinous’ house (8, 72-82); the second takes place in the agora, immediately after some games in which Odysseus was a participant, and narrated the affair of Ares and Aphrodite (266-366); and the third described the sack of Troy, after the Phaeacians had returned to the house of Alcinous (499-520). It

is the second of these songs that concerns us, involving as it does dancing as well as singing. The following words spoken by Alcinous lead into the bard’s narration of the divine affair:

250

255

260

“od γὰρ πυγμάχοι εἰμὲν ἀμύμονες οὐδὲ παλαιοταί, ἀλλὰ Tock κραιπνῶς ϑέομεν καὶ νηυοὶν ἄριοτου, αἰεὶ δ᾽ ἡμῖν date τε φίλη κίϑαρίς τε χοροί τε εἵματά τ᾽ ἐξημοιβὰ λοετρά τε ϑερμὰ καὶ εὐναί. ἀλλ᾽ ἄγε, Darnnwv βητάρμονες öccor ἄοιοτοι, matcate, ὥς χ᾽ ὁ ξεῖνος ἐνίοπῃ οἷοι φίλοιοιν, οἴκαδε voctycac, dccov περιγιγνόμεϑ᾽ ἄλλων ναυτιλίῃ καὶ TLOCCL καὶ ὀρχηοτυΐ καὶ ἀοιδῇ. Δημοδόκῳ δέ τις αἶψα κιὼν φόρμιγγα λίγειαν οἰςέτω, ἥ που κεῖται ἐν ἡμετέροιοι δόμοιοιν,ἁ ὡς ἔφατ᾽ ᾿Αλκίνοος ϑεοείκελος, ὦρτο δὲ κῆρυξ olcwy φόρμιγγα γλαφυρὴν δόμου ἐκ βαοιλῆοο. αἰουμνῆται δὲ κριτοὶ ἐννέα πάντες ἀνέοταν, δήμιοι, ol κατ᾽ ἀγῶνας ἐὺ πρήσοεοκον Exacta,

λείηναν δὲ χορόν, καλὸν δ᾽ εὔρυναν ἀγῶνα.

* See Wachter 1991, 107-8. ? Stesichorus’ poetic activity can be dated to some period between 610 and 540; see Finglass 2014a, 1-6.

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κῆρυξ δ᾽ ἐγγύϑεν ἦλϑε φέρων φόρμιγγα λίγειαν

Δημοδόκῳ: ὁ δ᾽ ἔπειτα xt’ ἐς μέσον: ἀμφὶ δὲ κοῦροι πρωϑῆβαι ἵοταντο, δαήμονες ὀρχηϑμοῖο,

πέπληγον δὲ χορὸν Belov ποοίν. αὐτὰρ "Oduccede μαρμαρυγὰς ϑηεῖτο ποδῶν, ϑαύμαζε δὲ ϑυμῷ. αὐτὰρ ὁ φορμίζων ἀνεβάλλετο καλὸν ἀείδειν ἀμφ᾽ Ἄρεος φιλότητος ἐὐοτεφάνου τ᾽ ᾿Αφροδίτης κτλ.

265

“For we are not good boxers or wrestlers

But we run swiftly on our feet and are most able in ships, And always the feast is dear to us, the lyre, and choruses, Changes of clothes, warms baths, and beds.

But come, you who are the best dancers among the Phaeacians,

250

Begin your sport, so that the stranger may tell his people, When he returns home, how much we surpass others

In sailing, with our feet, in dancing, and in song. And let someone go and bring the clear-voiced lyre To Demodocus, which lies somewhere in our palace”.

Thus spoke the godlike Alcinous, and a herald rose To bring the hollow lyre from the house of the king.

255

All nine chosen umpires stood up, Men from the people, who performed each of the tasks well in the competitions ;

They smoothed the dancing space, and cleared the fair arena. A herald came from nearby bringing the clear-voiced lyre

260

To Demodocus. He then came into the centre. Around him,

young men In the prime of youth stood there, knowledgeable in dancing, And beat out the divine dance with their feet. But Odysseus gazed on the flashings of their feet, and was amazed in his heart. But Demodocus, as he played the lyre, struck up a beautiful song

265

About the love of Ares and fair-crowned Aphrodite.

Then comes the tale of Ares and Aphrodite, after which the poem goes on as follows: ταῦτ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἀοιδὸς ἄειδε περικλυτός: iA

τερπετ΄

>

>

x

x

EVL φρεοῖν

=

NCLV

5

,ὔ

ἀκούων

5

ἠδὲ

αὐτὰρ A

καὶ

x

Ὀδυςοεὺς

bia

ἄλλοι

Φαίηκες Ἢ δολιχή χήρετμοι, ναυοικλυτοὶ λυτοὶ ἄνδρεο. ἄνὸ ᾿Αλχκίνοος 8° ἍΔλιον καὶ Λαοδάμαντα κέλευσε

37°

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PATRICK

J. FINGLASS

μουνὰξ ὀρχήςαοϑαι, ἐπεί cpLcıv οὔ tec ἔριζεν. οἱ 8 ἐπεὶ οὖν οφαῖραν καλὴν μετὰ χεροὶν ἕλοντο,

πορφυρέην, τήν οφιν Πόλυβος ποίηςε δαΐφρων, τὴν ἕτερος ῥίπταοκε ποτὶ νέφεα οκιόεντα

375

ἰδνωθεὶς ὀπίοω" ὁ δ᾽ ἀπὸ χϑονὸς ὑψός᾽ ἀερϑεὶς δηϊδίως μεϑέλεοχκε, πάρος ποοὶν οὖδας ἱκέοϑαι.

380

αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ δὴ coaton ἀν᾽ ἰϑὺν πειρήοσαντο, ὀρχείοϑην δὴ ἔπειτα ποτὶ χϑονὶ πουλυβοτείρῃ ταρφέ᾽ ἀμειβομένω: κοῦροι δ᾽ ἐπελήκεον ἄλλοι ἑοταότες κατ᾽ ἀγῶνα, πολὺς δ᾽ ὑπὸ κόμπος ὀρώρει.

That was what the famous singer sang; but Odysseus Delighted in his mind as he listened, as did the other Long-oared Phaeacians, men famous for their ships. 370

Alcinous ordered Halios and Laodamas

To dance on their own, since nobody rivalled them And so when they took up a beautiful ball in their hands, A purple ball, which wise Polybus made for them;

One of them would throw it at the shadowy clouds Twisting backwards; the other, picking it up from the ground from above Easily took it, before reaching the ground with his feet. But when they had made trial of the ball up aloft, Then they danced on the fertile earth Frequently changing their movements; the other young men clapped

380

As they arose. What sort of have assumed ers.‘ This was

stood in the competition area, and a great shout performance is envisaged here? Many scholars that Demodocus sings to accompany the dancalso the view of Athenaeus (1, 15d):

οἷδε δὲ ὁ ποιητὴς καὶ τὴν πρὸς φδὴν ὄρχησιν: Δημοδόκου γοῦν ἄδοντος κοῦροι πρωϑῆβαι ὠρχοῦντο: καὶ ἐν τῇ Ὁπλοποιίᾳ δὲ παιδὸς κιϑαρίζοντος ἄλλοι ἐναντίοι μολπῇ τε ὀρχηϑμῷ τε Ecxarpov. The

poet is also familiar with

dancing

to the accompaniment

of

song. At least, youths dance as Demodocus sings; and in the Making of the Arms a boy plays the cithara while others opposite him frolic in song and dance. * So e.g. Franklin 2013, 220: “the combination of Aitharoidia with nartative content accompanied by dance is already attested in the Demodokos songs of Odyssey 8”.

DANCING

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79

This has been contested, however, since it is not explicitly stated by the poet; according to Garvie, for example, “Demodocus’ song ... should be seen as an interlude in the dancing”.' He argues that “ἀνεβάλλετο (266) suggest that Demodocus’

song marks a new beginning, after the dance has ended”, and that “at 367-8 Odysseus is said to enjoy Demodocus’ song, but there is no mention of the dancers, whereas at 382-4 it is the

other way round”. One the other hand, nothing in the text says that the dancers stop when Demodocus begins to sing; and Odysseus’ appreciation of the song at 367-8 does not illuminate the issue either way, since his appreciation of the

dancers has already been expressed (264-5) and the poet might want

at this juncture to emphasise his particular wonder

at

Demodocus. On the other hand again, if the dancing did continue during the song, it presumably was less exciting than the dancing before the song, which is described in dramatic terms; such high intensity dancing does not seem (at least to

my aesthetic) suitable for the kind of narrative that we find in Demodocus’ tale. Yet no shift of tempo is indicated, and it would be strange for something like this not to be mentioned at all.”

The point remains unclear, and so we must be on our guard against the frequent references to this passage that simply state that the dancing accompanies the song without indicating that

this is not stated explicitly and is a far from compelling inference. Whether or not the singing accompanies the dancing, there is nevertheless a strong association between them, since

they take place in the same place as part of the same occasion, and both excite Odysseus’ wonder. Alcinous himself twice connects the two, in his phrases xiBaetc te χοροί te (248) and καὶ ὀρχηςτυῖΐῖ καὶ ἀοιδῇ (253).

In the days of analytic scholarship it was once argued that Demodocus’ song is an interpolation, although I am unaware * Garvie 1994, 291. So also West 2014, 135: Demodocus’ song “does not combine with the dancing, as if the dancers were accompanying it with mimetic movements”.

* Thus D’Alfonso 1994, 45.

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of any scholars who entertain such a possibility today.’ More recently Martin West has argued that this episode is an in-

terpolation by the poet himself.* It is a fascinating idea that we may be in a position to observe the compositional of the poet of the Odyssey. If West is right -- though would be hard to prove - we learn more about the of the Odyssey as we have it. But it makes no difference

process his case creation to how

we interpret the performance that takes place in the episode. Even if the song had originally been conceived by the poet as

a separate work, we do not know how he envisaged its performance should be imagined in that different context. And once he slotted it into the Demodocus episode, he would have known that the manner of its performance as understood by the audience of the poem would be determined by the poem as it was now fashioned; he could not have expected an audience to deduce that a part of book eight was a later addition, and on that basis to come to a conclusion about an aspect of the work that was not evident from the text as a whole. West goes on to say: “So evidence for a soloist with a

cithara accompanying non-singing dancers but singing himself reduces to that sentence in the Suda about the origin of Stesichorus’ name”,’ but that is far from the only possible interpretation of the Suda passage.* Nevertheless, he does not * Thiersch 1821, 63-9. For subsequent discussion see D’Alfonso 1994, 42-8.

* West 2014, 135 (the Odyssey poet “has seen fit to prolong the enter-

tainment by inserting a complete song from his own repertoire”); 2015, 79-80; Finglass-Kelly 2015b, 14 remark that this idea is “bound to elicit further discussion”. 3 West 2015, 80. 4 So in the view of Power 2010, 236, the Suda’s statement “communicates, in reductive terms, the fact that Stesichorus had ‘choralized’ - or,

given its distant origins in choral song and dance, ‘rechoralized’ — the kitharöidia of his day. That is, he was among the first to marry the ambitious musical techniques, including the use of a technically advanced concert Kithara, as well as the more Panhellenically oriented, long-form heroic narratives of the citharodic nomoi to the triadic song-and-dance format of choral mousiké, which previously had drawn largely from epichoric heroic and cultic traditions, as we see in the fragments of Alcman”. At any rate, we do not need to take the Suda’s statement as an uncontestable claim that Stesichorus was a citharode who sang to the accompaniment of dancers.

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tule it out as the medium of performance used by Stesichorus, pointing to the χοροί that he mentioned as a feature of Sparta,

and noting that this may therefore have reflected the occasion when he performed there. He refers, however, to fr. S166, 31 PMGF, which is generally regarded as a poem by Ibycus, not Stesichorus.' West has recently restated his case in favour of attributing this poem to Stesichorus, and has persuaded Simon

Hornblower’ and (at least in part) Christopher Pelling,? but in my view the evidence remains on the side of Ibycean authorship.* Whatever view we take of that question, the mention of

χοροί does not imply choral performance for that poem; nor does West place weight on the point. We turned to Odyssey book eight because Wilamowitz be-

lieved that it provided a model for the delivery of Stesichorus’ poems. We now see that it is not clear which style of performance is actually described there; and although other passages in epic certainly portray dance accompanied by a

singer, they do not involve narrative myth, and so are not comparable to Stesichorus’ case.’ So if we do posit that Stesichorus was a solo singer of mythological narrative accompa-

nied by a silent, dancing chorus, we must admit that there is no archaic parallel for such an arrangement. This is not an enticing prospect, and it seems preferable to retain the hypothesis that his poetry was performed by a chorus that both sang and danced. Over the past couple of generations, the case against choral performance has been made from a different angle, stimulated by the publication of POxy 2617 in 1967.° That papyrus revealed that Stesichorus’ Geryoneis contained at least 1,300 lines.’ * West 1969, 142-9 = 2011-13, II 98-106 (with supplementary note on p. 106). See West 2015, 70 with n. 19 for an account of the positions taken by scholars, which I supplement in the next two notes below.

* Hornblower 2015, 234 (on 503-68); 196 (on 354). 3 Pelling 2015 (“the odds seem to me about 50-50” between the two

authors). 4 See Finglass 2017. > For the passages in question see D’Alfonso 1994, 46-7. 6 Lobel 1967. 7 We know this thanks to a stichometric letter

lines of the papyrus (= Stes. fr. 25, 36 F.).

N opposite one of the

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This information should have been less remarkable than it was, that two the

since it was already known from the quoted fragments both Stesichorus’ Helen and his Oresteia contained (at least) books, and thus quite possible a line total somewhere in low thousands.’ But it prompted Spencer Barrett, in an

influential paper delivered the following year at the Triennial conference of the Hellenic and Roman

Societies, to make the

following declaration: And now I would like first to say very briefly something that I have felt for a long time and become convinced of after working on these fragments: that I do not believe for a moment that this was choral lyric, as it has so often been said to be. Choral presentation of a work of this kind and this length would surely be intolerable. It will have been delivered, surely, like the epic on which

it is based, by a single performer, accompanying himself doubtless on the lyre.* So too Martin

West a

little later argued

as follows,

in the

context of a longer discussion of how Stesichorus’ poems were performed: Modern

writers

assume

almost

universally

that

since

Stesicho-

tus composed in triads, he wrote for a chorus. ‘The assumption is

groundless .. ., and our new knowledge of the length of his poems makes it all the more troublesome.’ Malcolm Davies in his discussion of choral and monodic po-

etry took a similar view: Perhaps the most important consequence

of our increased knowl-

edge of this poet is the growing perception that in the light of his epic-style and immensely long narrative poems he is unlikely to have been a choral lyric . The perpetual association of him with

Homer in antiquity points in the direction of monody.* * See Finglass 2014a, 19. * Barrett 1968, 22-3. Although Barrett’s paper was not published until 2007, it had, and has, a great impact on all subsequent Stesichorean scholarship by influencing the ideas of those who did disseminate their ideas in writing. 3 West 1971, 309 = 2011-13, 11 89. I agree with West that triadic composition proves nothing about performance either way.

4 Davies 1988, 53.

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In the course of her discussion of Pindaric performance, Mary Lefkowitz argues that Stesichorus’ poetry was delivered by a soloist accompanied by dancers:' The type of performance in which a bard’s song is accompanied by dancing seems particularly suitable for longer poems that could not easily be recited by a choir, like Stesichorus’ long lyric poem about Oedipus’ family, or his Geryoneis. Since ancient scholars characterize Stesichorus as a soloist in the Homeric tradition, the choros in his

name ... signifies not choir, but dance ... That the term stesichoros refers to the dance is shown by a verse inscription on a red-figured vase, where Muses or Graces are said to be “leading ... a hymn that sets that dance going” (ctyctyopov ὕμνον &yorcar);” Beazley, in his notes on this inscription, compared the opening lines of Pindar’s Pythian 1, where dancers listen to the phorminx, and the singers (aoidoi) obey the opening bars of the “preludes that lead the dance” (ἁγηοιχόρων προοιμίων).

Another voice was more sceptical of this trend, however: Stesichorus’ name itself might make you think that his songs were choral. However,

late twentieth-century opinion is sceptical about

choral performance for long Stesichorean narratives such as the Geryoneis, and imagines the poet as a kitharodos, singing and accompanying himself, while the röle of the chorus, if there was one, would

have been limited to dancing. This position should never have come to dominate, and D’Alfonso’s Stesicoro e la performance . . . treats it with the scepticism it deserves. +

Rutherford is referring to D’Alfonso 1994, a book-length discussion of the question of Stesichorean performance which favouts the choral hypothesis; this publication and Cingano 1993 * Lefkowitz 1988, 2-3 = 1991, 192-3. * This phrase is found on a papyrus roll from a school scene on an

Attic kylix from Naucratis in the style of Duris, from the first half of the fifth century (Lyr. Adesp. fr. 938(¢) PMG), a colour image of which can be found on the dust jacket of Finglass, Kelly 2015. But the translation “leading the hymn that sets up the chorus” (as given on the back flap of that dust jacket) seems equally possible, with the hymn personified as the leader not just of one aspect of the chorus’s activity, but of the whole chorus itself. 3 Beazley 1948, 338. 4 Rutherford 1999, 555.

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have been influential on subsequent Italian scholarship, but have not yet had as wide an impact as they deserve, especially

in Anglo-Saxon scholarship, which regrettably often overlooks works in languages other than English. Nearly half a century has passed since Barrett delivered his paper, and yet in the meantime scholars who agree with him have not attempted to flesh out exactly why and how it is

impossible for a chorus to coordinate the performance of a long sung lyric. So much is uncertain here that it seems inappropriate to pronounce a sure verdict. How many performers were there? A relatively small group might have been easier to coordinate; on the other hand, a larger body would have afforded more opportunities for performers to rest, as different subsections took over the singing and dancing to provide res-

pite for their fellows and variation for the audience. Perhaps a non-dancing soloist -- maybe

Stesichorus himself -- was in-

volved in the delivery; perhaps individual parts corresponding to the words of different characters were assigned to individual chorus-members. Was Stesichorus accompanied on his travels' by a troupe of professional chorus-members who would

learn the lyric and dance moves for each song, or did he train (‘set up’) a local chorus in each city that he visited?* Or did he have with him a few professional choral performers who embedded themselves among a predominantly local group to raise the overall level of performance while keeping Stesicho-

rus’ expenses lower than if he had brought an entire chorus with him? Did Stesichorus’ practice in this regard change over time, as he became more of a star and more wealthy, and thus better able to afford to transport his own chorus? How complicated were the dance moves and (if the choruses sang) the * For Stesichorus as a travelling poet see Finglass 2014a, 23-9. * Burkert 1987, 51-2 = 2001-11, I 209-11 = Cairns 2001, 106-8 argues for mobile choruses; Carey 2015, 51 n. 24 calls this “an unnecessary refinement”, claiming that “with the exception of theoric performance the norm seems to be a combination of external poet and local chorus”.

Note however the travelling chorus from Messana referred to by Pausanias, mentioned above.

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lyrics that had to be mastered by the performers?’ How

long

did they have to learn them? Were there pauses between sections of the song, and if so, how long were they? We cannot answer any of these questions for certain. Yet all

of them impact on the ability of a chorus, whatever its composition, to undertake the performance of a substantial lyric song. The one genre where lengthy choral song did feature is

not promising for those who would deny choral performance of Stesichorus’ poetry, as Anne Pippin Burnett points out: we are ... ignorant about the limits of choral endurance. We are told that 1,500 lines would have been beyond the performance pow-

ers of a group of moving singers, but this is mere assertion. What we know

is that an Attic chorus could dance up to 2,000 lines in

a tragic day, and then go on to the exertions of the satyr band ... Indeed, given a very long song, it is as easy to suppose moving performers

as a single stationary one, for an untrammeled

dancer

. whose voice had only to join those of his companions, would hardly have envied a citharode who had to stand or sit for hours, singing at the top of his voice and playing on his heavy instrument. And, finally, we know of no occasion in the early West to which an extended static aria would have been appropriate, whereas there

were many Western festivals demanding the danced music associated with public cult.’

We

might add that although the chorus of tragedy was not

singing for a thousand lines and more at a time, they had far more metrical forms to memorise for their songs, and consequently far more choreography to master.

All these imponderables render unsatisfactory the claim that because Stesichorus’ poems were long, they must have been

performed by a soloist, either without choral participation or with a silent, dancing chorus. To make that confident an assertion, we would need answers to the above questions that

clearly excluded the possibility of choral involvement. Without such answers, we are left with the evidence discussed at * The mettes, at least, are on the whole much

less complicated than

those of Pindar and the tragedians (see Finglass 2014a, 47-52); it is a plausible if unprovable hypothesis that the lyrics and dance moves were

simpler too.

* Burnett 1988, 132-3.

86

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the beginning of this chapter -- evidence that existed long before the discovery of the papyri, and which retains its value today. And among this evidence is the name that is perhaps the most eloquent testimony to the choral dance and choral song through which, in my view, his poetry was depicted: Στηοίχοροο. ABBREVIATIONS Adler CEG Ercoles F. Holwerda

Adler A. (ed.), 1928-38: Suidae Lexicon 1-v, Leipzig. Hansen P. A. (ed.), 1983-89: Carmina Epigraphica Graeca 1-11, Berlin-New York. Ercoles M. (ed.), 2013: Stesicoro. Le testimonianze antiche, Bologna. Finglass P. J. (ed.), 2014: Text and critical apparatus, in Davies-Finglass 2014, 93-205. Holwerda D. (ed.), 1982: Scholia in Aristophanem τι. Scholia in Vespas, Pacem, Aves et Lysistraiam; Fasc. ΤΙ, continens

Scholia vetera et recentiora in Aristophanis Pacem, Groningen. Latte

Latte K. (ed.), 1953-66: Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon [A-O

M.-W.

only] 1-11, Copenhagen. Merkelbach R. - West M. L. (eds.), 1967, 1990: Fragmenta Hesiodea, Oxford, supplemented in Fragmenta selecta, ap. F. Solmsen (ed.), Hesiodi Theogonia Opera et Dies Scutum’,

Oxford. PCG

Kassel R. - Austin C. (eds.), 1983-2001: Graeci 1-vit1, Berlin-New York.

Poetae

Comici

PMG

Page D. L. (ed.), 1967: Postae Melici Graeci, Oxford 1962,

PMGF

Davies

corrected reprint.

SEG

M.

(ed.), 1991-: Postarum Melicorum

Graecorum

Fragmenta ı to date, Oxford. Hondius J. J. E. ef alii (eds.), 1923-: Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum ı-ıxı to date, Leiden-AmsterdamBoston.

S.-M.

Snell B. - Maehler H. (eds.), 1987-9: Pindari Carmina

Thurn

cum Fragmentis 1-11, Leipzig, and ide (eds.), 1970: Bacchylides, Leipzig. Thurn H. (ed.), 2000: Joannis Malalae Chronographia, Berlin-New York.

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LITERATURE

Barrett W. S., 1968: Szesichoros and the Story of Geryon, lecture at the Oxford Triennial, in W. S. Barrett, 2007: Greek Lyric, Tragedy, and

Textual Criticism. Collected Papers, assembled and edited by M. L. West, Oxford, 1-24, the pagination of which I cite.

Beazley J. D., 1948: Hymn to Hermes, AJA 52/3, 336-40. Bentley R., 1691: Epistola Richardi Bentleii ad Cl. V. Io. Millium S.T.P., in Joannis Antiocheni cognomento Malalae Historia

Chronica,

Oxford. Burkert W., 1987: The Making of Homer in the Sixth Century B.C.: Rhapsodes versus Stesichoros, in M. True (ed.): Papers on the Amasis Painter and his World. Colloquium Sponsored by the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities and Symposium Sponsored by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, 43-62 [= 2001-11, I 198-217 = Cairns 2001 (ed.), 92-116].

Burkert W., 2001-11: Kleine Schriften 1-v111, Göttingen. Burnett A. P., 1988: Jocasta in the West. The Lille Stesichorus, CA 7/2,

107-54. Cairns D. L., 2001 (ed.): Oxford Readings in Homer’s liad, Oxford.

Carey C., 2015: Stesichorus and the Epic Cycle, in P. J. Finglass - A. Kelly (eds.), Stesichorus in Context, Cambridge, 45-62. Cingano E., 1990: L’opera di Ibico e di Stesicoro nella classificazione degli antichi e dei moderni, AION(filol) 12, 189-224.

Cingano E., 1993: Indizi di esecuzione corale in Stesicoro, in R. Pretagostini (ed.), Tradizione e innovazione nella cultura greca da Omero all’eia ellenistica. Scritti in onore di Bruno Gentili 1, Roma, 347-61. Curtis P., 2011: Stesichoros’s Geryoneis, Leiden-Boston. D’Alessio G., 2013: “The Name of the Dithyramb” . Diachronic and Diatopic Variations, in B. Kowalzig - P. Wilson (eds.), Dithyramb in Context, Oxford, 113-32.

D’Alfonso F., 1994: Stesicoro e la performance. Studio sulle modalita esecutive dei carmi stesicorei, Roma. Davies M., 1988: Monody, Choral Lyric, and the Tyranny of the HandBook, CQ 38/1, 52-64.

Davies M. - Finglass P. J., 2014: Stesichorus. The Poems, Cambridge. Eidinow E., 2007: Oracles, Curses, and Risk among the Ancient Greeks,

Oxford. Finglass P. J., 2007: Sophocles. Electra, Cambridge. Finglass P. J., 2014a: Introduction, in M. Davies - P. J. Finglass (eds.), Stesichorus. The Poems, Cambridge, 1-91.

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Finglass P. J., 2014b: Text and Critical Apparatus, in M. Davies - P. J. Finglass 2014, 93-205. Finglass P. J., 2017: Lbycus or Stesichorus? Fr. Sı66 Page, ZPE

202,

19-28.

Finglass

P. J., (forthcoming):

Stesichorus and Greek

tragedy,

in R.

Andtüjar - T. R. P. Coward - T. Hadjimichael (eds.), Paths of Song. Interactions Between Lyric and Tragic Poetry.

Finglass P. J. - Kelly A., 2015a (eds.): Stesichorus in Context, Cambridge. Finglass, P. J. - Kelly, A. 2015b: The State of Stesichorean Studies, in P. J. Finglass, A. Kelly 20154, 1-17. Fisher N. R. E., 2010: Kharis, Kharites, Festivals, and Social Peace in the Classical Greek City, in R. M. Rosen - I. Sluiter (eds.), Valuing Others in Classical Antiquity, Leiden-Boston, 71-112.

Franklin J. C., 2013: “Songbenders of Circular Choruses” : Dithyramb and the “ Demise of Music”, in B. Kowalzig - P. Wilson (eds.), Dithyramb in Context, Oxford, 213-36.

Furley W. D. - Bremer J. M., 2001: Greek Hymns. Selected Cult Songs from the Archaic to the Hellenistic Period 1-11, Tübingen. Garvie A. F., 1994: Homer. Odyssey, Books vi-vi11, Cambridge. Haugen K. L., 2011: Richard Bentley. Poetry and Enlightenment, Cam-

bridge ma-London. Hornblower S., 2004: Thucydides and Pindar. Historical Narrative and the World of Epinikian Poetry, Oxford. Hornblower S., 2015: Lykophron. Alexandra, Oxford. Jordan D. R., 2007: An Opisthographic Lead Tablet from Sicily with a Financial Document and a Curse Concerning Choregoi, in P. Wilson (ed.), The Greek Theatre and Festivals, Oxford, 335-50. Kleine O. F., 1828: Stesichori Himerensis fragmenta, Berlin. Lefkowitz M., 1988: Who Sang Pindar’s Victory Odes?, AJP 109/1, 1-11 [= 1991, 191-201]. Lefkowitz M., 1991: First-Person Fictions. Pindar’s Poetic “I”, Oxford. Lloyd-Jones H., 1995: Review of Pretagostini 1993 (ed.), CR 45/2, 417-27

[= 2005, 398-411].

Lloyd-Jones H., 2005: The Further Academic Papers of Sir Hugh LloydJones, Oxford. Lobel E., 1967: 2617. Stesichorus, I ’ngvovnic?, and Other Pieces?, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 32, 1-29.

Morgan K. A., 2012: A Prolegomenon to Performance in the West, in K. Bosher (ed.), Theater Outside Athens. Drama in Greek Sicily and South Italy, Cambridge, 35-55.

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Pelling Ch., 2015: Review of Finglass and Kelly 2015, Classics for All Reviews 2015-08-11. Power T., 2010: The Culture of Kitharöidia (Hellenic Studies Series 15),

Cambridge MA-London. Pretagostini R., 1993 (ed.): Zradizione ¢ innovazione nella cultura greca da Omero all’eta ellenistica. Scritti in onore di Bruno Gentili 1-111, Roma.

Rutherford I. C., 1999: Review of D’Alfonso 1994, CR 49/2, 555-6. Rutherford I. C., 2001: Pindar’s Pacans. A

Reading of the Fragments

with a Survey of the Genre, Oxford. Thiersch B., 1821: Urgestalt der Odyssee oder Beweis, daß die homerischen Gesänge zu großen Partisen interpolirt sind, Königsberg. Wachter R., 1991: The Inscriptions on the Frangois Vase, MH 48, 86-113. West M. L., 1969: Stesichorus redivivus, ZPE 4, 135-49 [= 2011-13, II 98-106]. West M. L., 1971: Stesichorus, CQ 21 (2), 302-14 [= 2011-13, II 78-97]. West M. L., 2011-13: Hellenica. Selected Papers on Greek Literature and Thought 1-111, Oxford. West M. L., 2014: The Making of the Odyssey, Oxford. West M. L., 2015: Epic, Lyric, and Lyric Epic, in P. J. Finglass - A. Kelly (eds.), Szesichorus in Context, Cambridge, 63-80. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff U. von, 1905: Lesefriichte, Hermes 40, 11653 [= 1935-72, IV 169-207]. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff U. von, 1913: Sappho und Simonides. Untersuchungen über griechische Lyriker, Berlin.

Wilamowitz-Moellendorff U. von, 1935-72: Kleine Schriften 1-v1, many editors, Berlin-Amsterdam. Wilson P., 2007: Sicilian Choruses, in idem (ed.), The Greek Theatre and Festivals, Oxford, 351-77.

4. A DANCE OF DEATH. EVIDENCE ABOUT A TRAGIC DANCE OF MOURNING’ LAURA

GIANVITTORIO In memory of Mrs Elisabetta Profeta

1.

A

CHOREOGRAPHY TEXTUAL

OF

MOURNING:

EVIDENCE

Persians 1046 and Seven 854-60 T

HERE is a curious moment at Persians 1046, in the middle of a kommos, when Xerxes instructs the chorus to row:? 5")

EDPEOO

»ν

EPEODGE

KAL

x

i

στέναζ

>

>

x

ἐμὴν

i

χᾶριν

row, row and groan for my sake. Since beating the breast and the head is a typical expression

of grief, often performed in tragedy on various occasions of mourning,’ the most common suggestion is that ἐρέσσω is a metaphor for “to beat the head or the chest”.* Relying on this, Garvie holds that the verb does not necessarily imply any dance

* Towe many thanks to Eric Csapo, Frederick Naerebout, Alan Som-

merstein, and Alan Shapiro for their very insightful and helpful remarks on this paper.

* For Aeschylus’ plays I follow the text edition of Sommerstein 2008. 3 E.g. Aesch. Cho. 23-31; 423-9; Pers. 1056; fr. 45th Radt (7rGF τη); Soph. Aj. 310 and 634; El. 89 f.; OC 1609; Eur. Ale. 768; Suppl. 772; Andr. 825-32; Tro. 279 f.; Or. 963 (for further examples see Hutchinson 1985, 188). Lonsdale 1993, 242 f. provides for a religious-anthropological interpretation of such gestures; for iconographic analyses see Neumann 1965, 85-9; Ahlberg 1971, 261-7; Catoni 2005, 182 ff.; Jaeggi 2011. Sources record attempts to limit the outspokenness of lamentation: see Shapiro

1991, 630 f.; Lonsdale 1993, 235; Harich-Schwarzbauer 2011, 117 f.; Rutherford 2012, 51 f.

4 See schol. ad loc. πλῆττε σεαυτόν (Massa Positano 1963, 126); similarly Broadhead 1960, 242 f.; Hutchinson 1985, 188; Belloni 1988, 249; etc.

EVIDENCE

ABOUT

A

TRAGIC

DANCE

OF

MOURNING

91

performance,’ and some scholars even argue that ἐρέσσω is used here simply due to its assonance with ἀράσσω at v. 1054.” Such explanations are not quite convincing. It is true that

the arm movements performed in rowing resemble in some way the beating of the chest (less so the beating of the head). However, there are no other documented uses of ἐρέσσω as meaning “to beat the chest or the head”, nor are lexemes indicating the beating of the chest and of the head - for example τύπτω, TANTTO, κόπτω / κτύπος, ἀράσσω, δουπέω etc. — usually replaced by any metaphor in other tragic expressions of grief. Furthermore, the context in which ἐρέσσω occurs contains many allusions to seafaring (vv. 950-52, 963-65, 975-77, 1011 f., 1029, 1037, 1075). This all suggests that we should understand ἐρέσσω literally as “to row”, rather than metaphorically as “to beat the chest or the head”. Another similar use of ἐρέσσω leads us to the same conclusion. At Seven against Thebes 855, the chorus says to ἐρέσσειν

while performing a dance of mourning (Sept. 854-60): ἀλλὰ γόων, ὦ φίλαι, κατ᾽ οὖρον ἐρέσσετ᾽ ἀμφὶ κρατὶ πόμπιμον χεροῖν πίτυλον, ὃς αἰὲν δι᾽ ᾿Αχέροντ᾽ ἀμείβεται, ἄνοστον μελάγκροκον ναυστολῶν ϑεωρίδα τὰν ἀστιβὴ Παιῶνι, τὰν ἀνάλιον,

πάνδοκον εἰς ἀφανῆ τε χέρσον. But friends, upon the wind of lamentation

row with both hands about your head the regular, escorting stroke of oars, which always alternately resonates across the Acheron, propelling the water-crossers’ sacred ship, which is not to return, black-sailed, towards the invisible, sunless shores that welcome all, on which Apollo Paeon never treads.

* Garvie 2009, ad loc.: “we cannot exclude the possibility that the verb may, as often [see Garvie on Soph. “17. 251-3], describe more loosely the setting in motion of the lamentation”, though at Soph. Aj. 251 ἐρέσσω

is used metaphorically, as the accusativus ἀπειλάς makes clear (see below). ? On such positions see Belloni 1988, 249, with reference to Eur. Tro.

1235-6; see also van Nes 1963, 115.

92

LAURA

GIANVITTORIO

While in Persians the dirge concerns a sea battle, the plot of

Seven does not offer the slightest reason to allude to seafaring. Yet Seven 854-60 also includes repeated seafaring terminology (vv. 854 οὖρον, 856 πίτυλον, 857 μελάγκροχον, 858 ναυστολῶν ϑεωρίδα, 860 χέρσον) with reference to three different sea voyages. Firstly, there is Charon’s rowing across the Acheron towards the Underworld. Secondly, at v. 858 ϑεωρίς recalls the thirty-oared ship (τριακοντόριον) sent annually from Athens to

Delos in order to consult the oracle. And finally, the ritual of the ϑεωρίς was to commemorate

a mythical navigation, that

of the ship which carried seven youths and seven maidens to Crete as a sacrifice to the Minotaur.'

The rowing, oaring, or poling is a /eitmotiv in both literary and iconographical representations of psychai which, with Charon’s help, reach Hades through the river, lake or swamp (Acheron, Styx) that separates the world of the living from the

underworld.* Seven 854-60 makes clear that in tragic mourning the “rowing”

(ἐρέσσω) is symbolically and ritually associated

with the navigation into the realm of death.’ Thus, the verb is likely to indicate not simply the beating of the chest, but rather a movement within a dance of mourning which is meant to

symbolically escort the dead into Hades. * * See the ancient sources quoted by Hutchinson 1985, 189 and Sommerstein 2008, 243 n. 130. For a discussion of these lines see also Dawe 1978, 89 f. * Among the literary representations cf. Eur. Ale. 252-7, 361, 439 ff., 458

f.; HF

425-34.

For

coeval

iconographic

evidence

on

Charon

on

white-ground /ekythoi see Sourvinou-Inwood 1995, 321 ff. 3 Of no relevance to the present discussion is Ag. 1617 f., where Aegisthus refers to the chorus as to someone “sitting down there at the oar”: there is no dance here, and the naval imagery serves to stress the contrast between the tyrant’s power and the subordinated role of the elders. 4 Suitable definitions of dance are formulated by Zarifi-Sistovari 2007 as rhythmic body movement performed with artistic purpose, and by Naerebout 1995-96, 25, as rhythmed and patterned human movement, which is in some way intentionally distinct and made distinguishable from everyday movement and has a communicative function. On the theoretical and methodological problems that arise in defining dance see Naerebout 1997, 155 ff.

EVIDENCE

ABOUT

A

TRAGIC

DANCE

The dirges of Persians and Seven show ties with one other." Both are choral songs end of the oldest surviving tragedies (first and 467 B.C. respectively).* Both mourn

OF

MOURNING

93

consistent similariplaced at the very staged in 472 B.C. dead warriors and

are sung antiphonally: in Persians, there is a Rommos between the chorus and Xerxes, in Seven the chorus separates into two

semi-choruses, thus switching immediately from choral song to an amoibaion.’ Most significant here is that in both dirges the chorus is said to ἐρέσσειν. Moreover, the rowing appears to be performed with a similar dancing rhythm, for it is mentioned within similar metric patterns: lyric passages with a prevalence of iambics,* with ἐρέσσω itself occurring in both cases in an

iambic trimeter.’ This is not to say that the choreographies danced at the end

of Persians and of Seven looked identical. My point is rather that ἐρέσσω indicates two dance performances that have the same religious meaning (to escort the souls to Hades), the same ritual context (the threnodic end of an early tragedy),

distinguishing and somehow rowing-like dance movements, and that they were called the same because they were felt to be of a similar kind. Paratragic allusions Evidence of rowing dances is less striking in later tragedy. Curiously, nonetheless, the nautical term πίτυλος “sweep (of oats)” occurs in Euripides’ Trojan Women 1236 as well as Hippolytus 1464; in both cases, a dramatis persona has just died and

chorus and one actor mourn antiphonally, in the last part of the tragedy.

On the other hand, there are some paratragic moments in Aristophanes that point to the existence of a tragic rowing * On structural parallelisms see Popp 1971, 237; Taplin 1977, 170 ff. * Scholars agree almost unanimously that Sepz. 1005-78 should be regarded as spurious and thus that the tragedy presumably ended with the choral dirge. 3 Vv. 861-74 are spurious and the amoibaion starts at v. 875.

* Popp 1971, 237.

> Also Catullus 4 has iambic trimeters in connection with the rowing.

94

LAURA

GIANVITTORIO

dance, which are imagined to take place in waterscapes or by

watercourses. In Frogs, Aristophanes’ most eminently paratragic piece, Dionysus’ crossing of the swamp towards the Underworld is staged through a comically revisited rowing dance. Though all iconographic evidence portrays Charon as propelling his boat alone, Aristophanes has him ask his passenger Dionysus for help (Frogs 197 ff.). Charon gives him detailed instructions on

how to sit by the oar, how to stretch both arms forward and so forth. Dionysus, however, fulfils such orders improperly from start to finish and is scolded for that (202). The god of tragedy insists that he is “unaccustomed to the sea” (ἀϑαλάττωτος) and “non-Salaminian” (ἀσαλαμίνιος, 204), then, on Dionysus’ request (207), the chorus starts singing as to accompany his

rowing movements:

there can be little doubt that the lyric

dialogue between the frogs and Dionysus was danced by chorus and actor (209-67). Indeed, Dionysus complains the rowing movements cause him much sweat and pain. like the rowing dances that, following my suggestion, place in Persians and Seven, this is also performed during a

both that Just take two-

voice song, with Dionysus (like Xerxes) apparently leading the chorus while dancing. This scene suggests that Aristophanes resorts to paratragedy even in staging through the dance the katabasis of Dionysus, thus parodying that rowing dance which had been traditionally used in tragedy to represent how dead souls descend into Hades.’ The paratragic end of Wasps (1474-1537) also might allude to

the rowing dance, though this evidence is thinner than that of Frogs. Lines 1516 ff. do not mention any rowing movements, but this seems to parody a dance which used to end early tragedies and which was imagined to take place in an aquatic

context. The dancing farce has traditionally been considered * Eupolis’ Demes (probably staged 412 B.C.) also dramatized the ney into Hades of a comic hero who brought distinguished dead from the Underworld on behalf of the city (in this case, it was not but statesmen). However, the surviving fragments show no trace “rowing dance”.

jourback poets of a

EVIDENCE

ABOUT

A

TRAGIC

DANCE

OF

MOURNING

05

as independent from the rest of Wasps; yet, on the contrary, it creates a perfectly balanced Ringkomposition by making the comedy end as paratragically as it began.* As noticed with regard to Seven, in Wasps the imaginary setting also unexpectedly changes into a waterscape by the end of the drama. Three dancers compete on the seashore: they resemble aquatic ani-

mals and are sons of that “Crab” (Karkinos), also nicknamed Yararrıog (1519), who served his city both as a tragedian and an admiral.’ Rossi holds that since the dance patterns are described in recitative passages (and not in lyric ones), the σχήματα could not be performed as a unified dance sequence, that is as continuous movements, but as a pantomime-like sequence of discrete, stat-

ic positions.* However, it is doubtful that dance would take place only during lyric passages,’ for this would imply among other things that at the iambic trimeters of vv. 1500-15 the dancers do not come onto the stage dancing. Moreover, the * Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1935, 298 f. * Wright 2013 offers a very insightful and, for our purposes, helpful analysis of the paratragedy in Wasps. On the comically solemn language of this passage see Rau 1967, 155 f. 3 On the identity of Karkinos and his sons see MacDowell 1971, 326: “K. [...] was one of the 3 generals commanding an Athenian fleet which made attacks on the Peloponnesian coast in 431 (Thuc. 2. 23. 2 [= TrGF 1, p. 131 T6 Snell], /G i* 296. 30-40 [= TrGF 1, p. 131 Ts Snell]). [...] it may possibly have been because of his success as an admiral that

he was nicknamed ϑαλάττιος (1519, Plat. com. 134 [= TrGF 1, p. 130 3c Snell])’. MacDowell’s thesis that it was actually Karkinos’ sons (and not just their characters) who danced for Aristophanes does not convince: see Sommerstein 1983, ad loc. Sommerstein also argues on the basis of several allusions to the shortness of Karkinos’ sons (Wasps 1513; Peace 790; cf. Pherecr. fr. 15 PCG) that the dancers had to be young boys. 4 Rossi 1978; similarly Catoni 2005, 144 ff. > Rossi’s theory would also imply that choruses generally entered the orchestra without any dance in anapestic parodoi, which seems highly unlikely. If we understand “dance” as any rhythmic body movement performed with artistic purpose (see above, p. 92 n. 4), many kinds of dance can be performed even without lyric metres (as occurs in several Eastern theatrical traditions), so that the possibility of dance during recitative passages in Greek drama should not be excluded. Moreover, at the end of Wasps, dance could also be performed affer the recitative verses during purely instrumental music interludes.

96

LAURA

GIANVITTORIO

words that introduce the performance, σχήματος

ἀρχή

(1485),

imply a dynamic dance movement undergoing change, since a motionless σχῆμα would have no “beginning” at all.’ For these reasons, I am convinced that this performance is a dance, and not a series of static positions. Is it possible to formulate hypotheses about which tragic dance is parodied here? The tragic style mocked throughout

Wasps is a fairly old-fashioned one:* the protagonist Philocleon - an old man himself - loves to sing Phrynichus’ dated songs (317-33)? and continues through silences (741 ff.) that Aristophanes considers as typical for Aeschylus’ characters (Ran. 911-20); the chorus, as old as Philocleon, sings what probably is a para-phrynichean song (273-90) and identifies with the Marathon generation; finally, there are explicit references to Thespis (1479) and foremost to Phrynichus (219 f.; 269 f.), who is also mentioned in the introduction to the dancing farce (1490-6).* Considering the general target of Wasps’ paratragedy, it is probable that the dancing farce concluding this comedy

parodied a choreography that was imagined as being typical of the close of Phrynichean tragedy, roughly coeval with Persians and Seven; and of course, choral dances concluding old tragedies were usually of mourning. Indeed, as it has been recently suggested, “[nlot only it is possible that Aristophanes’ jurors have seen the first productions of Phrynichus’ plays, but [... ] * The interpretation of σχῆμα as a motionless dance figure is also jeopardized by uses of σχηματίζω

as a synonym of

ὁὀρχέομαι, ᾿ινέομαι, χορεύω,

eg. At. Pax 318- -36. Cf. Xen. Symp. 2, 15 f.: ἐκ τούτου ὁ παῖς ὠρχήσατο. nat 6

Σωχράτης

καλλίων

εἶπεν:

φαίνεται

εἴδετ᾽ » ἣ

ὅταν

ἔφη,

ὡς

ἡσυχίαν

τὸν ὀρχηστοδιδάσκαλον.

καλὸς ἔχῃ; > καὶ

On σχῆμα

6

TALS ὁ

ὧν

ὅμως

Χαρμίδης

σὺν

εἶπεν:

τοῖς

σχήμασιν

ἐπαινοῦντι

as implying movement

ἔτι

ἔοικας

see Peponi

in

this volume, pp. 229-31. * Aristophanes keeps the promise of sparing Euripides as the usual scapegoat of his paratragedy, cf. Vesp. 61 οὐδ᾽ αὖϑις ἐνασελγαινόμενος Εὐριπίδης.

3 On the identity of Phrynichus see Borthwick 1968, 44 f. Philocleon sings this short monody in spite of his poor voice (Vesp. 317 f.): see Vetta 2007.

4 Vesp.

1490-6 has been related to Phrynichus fr. 17 Sn. (TGF

1):

ἔπτηξ᾽ ἀλέκτωρ δοῦλον ὡς κλίνας πτερόν. On the authenticity of this frag-

ment see Snell 1986, ad loc.

EVIDENCE

ABOUT

A

TRAGIC

DANCE

OF

MOURNING

97

they could have also performed in them, as Phrynichus’ chorus

members”.' A possible explanation for the abrupt change of the imaginary setting into a waterscape, as well as for the several allusions to the sea and the paratragic dance closing of mourning that, according and Seven, which, by the time

to aquatic animals, would be that Wasps parodies the rowing dance to my assumptions, closes Persians of Aristophanes’ Wasps (422 B.C.)

were definitely considered old-fashioned.* ‘Eoéoow as a choreographic indication The metric similarities of both passages in which ἐρέσσω occurs in Persians and Seven, the similar location of both choral songs at the very end of each tragedy, their common func-

tion of mourning for important military casualties, the shared nautical terminology, the sudden change of the imaginary setting into a waterscape, and finally the paratragic allusions in Aristophanes, all strongly suggest that in both cases ἐρέσσω indicates some kind of rowing dance (not simply the beating of the chest). ’ From the textual evidence discussed above it results that the dance indicated by ἐρέσσω was a choral dance of mourning which sought to re-enact symbolically the action of rowing and was typically placed at the end of early tragedies, where

the most spectacular choral performances of mourning usually * Nervegna 2014, 170. * Further evidence of paratragedy in comedy is too scant to provide any relevant information. Ar. fr. 696 PCG parodically refers to the choral

dances

of Aeschylus’

Phrygians, where

Priamus

and the chorus

certainly mourned Hector: this could have been a suitable situation for a “rowing dance”. More generally, for paratragedy in comedy see Silk 1993, 477 1. 2; Griffith 2013, 85 f. 3 Henrichs, 1994-1995 does not include Pers. 1046 and Sept. 855 in his study of choral dances. Lawler 1944, 31 is the only scholar who ever held (although briefly and without circumstantial arguments) that these passages refer to what she calls a “mariner dance”. However, she attaches to this dance an either burlesquing or dignifying character (the possibility of a mourning dance remains out of her consideration) and identifies it, quite imaginatively, with the xereuorns-dance (cf. Ath. 14, 629f; Naerebout 1997, 287).

98

LAURA

GIANVITTORIO

took place. The beating of the chest as well as other gestures

of mourning’ may well be part - maybe even the ritual origin - of such a rowing dance, but the allusion to Charon’s journey (Sepz. 854-60), the consistent nautical terminology, and the simulation of a waterscape as a dancing space suggest that the similarities with the rowing had to be rather conspicuous. The emphasis several sources place on the mimetic character of ancient dances confirms this hypothesis, for dancers are often said to imitate human or animal actions.* To choose an example from Aeschylus, the dancing oynuata called σκωπεύματα

(Aesch. fr. 79 R. [/rGF 111]) allegedly imitated “peering” and “searching of the horizon”.’ As such, it is reasonable to assume

that the dance designated by ἐρέσσω displayed similarities with the action of rowing. On these premises,

a closer

semantic

analysis

of ἐρέσσω

may provide insights into the rowing dance. Chiefly a tragic verb, * ἐρέσσω typically indicates a vigorous motion of the up* See below for the valediction gesture. * Xen. An. 6, 1, 5-13; Plut. Ouaest. conv. 747b-c; Ath. 1, 21f-22a as well

as 14, 628d and ff., according to whom a good dance always reflects the lyrics of the corresponding song. Weege 1926, 31-136 considers many of the dances he discusses to be mimetic. On the pyrrhic dance as imitating fighting actions see the sources quoted by Zarifi-Sistovari 2007, 229. Of course, there is no evidence that the totality of Greek dance was mimetic (see Ley 2007, 165). 3 Ath. 14, 629f; Poll. 4, 103; Hesych. Lex. s.v. σκωπευμάτων (σ 1218) and ὑπόσκοπον χέρα (u 739). On other (hypothetical) animal dances see Lawler 1939 and 1952; on dance names as describing characteristic movements or attitudes of the dancers see examples in Weege 1926, 31-136; ZarifiSistovari 2007, 242. The ancient habit of naming dances after the actions they are supposed to imitate is in striking contrast with some modern practices, as explained by the following anecdote by a contemporary dancer: “William Forsythe names a phrase that he choreographed ‘Tuna’ not because it reminded him of the fish but because we used that phrase

to create endless improvisations on, and when cooking, everyone knows that ‘tuna goes with everything” (from Ch. Ciupke’s and A. Till’s art exhibition: Undo, redo and repeat. Ein Tanzfonds Erbe Projekt. Heidelberger Kunstverein, May 17-August 3° 2014). 4 In prose and in comedy we usually find “to push the oar” (ἐλαύνω). On the uses of ἐρέσσω see van Nes 1963, 116; on fragmentary Eur. Hyps. fr. 8, 8 = 753c, 14 Kn. (TrGFv

2), cf. Kannicht 2004, ad loc.

EVIDENCE

ABOUT

A

TRAGIC

DANCE

OF

MOURNING

99

per limbs (arms or wings)’ which is performed repeatedly, rather uniformly, and not necessarily quickly.” In addition to “to row”, it also means “to agitate” or “to move”, as said for example of birds flapping their wings. In both meanings, ἐρέσσω implies simultaneous movements of both upper limbs.’ Moreover, it is prevalently used with plural subjects* or with collective singular ones: it is not one but several men, birds

and so forth that “row” or “flap their wings”.’ Thus, ἐρέσσω indicates a fundamentally “choral” movement performed by the whole group as one single body, again and again, and beating to the time: exactly as the oarsmen of a ship. Con-

sidering the “rowing dance” within this semantic context, all dancers can be expected to perform the same arm movements

synchronically, repeatedly, and rhythmically. It is quite impossible to know whether it was Aeschylus who first used the “rowing dance” and/or its designation through * For ἐρέσσω

as performed with arms e.g. Hom.

Od. 12, 444 and 14,

351; Soph. Phil. 1135; Eur. Tro. 1257 f.; with wings e.g. Aesch. Ag. 52; Eur. IT 288 f.; Ion 161; Anth. Pal. 7, 202 (Anyte); with feet e.g. Eur. ZA 139. Metaphorical

uses of ἐρέσσω

are at Soph. Anz.

158 (cf. μῆτιν); Ay.

251 (cf. ἀπειλάς); Phil. 1135 with reference to the handling of the bow (an activity which involves one outstretched arm and the bending of the other). Accessory movements (e.g. προσπίπτω at Hom. Od. 9, 490 and 12, 194; στροφοδινέομαι at Aesch. Ag. 51 f.) and directions (e.g. εἰς + aecusativus at Hom. Od. 13, 279 and 15, 497) are seldom specified.

* Quick ships like the triremes owed their high speed (e.g. Ken. An. 6, 4, 2; Thuc. 3, 49, 2 ff.) to the number of the rowers, not to a frantic rowing pace. ἐρέσσω can indicate slow movements even with reference to

the wings of flying birds, as for the big birds of prey of Aesch. Ag. 52. 3 Contra Broadhead 1960 on Pers. 1046: “first one hand and then the other striking”.

* E.g. Hom. 1. 1, 4353 9, 3613 Od. 9, 733 9, 490; 12, 194; 13, 2793 15,

497; Aesch. Sept. 855; Ag. 52; Soph. Ay. 251; Eur. Tro. 1258. 5 E.g. Hom. Od. 11, 78 (μετ᾽ ἐμοῖϊσ᾽ ἑτάροισιν); Aesch. Pers. 1046 (the

subject is the chorus); Eur. /T 289 (the subject is one of the Erinyes); Ion 161 (the subject is one of the birds). The only classical occurrences I could find of a singular voice of ἐρέσσω as “to row” are Aesch. Suppl. 723, though the verb is here passive and the ship (which is the subject) is rowed by many men, and Soph. Trach. 561 (which is actually with a negation: Nessus does not row); further singular occurrences mean “to agitate” or “to move hastily”, e.g. Aesch. Suppl. 541; Soph. Phil. 1135; Eur. ZA 139.

100

LAURA

GIANVITTORIO

ἐρέσσω. He may have inherited both from another chorodidaskalos, or he could have inherited only the choreography and then re-labelled it through ἐρέσσω to highlight the similarities

with the rowing.’ In any case, later sources record that Aeschylus (and Phrynichus) created a number of σχήματα deyno-

tixa,* and Aristophanes’ praise of their choruses confirms this evidence as reliable. Finally, it is interesting that, as Aeschylus probably plays Xerxes’ role, it is the chorodidaskalos himself who at Persians 1046 performs the rowing dance and instructs the chorus to do the same: this “onstage dance class” is in line with Aeschylus’ reputation of personally instructing his own choruses* as well as with the tradition of poets and chorodidaskaloi encouraging the chorus to dance.* * It is plausible that Phrynichus’ Phoenician Women, staged shortly before Persians (presumably between 478 and 473 B.C.), concluded with a rowing dance in which the women of the chorus mourned their men. In fact, the dancing farce at the end of Wasps, which I suspect to be a parody of the rowing dance (see above), is related expressis verbis to Phrynichus. If Phrynichus did close the Phoenician Women with a rowing dance of mourning, then Aeschylus would have drawn inspiration from this tragedy not only for the beginning (cf. the Aypothesis) but also for the end of Persians. On this point, I quote from an email of Alan Sommetstein (December 3"%, 2014): “[...] it would be a nice touch if Aeschylus, who famously began Persians with a reminiscence of Phrynichus’ play(s) on the same subject, ended it with another; especially if, as many believe, Phrynichus had recently died”. * On Phrynichus see Plut. Ouaest. conv. 732 f = TrGF τ, p. 72, T13 Sn.: καίτοι καὶ Φρύνιχος ὁ τῶν τραγῳδιῶν ποιητὴς περὶ αὑτοῦ φησιν ὅτι σχήματα δ᾽ ὄρχησις τόσα μοι πόρεν, ὅσσ᾽ ἐνὶ πόντῳ κύματα ποιεῖται χείματι νὺξ ὀλοή. On

Aeschylus see Ath. 1, 2id-e, quoted in the next footnote. Catoni 2005, 135 ff. collects and discusses sources on the σχήματα ὀρχηστιχκά.

3 Ath. 1, 21d-e: “Aeschylus as well not only invented the elegance and dignity of costume that the hierophants and torch-bearers imitate when they dress themselves, but also created many dance-steps (πολλὰ σχήματα ὀρχηστικά) himself and passed them to his choruses (ἀνεδίδου τοῖς

yopeutaic). Chamaeleon, at any rate, says that he was the first to arrange the dances, and that he did not use special trainers, but worked out the

dance-steps for his choruses himself and generally took on the entire management of the tragedy (σχηματίσαι τοὺς χόρους ὀρχηστοδιδασκάλοις οὐ χρησάμενον, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὸν τοῖς χόροις τὰ σχήματα ποιοῦντα τῶν ὀρχήσεων, καὶ ὅλως πᾶσαν τὴν τῆς τραγῳδίας οἰκονομίαν εἰς ἑαυτὸν περιιστᾶν). Most

likely, therefore, he acted in his own plays” (transl. Olson 2006). 4 Cf. Archil. frr. 120 and 121 W.; Alcm. frr. 26 and 29 PMG. On the

EVIDENCE

2.

ABOUT

AN

A

IMAGE

TRAGIC

OF

THE

DANCE

DANCE

ARCHAEOLOGICAL

OF

OF

MOURNING

101

DEATH.

EVIDENCE

The Basel Krater

When

considering iconographic evidence of theatrical perfor-

mance, recent scholarship starts from the sound methodological premise that no pictorial record can provide reliable detail

about the staging,’ for “we must not see vase paintings as photographs or films but must appreciate the ‘prevailing conventions’ of the art”.* Unsurprisingly, several attempts to re297

2

construct ancient dances on the basis of vase paintings, though artistically interesting, have been fairly speculative.’ Here I do not wish to reconstruct any dance on the basis of

iconographic evidence. Rather, I hope to match one specific painting, which displays a tragic chorus in dance, with those choral performances that seem most consistent with it. In doing so, my starting point is provided by literary (not archaeological) evidence, namely the tragic and paratragic texts considered above that point to the existence of a rowing dance. The so-called Basel krater (Fic. 1) is a red figure krater dated no later than 480 B.C.* and nearly unanimously considered to problematic identification of the first person with the author see Résler 1985, and for updated literature Rawles 2011, 146-8; in the same volume,

Kavoulaki 2011, 365-90 gives a survey of chorus leadership. * See Naerebout 1995-96, 27-37; 1997, 151-4 and 209-53, and once again in this volume. On the “philodramatic” vs “iconocentric” interpretations of pictorial records see Goldhill 1989 (quite polemically); Giuliani 1996, 71-5; Liapis-Panayotakis-Harrison 2013, 11-3.

* Ley 2007, 154 (on photography see also 162 f.). On the problematic nature of vase paintings for the reconstruction of choral dance perfor-

mances see Lonsdale 1993, 9-16; Naerebout 1997, 209-53; on the Basel krater in particular see Powers 2014, 50 f.

3 Ley ptoaches

2007,

150-67 offers

to Greek

a circumstantial

dance; Smith

review

of scholarly

ap-

2010 focuses on what could be called

the “artistic research” by Duncan and Lawler. In addition to ancient writing, visual representations, and metre, Zarifi-Sistovari 2007, 233 also considers comparisons with contemporary

dance cultures as useful evi-

dence for restoring ancient dance. 4 For earlier dates see Green 1994, 17 f. (490 B.C.); Csapo 2010, 6 f.

102

LAURA

GIANVITTORIO

Fic. 1. Red-figure krater: BS 415, side A. Ca. 480 B.C. (©OAntikenmu-

seum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig, photo: Andreas F. Voegelin). SEEN

Fic. 1A. Detail of BS 415 (OAntikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig, photo: Rudolf Habegger).

EVIDENCE

ABOUT

A

TRAGIC

DANCE

OF

MOURNING

103

represent a tragic, pre-Sophoclean semi-chorus (though the six dancers might indicate a larger group as pars pro toto).'

There are very good reasons for holding this position. First of all, the extension of the chin-line indicates that the dancers wear a mask, a feature of dramatic choruses only, and not, for example, of the dithyrambic. Moreover, the mask, costume,

and general attitude of the dancers, as well as the presence of a funerary sema, suggest a tragic situation. Thus, this appears quite clearly to be a tragic chorus. What tragic dance, then, is being performed here? Most scholars believe that the Basel krater represents a necromantic ritual. Accordingly, the dancers are regarded as rais-

ing the ghost of some dead hero from the funerary sewa, in a similar way to the chorus summoning Darius’ psyche in Persians.” Admittedly, this cannot actually be the chorus of Per-

sians: and this not only because of the slightly earlier date of the krater (ca. 480 B.C., although vase dating is not an exact science), but primarily due to the appearance of both the actor, who does not wear anything similar to the extravagant, head-

to-toe orientalising costume mentioned at Persians 659-61,’ and the chorus,

which

consists

of vigorous,

long

haired youths

dressed in military fashion rather than the old, feeble counsellors who remain in the comfort of the royal palace. Most scholars believe that the krater represents another, unspecified

tragic necromancy.*

(soo to 490 B.C.); Hart 2010, 29 provides the essential this vase. * E.g. Green 1991, 15-50; 1994; Lonsdale 1993, 256 f.; 172; Taplin 2007, 29 (whereas Taplin 1997, 70 was still tragedy is likely, though not finally certain”); Hart Wiles 1997, 94 n. 45, who argues for a pytrhic dance, 2015. On the dancers’ costumes see Wyles 2011, 6 f.

bibliography on Miller 2004, 165cautious: “[...] 2010, 29. Contra and Wellenbach

* For alternative interpretations, which are quite rare, see Wiles 2007,

ig f. and the contributions quoted by Garvie 2009, 259. 3 On the standard attributes of Persians in Attic art see Miller 2004.

4 Simon 1983, 104; Green 1991, 34-37 and 1994, 18; Henrichs 1996, 51; Taplin 2007, 29; Csapo-Slater 1994, 57; Csapo 2010, 7; Hart 2010, 29.

104

LAURA

GIANVITTORIO

A dance of mourning? This interpretation is certainly reasonable. To begin with, there are some iconographic peculiarities that are difficult to explain. For example, the tall rectangular structure on top of a three-stepped base, usually interpreted as a somehow odd

funerary monument, might also be the altar which, reportedly, used to be located in the orchestra: such an altar might have been used as a stage prop, and in the case of the Basel krater it would serve as a funerary monument.’ In any case, the rib-

bons and branches spilling out of this grave-like structure do not look like the Zaeniae that are wrapped around funerary szelai on most vases. * We know very little concerning tragic conventions for the

appearance of ghosts,’ so that the figure on the left cannot be identified as a ghost on the basis of staging considerations.*

However, performers of necromantic rituals are usually said to beat the earth with their hands (Hom. //. 9, 568 f.; Aesch. Pers. 683;> Eur. Tro. 1305 £.);° movements of this sort can be seen on

a black-figured /ekythos of the early fifth century B.C. (Fic. 2), which shows a (maybe tragic) chorus of men as kneeling by * On the altar and its possible uses as a stage prop in Classical theatre

see Poe 1989; Merker 2016. * E.g. Pfanner 1977. 3 In extant tragedy, ghosts appear at Aesch. Pers. 681; Eum. 94; Eur. Hee. 1. On Darius’ epiphany, which has often been connected to the Ba-

sel krater, see Taplin 1977, 116-9 and 365-7; Garvie 2009, xlix-liii. 4 Bardel 2005. The only certain tragic ghost in Greek vase painting is labelled as “ghost of Aietes” (Apulian krater, Munich 3296); even the staging of his appearance, either on a rock or on a smoke column, is controversial: see Trendall-Webster 1971, 110; Bardel 2005, 100 f.; Taplin 2007, 256 f. > On this problematic verse see Broadhead 1960, 173. 6 See

Garvie

2009,

277. Paratragic

statements

are not documentary

records, but it is nonetheless interesting that Ar. Ran. 1028 f. also speaks of clasping hands: ἐχάρην γοῦν, Τήνίκ᾽ ἤκουσα περὶ Δαρείου τεθνεῶτος, ὁ χορὸς δ᾽ εὐθὺς τὼ χεῖρ᾽ Hdl συγκρούσας εἶπεν ἰαυοῖ. The passage which suits

this description best is Pers. 673 ff., where the chorus expresses sorrow for Darius’ death and utters the most “barbaric” among the (not too many) exclamations of the necromantic song: αἰαὶ atat.

EVIDENCE

ABOUT

A

TRAGIC

DANCE

OF

MOURNING

105

a funerary stele, raising one hand to tear the hair in a well-known gesture of grief and stretching the other to the ground.’ In contrast, the danc-

ers

of the

raise both height,

Basel arms

krater to head

holding

them

outstretched and parallel to one other.

The

only

comparable,

although not identical, choral gesture of which I am aware is that of male

choruses

performing

the

valediction.* On such oc-

casions, men pay homage to the dead during the prothesis

or

the

ekphora,

in

Fic. 2. Black-figure /ekythos: Munich 1871 inv. 6025, early fifth century B.C.

one OF two P arallel rows and raising the right arm,

(©Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek München, photo:

standing

or

walking

with

the

palm

hand

facing

the

of

the

Renate

Kühling).

corpse

(Fic. 3):? this is probably the very gesture Orestes regrets not to have made at Aesch. Cho. 9.* But similarities with the val-

ediction would suggest mourning, not necromantic, situations. * On

this Jekythos see Green

1991, 35 f.; Costantini

2005, 191; and

Bardel 2005, 105 f., who also outlines different interpretations.

* Also Henrichs 1996, 54 shares this view. 3 Further iconographic examples of valediction are: a black-figure phormiskos (Athens, Kerameikos 691, see Shapiro 1991, 636 fig. 7), a blackfigure plaque (Metropolitan Museum of Art 54.11.15, see Shapiro 1991, 638 fig. 11), and a /outrophoros dated ca. 450 B.C. (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania 30.4.1, see Oakley 1997, pl. 25). On the valediction gesture see Neumann 1965, 86; Simon 1983, 103; Shapiro 1991, 635; and most recently Taylor 2014, 7 n. 16. 4 Cf. Eur. Ak. 768; Suppl. 772.

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Fic. 3. Black-figure cup (side B): Athens, Kerameikos 1687 (©Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Athens).

Furthermore, necromantic rituals in Greek tragedy are usu-

ally performed by both the chorus and the actor(s). More precisely, it is the actor who performs the ritual with the assistance of the chorus. For example, in Persians Atossa pours the libations and attends the choral necromantic song (vv. 62380), and in Choephoroi Orestes and Electra address their father by his tomb assisted by the chorus (vv. 306-509).* The Basel krater, however, has the chorus as the only performer of a necromantic ritual, with one actor playing the role of ghost but without a second actor to carry out the ritual. Had the tragedy been staged with two actors, then it would be an unusual dramatization of necromancy. Nor is there any trace of stage * Further tragic necromancies which require the presence of an actor to perform the ritual are Soph. E/. 51 f., OC 469-83, Polyxena fr. 523; Eur.

Hee.

112-5, IT 159-66.

In Aeschylus’

Psychagogoi the chorus

gives

instructions to Odysseus, who will eventually perform the ritual (see Bardel 2005, 85; Garvie 2009, 258; contra Taplin 1997, 7o n. 2, according to whom it is the chorus that summons the ghost). On tragic necromancy see Taplin 1977, 447; Jouan 1981; and Green 1994. Green’s assessment that, in tragedy, necromancy was “an almost traditional motif by 472 B.C.” (bid. 18) goes too far: we do not know whether Phrynichus staged such a scene in Phoenician Women, and the only evidence earlier than Persians is provided by Psychagogoi.

* See Garvie 2009, 259 f. on the similarities of both Aeschylean necromancies and their differences with the Homeric versions.

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props relating to libations (cf. Pers. 609-24) or other offerings as one would expect in necromantic scenes, such as flowers and olive-tree garlands (as at Pers. 614-6); hair (as at Aesch. Cho. 7; Soph. El. 451); or incense." In short, the artist does not specifi-

cally signalise this tragic scene as a necromantic one. The poorly preserved inscriptions on the Basel krater must also be considered in this connection (Fic. 1A).* Some hardly visible strings of letters emerge from the open mouths, thus

implying the singing of both the dancers (according to the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum: E, IE, AOOIO) and the actor (ME . XEO).’ Once more, the circumstance that both actor and chorus are singing does not point to a necromantic ritual, but to a kommos, i.e. a mourning song performed by both actor and chorus.* Indeed, some of the letters can be interpreted as common tragic exclamations of grief (ἔξ, te, and pe[ö]),’ which * Bardel 2005, 109 f. * Many thanks to Esatı Dozio, curator of the Classical Collection of the Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig, and to photographer Rudolf Habegger, who kindly provided me with newly taken images of these letters; unfortunately, these remain hardly visible even with the use of double polarized and ultraviolet light. 3 Slehoferova 1988, 22: “Der Bärtige scheint auf den Gesang der Jünglinge zu antworten [Vor seinem offenen Mund erkennt man in schwachen Spuren die Buchstaben ®E

. ZEO, unter den Armen

des er-

sten Paares, den Körpern entlang (rückläufig): AOOIO (?); außerdem ein oder zwei Buchstaben (rückläufig) von den Mündern der Tänzerpaare (erstes und drittes Paar: E, mittleres Paar: IE)]”, cf. zbid. fig. 3. It is intriguing to relate the puzzling string of letters AOOIO (faintly visible in fig. 1A), placed along the bodies of the “rowing dancers”, to the calls shouted by the trireme-swain, who kept the rowers pulling in rhythm by calling ΟΠ ΟΠ (see Ar. Av. 1395; Ran. 180, 206-8) and through their response (Eur. Hel. 1575 f.). In this volume, even Csapo p. 140 considers

how oarsmen used to sing refrains to a botswain. 4 Arist. Poet. 1452b 24 f. As a matter of fact, gooi and /hrenoi are te-

ported to be sung antiphonally, 1.6. by two voices responding to each other, as early as Homer: see Od. 24, 58-64 (Μοῦσαι

... ἀμειβόμεναι) and

Il. 24, 720-76, which shows the alternate mourning of chorus and solo singers (Andromache, Hecuba, and Helena). On geometric vase painting that points to antiphonal mourning see Ahlberg 1971, 266. ’ As another example of vase painting with inscribed grief exclamations from the represented dirge, see a black-figure phormiskos displaying a valediction and the words

OIMOIO

691: see Shapiro 1991, 636 fig. 7).

®YTAITHP]

(Athens, Kerameikos

108

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again would be more consistent with a dirge than with a necromantic ritual.'

Of course, the relationship between the theatrical performance and its representation on vases is a notoriously complex one, and pot-painters should not be expected to represent things in exactly the same way they were showed at the theatre.” Even so, it is interesting that two macroscopic features

of the choreography as represented by the Basel krater can be related to the rowing dance: the dancing movements and the spatial arrangement of the dancers.

To begin with, the bearing of the dancers resembles those of sweep rowers, the similarity being most striking with the parallel, outstretched arms that move simultaneously and raise to the height of the head (Fic. 4; cf. Ar. Ran. 201: προβαλεῖ τὼ χείρε xautevetc).’ The painter shaped this quite peculiar

arm position with special accuracy, so much so that we can see signs of corrections in the arms of the dancers.* Such an

arm posture is consistent with a re-enactment of the rowing, and would thus conform to our notion of the mimetic nature of other ancient dances (see above).’ The striding pose of the

dancers’ legs is also consistent with the rowing dance: as this * Dirges contain more interjections of grief than necromantic scenes, as one can see by comparing, in Persians, the final ommos with the necromantic stasimon.

? Green 1991.

3 Little can be said about the movement speed, though comparatively slow movements would correspond to our general understanding of the solemnity of tragic dance (e.g. Anonymus Περὲ τραγῳδίας 11 [Perusino 1993]: σεμνὸν ἦν καὶ μεγαλοπρεπὲς καὶ μεγάλας ἔχον τὰς μεταξὺ τῶν κινήσεων ἠρεμίας); our notion of ἐμμέλεια, however, is based on scant

and not always descriptive sources (see Bierl 2001, 102 f.; Ley 2007, 158 f.). Common sense suggests what Lucian, Sa. 30 confirms: at length, tragic dances could not be as quick as to cause breathlessness, as singing performance

would

have been compromised.

Furthermore,

ἐρέσσω

(cf.

Aesch. Pers. 1046 and Sept. 855) does not necessarily imply quickness (see above, p. 99 n. 2). 4 Slehoferova 1988, 22: “Die erhobenen Arme der hinteren Gestalten haben ursprünglich bis in den oberen Bildrahmen gereicht. Nachträglich korrigierte der Maler die Armhaltung, wobei er nur die Arme abgedeckt, einige Finger aber stehengelassen hat”. > Contra Sampatakakis 2011, 109, who with regard to the Basel krater dancers speaks of “anti-realist gesturalisation”.

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109

"

Fic. 4. Lenormant Relief: Athens, Acropolis Museum 1339. Ca. 410 B.C. (Acropolis Museum, photo: Socratis Mavrommatis).

is supposed to be performed at the exodos of early tragedies, the

chorus might well have exited the orchestra while dancing it.’ This motion is confirmed by Persians 1038 where Xerxes, still acting as a chorus leader, instructs the dancers to go towards the palace: since vv. 1038 and 1046 — where ἐρέσσω occurs -are both the first verse of matching szrophe and antistrophe, they

might show similar dancing patterns.’ Turning to the position of the dancers in the orchestra, Pollux (4, 108-9) claims that tragic choruses were composed of three ranks (ζυγά) of five dancers each or by five columns (ototyor) of three dancers each -- which is the same -, result-

ing in a total of fifteen dancers.’ As Aristotle’s Poezics tells us, * But generally speaking Zarifi-Sistovari 2007, 231 f. is right in pointing out that funerary dances do not necessarily imply feet movements. * Most scholars hold that during strophe and antistrophe the same dancing

movements

were

performed

in opposite

directions;

on

different

views see Ley 2007, 167-73. 3 Such a square formation resembles that of a phalanx; ancient sources indeed noted the similarities between dance (not only the pyrrbike) and military movements (Ath. 14, 628e-f).

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the fifteen dancer chorus was Sophocles’ invention while Ae-

schylus still had twelve dancers: it may therefore be inferred that pre-Sophoclean choruses were arranged into three ranks of four dancers each. Pollux’s information about the arrange-

ment of dramatic choruses in ζυγά and ototyor is basically confirmed by two pieces of evidence concerning early drama:' a papyrus fragment from Aeschylus’ satyr play Oeweot, which apparently refers to a satyric chorus as forming two rows,* and the Basel krater itself. It is, however, very hard to believe that

this formation would be kept without variations for different tragic dances and throughout their whole duration.’ In all likelihood Pollux describes a basic starting arrangement from which different ὀρχηστικὰ σχήματα were performed and which was recomposed over and over again.

As virtually no other vase-painting from the fifth century displays what can be positively identified as a tragic chorus in performance, we can gain little insight into choreographic trends specific to tragedy.* Nevertheless, the comparison of the Basel krater with other iconographic evidence of non-trag-

ic choruses in performance reveals that synchronized movements are comparatively rare and parallel rows of dancers quite unique. Not only most dancing satyrs, maenads, brides, and komasts, but also a number of dancing dramatic choruses from satyr plays and comedies are represented as performing

different movements -- that is, dancing non-synchronically -in what appears to be a more or less scattered order.’ Even * Yet Wiles 1997, 89 and others express their misgivings on Pollux’ reliability. More generally on the questionability of late sources about theatre see Taplin 1977, 434 ff. * Aesch. fr. 78c 38 ΒΕ. (77GF 111): drototya[v (see Radt 1985, ad /oc.: “in fine χορῶν Lobel probabiliter fortasse chorus satyrorum δίστοιχος orchestram inibat, ut τρίστοιχος chorus tragoediae dici potuit””). Cf. Hom. I. 18, 602 ἄλλοτε δ᾽ αὖ ϑρέξασκον ἐπὶ στίχας ἀλλήλοισι; Aleman nat ᾿Αλκμὰν

33 PMG

ὁμοστοίχους ἐκάλεσε τὰς ἐν τάξει χορευούσας παρϑένους.

3 See Di Benedetto-Medda 2002”, 235; Wiles 2000, 134 f.; Foley 2003, 9 f.; and Csapo in the present volume, p. 119.

4 See Taplin 1997, 69 and 2007, 29. 5 Felber-Kovacs, 2015 and the literature they quote have recently used the metaphor of the swarm to describe such choruses as collective, apparently non-hierarchical formations in movement.

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when, as in some apparently comic choruses, the dancers move synchronically and in aligned order, they form one single line rather than the parallel lines of the Basel krater.' Thus, although according to Pollux parallel rows were typical for dramatic dances of all genres, and in spite of the many vases that display comic and satiric choruses, parallel rows of dancers are seldom recorded.* Apparently, the painter considered * For example:

a chorus

of four dancers with piper (hydria ca. 560

B.C., formerly Henning Throne Holst’s collection), a chorus, possibly dramatic, consisting of four trios (Siana cup, ca. 560 B.C., Amsterdam, A. Pierson Museum 3356), a chorus of five stilt-walkers (amphora 550-525

B.C., Christchurch University of Canterbury 41/57), one chorus of six hoplites riding dolphins and another of six youths riding ostriches (on both sides of a skyphos 520-510 B.C., Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 10.18), a possible dithyrambic chorus riding dolphins (psyAter 520-510 B.C., New

York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 1989.281.69), a probable comic chorus of three knight-costumed and three horse-costumed dancers (Antikensammlung Berlin F1697), and a chorus of two bird-costumed dancers (oinochoe ca. 480 B.C., London, British Museum 1842.0728.787). On these vases see Trendall-Webster 1971, 15-28 (who however consider them as “pre-dramatic”); Green 1991; Hart 2010. Two fourth century reliefs representing comic choruses as dancing in a line are preserved at the Athens Agora Museum (S1025 and S1586) and have been analised by Csapo 2010, 13 f. (as well as during the talk he gave at the conference “Greek Theatre beyond the Canon”, Vienna, 13-14 November 2015). * The only choral performances which resemble that of the Basel krater dancers are a fragment of a choragic relief from the fourth century B.C. (Agora $2098: see Csapo 2014, 101) and the male groups that, while attending funerary rituals, perform the valediction gesture synchronically and in two parallel lines (cf. above, p. 105 and fig. 3). Thus, several remarkable features, while being unusual for most choruses as they are represented in vase paintings, are shared by the valediction-performers and by the “rowing dancers” of the Basel krater: the similarity of the arm(s) movements, the synchronism, the arrangement into two parallel rows, and the funerary context. Indeed, both groups were thought to escort the dead during their final journey: those at the e&phora towards the grave, the others by symbolically rowing towards Hades (cf. Sept. 854-60). The idea of a choreographic adaptation of the valediction-gesture into the choreography represented on the Basel krater provides a possible explanation for these similarities. In fact, funeral dances could

absorb ritual gestures of lamentation into their choreographic vocabulary (see Ahlberg 1971, 266, who refers mostly to gestures of beating the head), and valediction in particular was also performed by male choruses while singing - and probably dancing - dirges. E.g. fig. 3 shows two

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this formation as a hallmark of the dance he wanted the vase owners to recognise. To sum up, all elements considered above suggest a mourning

performance.’ In addition to this, there is the quite obvious fact that, in tragedy, death resurrection. For these left is not arising from ing into it (Aafabasis)

is far more frequent than (temporary) reasons, I believe that the actor on the (anabasis) the tomb, but either descendor just standing behind it. A dignified

character is about to die or to be put to death and everything is ready for the farewell; he has already veiled his head, and the

tomb has been duly adorned.* At this highly dramatic point the actor sings a kommos with the chorus in order to mourn his own fate, as other dying tragic protagonists do (for example Soph.

Ant. 806-82; Eur. Alc. 244-79). While in later tragedy, in which metabolai and peripeteiai abound, the plot is not necessarily over with the death of the main character, in early tragedy, which is comparatively “actionless”, little else could possibly happen after such an event.’ Therefore, in a tragedy as early as that represented on the Basel krater, the Aommos about the protagonist’s imminent death took place, in all likelihood, at the end of the drama, just as the “rowing dance” of mourning designated

through ἐρέσσω was performed at the end of Persians and Seven. Following the arguments outlined above, attempts to identify the tragedy represented by the Basel krater should focus on a tragedy with a male protagonist who dies still black-bearded, and therefore comparatively young

- apparently without re-

porting serious injuries in the upper half of the body - deserving high honours at the moment of his death (and maybe male semi-choruses that, as usual in threnodic performances, mourn by

singing whereas On the formers OIMOIO

antiphonally: the men in the front row have their mouths shut, those in the rear row are singing (cf. Lonsdale 1993, 246 f.). black figure phormiskos (Athens, Kerameikos 691) showing perof the valediction gesture as well as the dirge-like exclamation @YTA[THP]

see above, p. 107 n. 5.

* See also Csapo (forthcoming). * The faeniae do not imply that the dead person has been buried under

this tomb for some time now: in fact, it is not even clear whether they were meant to honour the dead or the funerary monuments (see Pfanner 1077, 7). 3 See Gianvittorio (forthcoming).

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afterwards), and with a chorus of twelve youths, maybe warriots, which during the final kommos about the protagonist’s fate probably performed that dance of mourning to which Aeschylus refers by ἐρέσσω.

In short, my hypothesis is that the Basel krater displays a kommos from the final part of an early tragedy and the related choral dance of mourning. This choreography seems to fit the rowing dance with which both Persians and Seven ended: as in

an early “dance of death”, the dancing chorus symbolically escorts the soul of the dying in his last journey across the Acheron.’ As far as grief is concerned, the rowing dance motif here assumed suits

a mourning situation better than a necromantic

one, because in literature and iconography the rowing is a Leitmotiv connected with the katabasis, i.e. the journey of souls to Hades,* and not to their anabasis back to the upper world.’ CONCLUSIONS

This paper focuses on a dance of mourning

that, supposed-

ly, was performed in both the oldest surviving tragedies, i.e. Persians and Seven. It links to each other dance performances that, while being set up in different plays, different years, by * Though Lonsdale 1993, 234-60 and I metaphorically refer to Greek dances of mourning as “dances of death”, in art history this concept (cf. also danse macabre) indicates the allegoric motif, which was popular throughout Europe during and after the Middle Ages, of the personified, dancing Death (within the extensive literature on the subject, Gertsman 2010 offers one of the newest and most convincing contributions). ? On white-ground /e&ythoi representing Charon see Sourvinou-Inwood 1995, 321 ff.; Oakley 2004, 88-144.

3 Curiously, the circumstance that Charon rows to return a soul from the underworld is never explicitly mentioned in resurrection scenes (cf. Eur. Ale. 1139 ff., HF 514 ff.), not even those featuring necromantic rituals taking place near or referring to netherworld waters: e.g. Hdt. 5, 92, where the ghost of Melissa is summoned by the Acheron; Aesch. frr. 273 and 274 R. (TrGF 111) from the Psychagogoi, settled by the infernal lake; Pers. 669, Στυγία ... ἀχλὺς ; Soph. Polyxena fr. 523 R. (TrGF tv) with the mention of λίμνη (see Sourvinou-Inwood 1995, 307 f.). In Eur. Ak. 112, the fleet mentioned in connection with the rescuing of Alcestis from the death refers to the consultation of distant oracles (see schol. ad loc.; Dale 1954, 62; Parker 2007, 78).

114

different choruses

LAURA

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and probably

even in a different fashion,

seem to be very similar as far as their ritual meaning and performance context are concerned: for both these dances enact the symbolical journey of the souls to Hades and take place at the threnodic end of an early tragedy. Though we cannot say to which degree the two dances looked similar, they

were close enough that both could be referred to through the rowing imagery: in both cases, ἐρέσσω is likely to refer to distinguishing dance movements. To some degree, thus,

these dances had to show significant “family resemblances”. Moreover, the paper offers a new analysis of the Basel krater,

which represents an early tragic semi-chorus which dances by the funerary sewa of an unidentified figure. Traces of lettering

at the mouths of both actor and dancers indicate that they sing together, which, combined with the funerary context, suggests the performance of a kommos, and therefore a mourning rather than a necromantic ritual. The dancers arrangement and their arms movements suggest that the Basel krater may display an early tragic dance of mourning Aeschylus refers by ἐρέσσω.

similar to that one to which

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pretation, Cambridge. Sampatakakis G., 2011: Gestus or Gesture? in J. Nelis (ed.), Receptions of Antiquity, Gent, 103-15. Shapiro H. A., 1991: The Iconography of Mourning in Athenian Art,

AJA 95/4, 629-56.

Silk M. S., 1993: Aristophanic Paratragedy, in A. H. Sommerstein e/ alii (eds.), Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis, Bari, 477-504.

Simon E., 1983: Festivals of Attica. An Archaeological Commentary, Madison. Slehoferova V., 1988: Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum (Schweiz 7) -- Basel, Antikenmuseum 3, Bern. Smith T. J., 2010: Reception or Deception? Approaching Greek Dance through Vase-Painting, in F. Macintosh (ed.), The Ancient Dancer in the Modern World. Responses to Greek and Roman Dance, Oxford,

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Snell B., 1986: Tragicorum Grascorum Fragmenta τ. Didascaliae Tragicae, Catalogi Tragicorum et Tragoediarum, Testimonia et Fragmenta Tragicorum minorum, Gottingen.

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Taplin O., 1977: The Stagecraft of Aeschylus, Oxford. Taplin O., 1997: The Pictorial Record, in P. E. Easterling (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy, Cambridge, 69-90. Taplin O., 2007: Pots and Plays. Interactions between Tragedy and Vasepainting of the Fourth Century B.C., Los Angeles. Taylor L., 2014: Performing the Prothesis: Gender, Gesture, Ritual and Role on the Chiusine Reliefs from Archaic Etruria, EtrStud 17/1, 1-27.

Trendall A. Ὁ. - Webster T. B. L., 1971: Zllustrations of Greek Drama, London. van Nes D., 1963: Die maritime Bildersprache des Aischylos, Groningen. Vetta M., 2007: La monodia di Filocleone (Aristoph. Vesp. 317-333), in F. Perusino - M. Colantonio (eds.), Dalla lirica corale alla poesia drammatica. Forme ὁ funzioni del canto corale nella tragedia e nella commedia greca, Pisa, 215-32.

Weege F., 1926: Der Tanz in der Antike, Halle. Wellenbach M. C., 2015: The Lconography of Dionysiae Choroi: Dithyramb, Tragedy, and the Basel Krater, GRBS 55, 72-103.

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Meaning, Cambridge. Wiles D., 2000: Greek Theatre Performance. An Introduction, Cambridge. Wiles D., 2007: Mask and Performance in Greek Tragedy. From Ancient

Festival to Modern Experimentation, Cambridge. Wright M., 2013: Comedy versus Tragedy in Wasps, in E. Bakola ef alii (eds.), Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres, Cambridge, 205-25. Wyles R., 2011: Costume in Greek Tragedy, London. Zarifi-Sistovari Y., 2007: Chorus and Dance in the Ancient World, in M. McDonald - J. M. Walton (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Theatre, Cambridge, 227-46.

s. IMAGINING THE SHAPE OF CHORAL DANCE AND INVENTING THE CULTIC IN EURIPIDES’ LATER TRAGEDIES Eric

Csaro

HE choral formations of dithyramb and drama were easily

distinguished: dithyrambic choruses were circular, dramatic choruses were rectangular. So, cautiously, Pickard-Cambridge and, taking a much harder line, Winkler: “there is no evidence

that tragic choruses ever took up a circular formation”.* This is, however, not true. The dichotomy is too stark. Cul-

tic dithyrambs were processional, and even if at some point they circled an altar, they were not entirely circular. Theatre dithyrambs were necessarily different, though we don’t know

exactly how. This is doubtless one reason why in Athens official speech never called the tribal choruses of the Dionysia “dithyrambs” but always just men’s and boys’, or at less guarded moments, at least in the late fifth century, “circular choruses”.* But this last name indicates that, whatever their actual shape, people clearly /iked to think of theatrical dithyrambs as circular. The same is true, as we will see, of cultic dithyramb: art and poetry insists on its circularity. There is a similar but opposite predilection in the case of the dramatic chorus. Pickard-Cambridge and others claim that dramatic choruses are normally rectangular because: * Imperial or later scholars like Pollux (4, 108-9) describe them as rectangular. They describe in detail the formation by ranks and the formation by files. * Pickard-Cambridge 1968, 239-42; Winkler 1990, 50. * For recent treatments of the relationship of “dithyramb” and “circular chorus”, see: Fearn 2007, 165-225; D’Alessio 2013; Ceccarelli 2013. For the “shape” of the dithyramb: D’Angour 1997; Hedreen 2013; Csapo 2015, 93-105.

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° The choral terminology preserved in the lexicographical tradition is traceable to Cratinus (fr. 229, 467, cf. fr. 186 PCG).

He used the terms “left-standers” and “alley-standers”. The terms “left-stander” and “right-stander” only really make sense

in a rectangular formation. The left-standers are the best dancers and one wants them to be first in the line of dancers facing the audience. * The few artifacts we have that show dramatic choruses in formation, show them to be rectangular.’ So it /ooks as if the hard rectangularists are right, but they are in fact wrong because: * Pollux is clearly talking only about the parodos.* This ex-

plains why the parodoi of our dramas are usually in a regular stichic marching metre, but the other choral parts, the stasima and for the most part the exodo are not.

° Even the terminology

of left-stander and right-stander

only makes sense in the parodos when the chorus is approach-

ing the theatron obliquely from the ezsodoi of the theatre. That is the only time that the left-standers stand left, from the chorus’ perspective, while remaining the most conspicuous members of the chorus.’ * These are: 1. the Attic red-figured column-krater in the Mannerist style, ca. 490-480 B.C., Basel BS 415, CVA (3) pl. 6.1-2, 7.3-; 2. the fragment of choregic pinax of Pentelic marble, ca. 350-340 B.C., Athens, Agora $2098, MMC? AS 4; 3. the fragments of the base of a choregic monument,

ca. 350-340 B.C., Athens, Agora Sioz5 + $1586, SEG 28, 213,

MMC? AS 3. The fragments of Attic red-figured chous (Oinochoe 11) in the Benaki Museum (inv. 3089) are probably meant to show the chorus in rectangular formation, but may conceivably be a V formation of the sort discussed by Steiner 2011, 74 and Marshall 2014, 122-37. * Poll. 4, 108-9: “The parts of the chorus are: rank (στοῖχος) and file (ζυγόν). There are five files of three and three ranks of five in the tragic chorus because a tragic chorus was composed of fifteen. Because the chorus had fifteen members, they came in (εἰσήεσαν) by threes, if the entrance was by files. If the entrance was by ranks, then they came in (εἰσήεσαν) by fives. Sometimes the parodos was one at a time. The comic chorus was of twenty-four choreuts, with six files, and four to a file, and

four ranks, with each rank containing six men”. 3 This of course assumes an entrance from the eastern parodos and a privileging of the chorus’ perspective and of the entry by ranks in the terminology, all of which are far from certain: see Csapo 2016.

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° It is because the parodos is the moment

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of the dramatic

chorus’ first appearance that it most impressed the artists. It is hard to think exactly how one would orchestrate an imposing

entry into a theatre for a chorus of fifteen or twenty-four if not in some sort of rectangular formation.’

Though

the arguments

for hard-rectangularism

are in fact

wrong, there is a sense, as the art shows, in which they are

also right. The ancients liked to think of dramatic choruses as stereotypically rectangular just as they liked to think of dithyrambic choruses as stereotypically circular.* My aim in this study is more to explore the general semantics of choral

circles than to uncover the far more elusive performance reality.’ But performance reality has some pull on semantics and we will bring up the issue of performance reality again at the end. First and more specifically, however, I want to discover the meanings that Euripides and various contemporaries help construct for the idea of choral circles. SELF-REFERENTIAL, AND

EMBEDDED

PROJECTED CHORUSES

Before advancing to Euripides, let us look more closely at a dramatic text that unmistakeably introduces a round chorus into drama. A choral dance in Aristophanes’ Tihesmophoriazusae (953-1000) gives a rare instance of a dramatic chorus that refers directly to its dance movements.* The song gives instructions

to the dancers at the beginning of each strophic pair of the stasimon:

they dance in a circle, stop, restart, and dance in

* A point well made by Sifakis 1971. * Notwithstanding various doubts entertained by Lech 2009. The that the dramatic chorus was rectangular is not just based on the etymology of τραγῳδία from τετράγωνος as Ley suggests (2007, 126 ἢ. cf. Lech 2009, 346), but vice versa. 3 What I call “hard rectangularism” has been criticised from a formance perspective by Ferri 1932-33; Davidson 1986; Foley 2003,

idea late 28; per9 f.;

Csapo 2008, 281-4; Lech 2009; Firinu 2012, 120 f. and passim.

4 It is notably the only sure instance of round dance in drama admitted by Pickard-Cambridge 1968, 239.

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a circle in the other direction." Anton Bierl has shown this kind of self-instruction to be typical of cultic song. And this song is definitely cultic.* In introducing it the koryphaios says (947-8): “Come let us now dance in the way that is customary for us local women when we enact the holy mysteries of the two goddesses”. The first half of the stasimon, then, is a round dance expressly to honour Demeter and Persephone, though the song addresses other Olympian gods and goddesses (953-84), but the second half is a round dance for Dionysus (985-1000), so that both aspects of the chorus, its persona as

women at the Thesmophoria, and its persona as choreuts at the Dionysia are expressed. In cult, these self-instructions probably had something of the character of calls in a barn-dance. They make it easier for undrilled amateurs. Dramatic choruses are well-drilled, even if they are amateurs, so such calls have no obvious function in drama other than to mark the imitation of cultic music. Nonetheless, self-reference to the motions of the chorus, though rare, do occur in drama.’ Besides strict choral self-reference, there is another kind of internal textual evidence that is relevant and much more common. Scholarship on ancient choral song-dance got a new start in the mid 1990s when Albert Henrichs defined the concept of

“choral projection”.* Though dramatic choruses do not often talk about what they are doing as they dance, they do often speak of themselves dancing at other times or places. Henrichs argued that singing and dancing about singing and dancing elsewhere was also characteristically cultic. Indeed the elsewhere in dramatic choruses is usually a ritual or cultic setting. In the parodos of Phoenissae, for example, the chorus looks forward to its servitude in Delphi where it will dance in the rites of “the god”.’ The projection links a dance here and now * I follow Austin-Olson’s interpretation (2004, 302) of v. 968, στῆσαι βάσιν, but see Bierl 2009, 102 contra.

* Bierl 2009, 83-265. 3 Ferri 1932-33; Davidson 1986. 4 Henrichs 1994-95; 1996a; 1996b. The idea is to some extent anticipated by Davidson 1986, but Henrichs made the crucial connection between projection and cultic song. > Eur. Phoen. 234-8. ϑεοῦ in v. 235 seems secure, but the epithet &9«-

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with a dance in a cultic then or hereafter. It projects choral activity through time in order to connect with the eternal and

repetitive sphere of religious time. There is yet another type of choral projection and, in my view, more interesting. Though his focus was on the elsewhere or elsewhen of an imagined dance by the same chorus, Henrichs also discussed instances where the chorus sings, not

of itself dancing at another time, but of another chorus dancing. In the third stasimon of Euripides’ Jon for example, the chorus expresses shame at the thought that the foreign interloper, Ion, if adopted as prince of Athens, will witness the Eleusinian Mysteries. It sings (1074-86): I feel shame

before the much-sung

god

if he

[Ion], present

as a

spectator at the festival of the twentieth by the springs of the beautiful dance, keeping the all-night vigil, will see the torch, when the starry-faced aether of Zeus has begun to dance and the moon dances and dance too the fifty daughters of Nereus on the sea and on the eddies of everflowing rivers in honour of the golden-crowned daughter and the holy Mother.

Here the chorus sings of other choruses dancing. I will call these other choruses, “embedded” choruses. The embedded choruses in Jon notionally form part of the Iacchus Procession that went from Athens to Eleusis on the night of the twentieth (1075) of the month Boedromion. When the procession arrived

at Eleusis, by night, there were dances with torches around the Kallichoron well, here called the “springs of the beautiful dances” (1074 f.). These were circular dances in honour of Demeter and Persephone.’ We know this because the leader of the chorus of Eleusinian mystics in Aristophanes’ Frogs exhorts the chorus to “dance in the circular motion sacred to the goddess”, declaring that he will, as Dadouchos, “carry a holy νάτου (as in some mss.) or ἀϑανάτας (as in the most authoritative mss.) makes little satisfactory sense (Mastronarde 1994, 222 f.) and has led to identification of the deity involved as Artemis, Athena, and Ge, as well

as Apollo, despite the fact that it is Dionysus who is the subject of the immediately preceding lines. My argument is not affected either way. * Richardson 1974, 326-8; Clinton 1992, 27 f.; Budelmann-Power 2015, 270-3.

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light and dance with the girls and women, where they hold the all-night celebration for the goddess” (440-6). This manner of dancing is then described as καλλιχορώτατος in a direct allusion to the Kallichoron Well ritual (451). In Frogs Iacchus is assimilated to Dionysus and so this round dance, like the

one in Ihesmophoriazusae, simultaneously honours Demeter and Dionysus. Choral projection is obviously different from choral selfreference. Self-reference describes features of the dance in the song. Projection only colours the song with descriptions of cultic dance that may or may not be mimicked in the chorus’ dance. But even if the chorus does not dance in the same way as the chorus it projects, the projection must still somehow create an implicit comparison (or contrast) between the chorus that dances in the orchestra and the chorus embedded in its

song. Henrichs spoke of projections as “substitutes” self-reference. He also treats the descriptions of choruses dancing as a phenomenon secondary to descriptions of itself dancing at another time.* For

for choral embedded the chorus’ him, it ap-

pears, self-reference in the present is most cultic. Next best is self-projection to another time or place of dance. Then third best is the reference to another chorus. On this scheme the

chorus of /on would have been more traditionally cultic if they had spoken of themselves actually performing the dance at the end of the Jacchus procession. But they do not. Instead they

evoke images of a host of chorus-like entities. They evoke the chorus of the starry heaven, the moon (as if it could form a chorus), and the fifty daughters of Nereus (1078-86). These choruses do not resemble the singing chorus: they are not human, not all are even animate. I would like to suggest that em-

bedded other choruses are something very different from choral self-reference and just as interesting despite the difference. I * Henrichs 1996a, 50: “In a dozen of Euripides’ extant plays, successive choral projection extends over as many as two, three, or even four choral songs and functions as an oblique and subtle variation of, and substitute for, choral self-reference”.

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will argue that, even if embedded choruses are not strictly cultic in form,’ they provide, through imagery, a no less cultic colouring than one gets from choral self-reference. In Euripides, as we will see, choral references to other choruses might

even be said to place the dance of the performing chorus into a hypercultic frame. Perhaps the most interesting thing to emerge from Henrichs’ study is that choral projection contradicts the pattern of the traditional evolutionary history of tragedy where the cultic,

little by little, gives way to the secular, and the choral function yields to the actors. Choral projection moves in the other direction. In Aeschylus projection is, as Henrichs showed, “ex-

tremely rare”.* In Sophocles less so. In Euripides it is common. Indeed choral projections are virtually confined to plays

composed in the last two decades of Euripides’ life. Another important difference is that, while Sophocles tends to use the kind of choral projection that refers to the same chorus dancing, Euripides is much more inclined to embed ober choruses.’ I will argue that choral projection in tragedy is less a survival

of ritual form, than a strategy in the invention of ritual associations with established ritual forms. Some thirty-two projected choruses

appear

in the

extant

choral odes of Euripides. Of these only six can be construed as projections of the same chorus at other times.* Twenty-six * Choral

projection,

both

of the same

and

of embedded

choruses,

does have an important place in Archaic choral lyric (esp. Aleman and Pindar) as Henrichs (1994-95, 60; 1996a, 49) notes. * Henrichs 1996a, 48. 3 Sophocles’ embedded choruses are few, but sometimes striking: Ant. 152-4 (projected Bacchic chorus); Anz. 963-5 (chorus of menads and Muses); Ant. 1146-52 (chorus of stars and Thyiads led by Dionysus to be discussed below); and OC’s first stasimon which contains three embedded choruses, one at the end of each strophic group but one: see Easterling forthcoming. 4 Projected “same” choruses are Eur. Tro. 544-7, Phoen. 235-6; Ba. 862-5; Cresphontes fr. 453, 8-9 Kn. (TrGF v 1); Erechtheus fr. 370, 5-10 Kn. (IrGF v 1). El. 178-80 is a special case as it involves actor’s lyrics in a shared choral entrance song in which Electra claims that she will not participate in the dance of maidens for Hera. This is probably also the

case with Eur. Andromeda fr. 122 Kn.

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are embedded (viz. other) choruses.’ This calculation omits doubtfully Euripidean plays.* It also leaves out passages where

choral groups are only implicit in the imagery, such as that of the cranes

in the third stasimon

of He/en

1478-94,

where

the

birds are said to fly in ranks (stichades [orıyades]) following the piping (syrinx) of the eldest (a passage well treated by Steiner),

or Iphigeneia in Tauris 1094-1105, where the chorus calls itself a bird with no wings longing for the gathering places of the Greeks, particularly Mt. Kynthos on Delos where “the lake swirls its water in a circle and the melodious swan serves the Muses” (well treated by Firinu).’? My list also omits the lyrics of non-choral voices even in choral amoebaea, like Helen’s invitation to the Sirens to bring their instruments and join her lament (for which Tsolakidou gives a good account).* Such

“choral imagery” in choral odes is a much larger, and looser, phenomenon, and although, as the studies I have mentioned show, it is a phenomenon closely connected in function with choral projections and embedded choruses, it must for the most part be omitted here for reasons of economy. Euripides’ embedded choruses are of two types: cultic or mythic. “Cultic” choruses are female (usually maiden) choruses performing for a female deity: Athena, Artemis, Hera,

Demeter,’ though they also perform once for Zeus and thrice for Dionysus.° Both Euripides’ marked preference, especially in his late tragedies, for chosing a female persona for his cho* The lists in Csapo 1999-2000, 420 f. did not include more fragmentary plays. Note that by a misprint the last three entries under Helen are repeated under /T. To this list we could add Palamedes fr. 586 Kn.

(TrGF v 2). * E.g. the fragment of the Pirithous (below). 3 Steiner 2011, 309-22; Firinu 2012, 142-61. I also omit such purely metaphoric instances as the Bacchic dance of the city in Zrechtheus fr. 370, 48-54 Kn. (ΟΕ

v1).

4 Tsolakidou 2012, 155-61. Tsolakidou’s dissertation contains much relevant comment on New Musical imagery in Euripidean monody as well as choral song. 5 Athena: Heracl. 780-3; Ion 495-7; Hel. 1466-8. Artemis: FIF. 690; Tro. 551-5. Hera: El. 178-80 (see above, p. 125 ἢ. 4). For Demeter,

below, p. 127 n. 3. Zeus: Tro. 1071 f. Dionysus: lon 714-7; Phoen. 655-7; Bacch. 567 f.

see

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ruses and his tendency to embed female choruses may have something to do with the fact that female choruses in Athens tended to be cultic, whereas male choruses, better funded and better choreographed, generally performed in competition and

were more distinctly theatrical and “secular” in nature.’ More common and more distinctive than embedded maiden choruses are embedded choruses with a mythic character. These are choruses of minor divinities (satyrs, Nereids, nymphs, Graces, Muses, Korybantes) or natural — though still nonetheless mythic — choruses (stars, dolphins).* Most commonly, projected choruses perform for Dionysus (10x) or for Demeter (and Kore) (5x).* In all the instances where there is adequate description, the dances of both cul-

tic and mythic choruses are circular. In fact eleven out of all thirty-two of our projected choruses are explicitly circular.* But the embedded mythic choruses are often implicitly circular either by nature or by mythic and poetic convention: this

is especially true of the dances of the stars, dolphins, Nereids * See Budelmann-Power 2015, esp. 276-82.

* Stars (heavenly bodies): Phaeth. fr. 773, 22 Kn. with Diggle’s supplement; E/. 467; Ion 1078-86; and note the possible additions of Critias fr. 4 Sn. from the Pirithous, also ascribed to Euripides; TrGF 11 Adesp.

fr. 89a Sn. is probably iambic trimeter. Dolphins: El, 435-7; Hel. 1454 f. Satyrs: Bacch. 130-4. Nereids: El. 434; Ion 1078-86; IT 427-9; ZA 10557. Nymphs: ΠΕ 781-9. Graces: Hel. 1341-5; Phoen. 786-92. Muses: Hel. 1341-5. Korybantes: Bacch. 130-4. Other non- or suprahuman beings: HF 781-891 (Theban landmarks). Special cases are provided by Heracles and Ares who will ot dance for Dionysus in HF 888-90 and Phoen. 786-91. 3 Dionysus: ΠΕ 888-90; Ion 714-7; Phoen. 235-6 (see above), 655-6, 786-91; Bacch. 130-4, 379, 567 f., 862-5; Palamedes fr. 586 Kn. [TrGF v 2]. Demeter (and Kore): Jon 1078-86; Hel. 1312 f., 1341-45; Bacch. 120-34; Palamedes ft. 586 Kn. [TrGF v 2]. See Battezzato 2013, 105 for the equation of the “Mother” with Demeter. 4 Eur. El, 178-80 (εἱλικτὸν κρούσω πόδ᾽ ἐμόν), 437 (εἱλισσόμενος); HF 690 (εἱλίσσουσαι καλλίχοροι); Jon 1078-86 (δίνας χορευόμεναι); LT 427-9 (χοροὶ ... ἐγκύκλιοι), 1143-5 (πόδ᾽ εἱλίσσουσα); Hel. 1312 f. (xuxAtov χορῶν); Phoen. 235-6 (εἱλίσσων ... χορὸς), 786-91 (δινεύεις); LA 1055-7 (εἱλισσόpevar κύκλια); αφού, §69-7o (εἰλισσομένας μαινάδας). For the meaning of

words based on the roots *cik.x/o and *3:v, see Csapo 1999-2000, 419-24 and below. It should be noted that three of the four choruses mentioned in Euripidean monody are also explicitly circular (Csapo 1999-2000, 423), but monody remains marginal to the present study.

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If we add these, then half of the projected

choruses in Euripides have an explicitly or implicitly circular character and the others are simply not described. Almost all the embedded choruses in Euripidean odes have what one might call an “archetypally cultic” character, such as satyrs and maenads dancing for Dionysus, or Muses dancing for Apollo. But some go even beyond the archetypal. In the middle sections of this paper I will explore a group of choruses to which Euripides gives particularly stark ritual connections. He gives his embedded choruses of stars, dolphins, Nereids, and Korybantes a primordially cultic character, ap-

parently drawing upon their mythic character as first choruses. They are also, in part, elemental choruses, choruses that dance in the sky, on water, and on earth and so collectively thematise a

mystic notion of cosmic dance and elemental harmony.’ STAR

CHORUSES

Five Euripidean choral odes evoke choruses of stars. Euripides gives them a Dionysian and Eleusinian character. In /or the chorus worry that lon, a foreigner, will witness the Eleusinian mysteries. It calls lacchus “the much-sung one” (1074),

indicating an equation with Dionysus. Ion might see the torch “when also the starry-faced aether of Zeus has begun the dance” (1078 f.). The “aether of Zeus” probably also alludes to Dionysus. An ancient commentator tells us that Dionysus

was called αἰϑέριος and in the Bacchae Tiresias says that Zeus broke off a piece of the “aether circling around the earth” to substitute for Dionysus.* The imagery is in any case paralleled by the embedded chorus in Sophocles’ Antigone (1147) where the chorus invoke Dionysus as the “chorus-leader of the fire breathing stars” with a very clear reference to the all night dances at Eleusis for Iacchus (1119-21, 1152). The abovementioned commentator tells us that “he is chorus leader of the stars according to a doctrine of the mysteries”. More direct is the testimony of Aristophanes’ Frogs (343) where the Eleusin* Tam building here upon earlier discussions in Csapo 2003 and 2008. * 2 Soph. Ant. 1146 = Eust. I). 2, 9; Eur. Bacch. 293 f.

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ian chorus call Dionysus “lightbringing star of the nocturnal rite” in an ode that also evokes the night dances that end the Iacchus procession. In a choral ode of the Pirithous, ascribed both to Euripides and Critias (fr. 4 Sn. [Z7r7GF 1]), a chorus of stars dances around

some unidentified self-regenerative being. The performing chotus is probably Eleusinian initiates in the underworld.’ Though

many think the reference to the “aetherial whirl” expresses some materialistic Ionian philosophical sentiment, the word for whirl, δύμβος, is definitely cultic, referring to a bull-roarer, an instrument used extensively in the rites of Dionysus, Cybele

and Demeter, and the phrase has its closest parallel in the embedded Dionysian/Great Mother chorus of He/en’s third stasimon. There, among a list of cultic equipment used by dancers for Bromios and the nocturnal rites of the Great Goddess, we

have “whirling circular aetherial vibrations of the bull-roarer” (1362-5). The assimilation of the dance for Iacchus and Demeter to a chorus of stars in the aether appears elsewhere in late fifth-century drama and was certainly established doctrine by the time Demetrius the Besieger came to Athens as a new Dio-

nysus, along with his girlfriend as a new Demeter, at the time of the celebration of the mysteries and the procession sang in a hymn still preserved: “Something awesome is being revealed: all his friends circle him. He

stands in the middle,

and the

friends are just like stars and he is the Sun”.* Two constellations are specifically named among our starchoruses: the Pleiades and the Hyades.’ These constellations

are special because the Pleiades were conventionally thought to be seven sisters, who formed a hemichorus along with the Hyades.* The star-groups are regularly described as positioned * See Snell ad TrGF 1, 43 F 2; Csapo 2008, 273. * Duris, PGrHist 76 F 13. Fuller discussion: Csapo 2008, 271 f. 3 Eur. Phaeth. fr. 773, 22 Kn. (IrGF v 2) (a probable restoration); Eur. El. 464-9. Cf. the non-choral mentions of Pleiades in Eur. Or. 1005 (actor’s lyric exchange with chorus), Pleiades and Hyades in Eur. Jon 1152-6, and Hyades in Eur. Erechtheus fr. 370, 107 Kn. (TrGF v 1) with Σ Aratus 172 and Csapo 2008, 277. 4 The hemichoruses together usually number twelve, the size of the

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(and circling) at the horns or the tail of the constellation Taurus, as if on either side of a sacrificial bull. These sisters have mythical connections with Dionysus. The Hyades are said to derive their name from cult names of Dionysus and Semele:

Hyes and Hye respectively. In myth the Hyades were the nurses of Dionysus. According to Bob Fowler, a tradition probably related to the mysteries makes the Hyades responsible

for putting out the fire that Zeus’ thunderbolt ignited in the fetus Dionysus.’ The myth probably explains the celestial fire that made Dionysus “αἰϑέριος". The ending of Euripides’ Erechtheus makes these constellations important to Eleusis, while

emphasising a still stronger Athenian connection. Athena as goddess from the machine announces that the daughters of Erechtheus, who sacrificed themselves for Athens in the play will be catasterised by Zeus as the Hyakinthides (here probably an alternative, probably aetiologising, name for Hyades; fr. 370, 74 Kn.

[77GF v 1]).* The Athenians, she says, must

give them bovine sacrifice and “adorn” the constellation with the choral dances of maidens (fr. 370, 79-80 Kn. [IrGF v

ı]).

This appears to be an aetiology for the first choruses of maidens, inaugurated by divine fiat, who are to dance in imitation

of the Hyades though Athena’s

and in an evidently Eleusinian context, for speech becomes

very fragmentary

(offering

chorus in early tragedy, or fourteen, the size (without koryphaios) of a later tragic chorus.

Seven Pleiades:

Eur.

Or. 1005 (ἑπταπόρου te δραμή-

ματα Πλειάδος; cf. Rhes. 530); Hes. fr. 169 M-W; A schol. Hom. IL, 18, 486 (= PEG Titanomachia fr. 14); Gantz 1993, 212-8. The Pythagorean view of the Pleiades as the “lyre of the Muses” implies seven singing and dancing stars (see below, p. 132 n. 4). There is less consistency on the part of the Hyades, but Pherecydes (fr. goa-e Fowler), Hippias (fr. 13 D-K) and Ovid (Fasti 5, 165) count seven. Musaeus (PAG fr. 88), and Timaeus (FGrHist 566 F 91) give Atlas twelve daughters of which five became Hyades and the remaining seven Pleiades. Hyginus (Fab. 192) gives their combined number as fifteen. But note that 2 Aratus 172 assigns only three to Eur. Erechtheus. On choral numbers in myth generally, see Calame 2001, 23. * Fowler 2013, 371-7. * On the aetiology, see Collard-Cropp-Lee 1995, 153, 194; BudelmannPower

2015,

257 f., 284.

Sourvinou-Inwood

2011,

123-34

indentification of Euripides’ Hyades and Hyakinthides.

disputes

the

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only suggestive words like “Demeter”, “for the Hyades” and “of stars”: fr. 370, 102-8 Kn. [/rGF v 1]), it is immediately preceded by Athena’s announcement that the descendents of Eumolpus will become the hierophants of the Eleusinian mysteries (fr. 370, 100-1).' The fragments do not indicate any mention of the Pleiades, though Euripides elsewhere follows the

tradition that links the two groups: in E/ectra Euripides clearly envisions Hyades and Pleiades choruses dancing together (4679: ἄστρων τ᾽ αἰϑέριοι χοροί, | Πλειάδες “Yadec, t’Extogos | duuaort τροπαῖοι). Erechtheus’ reference to the catasterised Hyades as motive for the creation of maiden choruses at Eleusis

must draw upon the same sources as Callimachus and several later authors when they record that the Pleiades “while maid-

ens first invented choral dance” and add that they also invented the all-night festival, the pannychis, presumably the one the maidens performed at, namely the night festival with the torchlit round dancing that followed the Iacchus procession at the Kallichoron Well.* The aetiology for choral dance conceals an interesting detail that links the stars and the dancing maidens at Eleusis. Above we noted that the dance at the Kallichoron Well was circu-

lar and thought by the ancients to be so because it imitated the movement of the stars. We also noted that the dance was characterised by a change of direction between strophe and antistrophe. In Orestes (1005-6) Euripides specifically associates

a change in the direction of the movement of the stars with * For the Eleusinian context, see Sourvinou-Inwood 2011, 111-23. * Call. fr. 693 Pf.; 2 Theoc. 13, 25 W. πρῶτον δ᾽ αὖται χορείαν καὶ mavνυχίδα συνεστήσαντο παρϑενεύουσαι; Hyg. Poet. astr. 2, 21; Henrichs 1996b,

29. The connection with the pannychis and torchlight adds depth to names Lampado, one of the Pleiades (2 Theoc. 13, 25 W.), and Lampadias or Lampauras, one of the Hyades (Heph. Apotelesmatica 138, 14 Pingree; Ptol. Apotelesmatica 1, 9, 3), not to mention the fire imagery we find in Propertius 3, 5, 36 (Pleiadum spisso cur coit igne chorus) and the Aratea 256-8 (Pleiades

... sidera communem ostendunt ex omnibus ignem). The reviewer te-

minds me that it is in the context of a pannychis that the earliest allusion to dancers as stars take place in Alec. fr. 3, esp. 66 ff. Page-Davies (PMG / PMGF 3) [ὦ] τις αἰγλά[εϊντος ἀστήρ [ὠρανῷ διαιπετής ἢ Sn ἁπαλὸν ψίλ]ον | ...Jv | -..]. διέβα ταναοῖς ποσί "1.

| ἢ χρύσιον ἔρνος

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the Pleiades, though the Pleiades stand as a synecdoche for the

reversal of the movement of all the constellations. The heavens turn as a portent by which the gods helped Atreus to recover his kingship." The same reversal of the heavens is alluded to in the second stasimon of Electra (727-36). There the heavens are said to have turned in horror at the sight of Thyestes’ treachery towards Atreus. Indirectly, however, even Electra

singles out the Pleiades and the Hyades. There is a strong programmatic link (and presumably was also some kind of musical

and choreographic link) between the first and second stasima of that play.* Reference to the movements of stars appears in both stasima in the penultimate stanza, so that Electra 727-9 “Zeus altered the shining paths of the stars” easily recalls E/ectra 467-9 “and the etherial choruses of stars, Pleiades, Hyades

turning-backs (τροπαῖοι, playing also on the sense ‘routing’) to the eyes of Hector”. The Pleiades and Hyades evidently provide Euripides with a link between the choruses of stars moving antistrophically and Eleusinian cultic dance that moves in imitation of the stars and specifically the Pleiades and the Hy-

ades. His use of this imagery implies not only the derivation of human dance from the dance of the stars, but also the well-

attested aetiology of the terms strophe and antistrophe from cosmology.’ Ultimately, Euripides’ allusions to these cosmic reversals probably have some connection to the Pythagorean

(and ultimately Egyptian and Sumerian) doctrine of the Great Year, but whether this philosophical-mystical dimension had already been received by Eleusis,

or was being

adapted by

Euripides for Eleusis, is unclear.* 1

Mythic traditions in Gantz 1993, 547 f.; Csapo 2008, 279 f.

2

I explore some aspects of this in Csapo 2009. Mullen 1982, 225-8; Csapo 2008, 280 f.

3

4

Wright 1995, 138-44; Riedweg 2005, 63, 116; Csapo 2008, 280. What role, if any, the Pleiades may have played in Pythagoras’ theory is obscure, but because he singles them out as “the lyre of the Muses” (Arist. fr. 159 Gigon) we can infer that they played a role in establishing or maintaining cosmic harmony and rhythm. The Great Year or Perfect Year with its cycle of cosmic destruction and regeneration is widespread in ancient thought: see e.g. Eliade 1954, 112-30; McEvilley 2002, 67-97.

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SEARCHES

There is, however, another, presumably Eleusinian, aetiology for the nocturnal dances at the Kallichoron Well. Demeter herself established the rites in commemoration of her own arrival at Eleusis (esp. Hymn. Dem. 273-4). In the Homeric Hymn we are told that Demeter searched for Persephone by torch-

light for many days before she rested by the Kallichoron well. Pausanias (1, 38, 6) visited “the well they call Kallichoron where the women of Eleusis first established choral dance and sang to the goddess”. Lactantius describes the rites at the well as “a search during the night with lit torches for Persephone” (De inst. ep. 18, 7).

Given this aetiological link between the Kallichoron dance and Demeter’s search, it is no coincidence that the round-dance for Demeter in Thesmophoriazusae fanctions dramatically as a

manhunt. The Prytanis tells the women to be on their guard against anyone who may approach the just captured relative of Euripides. In the ode the chorus explains the circularity

of its dance through the need to cast a watchful eye in every direction: “the choral formation must while moving its gaze in a circle keep a watchful eye in every direction” (958-9). The

same connection between dance in the round and searching is played with as early as Euripides’ Telephus in 438. In that play news comes to the assembly of the Achaeans that a Mysian spy is in their midst. The chorus of Achaeans then performs a sta-

simon in which it pretends to search for the intruder. The ode survives in extremely fragmentary form. The relatively rare poetic word masieno appears twice in reference to the search (fr. 727a, 8 and 11 Kn. [27GF v 2]: “let us all search the city”, “we must search”). We know this is a round dance from a

direct parody earlier in Zhesmophoriazusae where the chorus of worshippers of Demeter, when it has heard that its assembly has been infiltrated by a man, lights torches (655, even though it is broad daylight) and in the pro-ode exhorts itself to run in a circle (662: ἀλλὰ τὴν πρώτην τρέχειν χρῆν ὡς τάχιστ᾽ ἤδη κύκλῳ). The choral song that follows begins with an echo of

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the Zelephus’ language using the verb mateuo, an epic form of masteuo, here required by metre (663-6: eta νυν tyveve καὶ μά τεὺυε ταχὺ πάντ᾽, εἴ τις ἐν τό ποις ἑδραῖος ἄλλος αὖ λέληϑεν ὦν.

πανταχῇ δὲ ῥῖψον ὄμμα, / καὶ τὰ τῇδε «καὶ τὰ κεῖσε» καὶ τὰ δεῦρο / πάντ᾽ ἀνασχόπει καλῷς, “come now quickly track and search everything, in case another man is lurking concealed in this place; cast your eye in every direction, both this way and

that and back this way again and check out all places well”). Masteuo also occurs in the second stasimon of Helen (1321) with reference to Demeter seeking Persephone. Possibly the word

has some cultic resonance, since master is also used by Carcinus (fr. 5 Sn. [Z7GF 1]) in describing Demeter as “the mother

[who] driven by longing for her vanished daughter visited as seeker all the earth in a circle”.’ Round dance came searches in Euripides.

to be closely associated with choral In Orestes after Helen has been taken

hostage Electra asks the chorus to keep a watchful eye for anyone who might come to her rescue, commanding them to split into two groups “some of you circle about over here and some of you circle about over there” (1294). In the parody of Euripidean monody in the Frogs a female character laments that Glyke has stolen her pet cock. She sings: “But o Cretans, children of Ida, take up your bows and come to my rescue, shaking your legs and circling (κυκλούμενοι) around my house

. and you, Hecate, child of Zeus, lift up your bright fiery torches, and manifest yourself at Glyke’s house, so that I can go and search it” (1356-63). The scholiast tells us that these

lines spoof Euripides’ Creians that had a chorus of priests of Zagreus, the Cretan Dionysus. The presence of torches in these * Possibly this word attaches to Demeter by some ancient etymology. The late lexica derive the word mateuo from mater (Doric for mother) and masteuo from mastos (maternal breast): Etym. Magn. s.vv. mastos, meter,

though here the connection is established not through mothers seeking their children but through children seeking the maternal breast. Seemingly etymologising puns are to be found in both Carcinus fr. 5 Sn.

(TrGF

Ὁ (μάτερ᾽

...

paoräp”)

and

Eur.

Hel.

1320-1

(μάτηρ

...

μαστεύουσα). The Carcinus passage is widely regarded as a conscious imitation of Euripides’ Helen.

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round-dance search scenes suggests that at Eleusis the circling choruses (which we know, from such passages as Jon 1076 and Ar. Frogs 350, carried torches)’ imitated the torches that lit Demeter’s search, but also suggests that the torches of Dem-

eter were at some times and in some way interpreted as the stars or their light as equivalent to the light of stars. For this reason in Frogs (340-3) Iacchus is addressed as “you who ap-

proach arousing the flaming torches in your hands” and also addressed, in the same breath, as “lightbringing star of the nocturnal rite” or, in Antigone (1146-7), as “chorus-leader of the stars breathing fire”. NEREID

Embedded

CHORUSES

choruses of Nereids connote cultic dance. Nereids

are embedded in lyrics of four Euripidean choruses.* Twice they accompany ships. In the first stasimon of /phigenia in Tauris (422-38) the chorus sings of the dangers of the sea, and especially of the Clashing Rocks of the Bosphorus. Amidst the

natural music of the plashing of the waves and the piping of the wind in the rigging, the sailors sail “where the choruses of the fifty daughters of Nereus sing in a circle” (427-9, ὅπου πεντήκοντα κορᾶν | Νηρήιδων < > χοροὶ | μέλπουσιν ἐγ-

κύκλιοι)." These specific sailors are headed for the White Isle in the Black Sea, where Achilles was taken after his death by his Nereid mother, Thetis, and her sisters. The embedded Nereids in the first stasimon of Electra offer similar imagery. Choruses of Nereids accompany the ship that

carries Achilles to Troy, dancing in circles and to the music of pipes by direct association with the leaping and circling “of the pipe-loving dolphin” in their midst (435-7, tv’ ὁ φίλαυλος ἔπαλλε δελφὶς πρώιραις κυανεμβόλοις | elerAccoduevoc).* But in the /phigenia at Aulis, “by the gleaming white sand, winding

in circles, the fifty daughters of Nereus danced for the wed* Lada-Richards 1999, 99; Parker 2005, 350. * El. 434, Ion 1078-86, IT 427-9, LA 1055-7. 3 Pull discussion by Firinu 2012, 126-42.

4 For the text, see Csapo 2003, 71 f.

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ding” of Peleus and Thetis (1054-7, παρὰ δὲ λευκοφαῇ ψάμαϑον εἱλισσόμεναι κύκλια | πεντήκοντα κόραι Νηρέως | γάμους ἐχόρευσαν). The ode goes on to tell how Thetis will give birth

to a son who will sack Troy adding an ominous mention of the golden arms made by Hephaestus that will eventually lead to Achilles’ ruin. These embedded choruses, from three different plays, programmatically link the dancing of Nereids to Achilles, famed for his prowess in arms, but even more so for his

early death, and his post-mortem transferal to the White Isles or the Isles of the Blessed by his Nereid mother and aunts. Euripides draws upon the most striking associations of

Nereids in myth and art.’ From Archaic times Nereids are always Cypria full to Peleus

a chorus of round dancers. Probably already in the Nereids emerged from the water when the moon dance on Cape Sepias in Thessaly.* It was there seized Thetis. In art the Nereids dance around an

epic was that altar

when Peleus ambushes Thetis. From this rape Achilles is born and Achilles’ birth accounts for the two other major functions

of Nereids in myth and art. The first is to take arms in procession to Achilles, the arms that are supposed to protect him, but which will ultimately bring about his propheseyed early death.

The procession has an important place in funerary imagery because it foreshadows Achilles’ funerary cortege described at the end of the epic Alethiopis (Procl. Chrest. 198 ff.). Secondly, Nereids form a chorus of mourners for Achilles. None of these choruses has a direct connection with Dionysus. Judy Barringer’s very thorough study of Nereid iconography in fact concludes that Nereids generally dance for Artemis.’ But in

lon Euripides brings the Nereids and their round-dances into the Dionysian and Eleusinian sphere: “I feel shame before the much-sung god if [Ion], present as a spectator at the festival of the twentieth by the springs of the Beautiful Dance, keep-

ing the all-night vigil, will see the torch, when the starry-faced * Barringer 1995; and for the poetic imagery, Csapo 2003. * Gantz 1994, 279; Barringer 1995, 71; Bourgeaud 1995; Hopman 2012,

163. The tradition is certainly known to Euripides (Andr. 1265-78). 3 Barringer 1995, 89, though she notes a tendency to iconographic assimilation of Nereids to nymphs and maenads.

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aether of Zeus has begun the dance and the moon dances and dance too the fifty daughter of Nereus on the sea and the ed-

dies of everflowing rivers in honour of the golden-crowned daughter

and the holy mother”

(1074-86).

Partly,

Euripides

hopes to “dithyrambise” the circular dance of the Nereids, that is why he is always careful to point out that there are fifty of them. In the background

is Aeschylus’ Nereids, a tragedy whose

Nereid chorus entered the orchestra riding dolphins and carrying arms to Achilles." Aeschylus’ Nereids probably ended with

the Nereids mourning Hector and doubtless in Aeschylus, as in Homer, the mourning for Patroclus and Hector foreshadowed the mourning of Achilles.* But Euripides’ repeated linkage of dancing Nereids to the Achilles story probably means

to

develop the symbolism of the Nereids who, at the end of the Aethiopis, take Achilles to a blessed afterlife in the White Isles. In Jon Euripides imports Nereids into imagery evoking the Eleusinian Kallichoron dance, because he wants to develop their potential for eschatological symbolism. Many of the gods and goddesses of the sea, like the sea itself, have a pow-

er of transformation that is most clearly expressed in myth by shape-shifting. This power of transformation is connected with their power to transcend limits generally, including temporal limits, as symbolised by their prophetic powers, and even to transcend the limits of mortality, as symbolised by

their recurrent interventions in myth to save When threatened, they go through a cycle of and it is a common mythic motif that you sea deities to your will only by holding on

drowning men.’ transformations can bend these to them till the

end of their cycle: in the Odyssey Menelaus forces Proteus to

give him prophecy by holding onto him until he assumes his original shape after undergoing

transformation into all ani-

mals and even the elements of water and fire. Peleus must do * Kossatz-Deissman

1978, 16; Barringer 1995, 17-40; Neer 1997, 36;

Podlecki 2013, 144. * Michelakis 2002, 53 f.; Sommerstein 2010, 245 f. 3 Descoeudres 2000; Beaulieu 2016, 36-42.

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the same to force Thetis into marriage. Caught while dancing in a circle, she enters her cycle of transformations. Sophocles mentions that she transformed herself into a lion, a snake,

fire and water (fr. 150 R. [7rGF ıv]). Other literary sources add wind, bird, tree, tiger and a squid: several like Sophocles

emphasize the elements.’ It is as a squid that she is said to conceive Achilles.” The Eleusinian context

of Jon’s third stasimon

allows the

otherwise extraordinary insertion of Nereids into the cosmic dithyramb: “when the starry-faced aether of Zeus has begun the

dance and the moon dances and dance too the fifty daughter of Nereus on the sea and the eddies of everflowing rivers” (107884). Euripides evidently means to draw poetic resonance from all the three circles in which the revolving Nereids operate (of dance, of celestial movement, and of the cycles of transforma-

tion).? All of these are linked in mystic thought and at various times in Eleusinian thought, even if Euripides is the first we know to connect all three concentric circles with Iacchus and Demeter at Eleusis. The mystic and Pythagorean Great Year, when all the stars resume their original position, was, as we saw, connected with a reversal of the movement of the stars, which in a different treatment of the myth of the Atreids (#., Or.) Euripides followed with special reference to the reversal of the choral movement of the Hyades and Pleiades, incorpo-

rating mystic ideas into an aetiology for the reversal of the dance movement which is specifically and independently attested at Eleusis.* Pythagoras also believed that human souls passed through a cycle of rebirths into other kinds of animals * The elements of air, wind, fire and water are prominent in e.g. Apol-

lod. Bibl. 3, 13, 5; Quint. Smyrn. 3, 618-24. Cf. Detienne-Vernant 1974, 141; Seaford 1986, 11-23; Barringer 1995, 141-51. * Eur. fr. 1093 Kn. [7rGF v 2]; Σ Lycoph. 175bis, 26-28 and 178, 16 Scheer; Hopman 2012, 167 (with further literature). 3 On the connection between the Harmony of the Spheres, the Great Year, and the Eternal Recurrence: Wright 1995, 135-44. For the use of kyklos in reference to the cycle of rebirth, see the passages cited by Zuntz 1971, 320-22, esp. Diog. Laert. 8, 14 (Pythagoras); Aristox. fr. 12 Wehrli (Pythagoras); PEG frr. 348, 428, 467. 4 Above, pp. 121 f.

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and then returned to human form.’ The idea of a cycle of re-

births was widespread in Bacchic mysteries as well, as attested for example by the Bacchic gold leaf from Thurii (PEG 488,

5) which speaks of flying “from the heavy difficult circle”.’ Moreover the cycles of rebirth are in Pythagorean thought synchronised with the cycles of the Great Year.’ Euripides’ insertion of Nereids into the celestial chorus that accompanies

the dancers at the Kallichoron Well at Eleusis seems designed to add the dimension of a mystic eschatology of souls to the cosmology of round dance. Euripides was perhaps not the first to give an eschatological interpretation to the Nereids’ dance, but the specific connection is not explicitly attested until the undatable “Orphic Hymn” to the Nereids (Hymn. Orph. 24

Quandt).* The hymn reveals the influence of Euripides’ style of imagery, with “dance-playful fifty daughters of Nereus per-

forming Bacchic revels” accompanied by “dolphins winding about the waves”. But most surprisingly the hymn declares that it is the Nereids who “first revealed the solemn initiation rite of most holy Bacchus and pure Persephone”. Plutarch, citing “the poetry, prose, and hymns of the theologians”, claims

for Dionysus himself the same transformative qualities we find in the Nereids: “that he is variable in form, turning into all bodies and shapes”

... “winds and water, earth and stars, and

into all the generations of plants and animals” in a series of “deaths and rebirths” constituting “cycles of transformations”: accordingly, he adds, they sing him “dithyrambic songs that are filled with sufferings, change, displacements and alterations”.’ Mystics, Plutarch implies, thought of Dionysus as the embodient of the flow of the cosmic cycle, and celebrated him with a changeful but repetitive flow of music. It is not just contemporary mysticism Plutarch is thinking of, since he illustrates his claim with a quotation from Aeschylus (fr. 355 R. [ZrGF 111]). * Riedweg 2005, 62 f. * Graf-Johnston 2007, 12; Bernabé-Jiménez San Cristöbal 2008, 33 n. 104, 108, 117-21.

* On which, see Ricciardelli 2000, 330. 5 Plut. De E ap. Delph. 388e-389a.

3 Riedweg 2005, 62 f.

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CHORUSES

The image of cosmic flux and patterned volubility helps ex-

plain why the sea and sea-creatures are so prominent in the imagery of these dithyrambising odes. When Euripides helped bring Nereids into the Dionysian realm he also helped consoli-

date their connection with dolphins. Dolphins dance in circles in two late Euripidean choral stasima: once with Nereids (ZH. 435 f.) and once with Galaneia, a sister of Nereus (He/. 1454 f.). Nature of course suggests many reasons why dolphins are

dancers. It is a topos of Greek literature that dolphins dance around ships because compelled by rhythm for the rowers.’ The music quality. Sometimes a piper keeps the the oarsmen are described as singing

the music that kept the usually has a Dionysian rhythm but just as often refrains to a e/eustes, who

keeps the rhythm with his calls in the same way that an exarchos calls to orchestrate a processional dithyramb. Longus, for example describes how sailors maintained the rhythm of the oars: “one of them, acting as Ae/eustes, sang rowing songs; the rest like a chorus chanted in unison in time to his call”.* Ships

lead a kind of processional marine dithyramb. This is why in the second stasimon of Euripides’ Electra the: “Famous ships ... lead the choruses of dolphins in procession (πέμπουσαι)

together with Nereids” and why the passage with the dolphins following the ship in He/en has been called a propemptikon.* The

dolphins are described as pipe-loving and winding in circles “at the prow” (E/. 436). The dolphin’s affinity to pipes puns upon the use of the word au/os in Greek to refer to a marine

mammal’s blow-hole:* dolphins are a true dithyrambic chorus that not only dances in circles, but joins in making music with their natural Dionysian instrument. They are nature’s objective * See esp. Sext. Emp. Math. 6, 32; Ael. NA 12, 45. * Longus 3, 21, 2. Cf. Ar. Ran. 207; 2 Lucian, Catapl. 19. 3 Eur. El. 432-4; Allan 2008, 320 ad Hel. 1451-64.

4 Arist. Hist. an. 537b 1, Part. an. 697a 17, Resp. 476b 16; Ael. NA

2,

52. This identification is alluded to on the Siana cup, Villa Giulia 64608 (Csapo 2003, 82 fig. 4, 4; Kowalzig 2013, 37 fig. 2, 2).

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correlative for dithyrambic dance. But like the natural cosmos, the Nereids, and the mystic Dionysus, they represent the

rhythms of contant flux. In an obscure fragment of choral lyric, probably by Pindar (fr. 358 S.-M.) or a tragic poet (/rGF 11, F 416a), it is said that for dolphins “it is unlawful to stay still or to stop their motions” (στῆναι μὲν οὐ ϑέμις οὐδὲ παύσασϑαι φορᾶς). The language of this curious pronouncement shows

that it is not a lesson in natural history, but a sacred prescription: Zhemis means divine, not natural law. Moreover phora is especially used of such natural cyclic movement as the revolution of the heavenly bodies (LSJ 11 1). Myths about dolphins center upon the paradox that they are fishlike animals that live in the sea, but they are also mammals

that breathe air and so are notionally in danger of drowning. As a fish-like animal, dolphins are natural leapers, composed,

as it were, of a single powerful leg. But when it leaps above the surface of the water, to blow its πέος, the dolphin draws

breath. The dolphin’s dance is therefore not just a labour of love, it can be construed as a matter of survival, the dance

of life itself. Dancing keeps the dolphin alive and in myths the dolphins’ dance keeps others alive.’ In most versions of Dionysus and the pirates, though not the Homeric hymn, the pirates first hear Dionysian music, are possessed by it, begin to

leap uncontrollably with the result that they finally leap into the water and are then made dolphins, not because Dionysus is punishing them, but because Dionysus has kindly given them

the means of survival by transforming them into dolphins that can both swim and also leap into the air, and he taught them dithyramb so that they would continue to leap up to blow out

water and take in air.* The myth of the transformation of the pirates is significantly linked with the myth of Arion. In some tellings it is explicit * For dolphins as mediators between death and life, see Beaulieu 2016,

120-4, 167-87; Lavecchia 2013; Csapo 2003, 94 f. * For the different versions of the tale, see Crusius 1889; James 1975. On the oddity of the Homeric Hymn: Descoeudres 2000, 333. On the connection between the musical possession and species transformation:

Csapo 2003, 90 f; Lavecchia 2013, 64 f.

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that the dolphins created by Dionysus are the first dolphins and so it is the dolphins’ Dionysian nature, their compulsive

love of music and dance that brings them to the ship where Arion performs for another group of pirates.’ But when Arion leaps into the sea, he survives because the dolphins escort him

with circular dances to Tainaron. Several versions of the myth are overtly intended to serve as aetiologies for the dithyramb.* In that preserved by Plutarch, for example, Arion’s arrival in Tainaron is witnessed by a group of Corinthians dancing

at an all night festival for Poseidon:

“Dolphins were seen,

some in tight formation circling around the perimeter (πέριξ κυκλοῦντες), some in front heading towards the flatter part

of the beach, and others behind as if followers” (Conv. sept. sap. 160 f ). In the middle rides Arion. Plutarch’s version of the myth is an aetiology for dithyramb. Arion is famous for two things: he was saved by dolphins, and he taught men the dithyramb. These two things are connected. Arion learned the dithyramb from the dolphins and then passed the knowledge on to men. It is not only the circling movements of the dolphins, but the accompanying sounds of their μοὶ, their blowholes, that are explained by this myth. We can guess that this feature goes back a long way, since even in our earliest extant version of the tale, that of Herodotus (1, 23 f.), Arion is a kitharode. This seems at first inappropriate to the inventor of

dithyramb, unless we also infer that Arion created dithyramb with auletic accompaniment in direct imitation of the dolphins’ song. Even from the beginning, the creation of dithyramb is linked to the restoration of life to dying men. * The pirates are the first dolphins (cf. 2 Opp. Hal. 1, 649, 28-35 Bussemaker; cf. ibid. 1, 383, 1). The myth functions as an aetiology for the apparently Dionysian

character of the animal, but also explains how

a

mammal of human proportions, that associates with humans (Ath. 13, 606 d: φιλανθρωπότατον ζῷον ; cf. Lucian, Dial. mar. 5,1; Ael. NA 11, 12) and that has near-human intelligence, ended up inhabiting the seas. Cf. Opp. Hal. 1, 652 f.: “but a proper human spirit still preserves [in the transformed pirates] a human intelligence and human actions”. Some sources

make the original dolphins, the ex-pirates, the very same as those who save Arion (Lucian, Dial. mar. 5; Philostr. Imag. 1, 19, 6). * Esp. fr. 939 PMG (on which see Csapo 2003, 74-76; Lavecchia 2013, 64 f.).

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Dolphins thus have some of the same mythical qualities as

Nereids. Like Nereids they dance in the round. Like Nereids they are mythical shape-shifters: once human, Dionysos turned them into dithyrambic beasts. Like Nereids dolphins save the souls of men

drowning

at sea and restore life. This last at-

tribute sometimes brings them into direct alignment with Nereids, for the dolphins that saved Arion and taught him the dithyramb are, on some seven Athenian vases, shown to carry choruses of Achilleses, or other fallen heroes, to the Isles of the Blessed.’ These appear as a significant subgroup of about twenty vases that show costumed dithyrambic choruses of the

sort one might see at the Dionysian Parade.* As saviours of souls (their own and others’), dolphins became powerful symbols for the dance of initiation to the mysteries. Kouretes and Korybantes One last archetypal chorus worth a glance is that of the Kouretes and Korybantes. These appear in the parodos of Bac-

chae (120-9), dancing for the Great Mother and Rhea, both of whom were in the process of being syncretised with Demeter.

The embedded chorus evokes another originary moment of the creation of Dionysian-Demetrian music: the Kouretes are said to have invented the tympanon, here called a κύκλωμα, a

round thing, and the pipes for Rhea, which the satyrs acquired and used in their dances for Dionysus. The roundness of their dance is suggested by the reference to the κύκλωμα and im-

plied by the story that they danced around Zeus and later Dionysus to drown out the infant’s cries. Later sources say that the stars first invented choral dance, and Rhea (the Earth Mother) asked the Kouretes/Korybantes to move in imitation of them, thus inventing the first human choral dance, which

in its originary form was naturally circular.* The Kouretes danced around the infant Zeus and also later Dionysus, hiding * The very plausible explanation by Schwarz 2002. * See Csapo 2003, 86-90; Csapo 2015, 87-9. 3 Csapo 2003, 94 f.; Lavecchia 2013, 63-6. 4 Lucian, Salt. 7 f.; cf. Lib. Or. 64, 12-4.

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and saving the gods from their enemies, but also performing the first mystery initiations." The sources seem to disagree as to whether they first invented dance or first invented dance in armour, though given their pre-Olympian chronology, it easily

amounts to the same thing.” The chorus in Euripides’ Cresans assimilates their dance to the dances at the Kallichoron Well: they are nocturnal, accompanied by torches, and performed for a Mother goddess often equated in Euripides with Demeter.’

The bacchic initiates “for night-wandering Zagreus

... raise

torches for the Mountain Mother with the Kouretes” (Eur. fr. 472, 11-14 Kn. [77GF v ı]).* Programmatic words Within his embedded choruses, Euripides employs a number of words that seem designed to trigger archetypal connections and so reinforce the cultic and archetypal connections of the

embedded choruses. Henrichs commented specifically on the word καλλίχορος that appears in seven choral odes, in five cases in the context of a choral projection.’ Sometimes, as in Lon 1075 or Suppliants 619, the context suggests a “proper adjective”, written with a capital to refer to the Kallichoron Well, but elsewhere it is a common adjective describing circling De-

liads performing a paian, or circling dolphins. The word seems to be semantically charged by its allusion to the sacred context of the well at Eleusis. This usage is probably broader than

Euripides. The Mystic chorus in Aristophanes’ Frogs exhorts * In addition to the sources cited in the last note: Dion. Hal. Azz. Rom. 2, 70, 5 (citing “the ancients”); Clem. Al. Profr. 2, 17 f. (= Euseb. Praep. ev. 2, 3, 23-24); Σ Clem. Al. Protr. 302, 22-6 Stählin-Treu. ? Invented

dance:

Lucian,

Salt.

7 f.; Dion.

Hal. Ant.

Rom.

2, 70, 5

(citing “the ancients”); Lib. Or. 64, 12-4. Invented armed dance: Strabo 10, 3, 8, 17 f.; Eust. 2), 2, 788, 20; Hymn.

Orph.

31, 1 Quandt.

3 On Euripides’ mother goddesses, see Firinu 2012, 83-111. * The Kouretes/Korybantes are mentioned only in choral odes in Euripides. In addition to Bacchae and Cretans: Hipp. 143; Hyps. ft. 752g, 24 Kn. [ΟΕ v

2].

5 Henrichs 1996a, 51; Eur. Heracl. 359; Ion 1075; HF 690; Hel. 1454 f.; Phoen. 786; Cresphontes fr. 453 Kn. [TrGF v 1]. Eur. Suppl. 392 (nonchoral) and 619 refer to the actual well.

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itself to: “dance in our fashion, our καλλιχορώτατον

(448-51).

Other programmatic

words

include ἑλίσσω

145

fashion”

and δινεύω

(to

whirl about in a circular fashion) or their cognate nouns ἕλιξ and δίνη. Cognates οἵ ἕλιξ occur 52 times in Euripides - Wilamowitz called éAtcow Euripides’ Lieblingswort.' It never appears in Aeschylus and only three times in Sophocles. It is especially

used in connection with cultic and archetypal dance appearing in eight of our choral projections and another three times in

choruses embedded in Euripidean monody.* Its attraction for Euripides is evidently in the Dionysian spin it gives round dance or anything else that moves in circles, since the word

ἕλιξ also designates the god’s attribute, ivy. Δῖνος (δίνη words appear 17 times in Euripidean lyric. Words from this root are

also much favoured in New Musical lyrics of other tragedians: in Aristophanes’ parody of Agathon’s lyrics we have the phrase “rhythmic arhythmic whirlings (δινεύματα) of Phrygian Graces” (Thesm. 121 f.). But words from this root are also often charged with mystic significance: Aeschylus’ chorus in Agamemnon, for example, refers to its heart circling about on initiatory whirls (996-7: τελεσφόροις | δίναις κυκλούμενον xéap).? Aristophanes’ parody of an Orphic theology in Birds (693-7)

makes it clear that the Atvn, “The Aetherial Whirl,” had an important role in a contemporary Orphic Theogony (his jokes in Clouds 379-81 also ascribe Δῖνος a role in sophistic theology).

In the Orphic corpus δίνη and δινεύω frequently appear, often in combination with ἑλίσσω and xvxdog.* An Orphic Theogony * Borthwick 1994, 30; Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1895, 11 159. For its role in New Musical and mystic imagery, see Csapo 1999-2000, 422;

Csapo 2003, 72-73, 77:

* Note also the associated ἐλελίζω, as discussed by Tsolakidou 2012, 93. 3 See also [Aesch.] PV 1052 (with Seaford 1986, 10 f.); Eur. Ale. 245.

Cf. Pl. Resp. 620e. 4 PEG frr. 287, 2; 539, 13 540, 73 541, 13; Lymn.

Orpb. 4, 6, 7, 10, 19,

40 Quandt; Nonnus constantly puns on ἔδιν- and Dionysos (also Dionysos and ὠδίνω). Burkert (apud Janko 2002, 36) has suggested putting τὴν δίνην] in the first line of column 18 of PDerveni giving the phrase τὴν S[ivav] καὶ τἄλλα πάν[τ]α εἶναι ἐν τῶι ἀέρι π[νε]ῦμα ἐόν which Janko 2002 translates as “that the vortex and all the other elements are in the Air, it

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derives the name Dionysus from δίνη. Bernabé (ad PEG

fr.

143) thinks this etymology is already implicit in Aristophanes’ Birds (above). It is in any case entirely in line with the habit of “explaining the names of the gods by changing letters” with which Epicurus charged the fifth-century sophists and poets, Prodicus, Diagoras and Critias.” Programmatic too are Euripides references to circles or circular objects, especially cultic objects like garlands.’ Words

for garlands in particular are sometimes mixed in choral lyrics with other programmatic words: at Phoenissae 786 we have ἐπὶ χκαλλιχόροις

στεφάνοισι

and at Chresphonies fr. 453, 7 f. Kn.

(IrGF v 1) καλλιχόρους ἀοιδὰς φιλοστεφάνους τε κώμους. The

image of the garland is particularly favoured in choral lyrics because of a cultic (perhaps Eleusinian) conception of the

circular dance as a garland for the god or for the altar of the god.* For example, the stars and Nereids dancing at the Kallichoron well in Jon are said to “dance whirls for the gold-gar-

landed daughter and holy mother” (1084-6: δίνας χορευόμεναι τὰν χρυσοστέφανον κόραν καὶ ματέρα σεμνάν). The chorus that

sings the Demetrian-Dionysian hymn in Thesmophoriazusae ends with the words: “the beautifully-leaved ivy blossoms around you in a circle with a whirl” (999-1000). This kind of imagery is widely imitated, a Dionysian ode of Sophocles ends with the

image of ivy encircling the chorus (Jrach. 218-30); the opening section of Pindar’s Athenian dithyramb ends with the images being ‘breath”’. This is criticised in Betegh 2004, 377 f. It is in any case clear that Fate is spinning something (Μοῖραν ἐπιρκλῶσαι), so the language is very close to Pl. Resp. 6zoe. * Hymn.

Orph.

6 Quandt

= PEG

fr. 143; Macrob.

Sat. 1, 18, 12 vv.

6-7 (= PEG fr. 540); Euseb. Praep. evang. 3, 11, 27; Porph. Peri agalm. 8, 38-42.

2 Phid. Piet. part 1 col. 19, lines 518-41 Obbink; Janko 2001, 8 n. 3 In addition

to other passages

mentioned

in this paragraph:

26. Eur.

Bacch. 81, 101, 106, 376f., 531; ZA 759, 1058; Erechtheus fr. 369 Kn. [TrGF vi.

* Calame 1997, 34 f. See esp. Lymn. Hom. Ven. 120; Pind. Pae. fr. 52c, 15 S.-M.; the mitra-metaphors in Nonnus Dion. 9, 163; 14, 28; 48, 192-4 (Νηρεΐδων δὲ φάλαγγες ... νυμφιδίῃ Διόνυσον ἐμιτρώσαντο χορείῃ, καὶ μέλος ἐφϑέγξαντο).

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of “choruses seeking the he/ix-bound Semele” (fr. 75, 19 S.-M. οἰχνεῖ te Σεμέλαν ἑλικάμπυκα χοροί). For this reason Euripi-

des often ends a choral ode, particularly a hymnic ode, with a reference to a garland or something like a garland.’ Hesychius was able to gloss the word choros, with “circle” or “garland”; and even some Romans derived “corona” from “chorus”.* Such choral garlands are especially suited to Dionysus as he is said to have invented the garland,’ but also because he is

the god of initiation, and in mystery doctrine, the garland was interpreted as a symbol of escape from the cycle of life-deathlife.* It is for this reason that the aetiology for wearing garlands is said to be in commemoration of Prometheus’ shackles once he was liberated from his sufferings by Heracles.’ One of the tablets from Thurii after the verse “I have flown out of

the heavy difficult circle” repeats the words “I have entered into the longed-for garland with nimble feet”. The reference probably has something to do with the cycle of reincarnation, a “circle”, Proclus tells us, that “the initiates of Orpheus, Dio-

nysus and Kore” prayed to be able “to leave” (dn Ti. 3, 297). Graf and Johnston think that the words ποσὶ καρπαλίμουσι indicate an athletic metaphor. But moot καρπαλίμοισι might

mean “nimble” rather than “swift” feet and produce a choral * Cf. Eur. Phoen. 832, Tro. 565 (monody), ZA 1529-31. Elsewhere the description of the cultic chorus as “adornment” evokes garland imagery (e.g. Erechtheus 370, 79-80 Kn. [TrGF v 1], cited above). ? Isid. Ziym.

19, 30, 2: nomen coronae hac ex causa vocatum, eo quod initio

circum aras currerelur, atque ad imaginem circuitus vel chori et formatam et nominatam coronam. 3 Plin. HN 16, 7 f. 4 Graf-Johnston 2007, 127 f.; Procl. Ir Ti. 3, 296 f. ’ The Promethean symbolism of the garlands is attested already for Aesch. Prometheus Liberated (Ath. 15, 674d; Hyg. Poet. astr. 2, 15, 4; cf.

Aesch. fr. 235 R. [77GF 111]); Seaford 1986, 23-25. The Attic “Tyrthenian” amphora by the Prometheus Painter (Florence 76359) seems, already ca. 560, to place the liberation of Prometheus in significant relation to garlands, as both Demeter and Athena hold very prominent garlands on either side of the scene of Heracles ridding Prometheus of the eagle of Zeus. Note also the synchronism between Prometheus’ round of sufferings and Empedocles’ version of the Great Year (B 115, 6: τρίς μιν μυρίας ὥρας) and Aesch. Prometheus Pyrphoros (τρεῖς μυριάδας φησὶ

δεδέσϑαι): X [Aesch.] PV 94; Hyg. Poet. astr. 2, 15, 3, 5. See Seaford 1986. Graf-Johnston 2007, 12 f. no. 5, LL 6, 8.

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metaphor. We have a direct parallel for the expression in the

cultic Demetrian dance with which we began this discussion, Thesmophoriazusae 957: καρπαλίμοιν ποδοῖν. CONCLUSIONS

It is time to sum up our observations. 1. There are recurrent patterns in the use of embedded choruses in Euripides’ later odes. The choral imagery in these odes

reveals a programmatic character when one looks beyond the frame of the specific drama.

2. Euripides’ embedded choruses are imbued with a cultic and very frequently an archetypal or primordial character. In every explicit and implicit case the embedded chorus dances in a circular motion. The choruses that dance in circles are cultic female choruses, mythic choruses, or the dance of natural

objects and beings, like stars or dolphins. In most cases these choruses are described as primitive, elemental and originary, a character that is also insisted upon by the music evoked in

the odes: often panpipes, the piping of the wind in the rigging or the water in the rudder of boats, or newly invented instruments.‘ The cases we studied are mythic first choruses.* The stars, Nereids, dolphins or Kouretes are all choruses that form part of a chain of cosmic instruction: the stars taught the gods, Dionysus taught the dolphins, the dolphins taught Arion, and Arion taught men. 3. If we look at embedded choruses, not as a species of

choral self-reference, but as interpretive frames in their own tight, we can see a general attempt not only to assert tragic dance’s connection with Dionysian cult, but also to link Dionysian cult with the Athenian polis religion par excellence, the Eleusinian mysteries. Euripides habitually connects the ar-

chetypal embedded choruses with Eleusis and particularly the dancing that takes place at the Kallichoron Well after the Iac* For the part of “natural music”

in Euripidean

choral imagery,

see

generally Firinu 2012, 112-77. * On the imagery’s connection with first choruses, see also Tsolakidou 2012, 203-5.

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chus procession. This ritual is doubtless chosen because of its shared Eleusinian-Dionysian character (through the equation of Iacchus and Dionysus), but presumably also because it is the only choral ritual at Eleusis that is in a public space (outside

of the sanctuary) and therefore less likely to risk a charge of revealing the mysteries.’ The language deployed in describing the embedded choruses sometimes alludes to Eleusinian-Dio-

nysian ideas linking the roundness of the dance with the cycle of death and rebirth. This is a link that bridges beginnings and ends, aether and underworld, and so steps, as ritual does, outside of time and space to unite time and space.”

Why is Euripides doing this? The answer is in part that it comes with the musical and choreographic style. I have in the past tried to show

that the language,

versification

and

recurrent imagery (aether, stars, Nereid, dolphins) is typical of dithyramb and of the late fifth-century New Music inspired by the new dithyramb. The parallels we pointed to in Pindar, Sophocles, Critias, and Aristophanes (many others could be

added) are enough to demonstrate that Euripides is not alone in this enterprise. There are complex musical, socio-economic and political roots to the dithyrambic revival in the last decades of the fifth century, but to the eyes of its contemporaries

it must have looked like a religious revival, and a response to that proverbial complaint levelled against both the lyric and tragic performances at the Dionysia that they had “nothing to

do with Dionysus”.’ Choruses that performed in the Theatre of Dionysus in the last quarter of the fifth century recreated,

or perhaps,

“created” a consciousness

of their cultic roots.

Perhaps significantly it is only from about 415 that the word

kyklios is attested as a term for men’s and boys’ Dionysian * Cf. Graf 1974, 50; Budelmann-Power 2015, 271. * See esp. Seaford 2013. 3 Nikolaidou-Arabatzi 2015 came to my attention only long after this article was complete. It goes over much the same ground that I have covered in the past and concludes that Euripides’ projections serve a ritual and religious function (cf. Csapo 1999-2000, 425 f.), but without noticing their specifically Eleusinian and Bacchic orientation.

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lyric choruses.’ Contrary to the charges of conservative critics

that the New Music was breaking with tradition, the choral music of the theatre shows itself to be hypertraditional, not a departure from religious roots, but an aesthetic resuscitation of supposed cultic origins. But it seems inadequate to say that Euripides is just replicat-

ing generic features of a new style of song and dance whose assemblage was mainly the creative work of dithyrambic poets.

Far too little evidence remains of the New Dithyramb or of its performance techniques to speak with much assurance, but

the specifically Eleusinian connections made by our imagery appear mainly in Athenian drama (we found it in Sophocles, Critias, Aristophanes and Carcinus, as well as Euripides). The plots of Euripides’ unfortunately highly fragmentary plays the Cretans, Erechtheus, Flypsipyle and Phaethon seem particularly well chosen to exploit mystic ideas about the origins of music and dance. Whatever the source, the evidence of the embedded choruses of later fifth-century tragedy shows an active engagement in a Bacchic and Eleusinian syncretism to which historians of religion need to pay closer attention. Let us ask, by way of a brief coda, if dramatic choruses really did dance in the round as often as they sang of choruses

dancing in the round? In the case of self-referential choruses, like that of the Demeter dance of Thesmopbhoriazusae, the answer seems

obviously

“yes”.” To

these we might

add the search

dances of which Euripides was fond and which Aristophanes liked to parody. But the question whether Euripides’ choruses, when singing of Nereids, dolphins or Korybantes, danced in

the round is more challenging. Suffice it to say that late fifth-century music had a tendency to complex synaesthetic patterning.’ Aristophanes particular-

ly associates this trend with Euripides when for example he * Ar. Nub. 333; Av. 918 f., 1378, 1403 and Eup. Baptai fr. 81 PCG. * See above, pp. 121 f. Strong cases for tragic round-dance have been made for the binding song of Aesch. Eumenides and the ending of Eur. LA (Weiss 2014, esp. 126 f.). 3 On the mimetic quality of choral dance generally, see Firinu 2012, esp. 113-20.

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parodies Euripides’ imitation of sense by sound, in emphasing the repetitive circular motion in the word “winding” (Ae/issein) with a melism rendering it wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-winding. The trend, so far as we can see, went viral. The Hibeh sophist, of Classical date, complains of music theorists who recommend that melodies assume the shape of laurel or ivy and “are even unashamed to ask if the melody does not seem to move in a helix’. Choral dances took on the name Strobilos or Dinos, “Whirlwind” and “Vortex”.* The Whirlwinds of the tragedian Carcinus are parodied in Aristophanes’ Peace, where the chorus

congratulate Trygaios on his upcoming marriage with Theotia, and tell him that when he grabs hold of her tits he will be “more ecstatic than the whirlwinds of Carcinus”. The composer of cyclical choruses Diagoras of Melos, a man spoofed

by Aristophanes for claiming that “Dinos rules in place of Zeus”, was in 415 condemned, our sources tell us, for “dancing out the Mysteries”.’ Most telling perhaps, the Anonymus On Tragedy, who draws on a source highly critical of Euripides and Agathon, complains about τὸ λίαν ἐνδινεύεσϑαι, “excessive vortex dancing”, a complaint that can hardly be confined to the imagery found in the lyrics.* * West 1992, 17 (PFlibeh 13, 11. 31-34). * Dinos: Apollophanes

frr. 1-2 PCG;

Ath. 11, 467f; Hdn.

Gr. 2, 492;

Eust. //. 4, 267, 10-12; Orth 2013, 355-59; Naerebout 1997, 282 n. 653; Firinu 2012, 155-57. Sérobilos: Ar. Pax 863 f.; Ath. 14, 6302. Notice also the satyr and nymph names: Helike and Dina- in Kossatz-Deissmann 1991, 146-92; Heinemann 2013, 291. 3 2 Ar. Nub. 830; cf. Lucian, Sal. 15. Janko 2001, 8: “The reports that Diagoras was concerned with perjury and that he etymologized the names of the gods ate in accord with Aristophanes’ jab at Diagoras via Socrates ‘the Melian,’ who claims that one can no longer swear oaths by Zeus, since his rule has been supplanted by that of “Dinos”’. Cf. Lib. Deel. 1, 154 (= T 19 Winiarczyk): “you were wise to promise a reward for the person who would kill Diagoras, since he mocked Eleusis and the ineffable mysteries”; and Athenagoras Leg. 4 (= T 27 Winiarczyk) for the report that Diagoras revealed not only Orphic doctrine but the Eleusinian mysteries, and those of the Cabiri. For the dating of Diagoras of Melos’ condemnation to death in 415: Janko 2001, 6 f.

4 Anon. On Tragedy 6 in Browning 1963.

I would like to thank Laura

Gianvittorio for the invitation to contribute to this volume, Fiachra Mac

Gorain and audiences in Cambridge, London and Reading for helpful corrections and comments.

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LITERATURE

Allan W., 2008: Euripides Helen, Cambridge. Austin C. - Olson S. D., 2004: Aristophanes: Thesmophoriazusae, Ox-

ford. Barringer J. M., 1995: Divine Escorts: Nereids in Archaic and Classical Greek Art, Ann Arbor. Battezzato L., 2013: Dithyramb and Greek Tragedy, in B. Kowalzig P. Wilson (eds.), Dithyramb in Context, Oxford, 93-110. Beaulieu M.-C., 2016: The Sea in the Greek Imagination, Philadelphia. Bernabé A. - Jiménez San Cristöbal A. I., 2008: Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphie Gold Tablets, Leiden. Betegh G., 2004: The Derveni Papyrus: Cosmology, Theology and Inter-

pretation, Cambridge. Bierl A., 2009: Ritual and Performativity: The Chorus of Old Comedy,

Washington

[English translation of 1998 German Habilitations-

schrift].

Borgeaud P., 1995: Note sur le Sépias. Mythe et histoire, Kernos 8, 23-9. Borthwick E. K., 1994: New Interpretations of Aristophanes’ Frogs 12491328, Phoenix 48/1, 21-41. Browning R., 1963: A Byzantine Treatise on Tragedy, in L. Varcl - R. F. Willetts (eds.), Γέρας: Studies Presented to George Thomson on the

Occasion of his 60” Birthday, Prague, 67-81. Budelmann F. - Power T., 2015: Another Look at Female Choruses in Classical Athens, ClAnt 34/2, 252-95.

Calame C., 1997: Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece. Their Morphology, Religious Role, and Social Functions, Lanham. Ceccarelli P., 2013: Circular Choruses and the Dithyramb in the Classical and Hellenistic Period: A Problem of Definition, in B. Kowalzig P. Wilson (eds.), Dithyramb in Context, Oxford, 153-70. Clinton K., 1992: Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries, Stockholm. Collard C. - Cropp M. J. - Lee K. H., 1995: Euripides: Selected Fragmentary Plays 1, Warminster. Crusius O., 1889: Der homerische Dionysoshymnus und die Legende von der Verwandlung der Tyrsener, Philologus 48/2, 193-228. Csapo E., 1999-2000: Later Euripidean Music, ics 24-25, 399-426. Csapo E., 2003: The Dolphins of Dionysos, in E. Csapo - M. C. Miller (eds.), Poetry, Theory, Praxis. The Social Life of Myth, Word and Image in Ancient Greece. Essays in Honour of William J. Slater, Oxford, 69-98.

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Csapo E., 2008: Star Choruses: Eleusis, Orphism, and New Musical Imagery and Dance, in M. Revermann - P. Wilson (eds.), Performance, Iconography, Reception, Oxford, 262-290. Csapo E., 2009: New Music’s Gallery of Images: The “ Dithyrambic” First

Stasimon of Euripides’ Electra, in J. R. C. Cousland - J. R. Hume (eds.), The Play of Texts and Fragments: Essays in Honour of Martin

Cropp, Leiden, 95-109. Csapo E., 2015: The Earliest Phase of “Comic” Choral Entertainments in Athens: The Dionysian Pompe and the “Birth” of Comedy, in S. Chronopoulos - C. Orth (eds.), Fragmente einer Geschichte der griechischen Komödie [ Fragmentary History of Greek Comedy, Heidelberg, 66-108. Csapo E., 2016: Choregiec Dedications and What they Tell us About Comic

Performances in the Fourth Century BC, Logeion 6, 252-84. D’Alessio G., 2013: “The Name of the dithyramb”. Diachronic and Diatopic Variations, in B. Kowalzig - P. Wilson (eds.), Dithyramb in Context, Oxford, 113-32. D’Angour A., 1997: How the Dithyramb Got Its Shape, CQ 47/2, 531-51. Davidson J. F., 1986: The Circle and the Tragic Chorus, G&R 33/1, 38-46. Descoeudtes J.-P., 2000: Les Daupbins de Dionysos, in ©. Reverdin, Homere chez Calvin, Genéve, 325-34.

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Heinemann A., 2013: Performance and the Drinking Vessel: Looking for an Imagery of Dithyramb in the Time of the “New Music”, in B. Kowalzig - P. Wilson (eds.), Dithyramb in Context, Oxford, 282-309.

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Three Essays on Religion and Thought in

PART ELEMENTS DANCE

TWO. OF

ANCIENT

THEORY

6. DANCE AS SILENT POETRY, POETRY AS SPEAKING DANCE: THE POETICS OF ORCHESIS SOPHIE

MARIANNE

BOCKSBERGER

Qu’est-ce qu’une métaphore, si ce n’est une sorte de pirouette de Pidée dont on rapproche les diverses images ou les divers noms? Et que sont toutes ces figures dont nous usons, tous ces moyens, comme les rimes, les inversions, les antithéses, si

ce ne sont des usages de toutes les possibilités du langage, qui nous détachent du monde pratique pour nous former, nous aussi, notre univers particulier, lieu priv-

ilégié de la danse spirituelle?’ Paul Valéry’* DANCE

D

ANCE

AS

EMBODIED

POETRY

had a prominent role in the civic, the religious

and the cultural life of the archaic and classical Greek πόλις.

Choruses

constituted

one

of the

essential

features

of

the numerous festivals punctuating life in a given community, and the arts of χορεία and μουσική (the combination of dance, poetry, and music)’ were crucial to the expression of common

values in the public sphere.* Since “performing in a chorus was * “What is a metaphor if not a kind of pirouette performed by an idea,

enabling us to assemble its diverse names or images? And what are all the figures we employ, all those instruments, such as rhyme, inversion,

antithesis, if not an exercise of all the possibilities of language, which removes

us from the practical world and shapes, for us too, a private

universe, a privileged abode of the intellectual dance?” (transl. by Ralph Manheim in Valéry 1983, 65). * Valery 1957 [1936], 1403, from Theorie podtique. 3 For a recent discussion of μουσική, see Rocconi 2015.

* Stehle 1997, 68 f.; Kowalzig 2007; Power 2015, 68 f.

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an expected part of how a citizen lived and was integrated into social life”,* most people would be exposed to dance both as a practitioners and as a spectators. Therefore, it seems reasonable to suppose that familiarity with kinetic modes

of expression

would be significantly high, and that a majority of the spectators of a given performance would constitute an informed audience, one trained to understand and interpret dance.* Given the existence of various contests in which numerous

choruses would compete against one another by performing original pieces (i.e. different music and different words),’ it is very likely that the choreographies would vary, just like -- and with — the metrical patterns.* Dance, then, would probably be

used creatively and expressively, complementing the signification of the words. In fact, this would seem to be a necessary condition for dance to be classified as a mimetic art (cf. Poet. 1447a).’ Consequently, choral choreographies should not be imagined in terms of ‘set dances’ that would fit a particular genre, even

though post-classical authors sometimes refer to a generic categorisation of dance (e.g. ἐμμέλεια, κόρδαξ, otxvvec).° These distinctions may well reflect later preoccupations, as Peponi suggests.’ More importantly, even if this terminology happened to

* Goldhill 2002, 2.

® On the high level of theatrical competence of fifth- and fourth-century audiences, see Revermann 2006 and Vetta 2007 (in particular 217-9). 3 In the case of dithyrambic performances in Athens, ten choruses of men and ten choruses of boys would compete each year. Each chorus would be composed of at least fifty performers. See Csapo-Slater 1995, 103-8. For a detailed account of all the Athenian festivals in which choruses competed, see Wilson 2000, 21-44.

4 Pace Webster 1970; David 2006. On the relationship of metrics and dance steps, see also Hagel in the present volume. 5 On dance as a mimetic art, see Peponi 2015. In this paper, Peponi acutely notes that dance as a mimetic art “either question[s] or alter[s]

a conventional understanding of mimetic representation” (211), as dance mostly relies on analogies or metaphors to establish a link between a movement and its meaning. ° According to Photius (s.v. σίκιννις), Aristoxenus established these distinctions in his περὶ τραγικῆς ὀρχήσεως (see fr. 104, 106 Wehrli). also, for instance, Lucian, Sa/#. 26; Ath. 1, zoe; Poll. 4, 99. 7 Peponi 2015, 216.

See

THE

POETICS

OF

ORCHESIS

161

date from the fifth century B.c. or earlier, ' it should not be supposed that the existence of recognisable styles of dance necessarily entails the existence of fixed patterns of movement. Ballet, for instance, while being known for its highly stylised and normative technique, allows for a great variety of expression: one only has to compare the choreographies that Cranko, MacMillan, and Nureyev have set to Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet to realise how much each adaptation of the play is distinctive, while remaining at the same time unmistakably balletic. The story, the score, and the type of dance are exactly the same, but the framing of the narrative, the imagery, the objects of emphasis, the way emotion

is expressed by the characters, or simply the manner in which the story is told through movements are completely different. The essential connection between poetry and dance, which seems to have been so natural to the Greeks of the archaic and classical period, is no longer perceived as the norm in Western culture. In the eighteenth century, however, as pantomime was

being revived as ballet d’action,* the mimetic nature of dance did not escape Denis Diderot. In his Zroisiöme entretien sur le fils naturel, which resembles a mini-Poetics in the form of a dia-

logue, he writes: La danse? La danse attend encore un homme

de génie; elle est

mauvaise partout, parce qu’on soupgonne a peine que c’est un genre imitation. La danse est ἃ la pantomime, comme la poésie est a la prose, ou plutöt la déclamation naturelle est au chant. [5] Je voud-

rais bien qu’on me dit ce que signifient toutes ces danses, telles que le menuet, le passe-pied, le rigaudon, l’allemande, la sarabande, ot

Von suit un chemin tracé. Cet homme se déploie avec une grace infinie; il ne fait aucun mouvement ot je n’apergoive de la facilité, de

la douceur et de la noblesse: mais qu’est-ce qu’il imite? [5] Une danse est un poeme. Ce poeme devrait donc avoir sa representation séparée. C’est une imitation par les mouvements, qui suppose le concours du poéte, du peintre, du musicien et du pantomime. Elle a son sujet; ce sujet peut étre distribué par actes et par scenes.’ * The words themselves are attested in fifth-century literature, e.g. éuμέλεια in Hdt. 6, 129; Ar. Vesp. 1503; Ran. 897; κόρδαξ in Ar. Nub. 540 and 555; σίκιννις in Eur. Cye. 37. * See Foster 1996; Nye 2011. 3 Diderot 1946 [1757], 1294 f. “The dance? The dance still awaits a

162

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In this passage, Diderot, whose aim is to rehabilitate dance as a legitimate form of art by no means inferior to others, explicitly equates dance with poetry and stresses its mimetic power.

His arguments are clearly reminiscent of Aristotle’s conception of dance as a mimetic art: for Diderot, it is the representative potential of dance that should secure its place among the other arts. These Aristotelian echoes are hardly coincidental, and we

may even suppose that Diderot’s definition of dance is influenced by the idea of ancient χορεία as an art form that consists of dance, poetry, and music.’ This hypothesis is strengthened

by the fact that Diderot mentions Greek tragedy in several Passages prior to this, and he appears throughout the essay to be committed to the Aristotelian idea that art imitates life. The poet Paul Valéry goes one step further, as he considers

the implications of what it means for dance to be poetic: [La danse] est tout simplement vivants: elle isole et développe les la détache, la déploie, et fait du les transformations, la succession

une podsie générale de l’action des étres caractéres essentiels de cette action, corps qu’elle possede un objet dont des aspects, la recherche des limites

des puissances instantanées de l’étre, font nécessairement songer a la fonction que le poéte donne ἃ son esprit, aux difficultés qu’il lui propose, aux métamorphoses qu’il en obtient, aux écarts qu’il en sollicite et qui l’éloignent, parfois excessivement, du sol, de la raison,

de la notion moyenne et de la logique du sens commun.* man of genius; because one seldom finds it used as a genre of imitation, the dance one sees is terrible everywhere. The dance should be to pantomime as to song. [...] formed today allemande, the

poetry is to prose, or more precisely as I would like someone to tell me what all represent — the minuet, the passe-pied, sarabande — where one follows a traced

natural speech is these dances perthe rigaudon, the path. This dancer

performs with an infinite grace; I see in each movement his facility, his grace, and his nobility, but what does he imitate? [...] A dance is a poem. This poem must have its own way of representing itself. It is an imitation presented in movements, that depends upon the cooperation of the poet, the painter, the composer, and the art of pantomime. The

dance has its own subject which can be divided into acts and scenes” (transl. by Green 1936, 97 f.). * See Levinson 1983 [1927], 48-51; Giles 1981, 245. * Valery 1957 [1936], 1402 f. (the author’s italics), from Philosophie de la

THE

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163

For Valéry, dance is not only poetic: it mirrors poetical thinking. It transposes the workings of a poet’s mind -- which he defines as the ability to transfigure the concrete and transform

it into something poetical - into the materiality of the dancing body. This means that dancers literally embody verbal notions

which take on visual form. Valéry here implies that dance can visualise figurative language, thereby operating like a physical metaphor.’ In other words, dance is a “poeme dégagé de tout appareil du scribe”.*

It is interesting to recall that Valéry’s ideas about dance are deeply influenced by ancient Greek authors: he chose to

compose one of his earliest writings on dance in the form of a Socratic dialogue, in which he stages Socrates, Phaedrus and

Eryximachus as they are attempting to define the essence of dance. Moreover, according to some scholars, Valéry’s work Lime et la danse even aims at rewriting Aristoxenus’ treaty on dance.? Valéry’s conception of dance is particularly enlightening with regard to the ancient notion of χορεία as the synthesis of dance and poetry. As for the notion of dance as embodied poetry, we should keep in mind that, in the context of an ‘oral

society’ like that of archaic Greece, the materiality of a poem would indeed not be confined to a scroll, but manifested in the very body of the dancer(s). This circumstance has important implications for the manner in which poetry has been envisaged and theorized by the Greeks, as the following section intends to demonstrate. Danse. “[Dance] is quite simply a poetry that encompasses the action of

living creatures in its entirety: it isolates and develops, distinguishes and deploys the essential characteristics of this action, and makes the danc-

er’s body into an object whose transformations and successive aspects, whose striving to attain the limits that each instant sets upon the powers

of being, inevitably remind us of the task the poet imposes on his mind, the difficulties he sets before it, the metamorphoses

he obtains from it,

the flights he expects of it-flights which remove him, sometimes excessively, from the ground, from reason, from the average notion of logic and common sense” (transl. by Ralph Manheim in Valéry 1983, 64 f.). * See Cocking 1967; Kozel 1995, 16. * Mallarmé 2003 [1897], 171 from Divagations. 3 Levinson 2015 [1936].

164

SOPHIE

THE

Several testimonia,

MARIANNE

POET

AS

mainly

BOCKSBERGER

CHOREOGRAPHER

found

scattered throughout

the

works of Plutarch and Athenaeus, support the view that dance was used creatively by poets. It has been reported, for instance, that Pindar, Aeschylus, or Sophocles choreographed the steps of their choruses themselves.’ This appears to be solid evidence, and not the invention of later writers, since one of the sources dates from the fifth century B.c. Athenaeus attributes it to a play by Aristophanes in which Aeschylus is

the character speaking: τοῖσι χοροῖς αὐτὸς τὰ σχήματ᾽ ἐποίουν.

Ar. fr. 696 PCG

Strikingly, the verb which is used to talk about the “making” of steps (σχήματα) is ποιεῖν. This suggests that the “poet” is called ποιητής not only because he is a creator of words, but also of steps (in our terminology, a choreographer).* Further evidence supporting this interpretation is found in the words Athenaeus uses before he quotes Aristophanes to prove his point. Athenaeus states that Aeschylus invented himself (av᾽τός) many dance steps (πολλὰ σχήματα ὀρχηστικά), but here

the verb that the author chooses to refer to choreography is ἐξευρίσχειν, a verb which conveys the meaning of “inventing” or “discovering” something.’ This indicates that Athenaeus understands the activity of the choreographer to be a “creative” undertaking in the same sense as the composing of poetry is “creative”. This ties in well with the fact that Aristocles,* as re* See, for instance, Pind. fr. 107b S.-M.; Ath. 1, zıf.

* In Poet. 1447b, Aristotle suggests that “poets” were called so because they created (ποιεῖν) metres. 3 See also what Phrynichus said about himself according to Plutarch (Quaest. conv. 732 ὃ): σχήματα δ᾽ ὄρχησις τόσα μοι πόρεν, ὅσσ᾽ ἐνὶ πόντῳ xvματα ποιεῖται χείματι νὺξ ὀλοή (TGF τ p. 72, T 13). In this instance, the

verb ποιεῖν is not directly used to talk about the creation of steps, but this is implied by the comparison.

4 Aristocles Musicus -- not to be mistaken for the 1* century Peripatetic philosopher — is quoted several times by Athenaeus as the author of ἃ περὶ χορῶν and of a περὶ μουσικῆς.

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ported by Athenaeus, explains that the poets of old (οἱ ἀρχαῖοι ποιηταί) were simply called dancers (öpynorat).' Since extant evidence suggests that several poets (at least until the fifth century B.c.) would create all three components of μουσική, and that each of these components would be essential, it seems reasonable to infer that dance was expected to work

in symbiosis with poetry.* In other words, movements, music and words would be intrinsically linked and would contribute in equal measure to shaping and conveying the meaning of a piece to the audience. By giving a visual dimension to the words, dance would not only add another layer to the words’ signification but also inform the spectators’ understanding of them.’ It follows that interpretation both of the poetry and of the dance would be mutually conditioned. Therefore, dance was more than just an ornament to poetry in its creation and reception.* In addition to its role in inviting the aesthetic ap-

preciation of the audience, dance formed a keystone in the meaning and interpretation of a performance.’ * Ath. 1, 22a. By the fourth century, dance appears to have become an art which is different from that of the poets. This may be inferred from the fact that Chamaeleon of Heracleia (fr. 41 Wehrli, preserved in Ath. 1, 21e-f) said that at first poets did not need the help of an ὀρχηστοδιδάσ-

καλος, as they would invent and teach the dance steps themselves. * This is clearly formulated in Plut. Oxaest. conv. 747f. The Suda’s definitions of ἐμμέλεια

and ἐμμελῶς

are revealing. It is stated that ἐμμέλεια

is a χορικὴ ὄρχησις, and that it designates “the dance in tragedy which is accompanied by songs” (ἡ μετὰ μέλους τραγικὴ ὄρχησις) or hyporchemata (ἡ πρὸς τὰς ῥήσεις ὑπόρχησις), while the adverb ἐμμελῶς (in a manner which

is typical of ἐμμέλεια) is said to be synonymous of συνετῶς (intelligently, intelligibly), thereby implying that choral dance in meant to be meaningful. 3 Cf. Peponi 20134, 26 ff. 4 There is an essential relation between dance and κόσμος. A success-

ful dance is not only inherently well-ordered, it also dresses and adorns the λόγος. Therefore, it has a functional and an ornamental dimension at

the same time. As Ford (2009 [2002], 209 n. 1) notes, poetry is conceived as a λόγος

clad in μέλος, ῥυθμὸς, or μέτρον

by several fifth and fourth

century prose writers (e.g. Pl. Grg. sozc; Resp. 601b; Gorg. Hel. 9; Isoc. Euag.

9, 11).

> Gianvittorio (forthcoming) shows how dance might have been used in the Seven against Thebes. She suggests that the dancer Telestes would have represented in a solo performance taking place during the parodos

the events the chorus are describing.

166

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DEFINING

MARIANNE

THE

POETIC

BOCKSBERGER

THROUGH

ORCHESIS

In Athenian society of the fifth century B.c., as the technology of writing became more and more widespread, prose flourished, and progressively replaced performed poetry as “the medium [...] for authoritative expression”.' This triggered a

paradigm shift which resulted in the transformation of performed

song into written poetry.* Consequently, the criteria

against which the merits of a particular work were measured fundamentally changed. Before the emergence of what we now call literary criticism (i.e. criticism of a written text according to its form and content), the context and the social function of a performance of poetry were crucial to its appreciation.

This cultural shift from performed to written literature had deep implications with regard to the way in which both poetry and prose have been defined and theorised, for prose was thus conceptualised in contrast to poetry.’ In a predominantly oral society in which choral performances were commonplace, poetry’s most distinctive feature in contrast to prose was its performative dimension, of which dance

was a particularly conspicuous element. Therefore, it is not surprising that notions relating to dance are embedded in the Greeks’ conception and definition of the poetic. The physicality of dance is central in defining the poetic in contrast to the prosaic. The following passage is telling in this regard: τοὐναντίον δ᾽ οἱ παλαιοὶ φιλοσοφίαν τινὰ λέγουσι πρώτην THY TOLNτικήν, εἰσάγουσαν εἰς τὸν βίον ἡμᾶς ἐκ νέων καὶ διδάσκουσαν ἤϑη καὶ πάϑη

καὶ πράξεις

uch ἡδονῆς.

The ancients assert, on the contrary, that poetry is a kind of elementary philosophy, which introduces us to life in our youth and pleasurably teaches us about characters, emotions, and actions.* * Goldhill 2002, 5. * See, for instance, Ford 2009 [2002]. 3 “Understood primarily as a literary phenomenon,

prose

is funda-

mentally significant as distinct from verse” (McGlew 2015, 79). 4 Str. 1, 2, 3. Text: Radt 2002, translation: Jones 1917 (modifications of the translation are my own).

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Strabo mentions previous discussions about the nature of the poetic (ποιητική). Although he may not be aware of it, the words he uses are characteristic of the vocabulary associated with dance. He explains that poetry teaches ἤϑη, πάθη, and

πράξεις, which are precisely what dance is able to represent (μιμεῖσϑαι) according to Aristotle." Moreover, the stress on the didactic function of poetry as well as on the pleasurable

dimension (ue? ἡδονῆς) of its teaching is also typical of the discourses about μουσική, particularly about its orchestic element.” That prose was ‘invented’ after poetry was already realised

in Antiquity. Strabo gives us a very clear account of it: ὡς δ᾽ εἰπεῖν, ὁ πεζὸς λόγος - 6 γε κατεσκευασμένος — μίμημα τοῦ ποιητικοῦ ἐστι. πρώτιστα γὰρ ἡ ποιητικὴ κατασχευὴ παρῆλϑεν εἰς τὸ

μέσον καὶ εὐδοκίμησεν᾽ εἶτα ἐκείνην μιμούμενοι, λύσαντες τὸ μέτρον, τἄλλα

δὲ φυλάξαντες

τὰ ποιητικὰ

συνέγραψαν

οἱ περὶ

Κάδμον

καὶ

Φερεκύδη καὶ Ἕκαταῖον. In a manner of speaking, prose -- at least artistic prose -- is an imitation of poetry; for the poetic art appeared first and was first to be recognised. ‘hen, imitating the poetic art, the followers of Cadmus,

Pherecydes, and Hecataeus abandoned the use of metre and wrote in prose, but for the rest preserved the qualities of poetry.’

In this passage, Strabo is not only stating the primacy of poetry over prose. Central to our argument is also his claim that prose is an imitation of poetry (μίμημα tod ποιητικοῦ), that prose writers imitate (μιμεῖσθαι) the poetic art in their works, and thus preserve features that were believed to belong inherently to the realm of the poetic (φυλάξαντες τὰ ποιητιxa). If it is true that prose was generally held to be imitative of poetry, it makes sense that the critical apparatus belonging to the realm of performed (i.e. danced) poetry would be ap-

plied to that of prose, since it would mean that the different * Kat γὰρ οὗτοι [= the dancers] διὰ τῶν σχηματιζομένων ῥυϑμῶν μιμοῦνται καὶ ἤϑη καὶ πάϑη καὶ πράξεις (Arist. Poet. 1447a 27 f.).

* Peponi 2013b; 2015, 207 f. See also D’Angour 2015, 189. > Str. 1, 2, 6.

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constitutive of prosaic expression were thought to

have a poetic equivalent.' Although Strabo insists on the performative dimension of the poetry of old, he puts more emphasis on its purely musical dimension, and appears to be less aware of its orchestic

component, for he fails to make any mention of the latter. For this reason, he offers the following explanation of the coinage πεζὸς λόγος to qualify prose: καὶ αὐτὸ

δὲ τὸ πεζὸν

λεχϑῆναι

τὸν

ἄνευ τοῦ

μέτρου

λόγον

ἐμφαίνει

τὸν ἀπὸ ὕψους τινὸς καταβάντα καὶ ὀχήματος εἰς τοὔδαφος. And,

furthermore,

the very

fact that non-metrical

discourse

was

termed “pedestrian” indicates its descent from a height and a conveyance to the ground.”

The general idea — that the expression was coined on the basis of what constitutes the poetic — seems very plausible. According to him, πεζὸς λόγος designates prose in opposition to po-

etry which is more elevated.’ The explanation seems to draw on the image, common in archaic poetry, of the “chariot of the

Muses”.* However, keeping in mind the importance of dance in the fifth century B.c., a πεζὸς λόγος can also be understood

as a “walking” λόγος, that is a λόγος that does not dance.’ * Interestingly,

Isocrates

(Antid.

46 f.) qualifies

(prose)

discourses

which ate more akin to those made in performed poetry (ὁμοιότεροι τοῖς μετὰ μουσικῆς καὶ ῥυθμῶν πεποιημένοις) aS ποιητιυκώτεροι καὶ ποικιλὦτεροι for: “that they τῇ λέξει ποιητικωτέρᾳ καὶ ποικιλωτέρᾳ τὰς πράξεις δηλοῦσιν. ? Str. 1, 2, 6.

3 Goldhill (2002, 5) understands the expression as stemming from the idea that poetry can “fly” contrary to pedestrian prose. He is right to note that words can only be winged when they are uttered, but prose is mostly recited. This is most obvious in the case of orators. What truly distinguishes prose from poetry is the fact that prose is never performed

with music and dance. * The image is frequently used by Pindar, e.g. Ol. 6, 22-4; 9, 80 fi; Pyth.

10, 64 f.; Pae. fr. 52h, 10-4 S.-M.

On its use in Greek

literature,

see Asper 1997, 22-107. Csapo (2010, 27 f.) mentions its use in two early fifth-century epigrams. 5 It is true that πεζός is often used in opposition to moving on a horse,

on the sea or in the air (in the case of birds) or that it is used to contrast with movement on the sea or in the sky. Interestingly, the verb πεζεύω is used both for humans

and animals,

contrary to Baive, for instance,

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Walking is still movement, but it is the most basic and natural movement to humans. The image seems particularly appropriate given that meters, a distinctive feature of poetry which would give the dance its cadence, were conceptualised via their relationship to the dance steps: they had feet.‘ In this regard, it is worth noting that Dionysius of Halicarnassus opposes

ἡ πεζὴ λέξις to ἡ ἔμμετρος λέξις.᾽ Callimachus also uses the word πεζός at the end of the Aezia (112, 9 Pf.) probably to refer to iambs, ’ which was the metre closest to speaking according to Aristotle (Rh. 1408b 33-5), and thus the most natural. Πεζός with the specific meaning of “without musical accompaniment” is attested in the second part of the fifth century.* In his lexicon (s.v. πεζῇ), Photius quotes Aristophanes (fr. 962

PCG) to argue that the word has a figurative meaning which designates a manner of speaking ἄνευ μελῶν: πεζῇ: TO τοῖς ποσὶν ἐλθεῖν λέγουσιν: καὶ πεζῇ φράσαι TO ἄνευ μελῶν: “παῦσαι

μελῳδοῦσ᾽, ἀλλὰ πεζῇ

μοι φράσον,

ὁ κωμικός:

τὰς ἑταίρας

τὰς μὴ μουσικὰς, ἀλλ᾽ ἄνευ ὀργάνων καὶ ψιλὰς πέζας καλοῦσιν." πεζῇ: means to make one’s way on foot; and to “speak πεζῇ" means

without music. “Stop your singing and speak to me without music”, writes the comic poet. The hetairai who are not professional musicians (i.e. musicians and dancers) but are without instruments and unequipped (ψιλαί) are called πεζαί.

ΠΕεζῇ is not only used as an adverb, but also as an adjective to designate ἑταῖραι who were not μουσικαΐ. It seems that this characterisation is linked to the way they were perceived

to move. Since they would neither dance nor play music, it is the ordinariness of their movements that would distinguish them from other ἑταῖραι trained in μουσική. The fact that the

adjective ψιλός was also used to qualify a ἑταίρα who did not which is a verb of motion that happens to be used in relation to dance (for instance, Thuc. 5, 70: μετὰ ῥυθμοῦ βαίνοντες and Pl. Leg. 670b: Bat-

νειν ἐν ῥυθμῷ; see Gentili-Lomiento 2008, 57 and 63). This suggests that πεζεύω qualifies the movement any living creature on the ground makes. * For instance, a trochee (τροχαῖος [πούς]) literally means a running or spinning foot. * Dion. Hal. Comp.

4, 52.

3 See Harder 2012, 866-70.

4 Soph. fr. 16 R. (7+GF tv); Ar. fr. 962 PCG. ’ Text from Theodoridis 2013.

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carry musical instruments is striking, as prose is also frequently

referred to by the expression λόγος ψιλός. Several other words pertaining to different kinds of poetic expressions also appear to entail a physical dimension. This indicates that they were probably first used in the context of μουσικὴ before being applied to prose. The following testimonium of Proclus on Parmenides’ style is telling in this regard, as the commentator lists three main types of poetic diction presented in contrast to the language of prose: . αὐτὸς ὁ Παρμενίδης ἐν tHe ποιήσει" καίτοι δι᾽ αὐτὸ δήπου τὸ ποιητικὸν εἶδος χρῆσθαι μεταφοραῖς ὀνομάτων καὶ σχήμασι καὶ τροπαῖς ὀφείλων ὅμως τὸ ἀκαλλώπιστον καὶ ἰσχνὸν καὶ καϑαρὸν εἶ δος τῆς ἀπαγγελίας ἠσπάσατο. [...] ὥστε μᾶλλον πεζὸν εἶναι δοκεῖν ἢ ποιητικὸν λόγον.

... Parmenides himself too [sc. used a brief, natural, clear discourse]

in his poetry. Even though on account of the poetic form he was obliged to employ metaphorical uses of words, figures of speech, and tropes, he nevertheless embraced the unadorned, spare and clear form of narrative. [...] And so it appears to be prose rather than poetic discourse.*

Proclus mentions μεταφορά, σχῆμα and τροπή as representative of poetic expression.’ Σχῆμα, as we have already seen, is regularly used in the sense of “step” in our sources. The noun is

derived from the zero grade stem of ἔχω. Given that the core meaning of this noun is “attitude, form, appearance”,* it seems * Prose can also be called λόγος ψιλός (e.g. Pl. Menex. 2390; Leg. 669d; Arist. Rb. 1404b 14 and 33), an expression also predicated on its contrast

to poetry. As David (2006, 34) notes, “it was prose that was bare (ψιλός), not poetry that was embellished”. * Procl. In Prm. 665, 16-31 Cousin (ad 1264). Text and translation from Coxon 2009, Test. 170. 3 Several other words, like ῥυϑμός or ἐνάργεια, would obviously also deserve to be examined from a perspective informed by ancient dance.

For instance, Sandoz (1971, 75) notes about ῥυϑμός that “la notion moderne de ‘rythme’ prend naissance dans le contexte de l’expression corpo-

relle par la marche et la danse. L’art musical lui-méme joue un moindre röle dans le procés de spécialisation sémantique de év8pdc”. On particular word, see also Rocconi’s paper in the present volume.

this

4 Beekes s.v. ἔχω; Chantraine s.v. ἔχω: “σχῆμα ‘forme, aspect, maintien, gestes, attitude’, etc., qui répondrait assez bien a lat. habitus”.

“D’abord

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perfectly logical that this word would have been used to talk about steps, while its use in our passage in the sense of a figure

of speech is harder to explain unless we posit the intermediary of the orchestic element of μουσική.᾿ Dionysius of Halicarnassus even uses the expression ta ϑεατρικὰ σχήματα (theatrical

figures, i.e. σχήματα akin to those performed in the theatre) to describe figures that are particularly ‘poetical’,* thereby making the association between σχῆμα and performance as well as between poetry and performance particularly conspicuous.’

The expression ἐν σχήματι φράζειν or δηλοῦν also seems to betray the orchestic origin of the word σχῆμα. Nünlist explains

that it is “applied to all kinds of passages where the speaker says something without saying it”.* Since dance would be interpreted in relation to words in μουσική, “to make under-

stood or to show in a step” seems a very appropriate analogy to describe a meaning that is not found in the words themselves, but derived indirectly from them. The word τροπή, or τρόπος, (turn) has also an obvious but intriguing physical and dance-related connotation.’ This leaves us with μεταφορά, a propre 4 Vexpression du port naturelle, σχῆμα convient ensuite ἃ la pose

consciente” (Sandoz 1971, 78-90). For example, when Peisistratus and Megacles try to make a tall Athenian woman pass as Athena (Hdt. 1, 60), they show her what σχῆμα

she must take to imitate the appearance

of

the goddess most plausibly. This suggests that the use of the word σχῆμα in the context of dance probably hints at its mimetic dimension. On the meaning of σχῆμα, see also Rocconi’s paper in the present volume. * “The connection between musical and social form is expressed

in

the classical term of praise ‘cutting a good figure’ (eu-skhemön), which was applied to a person’s posture, attitudes, or behavior before skbémata

became

‘figures’ of speech”

(Ford 2002, 44). Ford rightly notes that

originally the word σχῆμα was used in the paradigm of performed po-

etry, before its meaning was extended as it was applied to that of written prose. Sandoz (1971, 83) shows in his historico-linguistic study on the Greek nouns for form that σχῆμα in the sense of “figure of speech” is a

specialised use of the word probably introduced in the late fifth century by rhetoricians (professeurs de lettres). * In this respect, it is worth noting that Aristotle uses the adjective ϑεατρικός to qualify povorxy (Pol. 13422 18). 3 Dion. Hal. /soc. 15, 15; Dem. 18, 40; 25, 22; Thuc. 24, 46; 29, 35; Amm. 2, 44. * Nünlist 2009, 212.

5 Nünlist (2009, 61) notes that there is a common terminological confusion between τρόπος and σχῆμα.

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word which may also come from the vocabulary of dance, as I will now tentatively suggest. DANCE

AS

PHYSICAL

METAPHOR

So far, we have established that dance is fundamental to the Greeks’ conception of the poetic, and thus that it has informed the manner in which both poetry and prose have been de-

fined in the fifth century B.c. In this final section, I would like to argue that the mode in which dance operated as a significant (σημαντικόν) medium was essentially metaphorical, in

the larger Aristotelian meaning of the word.’ Furthermore, I will suggest that the concept of μεταφορά

and its categorisa-

tion as a fundamental device of poetic diction may stem from the practice of interpreting movement in relation to language (λόγος) which was at the core of μουσική. When meaning is construed through gestures, it forms a relationship with λόγος which is similar to that of a metaphor, and this both at a primary and secondary (or meta-) level. By this, I mean that the movements can be interpreted in direct relation to the words sung by the dancers (primary level), while the dance of a chorus, independently of the words its members sing, can potentially always be taken to represent the harmony of the polis, or of the universe.’ The figurative power of dance works when dance is accompanied by words as in

Greek lyric, and when it is not. The difference is that in the absence of words, the spectator has to supplement the tenor of

the metaphor. Of course, dance does not necessarily have to be meaningful; it can trigger a series of impressions or emotions within the spectator which do not need to be articulated. However, as soon as meaning (be it in the form of words, narratives, or concepts) is assigned to movements, the operation is * Aristotle’s

meaning.

definition of metaphor

is far broader

It entails comparisons, metaphors

than

its modern

and analogies (Arist. RA.

1411a ff.). On the modern definition of metaphors, see Grant 2013, 87-142. * “Choruses also present themselves as paradigms of social cohesion

through direct performative self-references” (Power 2015, 69). See, for instance, Mullen 1982; Ferrari 2008; Csapo 2008; Seaford 2013.

THE

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similar to that of interpreting a metaphor. In the same manner as a metaphor, according to Aristotle, “creates the object in front of the eyes” (ποιεῖν τὸ πρᾶγμα πρὸ ὀμμάτων, RA. 1405b 12), dance offers to the eye of the spectator a succession of embodied metaphors.’ It is thus only possible to interpret the movements through active engagement with the material, and this would consist in finding an essential similarity between two dissimilar objects; in the present case between λόγος and σχῆμα (or φορά, another word for a step).” This view - that the orchestic element of μουσική would relate to its λόγος component in a metaphorical mode - is supported by the figurative dimension of the vocabulary used to de-

scribe the quality of movements in our sources. For instance, amongst the adjectives listed by Pollux to qualify a dance (ὀρχηστή), we find words which imply a metaphorical mode of reading dance, such as κοῦφος, ἐλαφρός, or ὑγρός.’ As a matter of fact, a moving body literally cannot be fluid, but its flow is considered to be similar to the movement of a liquid. Thus, a öpynorn ὑγρά is a dance that is perceived as metaphorically fluid because it shares the property of fluidity in common with

liquids. In a similar vein, the Athenian in Plato’s Laws indicates that the χοροδιδάσκαλοι used metaphorical language to qualify a σχῆμα, as he mentions that they would say by way of comparison (ἀπεικάζω) that a step is edypmv.* Consequently, it is perhaps not coincidental that metaphors (or figurative language) were thought to be at the core of what is constitutive of the poetic for the Greeks, so much so that a prose author using metaphors would be considered as “more poetical”. As Rutherford has noted, “in Greek rhetorical the-

ory, we regularly find a contrast between indirect language * Interestingly, Fraisse 1981 argues that the concept of metaphor in Aristotle is deeply connected to that of μίμησις. * The metaphorical nature of dance as means of expression would have been most obvious in ὑπορχήματα, but would surely operate to

some extent in all other instances of μουσική. Lawler 1951 gives many ancient examples of dance interpreted in a metaphorical mode.

3 Poll. 4, 96.

4 Pl. Leg. 655a.

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(ἔμφασις, ἐσχηματισμένος λόγος, ὑπόνοια, πλαγίως λέγειν) and

direct statement, accusation or abuse”.' The distinction might perhaps stem from the opposition between the plain but direct λόγος of prose, and the multivalent but indirect λόγος of performed poetry, or ἐσχηματισμένος λόγος. In fact, the noun μεταφορά itself may derive from dance vocabulary. The word is composed of μετά and φορά. The word φορά is often used in the sense of a step,” and thus the coinage μεταφορά could be understood as designating the “step beyond”. That is the

enriched meaning that λόγος takes when it is interpreted in relation to a dance step or sequence of steps. This tentative suggestion seems to be supported by Aristotle’s recurring use of the expression πρὸ ὀμμάτων ποιεῖν in relation to the manner

in which he explains that metaphors operate.’ If we take the expression literally, it means that a metaphor has the power of “making things in front of the eye” which is very similar to what a dancer does in μουσική (or χορεία): he or she literally materialises the λόγος in front of the eyes of the spectator. Furthermore, this might even explain why Aristotle makes the

rather intriguing claim that a metaphor should only be derived ἀπὸ καλῶν, for what is thought to be inherently καλή if not dance? CONCLUSION

In a society in which dance was fundamental to the cultural landscape, metaphorical expression would more often be seen and heard than read. The omnipresence of dance in archaic * Rutherford 1988, 127. * According to Plutarch (Quaest. conv. 747 f.) the distinction between σχῆμα and φορά is that σχῆμα designates the particular form or shape that

the dancer takes, while φορά qualifies the movement. To take a modern example, if an arabesque is a σχῆμα, it would designate the arabesque position that the dancer can hold, while if an arabesque designates a φορά, it qualifies the whole process of getting to an arabesque position, and leaving the position (as in the sequence pigue, arabesque, faill’). See Lawler 1954. 3 E.g. Arist. RA. ı410b 34; 1411a 26 and 35; 1411b 4 ff.

4 Arist. RA. 1405b 17.

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Greece shaped the manner in which the Greeks theorised the poetical, which was predicatel on conceptions that we, in turn, have inherited from them. When prose as well as the first attempts to categorise language emerged, borrowings were made from the vocabulary of dance in order to conceptualise

figurative language. Therefore, the vocabulary that developed to define the poetic (τὸ ποιητικὸν εἶδος) presuppose the practice of dance, and thus bears the significance of the semantic relationship that between λόγος and σχῆμα says in the quote offered as ce qu'une metaphore, si ce n'est rapproche les diverses images ou

the Greeks appears to witness to was drawn

(or φορά) in μουσική. As Valery an epigraph to this paper: “On’estune sorte de pirouette de l’idee dont on les divers noms?” .

LITERATURE

Asper M., 1997: Onomata allotria: Zur Genese, Struktur und Funktion boetologischer Metaphern bei Kallimachos, Stuttgart. Cocking J. M., 1967: Valery’s Hellenism, Australian Journal of French Studies 4/3, 287-94. Coxon A. H., 2009: The Fragments of Parmenides. Revised and Expanded

Edition. New ‘Translations by R. McKirahan and a New Preface by M. Schofield, Las Vegas-Zurich-Athens. Csapo E. - Slater W. J., 1995: The Context of Ancient Drama, Ann Arbor. Csapo E., 2008: Star Choruses: Eleusis, Orphism, and New Musical Imagery and Dance, in M. Revermann - P. Wilson (eds.), Performance, Iconography, Reception, Oxford-New York, 262-90. Csapo E., 2010: Actors and Icons of the Ancient Theater, Chichester. D’Angour A., 2015: Sense and Sensation in Music, in P. Destrée - P. Murray (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics, Chichester, 188203.

David A. P., 2006: The Dance of the Muses: Choral Theory and Ancient Greek Poetics, Oxford.

Diderot D., 1946: Oeuvres, edited by A. Billy, Paris. Ferrari G., 2008: Alcman and the Cosmos of Sparta, Chicago. Ford A., 2009: The Origins of Criticism: Literary Culture and Poetic Theory in Classical Greece, Princeton [2002’]. Foster S. L., 1996: Choreography and Narrative. Ballet’s Staging of Story and Desire, Indianapolis.

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Fraisse J.-C., 1981: /mitation, ressemblance et metaphore dans la “ Poétique” d’Aristote, Etudes Philosophiques 1, 9-18. Gentili B. - Lomiento L., 2008: Metrics and Rhythmics, Pisa. Gianvittorio L. (forthcoming): Danced Narratives. War Report and Weapon Dance in Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes, in J. Grethlein - L. Huitink - A. Tagliabue (eds.), Narrative and Experience in GrecoRoman Antiquity, Oxford.

Giles J., 1981: Dance and the French Enlightenment, Dance Chronicles

4/3, 245-63. Goldhill S., 2002: The Invention of Prose, Oxford. Grant J. E., 2013: 129 Critical Imagination, Oxford.

Green F. Ch., 1936: Diderot’s Writings on Theatre, Cambridge. Harder A., 2012: Callimachus, Aetia 1. Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary, Oxford.

Jones H. L., 1917: Strabo, Geography, Cambridge Ma. Kowalzig B., 2007: Singing for the Gods. Performances of Myth and Ritual in Archaic and Classical Greece, Oxford. Kozel 8. P., 1995: Atbikte’s Voice: Listening to the Voice of the Dancer in Paul Valéry’s “Lame et la danse”, Dance Research Journal 27/1, 16-24.

Lawler L. B., 1951: 129 Dance in Metaphor, CJ 46/8, 383-91. Lawler L. B., 1954: Phora, Schema, Deixis in the Greek Dance, 'TAPhA 85, 148-58.

Levinson A. I., 1983: The Idea of Dance: From Aristotle to Mallarmé, in R. Copeland - M. Cohen (eds.), What Is Dance? Readings in Theory and Criticism, Oxford, 47-55 [First published in French in 1927]. Levinson A. I., 2015: Paul Valéry philosophe de la danse, ed. D. Vernozy, Paris, http://obvil.paris-sorbonne.fr/corpus/danse /levinson_valery-philosophe-danse [First published in 1936]. Mallarmé S., 2003: Ovuores completes 11, ed. B. Marchal, Paris [First published in 1897]. Mullen W., 1982: Choreia: Pindar and Dance, Princeton.

McGlew J., 2015: Literature in the Classical Age of Greece, in M. Hose - D. Schenker (eds.),

A Companion to Greek Literature, Chichester,

77-88.

Nünlist R., 2009:

The Ancient Critic at Work: Terms and Concepts of

Literary Criticism in Greek Scholia, Cambridge. Nye E., 2011: Mime, Music and Drama on the Eighteenth-Century Stage.

The Ballet d’Action, Cambridge. Peponi A.-E., 2013a: Theorizing the Chorus in Greece, in J. Billings - F. Budelmann - F. Macintosh (eds.), Choruses, Ancient and Modern, Oxford, 15-34.

THE

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POETICS

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Choral Anti-Aesthetics, in A.-R.

177

Peponi

(ed.),

Performance and Culture in Plato’s Laws, Cambridge, 212-42. Peponi A.-E., 2015: Dance and Aesthetic Perception, in P. Destrée - P. Murray (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics, Chichester, 204-

17. Power Τ᾿, 2015: Literature in the Archaic Age, in M. Hose - D. Schenker (eds.), A Companion to Greek Literature, Chichester, 58-76. Radt S., 1985: Zragicorum Grascorum Fragmenta 111. Aeschylus, Göttingen. Radt S., 2002: Strabons Geographika. Mit Übersetzung und Kommentar. Prolegomena, Buch I-IV: Text und Übersetzung 1, Göttingen.

Revermann M., 2006: The Competence of Theatre Audiences in Fifth- and Fourth-Century Athens, JHS 126, 99-124. Rocconi E., 2015: Music and Dance in Greece and Rome, in P. Destrée - P. Murray (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics, Chichester, 81-93.

Rutherford I., 1988: Ἔμφασις in Ancient Literary Criticism and Tractatus Coislinianus ¢. 7, Maia 40, 125-9. Sandoz C., 1971: Les noms grecs de la forme. Etude linguistique, Bern.

Seaford R., 2013: The Politics of the Mystic Chorus, in J. Billings - F. Budelmann - F. Macintosh (eds.), Choruses, Ancient and Modern, Oxford, 261-79. Snell B., 1986: Tragicorum Grascorum Fragmenta τ. Didascaliae Tragicae, Catalogi Tragicorum et Tragoediarum, Testimonia et Fragmenta Tragicorum minorum, Gottingen. Stehle E., 1997: Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece. Nondramatic Poetry in Its Setting, Princeton. Theodoridis C., 2013: Photii Patriarchae Lexicon (N-®) 11, BerlinBoston.

Valéry P., 1957: Oeuvres 1, ed. by J. Hytier, Paris. Valéry P., 1983: Philosophy of the Dance, transl. by R. Manheim, in R. Copeland - M. Cohen (eds.), What Is Dance? Readings in Theory and Criticism, Oxford, 55-65 [First published in French in 1936]. Vetta M., 2007: La monodia di Filocleone, in F. Perusino - M. Colantonio (eds.), Dalla lirica corale alla poesia drammatica. Forme ὁ funzioni del canto corale nella tragedia e nella commedia greca, Pisa, 215-32. Webster T. B. L., 1970: The Greek Chorus, London. Wilson P., 2000: The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia. The Chorus, the City and the Stage, Cambridge.

7.

MOVING

THE

SOUL

THROUGH

THE

IMMOVABLE: DANCE AND MIMESIS IN

FOURTH-CENTURY ELEONORA

GREECE

ROCCONI

I N the Archaic and Classical period, χορεία was at the core

of Hellenic culture. Plato’s traditional statement, according to which “the uneducated man is without chorus expertise, while the educated man is to be reckoned adequately trained in the art of the chorus”,' is validated by the widespread dissemination, throughout Hellas, of choral performances of various 29 1

kinds through which the Greek poleis transmitted or reinforced important values for the civic body. Within ancient χορεία, however, dance was never described as an autonomous art: rather, it was included in the broader notion of mousike techne, covering a wide range of performative activities (vocal, choreutic, instrumental) which are not always easy to consider in isolation from each other.* The

great psychagogic power of mousike — believed, by most, to emotionally affect and influence the human

soul? -- relied on

* Pl. Leg. 654a-b (transl. Barker 1984): Οὐκοῦν ὁ¢ μὲνx ἀπαίδευτος pevrog ἡμῖν ἔσται, tov δὲ πεπαιδευμένον ἱκανῶς κεχορευκότα Detéov;

ἀχόNot

so many occurrences of the word χορεία (deriving from χορός, which in Homer means “dance” as well as “the place for dancing”, as in Hom. Od. 8, 260) are attested in literary evidence of the Classical period (mainly Aristophanes and Plato). The most famous definition of the term is in Pl. Leg. 654b (transl. Barker 1984): “The choric art as a whole consists of dance and song” (Χορεία ye μὴν ὄρχησίς te καὶ gdh τὸ σύνολόν ἐστιν).

* Cf. Pl. Resp. 376e (where it is explicitly stated that with the term μουσική we should include all kinds of λόγοι, that is, any performance with a narrative content) or Leg. 656d-e, cit. infra (where μουσική includes both σχήματα and μέλη).

3 In the Classical period, the only explicit attack on the claim that attributes a psychagogic power to music is to be found in the Hibeh Papyrus, approximately dated to the mid-fourth century B.C. (on which see Barker

1984,

183-5). Some

remarks,

however,

in Aristotle’s Politics

(1339 15 ff.) suggest that there was an ongoing debate over these issues.

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the fairly widespread assumption that each of its components contributed to establish the mimetic character of a given performance: words, rhythms, melodies, as well as dance postures and movements were all thought to represent specific emotions and characters and, therefore, were regarded as being capable

of reproducing and instilling these same contents into those who were exposed to them.’ The mimetic character of mousike is explicitly discussed in a famous passage of Aristotle’s Poetics, where the author —while

avoiding any comments on their ethical and social values? gives a detailed list of all the artistic and competitive practices conceived as mimeseis,’ explaining that all these sechnai “produce a representation using rhythm, speech and melody, but use these either separately or mixed”.* Among these practices, Aristotle specifies, the art of the dancers (ἡ τῶν ὀρχηστῶν — sc. τέχνη —) employs rhythm alone without melody,’ represent-

ing characters (49), emotions (πάθη) and actions (πράξεις) simply by means of figured rhythms (διὰ τῶν σχηματιζομένων ῥυθμῶν). That is to say, ancient Greek dancers were capable * Cf. Pl. Leg. 814a-816e. In the Laws, Plato points out how, in a given composition, different technical elements — such as rhythms, melodies,

etc. — should not only be opportunely selected, but also suitably combined with each other, integrating their individual representational contents into a consistent whole (cf. Leg. 669b-71a, on which see Rocconi 2012 and 2016). On artistic mimesis in Greek antiquity see Halliwell 2002. * In the Poetics, Aristotle is not interested in discussing the ethical implications of mimetic Zechnai. An approach similar to the Platonic one, which attributes to mousike the capacity to improve the character and the

soul, is displayed by him in the Politics, esp. 1340a ff. 3 These

mimetic #echnai, however,

differed from

each other in three

respects (Arist. Poet. 1447a 13-8): their medium (4 γὰρ τῷ ἐν ἑτέροις μιμεῖσϑαι), their object (ἡ τῷ ἕτερα) and their manner or mode of imitation (4 τῷ ἑτέρως καὶ μὴ τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον).

4 Arist. Poet.

1447a 20-3 (transl. Janko 1987): [...] ἕτεροι δὲ διὰ τῆς

φωνῆς, οὕτω κἀν ταῖς εἰρημέναις τέχναις ἅπασαι μὲν ποιοῦνται THY μίμησιν Ev ῥυθμῷ καὶ λόγῳ καὶ ἁρμονίᾳ, τούτοις δ᾽ ἢ χωρὶς 7) μεμιγμένοις. 5 On the expression αὐτῷ δὲ τῷ ῥυθμῷ χωρὶς ἁρμονίας, see Peponi in this volume, p. 215 ff. Arist. Poet. 14474 26-8: [...] αὐτῷ δὲ τῷ ῥυθμῷ [μιμοῦνται] χωρὶς ἁρμονίας ἡ τῶν ὀρχηστῶν (καὶ γὰρ οὗτοι διὰ τῶν σχηματιζομένων ῥυθμῶν μιμοῦνται καὶ ἤϑη καὶ πάϑη καὶ πράξεις). It is reasonable to assume that different

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of representing, by their own technical means, not only the

specific state of mind of various human beings, but also what they could experience and do in real life.’ If we take this definition literally, it may result problematic.

In Greek antiquity, in fact, a situation similar to modern story ballets (where individual dancers ‘represent’ characters while the ballet, as a whole, tells a story) is usually attributed only to the pantomimic genre, developed in late antiquity. We may assume, however, that also in earlier times dance performances

connected bodily actions, in one way or another, with an underlying story and, at times, with fictional characters.” Indeed, archaic and classical musical genres which involved a chorus (such as dithyrambs, paeans, ¢hrenoi, partheneia, and so on) were all narrative performances that, at a certain point, always recounted something related to Greek heroes or gods.’ Tragic and comic choruses, then, enhanced this mimetic potential by representing the specific characters of a plot (usually

collective characters, like the citizens of the place where the mythical story was set), since — as we are told by Aristotle -the chorus was often regarded as one of the actors who contributed to the action.* From Athenaeus’ Deipnosophisis, quot-

ing earlier sources,’ we know that tragedians like Aeschylus kinds of competitive dance performances were under discussion here, if we follow Rotstein 2012 in identifying the mousikoi agones as the implicit background of this opening passage of the Poetics, where Aristotle seems to build his list of poetic genres basing it on the competitions occurring at the major Athenian festivals. By contrast, for a discussion of a type of dance whose meaning was based on physical virtuosity rather than on mimetic function, cf. Pl. Leg. 795c (on which see Peponi 2015, esp. 212). * The same logical sequence of ἤϑη, πάϑη καὶ πράξεις is described in

Arist. Rb. 1388b 32-7. * The issue of dance as a medium for storytelling has recently been explored by Gianvittorio (forthcoming), who illustrates also an interesting case study from the parodos of the Seven against Thebes. 3 Cf. Pl. Resp. 394c. 4 Arist. Poet. 1456a 25-7: καὶ tov χορὸν δὲ ἕνα δεῖ ὑπολαμβάνειν ὑποκριτῶν, καὶ μόριον εἶναι τοῦ ὅλου καὶ συναγωνίζεσϑαι [...].

τῶν

5 Despite its late dating, Athenaeus organizes his material favouring late Classical and early Hellenistic sources (mainly collections of relevant evidence on a given topic). Hence the information displayed in his text

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(who is said to have invented many dance figures and to have

assigned them to the chorus’ members) and other dramatists (such as Thespis, Pratinas, Cratinus, and Phrynichus) were all

skilled choreographers of their dramas.‘ The effectiveness of their dances in conveying the narrative content of the plays is pointed out by some comments on Aeschylus’ ὀρχηστοδιδάσκαλος

Telesis

or

Telestes.

This

dancing

master

skillfully

illustrated (δεικνύς) the sense of what was spoken through the

gestures of his hands and (if the following remarks in Athenaeus’ text refer to the same historical figure) was so great a master of his art that, when he danced (or was in charge of the

choreography of) the Seven against Thebes, he made the action clear (paveo&) simply through the dance (δι᾽ doyjcewcs).* More

generally, as Athenaeus explains later in the dialogue, ancient poets regarded dance postures as “signs” (σημεῖα) of what was being sung.’

Besides tragic performances, the Greek sources mention also other kinds of dance that represented specific human actions. can be regarded as an important resource to infer details on earlier forms of dance. * Cf. Ath. 1, 2td-e (where the source is the Peripatetic Chamaeleon: καὶ Αἰσχύλος δὲ [...] πολλὰ σχήματα ὀρχηστικὰ αὐτὸς ἐξευρίσκων ἀνεδίδου τοῖς

χορευταῖς) and Ath. 1, 22a (where Kaibel deletes the name of the comic player Cratinus, judging it incongruous in a list of tragic poets: φασὶ δὲ - sc. Phillis and Aristocles — καὶ ὅτι οἱ ἀρχαῖοι ποιηταί, Θέσπις, Πρατίνας, Κρατῖνος, Φρύνιχος, ὀρχησταὶ ἐκαλοῦντο διὰ τὸ μὴ μόνον τὰ ἑαυτῶν δράματα ἀναφέρειν εἰς ὄρχησιν τοῦ χοροῦ, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἔξω τῶν ἰδίων ποιημάτων διδάσκειν τοὺς βουλομένους ὀρχεῖσϑαι). On Phrynichus see also Plut. Quaest. conv.

732f, who refers to an epigram that attributes to him a (probably later) proud statement about his own ability as choreographer: σχήματα δ᾽ ὄρχησις τόσα μοι πόρεν, ὅσσ᾽ ἐνὶ πόντῳ / xbpata ποιεῖται χείματι νὺξ ὀλοή. ? Ath. 1, 21d-2a: καὶ Τέλεσις δὲ ἢ Τελέστης ὁ ὀρχηστοδιδάσκαλος πολλὰ ἐξεύρημκις σχήματα, ἄκρως ταῖς χερσὶ τὰ λεγόμενα δεικνύς [...] ᾿Αριστοκλῆς οὖν φησιν ὅτι Τελέστης ὁ Αἰσχύλου ὀρχηστὴς οὕτως ἦν τεχνίτης ὥστε ἐν τῷ ὀρχεῖσϑαι τοὺς Ἑπτὰ ἐπὶ Θήβας φανερὰ ποιῆσαι τὰ πράγματα δι᾽ ὀρχήσεως.

For a detailed discussion on the hypotheses that the two Telestes mentioned by Athenaeus were not the same performers, see Gianvittorio (forthcoming). 3 Ath. 14, 628d: διὰ τοῦτο yap καὶ ἐξ ἀρχῆς συνέταττον of ποιηταὶ τοῖς ἐλευϑέροις τὰς ὀρχήσεις καὶ ἐχρῶντο τοῖς σχήμασι σημείοις μόνον τῶν ἀδομένων [...]. On the Aristotelian flavour of the term σημεῖα, see infra.

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One of the clearest examples is the πυρρίχη, a genre associated with the symbolic enactment of warlike gestures and postures.’ Moreover, dance (sometimes even though not accompanied by vocal songs and performed by soloists) was also used to imitate all kinds of animals and animal movements:* these orchestic sequences or motifs, clustered under the term μορφασμός,᾽

included performances like the ‘dance of the owl’, which - so we are told - incorporated many figures and motifs (like the

dancer’s twisting and wiggling of the neck and head) in imitation of the bird’s behaviour.* It is clear, hence, that ancient Greek dances (both choral and

solo) established a strong mimetic relationship between the orchestic behaviour of the dancers and an external referent. But how could this mimesis be realized in practice? Is there any clue, in Aristotle’s works or elsewhere, from which we may infer more specific information about the way in which the meaning and value of the orchestic performance were per-

ceived and conceptualized by the Greeks? Going back to the Poetics, Aristotle points out that dancers realized the mimetic enactment διὰ τῶν σχηματιζομένων 6v0uev, an expression that, up to recent times, has not been

given due attention by scholars.’ This sentence combines two different (and somehow

contrasting) terms: the noun ῥυθμός

and the verb σχηματίζεσθαι. To begin with ῥυθμός, its usage here implies that dance was

conceived as a kinetic activity. Indeed, from a musical point * τότε On ? 3

Ath. 14, 628e: Av γὰρ τὸ τῆς ὀρχήσεως γένος τῆς ἐν τοῖς χοροῖς εὔσχημον καὶ μεγαλοπρεπὲς καὶ ὡσανεὶ τὰς ἐν τοῖς ὅπλοις κινήσεις ἀπομιμούμενον. πυρρίχη see Ceccarelli 1998 and 2005. Or even plants, as stated in Ath. 14, 629e. Ath. 14, 629f; Poll. 4, 103.

4 Poll. 4, 103; Ath. 9, 3914. Possible self-referential indications on dances imitating animals are also in Pindar frr. 107a and 1400 S.-M. I thank the anonymous refereee for this and other valuable suggestions. > The only scholar who, in recent years, has shown a specific interest in this Aristotelian expression is Catoni 2008, 160, who in her book pro-

vides an extensive analysis of the word σχῆμα in Greek antiquity. For a detailed and stimulating reflection on this specific combination of terms, see also Peponi in this volume.

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of view, a rhythmic sequence consists of sonorous elements, equipped with a specific form, flowing through time. In Greek

language, ῥυθμός

as reported

by two

famous

Platonic

designates the “order in movement”

statements,

(N τῆς κινήσεως

ta&ıc),' literally a specific form that ‘moves’ over time (in accordance with its etymology from ῥεῖν, “to flow”), and this movement is said to be realized during performance by “the fast” and “the slow” (ὁ ῥυθμὸς ἐκ τοῦ ταχέος καὶ βραδέος).᾽ But Aristotle attributes the mimésis of orchestic performance

not simply to rhythms, but to what he calls the “shaped” (σχηματιζόμενοι) rhythms. The verb σχηματίζεσθαι means “to assume

a certain form, figure, posture or position”,’ usually

without any kinetic implication,* often even in contrast with it: in the field of geometry, for example, the derived noun σχῆμα comes to mean a geometrical figure, like the τρίγωνον." Σχῆμα is the most common Greek word to indicate the ‘visual’

figure, both when performed by the dancers and when depicted or carved by painters or sculptors.° In the Politics, Aristotle explicitly includes orchestic σχήματα among the objects per-

ceived with the sense of ‘sight’, as colours in painting, making a clear distinction (in terms of mimetic capacity) between visible objects, which are only “signs” (σημεῖα) of characters, and

audible objects, like rhythms and melodies, which can instead be “likenesses” (ὁμοιώματα) of human characters.’ Therefore, from the coupling of the terms dvd uög and σχημα-

τίζεσϑαι in the Aristotelian passage, we may suppose that orchestic σχήματα were conceived as crystallized, frozen postures

that helped to understand the underlying storytelling of cho-

reography in virtue of their mimetic nature.* From a practical * Pl. Leg. 664e-5a. On ῥυθμός in Plato’s Laws, see also Kowalzig 2013.

2 Pl. Symp. 187b-c. 3 LS, s.v. * Other Aristotelian usages of the verb refer to static objects, as Pb. 245b 9-12 (on which see also Peponi in this volume, p. 223). > Arist. De an. 414b 30 f. 6 According to Suda (s.v. Πρωτογένης), a famous painter of the fourth century B.C., Protogenes, wrote a Περὶ γραφικῆς καὶ σχημάτων, in two

books. 7 Arist. Pol. 1340a 28-35, quoted infra, p. 190 n. 3. ° Interestingly, Kurke 2013 - commenting on some passages of Plato’s

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point of view, this does not mean that ancient dance involved no movement, or that Greek dancing postures were performed in isolation from each other (even if I will give some examples

where we may suppose such an extraordinary realization). The only thing we know, with a certain amount of certainty, about their performance is that the orchestic σχήματα were realized, on the whole, by hand or arm gestures. As a matter of fact, since the fourth-century B.C. onwards

literary evidence points to the movements of hands/arms as the most expressive means to realize ancient dance postures,’ and later evidence continually insists on yecoovouta:* “Further, the statues made by the artists of old are relics of the ancient mode of dancing. For this reason, therefore, movements of the arms were shaped with greater care”, we are told by Athenaeus.* This performing tool allowed dancers to effectively

identify specific objects or actions: Other dance-figures (σχήματα) are the sword-dance, basket-dance,

hip-dance, horned owl or owling. Now the horned-owl was a figure of dancers who gazed into the distance with their hands Laws — identifies an ancient Greek cultural association that imagines choruses as moving statues and statues as frozen choruses. * Cf. Ath. 1, 22b (“National dances are the following: Laconian, Troezenian,

Epizephyrian,

Cretan,

Ionian,

and Mantinean;

these last were

preferred by Aristoxenus because of the motion of the arms’, transl. Gulick 1961, italics mine); 14, 631c (again probably relying on Aristoxenus), where the same pyrrhic dance is called cheironomia (καλεῖται δ᾽ ἡ πυρρίχη καὶ χει-

povouta). This is not to say that the feet were not involved in performing σχήματα, expressely mentioned in some specific cases like the “tongs” (ϑερμαυστρίς) and the “two-steps” (διποδισμός), cf. Ath. 14, 6304.

* See Ath. 1, zif (see supra, p. 181 ἢ. 2), where the above mentioned Telestes is said to have illustrated the sense of what was spoken just “by hands” (ταῖς χερσί). Also the later genre of pantomime, whose origin may be presumably traced back to the mimetic dance of tragic dancers, gave emphasis to χειρονομία, if we are to believe Lucian, Sa/#. 69 (where the pantomime dancers are called χειρόσοφοι, that is, “skilled with the hands”) and 63 (where a pantomime dancer is highly praised because he managed

to “talk with his very hands”, ταῖς χερσὶν αὐταὶς λαλεῖν).

3 Ath. 14, 629b (transl. Gulick 1961): ἐστὶ δὲ καὶ τὰ τῶν ἀρχαίων δημιουργῶν ἀγάλματα τῆς παλαιᾶς ὀρχήσεως λείψανα: διὸ καὶ συνέστη τὰ κατὰ τὴν χειρονομίαν ἐπιμελεστέρως διὰ ταύτην τὴν αἰτίαν.

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curved high above their forehands. Aeschylus mentions it in The Envoys |...].'

The subversion of quences, as is shown (quoted also at Ath. away his marriage”

this by 14, for

rule could even have serious consea famous story in Herodotus’ Flistoriae 628d), in which Hippocleides “danced having used legs to realize some pos-

tures: After dinner the suitors vied with each other in music and in anecdotes for all to hear. As they sat late drinking, Hippocleides, now far outdoing the rest, ordered the au/os-player to play him a dance-tune; the aulos-player obeyed and he began to dance. I suppose he pleased

himself with his dancing, but Cleisthenes saw the whole business with much

disfavour.

Hippocleides

then stopped for a while

and

ordered a table to be brought in; when the table arrived, he danced Laconian figures (σχημάτια)

on it first, and then Attic; last of all

he rested his head on the table and made gestures with his legs in the air. Now Cleisthenes at the first and the second bout of dancing could no more bear to think of Hippocleides as his son-in-law, be-

cause of his dancing and his shamelessness, but he had held himself in check, not wanting to explode at Hippocleides; but when he saw him making gestures with his legs (τοῖσι σκέλεσι χειρονομήσαντα),

he could no longer keep silence and said: “son of ‘Tisandrus, you have danced away your marriage”. 39 2

* Ath. 14, 629f (transl. Gulick 1961), on which see esp. Catoni 2008, 149 fi.: σχήματα δέ ἐστιν ὀρχήσεως ξιφισμός, καλαϑίσκος, καλλαβίδες, σκώψ, σχκώπευμα. ἦν δὲ ὁ σκὼψ τῶν ἀποσχοπούντων τι σχῆμα ἄκραν Thy χεῖρα ὑπὲρ τοῦ μετώπου κεκυρτωκότων. μνημονεύει Αἰσχύλος ἐν Θεωροῖς [...]. On σκώψ see also Hsch. σ 1218: σκωπευμάτων: σχῆμα τῆς. χειρὸς πρὸς τὸ μέτωπον τιϑεμένης, ὥσπερ ἀποσχκοπούντων. ? Hdt. 6, 129 (transl. Godley 1922): “Ὡς δὲ ἀπὸ δείπνου ἐγένοντο, οἱ υνηστῆρες ἔριν εἶχον ἀμφί τε μουσικῇ καὶ τῷ λεγομένῳ ἐς τὸ μέσον. Προϊούσης δὲ τῆς

πόσιος

κατέχων

πολλὸν

τοὺς

ἄλλους

ὁ Ἱπποκλείδης

ἐκέλευσέ

οἱ τὸν

αὐλητὴν αὐλῆσαι ἐμμελείην: πειϑομένου δὲ τοῦ αὐλητέω ὀρχήσατο. Καί κως ἑωυτῷ μὲν ἀρεστῶς ὀρχέετο, ὁ Κλεισϑένης δὲ ὁρέων ὅλον τὸ πρῆγμα ὑπώπτευε. Μετὰ δὲ ἐπισχὼν ὁ Ἱπποκλείδης χρόνον ἐκέλευσέ τινα τράπεζαν ἐσενεῖκαι" ἐσελϑούσης δὲ τῆς τραπέζης πρῶτα μὲν ἐπ᾽ αὐτῆς ὀρχήσατο Λακωνικὰ σχημάτια, μετὰ δὲ ἄλλα ᾿Αττικά, τὸ τρίτον δὲ τὴν κεφαλὴν ἐρείσας ἐπὶ τὴν τράπεζαν τοῖσι σχέλεσι ἐχειρονόμησε. Κλεισϑένης δὲ τὰ μὲν πρῶτα καὶ τὰ δεύτερα ὀρχεομένου ἀποστυγέων γαμβρὸν ἄν οἱ ἔτι γενέσθαι Ἱπποκλείδην διὰ τήν τε ὄρχησιν καὶ τὴν ἀναιδείην κατεῖχε ἑωυτόν, οὐ βουλόμενος ἐκραγῆναι ἐς αὐτόν᾽ ὡς δὲ εἶδε τοῖσι σκέλεσι χειρονομήσαντα, οὐκέτι κατέχειν δυνάμενος εἶπε: “Ὦ noi Τεισάνδρου, ἀπορχήσαό γε μὲν τὸν γάμον.

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As said before, the central role of σχήματα in ancient dance does not imply that, from a practical point of view, choral or solo orchestai did not move while performing. One can nevertheless advance the hypothesis that movements were sometimes ‘crystallized’ for some specific dramaturgical needs in theatrical contexts, as in the well-known comic scene of the late fifth century B.C., the finale of Aristophanes’ Wasps (14741515). In this scene the main character, Philocleon, challenges some younger tragedians (the sons of Carcinus) to a competition in which, he says, he will dance the old dances of Thespis and other traditional poets. The beginning of the contest is indicated just by the expression σχήματος ἀρχή (1485),' followed by a sequence of dance postures — punctually commented on by the character on stage — which, according to some interpretations, were performed in slow motion or even struck in isolation from each other, in order to be better perceived by the theatrical audience:* 1487

With the strong contortion the ribs twist around, πλευρὰν λυγίσαντος ὑπὸ ῥώμης,

1488 f.

And the nostrils snorts, and the joints resound, And the tendons cracks. οἷον μυκτὴρ μυκᾶται καὶ

σφόνδυλος ἀχεῖ. Cocklike, Phrynichus crouches and cowers,

1490

πτήσσει

1492

Φρύνιχος

ὥς τις ἀλέκτωρ,

Then he kicks his leg to the wondering sky. σχέλος

1494 f.

οὐρανίαν éxAaxtiov.

For now in these sinewy joints of ours The cup-like socket is twirled about. viv γὰρ Ev ἄρϑροις τοῖς ἡμετέροις στρέφεται χαλαρὰ κοτυληδών.

* For

another

occurence

of the word

in Aristophanes’

comedies

in

orchestic context, see also Pax 323 f., where we find also the verb oynuaτίζω with the meaning “to dance”. * Transl. Rogers 1924. Rossi 1978 (cf. also MacCary 1979) has argued that the dance figures were here mimed. Contra see Gianvittorio in this same volume.

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An even more attractive candidate for a similar performance

is a play attributed to a dramatist named Callias, the so-called Alphabetic Tragedy (or Alphabetic Show, Voauuarırn Θεωρία) on which we are informed by Athenaeus

(relying on the third-

century Peripatetic writer Clearchus of Soli, quoted at Ath. 7, 276a): it was most probably

a comedy

that, according to

some scholars, was linked to the official adoption of the Ionic alphabet by Athens in 403 B.C.' In this play, the 24 members of the comic chorus are supposed to have represented the 24 letters of the alphabet on stage, dancing in the parodos various syllabic combinations (Bfra ἄλφα Ba, βῆτα et Be, an so on).”

Although we do not know for sure what the chorus actually did when the letters were named, it is tempting to assume that they were made visible to the public just by ‘freezing’ or slow-

ing down the postures of choral dance movements, in order to mime some elements of their graphic shape, as it seems to have been scenically realized also by one character of a Sophoclean tragedy:’ [...| Euripides, too, seems to have composed that speech in his Theseus in which letters of the alphabet are described. In that play there

is an illiterate herdsman who plainly describes the name of ‘Theseus as it is inscribed [...] Sophocles, also, wrote something similar to this

in the satyric play Ampbiaraus, introducing there one who danced the formes of the letters.* * On this interpretation, see especially Pöhlmann 1971 and, more recently, D’Angour 1999; Rosen 1999 and Slater 2002. ? Ath. 10, 453d-e: 6 χορὸς δὲ γυναικῶν ἐκ τῶν σύνδυο πεποιημένος αὐτῷ ἐστιν ἔμμετρος ἅμα καὶ μεμελοπεποιημένος τόνδε τὸν τρόπον: βῆτα ἄλφα Ba, βῆτα et Be, βῆτα Ara By, βῆτα ἰῶτα βι, βῆτα od Bo, βῆτα ὁ Bu, βῆτα ὦ Bo, nal πάλιν ἐν ἀντιστρόφῳ τοῦ μέλους καὶ τοῦ μέτρου γάμμα ἄλφα, γάμμα εἶ, γάμμα Ara, γάμμα ἰῶτα, γάμμα οὐ, γάμμα ὦ, γάμμα ὦ, καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν λοιπῶν συλλαβῶν ὁμοίως ἑκάστων τό τε μέτρον καὶ τὸ μέλος ἐν ἀντιστρόφοις ἔχουσι πᾶσαι ταὐτόν.

3 For a discussion on possible realizations of this scene see Gagné 2013, 309.

4 Ath. 10, 454b-f (transl. Gulick 1961, italics mine): [...] Εὐριπίδης δὲ τὴν ἐν τῷ Θησεῖ τὴν ἐγγράμματον ἔοικε ποιῆσαι ῥῆσιν. βοτὴρ δ᾽ ἐστὶν ἀγράμ.ματος αὐτόϑι δηλῶν τοὔνομα τοῦ Θησέως ἐπιγεγραμμένον οὕτως [... καὶ Σοφοκλῆς δὲ τούτῳ παραπλήσιον ἐποίησεν ἐν ᾿Αμφιαράῳ σατυρικῷ τὰ γράμματα παράγων ὀρχούμενον.

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From what has been said up to now, it follows that ancient

Greek dances realize their narrative contents mostly by means of specific σχήματα, i.e., postures or fixed shapes, which were

termed as such because they were based on meaningful and visible patterns embodied in a dynamic performance.’ This reasoning helps us to better understand some remarks in ancient sources, as the famous Platonic passage in the Laws commenting on the music of ancient Egyptians, whose list of σχήματα and μέλη — Plato says — had long ago been displayed by them in the temples: Once, long ago, so it seems, they [sc. the Egyptians] came to understand the argument that we have just been setting out, according to which the young men in each city must become practised in good postures

(καλὰ

μὲν

σχήματα)

and good

melodies

(καλὰ

δὲ μέλη).

These they prescribed, and they advertised which they are and what they are like in the temples: it was forbidden, as it still is, for painters or any other portrayers of postures and representations to make

innovations beyond these, or to think up anything outside the traditional material, in these areas or in mousiké in general.*

Beyond

any practical interpretation regarding the action of

showing (ἀποφαίνειν) the Egyptian σχήματα and μέλη in the temples,’ here the main question at issue is that painters and * Peponi opportunely mentions also Pl. Leg. 672e-673a, where she interpretes σχήμα as “the embodiment of the mobility of rhythm” (see p. 229 f.). ? Pl. Leg. 656d-e (transl. Barker 1984): πάλαι γὰρ δή mote, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἐγνώσϑη παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς οὗτος ὁ λόγος ὃν τὰ νῦν λέγομεν ἡμεῖς ὅτι καλὰ μὲν σχήματα, καλὰ δὲ μέλη δεῖ μεταχειρίζεσθαι ταῖς συνηϑθείαις τοὺς ἐν ταῖς πόλεσιν νέους: ταξάμενοι

δὲ ταῦτα, ἅττα ἐστὶ καὶ ὁποῖ᾽ ἄττα ἀπέφηναν

ἐν τοῖς ἱεροῖς,

καὶ παρὰ ταῦτ᾽ οὐκ ἐξὴν οὔτε ζωγράφοις, οὔτ᾽ ἄλλοις ὅσοι σχήματα καὶ ὁποῖ᾽ ἄττα ἀπεργάζονται, καινοτομεῖν οὐδ᾽ ἐπινοεῖν ἄλλ᾽ ἄττα ἢ τὰ πάτρια, οὐδὲ νῦν ἔξεστιν, οὔτε ἐν τούτοις οὔτε ἐν μουσικῇ συμπάσῃ. 3 Rutherford 2013, 72-4, offers three possible interpretations of this

passage: 1) this is a reference to a manual of ritual practice in which there was a written record of tunes and poses; 2) σχήματα refer here to

the Egyptian depictions of different dancing styles recently identified by the scholars (Kinney 2008); 3) σχήματα is used by Plato to describe hieroglyphic symbols of Egyptian writings, many of which consisting of pictures of human

bodies in specific poses. Whatever

interpretation

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musical composers can be easily equated, insofar as both are “portrayers of σχήματα and, as such, they have the power to convey specific meanings and values (which, in Plato’s opinion, should then be selected according to their ethical implications). " A further clarification on the ancient conceptual approach to σχήματα is given by another fourth-century writer, Aristoxenus of Tarentum, author of the first theoretical study on rhythm which survives (albeit partially) from antiquity: the Elementa Rhythmica. To begin with, Aristoxenus (who, among

other things, seems to have been the first to have identified the three dance-styles associated with tragedy, comedy and satyrplay)” firstly distinguishes the notion of “rhythm” (ῥυθμός) from “what is capable of assuming rhythm” (τὸ ῥυθμιζόμενον) drawing a parallel with the notions of σχῆμα and τὸ oynuaτιζόμενον: One must understand that there are these two natures, that of rhythm and that of the rhythmizomenon (lit. “that which is made rhythmic”),

these being related to one another in the same way as are shape (τὸ σχῆμα)

and what is shaped (τὸ oynparılöuevov).?

(if any) we might prefer among these ones, the main point at issue is the equivalence between choreutic and pictorial σχήματα on the basis of

their ‘visual’ nature. * A well-established

affective vocabulary

seems,

then,

to have

been

connected to different σχήματα. According to a scholion to Homer (Eust. Od. 23, 115), Aeschylean characters showed a different σχῆμα (here clearly meaning “postures, attitude” of the actor’s body, not of chorus’ dance) for each emotion (πάϑος) they were representing: καὶ γάρ tor παρὰ Αἰσχύλῳ κάϑηνταί που πρόσωπα σιωπῶντα ἐφ᾽ ἱκανὸν κατὰ σχῆμα A πένθους 7 θαυμασμοῦ ἢ τινος ἑτεροίου πάϑους. ? Aristox. fr. 104 Wehrli: ὅτι δὴ γένος ὀρχησμοῦ ὁ κόρδαξ, ᾿Αριστόξενος ἐν τῷ περὶ τραγικῆς ὀρχήσεως δηλοῖ οὕτως: ἦν δὲ τὸ μὲν εἶδος τῆς Tpayınfc ὀρχήσεως ἡ καλουμένη ἐμμέλεια, καϑάπερ τῆς σατυρικῆς ἡ καλουμένη σίκιννις, τῆς δὲ κωμικῆς ὁ καλούμενος κόρδαξ, For an earlier usage, however, of the term ἐμμέλεια in orchestic context with no specific reference to ‘tragic’

dances, see Pl. Leg. 816b (on which see Rocconi 2010). 3 Aristox. Rhythm. 2, 3 (transl. Barker 1989): Nontéov δὲ δύο τινὰς φύσεις ταύτας, τήν te τοῦ ῥυθμοῦ καὶ τὴν τοῦ ῥυθμιζομένου, παραπλησίως ἐχούσας πρὸς ἀλλήλας ὥσπερ ἔχει τὸ σχῆμα καὶ τὸ σχηματιζόμενον πρὸς αὑτά. On this and the other Aristoxenian passages, see also Peponi in this volume, p.

222 f. and passin.

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He then discusses in detail the features of the three ῥυθμιζόueva related to music: speech (λέξις), melody (μέλος) and bodily movement (κίνησις σωματική): Time (χρόνος) is divided by the rhythmizomena by means of the parts of each of them. There are three rhythmizomena: diction, melody and

bodily movement. Thus diction will divide time by means of its own parts, such as letters and syllables and words and everything of that sort; melody by its own parts, notes and intervals and systemata; and movement

by signs and figures (σημείοις

te καὶ σχήμασι)

and

anything else like this that is a part of movement (κινήσεως μέρος).

For Aristoxenus, σημεῖα and oynuata are the “primary durations” (πρῶτοι χρόνοι), namely, the constitutive items of bodily movement. While melody’s minimal elements, which cannot be reduced any further by our perception, are the notes,* bodily movement divides χρόνος both in onueta’ (occurring when we make a gesture) and σχήματα (occurring when we dance): * Aristox.

Rhythm.

2,

9

(transl.

Barker

1989,

slightly

modified):

Διαιρεῖται δὲ ὁ χρόνος ὑπὸ τῶν ῥυθμιζομένων τοῖς ἑκάστου αὐτῶν μέρεσιν. Ἔστι δὲ τὰ ῥυθμιζόμενα τρία: λέξις, μέλος, κίνησις σωματική. ὥστε διαιρήσει τὸν χρόνον ἡ μὲν λέξις τοῖς αὑτῆς μέρεσιν, οἷον γράμμασι καὶ συλλαβαῖς καὶ ῥήμασι καὶ πᾶσι τοῖς τοιούτοις᾽ τὸ δὲ μέλος τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ φϑόγγοις τε καὶ διαστήμασι καὶ συστήμασιν: ἡ δὲ κίνησις σημείοις τε καὶ σχήμασι καὶ εἴ τι τοιοῦτόν ἐστι κινήσεως μέρος.

: Cf. Aristid. Quint. De mus. 1, 14, p. 32, 11-8 W.-I. (most probably relying on Aristoxenus): “a primary duration (πρῶτος χρόνος) is one that is indivisible and minimal: it is also called a ‘point’. By ‘minimal’ (ἐλάyotov) I mean minimal in relation to us, that is, the first duration that can be grasped by perception [...] This duration without parts has the role, as it were, of a unit: in words it is located in the syllable, in melody

in the note [...], in bodily movement in a single figure (περὶ ἕν σχῆμα)» (transl. Barker 1989). 3 For an interesting usage of this word in another Peripatetic context see Arist. Pol. 1340a (quoted also above in the main text), where Aristotle is talking about the emotional reactions we have to musical imitations, similar to the reactions we have to the realities themselves. This effect,

he says, is peculiar only to musical likenesses, since in other objects of perception,

such

as those

of touch

and

taste,

there

are no

likenesses

(ὁμοιώματα) of moral characteristics, but rather ‘signs’ (σημεῖα) of them, as sometimes happens with the objects of sight (among which dance σχήματα are included), which at the most serve as a mark (ἐπίσημα) to

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We must try to gain an understanding of the character of the primary duration in the following way. It is characteristic of things that appear vividly to perception that they do not allow the speeds of their movements to increase indefinitely (εἰς ἄπειρον), but as the

durations are brought close together they come

somewhere

to a

standstill ((στασϑαί rov),' the durations in which the parts of the

things moved are placed. I am speaking of things moved in the way that the voice is moved in speaking and singing, and the body [sc. is moved] in making a gesture (σῆμα onuoivoy) and dancing (ὀρχούμενον), and in being moved

in the other movements

of that sort.

Since this appears to be the way these things are, it is clearly necessary that there exist some durations that are smallest, in which the singer will locate each of the notes: and the same argument clearly applies also to syllables and gestures. * Aristoxenus’ reasoning is here trying to give a structural definition of rhythm, that is, to identify, within the dynamic

nature of rhythmical phenomena

(perceived as moving over

time), their formal shapings, as in the Aristotelian expression distinguish emotions: συμβέβηκε δὲ τῶν αἰσϑητῶν ἐν μὲν τοῖς ἄλλοις μηδὲν ὑπάρχειν ὁμοίωμα τοῖς ἤϑεσιν, οἷον ἐν τοῖς ἁπτοῖς καὶ τοῖς γευστοῖς, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν τοῖς ὁρατοῖς ἠρέμα (σχήματα γὰρ ἔστι τοιαῦτα, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ μικρόν, καὶ «οὐ» πάντες τῆς τοιαύτης αἰσθήσεως ΝΜ. 3548 πος

πῶν

ἠθῶν,

ἀλλὰ

σημεῖα

μᾶλλον

κοινωνοῦσιν N ;

τὰ γιγνόμενα

ἔτι

A

δὲ οὐκ ἔστι ταῦτα ὁμοιώματα R i = 30=

σχήματα

καὶ

γρώματα

TOV

Nav,

καὶ ταῦτ᾽ ἐστὶν ἐπίσημα ἐν τοῖς πάϑεσιν (Pol. 1340a 28-35).

* Cf. Aristox. Harm. 12, 2-8 (transl. Barker 1989): “What we mean by pitch is something like the voice’s stability, or standing still (οἷον μονὴ τις καὶ στάσις τῆς φωνῆς). Let us not be disturbed by the opinions

of those who reduce notes to movements, and who say quite generally that sound is movement, as though we should be obliged to say that it sometimes happens that movement does not move, but is stationary and at rest (ἠρεμεῖν te καὶ ἑστάναι).

* Aristox. Rhythm. 2, 11 (transl. Barker 1989): Τὴν δὲ tod πρώτου dv'vanıy πειρᾶσϑαι δεῖ καταμανθάνειν τόνδε τὸν τρόπον. Τῶν σφόδρα φαινομένων ἐστὶ τῇ αἰσϑήσει τὸ μὴ λαμβάνειν εἰς ἄπειρον ἐπίτασιν τὰς τῶν κινήσεων ταχυτῆτας,

ἀλλ᾽ ἵἴστασϑαί

mov

συναγομένους

τοὺς χρόνους,

ἐν οἷς τίϑεται

τὰ

μέρη τῶν κινουμένων: λέγω δὲ τῶν οὕτω κινουμένων, ὡς ἥ τε φωνὴ κινεῖται λέγουσά τε καὶ μελῳδοῦσα καὶ τὸ (σῶμα) σῆμα σημαῖϊνόν τε καὶ ὀρχούμενον καὶ τὰς λοιπὰς τῶν τοιούτων κινήσεων κινούμενον. Τούτων δὲ οὕτως ἔχειν φαινομ.ένων, δῆλον ὅτι ἀναγκαῖόν

ἐστιν εἶναί τινας ἐλαχίστους χρόνους, ἐν οἷς 6 pedo

δῶν ϑήσει τῶν φϑόγγων ἕκαστον. δῆλον ὅτι καὶ περὶ τῶν σημείων.

Ὅ

αὐτὸς δὲ λόγος καὶ περὶ τῶν ξυλλαβῶν

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from which we started (Poet. 1447a 27: διὰ τῶν σχηματιζομνων ῥυθμῶν). RAythm gives form to bodily movements — he says — both when we produce deictic gestures (with different social or persuasive functions, we may guess, as in theatrical

performances, rhetorical deliveries and so on, see the expression σῆμα onuatvov)' and when we dance (cf. ὀρχούμενον). The smallest fraction of movement we may isolate in dance, therefore, is exactly a σχῆμα, “a disposition of the parts of the body, arising from the fact that each of them is placed (σχεῖν) in a particular way, which is why it is called ‘shape’ (oyiju«)”,* even if Aristoxenus carefully avoids further comments on any

possible mimetic

content of it, being interested only in its

technical description.

So, in the fourth century B.C., the only term regarding dance which shows a plain technical meaning is σχῆμα, which

was conceived as the most meaningful constitutive pattern of orchestic performances and believed (by most, at least) to have a prominent role in conveying mimetic contents. The word σχῆμα. survived in the vocabulary of dance for centuries, appearing also in an intriguing (though somehow misleading) passage that scholars have tried to interpret as a source of

technical information on ancient Greek dance,’ the last problem of the ninth book of Plutarch’s Table Talks: Thrasybulus inquired the meaning of the word phrase (φορά, lit. “mo-

tion”), and gave Ammonius the opportunity of giving at some length an exposition of the elements of dancing, which he said were three in number: the phrase, the pose, and pointing. “Dancing” (ὄρχησις), * LS, s.v. σημαίνω: “show by a sign, indicate, point out”. * Aristox. Rhythm. 2, 5 (transl. Barker 1989): [...] διάϑεσίς τίς ἐστι τῶν τοῦ σώματος μερῶν τὸ σχῆμα, γινόμενον ἐκ τοῦ σχεῖν πὼς ἕκαστον αὐτῶν, ὅϑεν δὴ καὶ σχῆμα ἐκλήϑη.

3 The first to deny to this source any technical utility was Lawler 1954, according to whom

“writers on the dance, then, who states on the

authority of Plutarch’s passage that the three constituent elements of the ancient Greek dance are phora, schema and deixis, and who regards these as precise and mutually exclusive technical terms, are in error” (158). If I agree that phora and deixis are wider in scope and variously used by different Greek writers, especially in the Classical period, I think this is not the case of schema, as I hope to have shown.

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he explained, “consists of movements and positions, as melody of its

notes and intervals. In the case of dancing the rests are the terminating points of the movements. Now they call the movements phrases (φοραί), while poses (σχήματα)

is the name

of the representational

positions to which the movements lead and in which they end, as when dancers compose their bodies in the attitude of Apollo or Pan or a Bacchant, and then retain that aspect like figures in a picture (γραφικῶς). The third element, pointing (δεῖξις), is something that

does not copy the subject-matter, but actually shows it to us. Poetry provides a parallel. [...] Similarly in dancing the pose (σχῆμα) is imitative of shape and outward appearance. ‘The phrase (φορά) again is expressive of some emotion or action or potentiality. By pointing

(δεῖξις) they literally indicate objects: the earth, the sky, themselves, or bystanders. If this is done with precision, so to say, and timing, it resembles proper names in poetry when they are uttered with a measure of ornament and smoothness |...].'

I do not want to go into the details of this passage, since a recent study has remarkably shown the interesting mixture

of interpretative parameters that Plutarch introduces into the discussion on dance presented by the character of Ammonius (among which the influence of ancient theories of language

stands out).* What I would simply like to point out is that, among the three terms here quoted (φορά, σχῆμα and δεῖξις),

only σχῆμα has a recognized technical background.

A dual

polarization, then, is brought together around this word: φορά * Plut. Quaest. conv. 747b-e (transl. Sandbach 1961): ἐπεζήτησεν οὖν ὁ Θρασύβουλος, [᾿Αμμωνίου] τί βούλεται τοὔνομα τῆς φορᾶς, καὶ παρέσχε τῷ Ayμωνίῳ περὶ τῶν μερῶν τῆς ὀρχήσεως πλείονα διελθεῖν. Ἔφη δὲ τρί᾽ εἶναι, τὴν φορὰν καὶ τὸ σχῆμα καὶ τὴν δεῖξιν. “ἡ γὰρ ὄρχησις ἔκ τε κινήσεων καὶ σχέσεων συνέστηκεν, ὡς τὸ μέλος τῶν φϑόγγων καὶ τῶν διαστημάτων ἐνταῦϑα δ᾽ αἱ μοναὶ πέρατα τῶν κινήσεών εἰσιν. φορὰς μὲν οὖν τὰς κινήσεις ὀνομάζουσι, σχήματα δὲ «τὰς: σχέσεις καὶ διαϑέσεις, εἰς ἃς φερόμεναι τελευτῶσιν αἱ κινήσεις,

ὅταν ᾿Απόλλωνος ἢ Πανὸς A τινος Βάκχης σχῆμα διαϑέντες ἐπὶ τοῦ σώματος γραφικῶς τοῖς εἴδεσιν ἐπιμένωσι. τὸ δὲ τρίτον, ἡ δεῖξις, οὐ μιμητικόν ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ δηλωτικὸν ἀληϑῶς τῶν ὑποχειμένων᾽ [...] οὕτως ἐν ὀρχήσει τὸ μὲν σχῆμα υιμητικόν ἐστι μορφῆς καὶ ἰδέας, καὶ πάλιν ἡ φορὰ πάϑους τινὸς ἐμφαντικὸν ἢ πράξεως ἣ δυνάμεως" ταῖς δὲ δείξεσι κυρίως αὐτὰ δηλοῦσι τὰ πράγματα, τὴν γῆν, τὸν οὐρανόν, αὐτοὺς τοὺς πλησίον [...]”. 5 Schlapbach 2011, 154: “it presents a peculiar mixture of parameters: music, the visual arts, and rhetoric are in turn brought in to discuss dance [...]”. On this passage see also Garelli-Francois 2001.

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vs. σχῆμα, on the one hand, and σχῆμα vs. δεῖξις, on the other hand. The first set of opposites points out the dynamic vs. the

static components which are inherent in any kind of dance,’ while the second couple of terms sets a mimetic against a non mimetic relationship that dance may establish with its object.* This articulated and quite complex picture is probably due to

the contamination between different fields of application of rhythm which earlier theoretical reflections had rather kept apart. Basing on the parallelism that Plutarch establishes between ὄρχησις and μέλος (Quaest. sists of movements and positions, intervals”), we are encouraged to just by Aristoxenus’ or, more in that here have been here merged

conv. 747b-c: “dancing conas melody of its notes and think that he was inspired general, Peripatetic sources, into a single passage. The

‘psychagogic’ power, for instance, attributed by Plutarch to the orchestic movement (Quaest. conv. 7478: “φορά is expressive of some emotion or action or potentiality”) had already been

associated with musical elements in the pseudo-Aristotelian Problems, where it had been stated that rhythms and melodies resemble ethical characters because they are κινήσεις as hu-

man actions (no&&erc).* A similar distinction, instead, between pictorial and deictic gestures

(in Plutarch interpreted as the

main difference between σχῆμα and δεῖξις) had already been * Plut. Quaest. conv. 7470: [...] ἡ γὰρ ὄρχησις ἔκ τε κινήσεων καὶ σχέσεων συνέστηκεν. * Schlapbach 2011, 152 ff.: “differently from the pose [i.e., schema], which is pictorial, deixis does not give an image, or visual imitation, of its referent [...] deixis is a class of gestures that involve pointing to

objects”. 3 At least the part in which music is used as an analogy (Ouaest. conv. 747b-c: ἡ γὰρ ὄρχησις [...] ὡς τὸ μέλος τῶν φϑόγγων καὶ τῶν διαστημάτων), cf. Aristox. Rhythm. 2, 9: Ἔστι δὲ τὰ ῥυθμιζόμενα τρία’ λέξις, μέλος, κίνησις σωματική. ὥστε διαιρήσει τὸν χρόνον [...] τὸ δὲ μέλος τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ φϑόγγοις τε καὶ διαστήμασι καὶ συστήμασιν [...]. On this possibility see also Koller 1954, 171. * Ps.-Arist. Pr. 19, 29: Διὰ τί of ῥυθμοὶ καὶ τὰ μέλη φωνὴ οὖσα ἤϑεσιν ἔοικεν, οἱ δὲ χυμοὶ οὔ, ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ τὰ χρώματα καὶ αἱ ὀσμαί; A ὅτι κινήσεις εἰσὶν ὥσπερ καὶ αἱ πράξεις; ἤδη δὲ ἡ μὲν ἐνέργεια ἠθικὸν καὶ ποιεῖ ἦϑος, οἱ δὲ χυμοὶ καὶ τὰ χρώματα οὐ ποιοῦσιν ὁμοίως. 5 Plut. Quaest. conv. 747ς: τὸ δὲ τρίτον, ἡ δεῖξις, οὐ μιμητικόν ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ δηλωτικὸν [...].

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suggested by Aristoxenus, when addressing the question of rhythm in application to bodily movements (Rhythm. 2, 11, cit. supra: “things moved in the way [...] the body [sc. is moved] in making a gesture and dancing”).

To conclude: the most prominent technical components of ancient dance mentioned in the sources of Classical period (with echoes in later evidence) were σχήματα, a shared and

highly codified repertoire of postural patterns theoretically conceived as ‘static’, whose mimetic content could be easily identified in the performance and be regarded as meaningful. For the Greeks, dance was mainly a ‘visual’ artistic form, being σχήματα, explicitly perceived through the sense of sight,* as we are later informed also by Aristides Quintilianus: Rhythm in general is perceived by three senses, which are these: sight, as in dancing; hearing, as in melody; and touch, by which we perceive, for instance, the pulsations of the arteries. Musical rhythm, however, is perceived by two of them, sight and hearing.*

This deeply visual way of conceiving dance persists throughout antiquity, if Plutarch, quoting the very well-known dictum

of Simonides

(“Painting is silent poetry, poetry is speaking

painting”), on one occasion replaces painting with dance.’ In practice, however, oynuara were always part of a dynamic

flow, being associated with other musical components, such as rhythm and melody, and thereby contributing to realize a multimedia performance which overwhelmed all senses: the overall experience of ancient mousike. * Cf. Arist. Pol. 1340a 30-1 (quoted supra, p. 190 n. 3): ἐν τοῖς ὁρατοῖς [-..1 σχήματα γὰρ ἔστι τοιαῦτα.

* Aristid. Quint. De mus. 1, 13, p. 31, 18-21 W.-I. (transl. Barker 1989): Πᾶς μὲν οὖν ῥυθμὸς τρισὶ τούτοις αἰσθητηρίοις νοεῖται: ὄψει, ὡς ἐν ὀρχήσει" ἀκοῇ, ὡς ἐν μέλει: ἁφῇ, ὡς οἱ τῶν ἀρτηριῶν σφυγμοί: ὁ δὲ κατὰ μουσικὴν ὑπὸ δυεῖν, ὄψεώς τε καὶ ἀκοῆς. On this passage, see also Peponi in this volume.

3 Quaest. conv. 748 a (transl. Sandbach 1961): “In short, one can transfer Simonides’ saying from painting to dancing, silent poetry and poetry articulate dance” (cf. Plut. De glor. Ath. 346f; De aud. 17£; De adul. 58b). On the role played by lyric poetry, more in general, in the development of visual sensibilities and practices in Greek cultures, see the interesting remarks in Peponi 2016, which include also

some comments on this famous Simonides’ statement.

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Cambridge MA. Halliwell S., 2002: The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems, Princeton-Oxford.

Janko R., 1987: Aristotle: Poetics 1. With The Tractatus Coislinianus, A Hypothetical Reconstruction of Poetics 11, The Fragments of the On Poets, Indianapolis.

Kinney L., 2008: Dance, Dancers and the Performance Cohort in the Old Kingdom, Oxford. Koller H., 1954: Die Mimesis in der Antike, Nachahmung, Darstellung, Ausdruck, Bern. Kowalzig B., 2013: Broken Rhythms in Plato’s Laws: Materialising Social Time in the Chorus, in A.-E. Peponi (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato’s Laws, Cambridge, 171-211.

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Kurke L., 2013: /magining Chorality: Wonder, Plato’s Puppets, and Moving Statues, in A.-E. Peponi (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato’s Laws, Cambridge, 123-70. Lawler L. B., 1954: Phora, Schema, Deixis in the Greek Dance, 'TAPhA 85, 148-58.

MacCary W. T., 1979: Philokleon Ithyphallos: Dance, Costume and Character in the Wasps, 'TAPhA 109, 137-47. Peponi A.-E., 2015: Dance and Aesthetic Perception, in P. Destrée - P. Murray (eds.), A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics, Chichester, 204-17. Peponi A.-E., 2016: Lyric Vision: An Introduction, in V. Cazzato - A. Lardinois (eds.), The Look of the Lyric: Greek Song and the Visual, Leiden, Boston, 1-15. Pöhlmann E., 1971: Die ABC-Komödie des Kallias, RhM 114/3, 230-40.

Rocconi E., 2010: Sounds of War, Sounds of Peace: For an Ethnographic Survey of Ancient Greek Music in Platonic Writings, in E. Hickmann - R. Eichmann (eds.), Musical Perceptions, Past and Present. On Ethnographic Analogy in Music Archaeology, Rahden/Westf., 37-45. Rocconi E., 2012: The Aesthetic Value of Music in Platonic Thought, in I. Sluiter - R. M. Rosen (eds.), Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity, Leiden, Boston, 113-32. Rocconi E., 2016: The Music of the Laws and the Laws of Music: Nomoi in Music and Legislation, GRMS 4/1, 72-90. Rogers B. B., 1924: Aristophanes 1. The Acharnians; The Knights; The

Clouds; The Wasps, Cambridge MA. Rosen R. M., 1999:

Comedy and Confusion in Callias’ Letter Tragedy,

CPh 94/2, 147-67.

Rossi L. E., 1978: Mimica e danza sulla scena comica greca (a proposito del finale delle Vespe ὁ di altri passi aristofanei), RCCM 20, 1149-70. Rotstein A., 2012: Mousikoi Agones and the Conceptualization of Genre in Ancient Greece, ClAnt 31/1, 92-127. Rutherford I., 2013: Strictly Ballroom: Egyptian Mousike and Plato’s Comparative Poetics, in A.-E. Peponi (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato’s Laws, Cambridge, 67-83. Sandbach F. H., 1961: Plutarch’s Moralia 1x: 697¢-771e, Cambridge

MA. Schlapbach K., 2011: Dance and Discourse in Plutarch’s Table Talks 9.1), in T. Schmidt - P. Fleury (eds.), Perceptions of the Second Sophistic and Its Times, Toronto, 149-68. Slater N. W., 2002: Dancing the Alphabet: Performative Literacy on the Attic Stage, in I. Worthington - J. M. Foley (eds.), Epea and Grammata: Oral and Written Communication in Ancient Greece, Leiden, 117-29.

8. LANGUAGE AND DANCE: A NON-PLATONISING VIEW STEFAN

HAGEL

Kat μὴν thy ye ἁρμονίαν καὶ ῥυθμὸν ἀκολουϑεῖν δεῖ τῷ λόγῳ.

Surely melody and rhythm must be in accord with the lyrics. Plato, Resp. 398d

D

ANCE is bodily expression of rhythm, and ancient dance can therefore not be understood without knowledge of the rhythms it expressed. When Paul Maas put his famous verdict on ‘empathic’ interpretation of ancient rhythm,’ in response to highly subjective theories proposed in the nineteenth century, this may have seemed the death blow to an important

area of ancient dance studies. However, the paradigm seems to be changing again, in connection with the recent outburst of ancient musical studies in general. A landmark in this de-

velopment

is the transition between Martin L. West’s two

authoritative handbooks on the subject. While his Greek Metre

still focused on a more Maasian description, purged of rhythmical speculation (though here and there addressing questions of actual duration), the topic of Ancient Greek Music provided the opportunity to discuss metrical forms from a genuinely

musical viewpoint. This entailed transcriptions into modern note values as well as the usage of bars to indicate the units perceived by the ancients — albeit not necessarily with the modern implication of main beats occurring immediately after the bar lines.

In many cases, the transition from the more metrical to the more rhythmical paradigm is smooth, and the latter can be viewed as rephrasing or detailing the former. In the case of * Maas 1962, 3-7.

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the so-called Acolic metres, however,

West

199

appears to have

abandoned one of the fundaments of his original account, replacing it with something very different. Although the new interpretation is evidently in better accord sources,’ I have long been sceptical, having that West has not addressed. In the end I further arguments produced by Joan Silva study on durations, drawing on the ways

with the ancient spotted problems was convinced by in his important the Lesbian poets

combined various periods. However, Silva’s ingenious observations have also not addressed the causes of my reservations.

This contribution will spotlight the problem I perceive and show how it forces us to abandon a cherished commonplace of ancient metrical studies. The ensuing picture will be more complex, but I hope it will help us understand ancient Greek music more fully. In Greek Metre, West bases his account of Acolic (and other) metres on the notion of ‘(loci) principes’. He defines a princeps

as “a position in the verse that calls for a long syllable (or in metres admitting resolution, occasionally two shorts)”.* Though

not explicitly phrased so, a princeps is evidently understood as a strong rhythmical position, while weak positions may be variously filled by single short, double short or in many contexts also long syllables (complications arise in ionic, dochmiac and

paeonic metres).’ The identification of principes with strong positions becomes clear from West’s concept of ‘symmetrical’ * See Gentili-Lomiento 2008, 161 f.

* West 1982, 199. Similar e.g. Korzeniewski 1968, 5 f. (“Stäbe”). 3 When

West relates the idea of principes to the ancient conception

of ¢hesis this does not really seem to call the identification of the former as strong positions into question: “But it is noteworthy that the thesis regularly coincides with or includes a princeps-long. This shows that our sense of a rhythm founded on the stable long positions corresponds to ancient understanding” (West 1982, 23). His subsequent cautioning against the uncritical application of modern rhythmical sense targets the notions of stress and equal spacing of stresses, not the princeps approach

as such. Ch. M. J. Sicking makes the notion of principes the single basis of his approach, dismissing all musical evidence: “Der Unterschied von prominenten und nicht-prominenten Grundeinheiten ist mit dem

Vorhandensein oder Fehlen des Merkmals Linge ohne weiteres gegeben” (Sicking 1993, 43).

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STEFAN

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and ‘asymmetrical’ rhythms, which are roughly characterised by the princeps positions being

separated by always

similar

durations in the former (either always short or anceps, or always double-short or long), but by alternating durations in the latter. Aeolic metre, with its typical alternation of single and

double shorts, is therefore the prime example of ‘asymmetrical’ rhythm.’ As a result, the complexity of Aeolic rhythm is found in the dissimilar duration of its components, which comprise

either three or four time units. Evidently, this would yield complex dance patterns with irregularly timed steps. Alterna-

tively, one might consider compressing the longer units within the same time as the shorter. This is what speakers of stress languages do instinctively, as such a practice is part of many languages, and also found in the realisation of, for instance,

Germanic metrical patterns.* Evening out the rhythm in such a way would certainly make for easier dancing; however, West is averse to the thought, justly pointing out that it would be rash to eliminate ancient complexity on the grounds of modern perception. Indeed, any such adaptation of relative mora duration within

the colon or verse compromises the more optimistic view that the better part of ancient music is not lost because we can derive the rhythms from the text.’ But then, we must acknowl-

edge that this idea rests on a reduced definition of rhythm anyway. If rhythm is conceived as the regulated dissection of time by elements of performance such as syllables, notes or movements,* it may hold true (with proper inference of rests and some three-time syllables here and there). On the other hand, the basis of rhythm is arguably rather the succession of strong * E.g. West 1982, 191. * Devine-Stephens 1994, 96 f. 3 West 1992, 129-33. The most extreme believe in an absolute primacy of unchangeable verbal rhythm was expressed by Thrasybulos Georgiades and his followers (e.g. Geörgiades 1977, 53: “Man kann das Altgriechische nicht durch Anwendung einer musikalischen Rhythmik von außen her dehnen oder zusammenziehen”). * These being the elements recognised by Aristoxenus, Rhythm. 2, 9, p- 6, 16 f. Pearson: Ἔστι δὲ τὰ ῥυθμιζόμενα τρία: λέξις, μέλος, κίνησις σωματική.

LANGUAGE

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and weak positions, downbeats and upbeats.* At least for some metres, these cannot be read from the text unambiguously. It is exactly for this reason that West was able to propose a very different interpretation of the same Acolic metres:

effectively, it shifts some of the rhythmically strong positions to different locations, away from the ‘principes’, to short po-

sitions. Taking the glyconic as the type specimen of Acolic versification, its metrical shape of x x ~Uvu—v— is now transcribed as |$

42

| (leaving aside the complication of

verses starting with two longs or even two shorts). Now

the

rhythm flows evenly in groups of three times, nicely suited for dances in regular steps. But in the second ‘bar’, it are the short notes that would carry the rhythmical accent.

In this way the analysis of much of Acolic verse does not differ from that of a choriamb interspersed in an iambic pas-

sage. When discussing the latter phenomenon, West elucidates its effect using an example from modern music, the ‘Scotch snap’ (on the continent perhaps better known as Lombard rhythm):* Gin a body meet a body Comin’ through the rye,

3

Ilka lassie has her laddie,

| | | |

Nane, they say, hae I, | Yet a’ the lads they smile on me, comin’ through the rye.

|

| When

III FIG | 4

| |

LAE. | IGF. |

AI 209) AT

8 |

In spite of the slightly different relative durations of long and short time values, the song certainly shows what it is meant

to illustrate: the implementation of a sequence of rhythmically strong and weak positions not by the customarily expected long-short but its inversion short-long produces an agreeable musical effect. * Aristox. Rhythm. 2, 16 f., p. 10, 21-5 Pearson: 6 δὲ σημαινόμεϑα τὸν ῥυθμὸν καὶ γνώριμον ποιοῦμεν τῇ αἰσϑήσει, πούς ἐστιν εἷς ἣ πλείους ἑνός. Τῶν δὲ ποδῶν οἱ μὲν ἐκ δύο χρόνων σύγχεινται τοῦ τε ἄνω καὶ τοῦ κάτω, οἱ δὲ ἐκ τριῶν, δύο μὲν τῶν ἄνω, ἑνὸς δὲ τοῦ κάτω, ἣ ἐξ ἑνὸς μὲν τοῦ ἄνω, δύο δὲ τῶν

κάτω

...

* West 1992, 139.

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STEFAN

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However, on closer inspection the example becomes increasingly problematic. First of all, in the Scottish song the inverted pairs are always coupled with ‘normal’ pairs within the same bar, and there are also entirely ‘normal’ bars, so that the inversion does not become the norm. In contrast, where chori-

ambs are combined with iambs it is the other way round: only in the choriambs is the ‘normal’ sequence found, while the iambs generally implement the inverted variant. In this way

the unexpected becomes the norm, while the expected is the exception, so that the analogy to the Scottish example breaks

down on a very fundamental level.’ Secondly, and more importantly, the Scotch snap is based on stress. In a purely instrumental setting of this musical form, the initial short note must be accented, lest the rhythm should be perceived as a syncopation. In song, this accent is ensured

by word accents, which universally fall on the initial short note where the rhythm is reversed (otherwise, they inconspicuously coincide with the long note). The characteristic of the

form thus integrates, on the level of the text, an additional tension when the loudness-based component of the accent takes over on its own, while the increased duration which often accompanies the stress accent is suppressed in the course of the rhythmical inversion. Sometimes this separation is prefigured in speech, as in the instances of ‘coming’, whose final syllable

may be executed with greater duration than the initial stressed syllable in ordinary language also. All this is not possible in a mora-timed language with pitch accent such as Ancient Greek. Firstly, the word accents do not contribute to the speech rhythm. Instead, the rhythm of Ancient Greek speech is produced by the contrast and particular configurations of long and short syllables. Given the absence of other elements that might establish rhythm, * it must * Note that it is no remedy to assume that the strong positions fell on the principes of the iambs, since the first of these starts after one time unit, where there is no syllable break in the choriamb, while the Scottish example presumes that the strong positions coincide with syllable starts that fall at the same beat regardless of the shape of the pair.

* It may be necessary to add that I regard the idea of ancient Greek

LANGUAGE

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be assumed that long syllables would be perceived as strong, short syllables as weak positions, with matrices of doubleshorts potentially forming to substitute for a missing long, and long syllables between strong positions naturally implementing

weak positions. This is essentially the notion of ‘principes’. In other words, if the rhythm of ancient Greek poetry were to

be derived from the language, one would inevitably end up with the princeps model. Also, this model seems to work quite well for various metres, especially dactyls, including hexameter, and dialogue verse. Nevertheless, as I have said, these problems do to be sufficient to reject a scansion of the discussed groups of three instead of according to principes.

the epic not seem metres in As Silva

has shown, on top of other evidence, the interplay of colonfinal catalexis or absence of catalexis with the start of typically following cola as rising (anceps) or falling (Acolic base) respectively strongly supports the former interpretation, while it

would be at odds with the idea of a princeps-guided rhythm." It must be admitted that while the metres of the glyconic family may be analysed in groups of three times and metra = ‘bars’ of six times, as may be iambo-trochaic, choriambs and probably ionics, the same does not hold true for the Alcaic

stanza and not easily for the Sapphic, nor for any ‘Aecolic’ metre with so-called dactylic expansion, let alone for forms such as dactylo-epitrite. However,

the disagreement between

the ‘Acolic’ of the glyconic type and the ‘Aecolic’ of the stanzas may be of little importance, given the fact that the inclusion of both in a common category of ‘Acolic’ does not necessarily

reflect any historical reality. Cola such as the glyconic were actually shared with the Dorian tradition from the beginning, while the stanzas represent a separate strand. Quite possibly, the latter were never meant for dancing, while glyconic-type cola were typical dance metres (the interpretation of dactylic stress developed in Allen 1973 as superseded by Devine-Stephens 1994. Allen’s approach basically claims ‘stress’ for princeps-like syllables and would therefore only support princeps-based metrics.

* Silva Barris 2011, 111-5.

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expansion remains a vexing problem, related to other metres that combine dactylic and iambic sequences). Indeed, in spoken verse as well as in song it may not even be necessary to im-

pose a well-structured alternation of ups and downs, weak and strong positions. Conceivably, rhythmical sophistication may have been sought exactly in overturning such expectations, modulating from one scheme into another, perhaps through a grey zone of uncertainty. The addition of lyre accompaniment would however have encumbered such an approach, since the plectrum strikes would have provided a clearer definition of what is going on, and would thus have made any changes very

explicit. In dancing, finally, the possibilities are further restricted, because feet cannot move as swiftly as can a plectrum. At any rate, the Dorian tradition of choral dance would be much easier to understand if we assume that its rhythms flowed

evenly over wide

stretches. With

strophes composed

individually from variously formed cola, every performance would otherwise have demanded detailed individual choreog-

raphy, defining the dancers’ movements down to the level of individual steps. While this may not seem impossible from a

synchronic viewpoint, it is quite difficult to understand how those sophisticated compositions whose texts were transmitted down to us would have derived from and relate to the ‘folk’

tradition in which they were embedded.

If we should feel

more inclined to assume that traditional dances proceeded in an unbroken rhythmical flow (which may of course have been composed of extensive ‘uneven’ periods, as long as these would have been predictably repetitive), it appears quite a stretch to posit either a dramatic change with the advent of written

poetry, or alternatively a parallel tradition of choreographed dances, transmitted orally together with special compositions.

Be that as it may, instrumental accompaniment, especially on the lyre, as well as dance performance require a clear synchronisation of syllables with movements. Moreover, movements will naturally create alternating strong and weak rhythmical positions. On the lyre these would most easily correspond to

plectrum strikes outward away from the player (strong) and inward towards the player (weak), or, with a lyre in tilted

LANGUAGE

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position as was usual for the tortoise-shell /yra, downwards and upwards. In dance, one level would be provided by steps perceived as rising and setting the foot, another by alternat-

ing steps with the left and the right foot. In terms of ancient metrical/rhythmical theory, the first appears to correspond to the notion of the ‘foot’ (fous), the latter to that of the metrum. The /yra, in turn, may have provided a plausible starting point for conceptualising weak and strong positions in terms of ‘up’

and ‘down’, ἄνω and κάτω. Teaching this instrument inevitably involved telling the students at which points to move the plectrum ‘downwards’ and ‘upwards’, whenever they learned a new type of song. This most practical way of expressing rhythmical structure would have become widely known, lyre-

playing being taught to the majority of upper-class youths in classical Athens and many other cities, and thus naturally providing the terminology for emerging rhythmical studies.’ For the same reason, we must assume that a practical knowledge of rhythmical ‘analysis’, as far as demanded for playing an

instrument, was widespread, not to mention the internalised appreciation of rhythm that one acquired as a member of dancing communities. On balance, there are excellent arguments that ancient musical practice analysed the glyconic and its relatives in feet of

three times that were joined to metra of six. At the same time, it is clear that such a rhythm would not emerge from spoken language, which, on its own, can only create metre based on princeps positions. To put it briefly, if the rhythmical interpretation holds true, the rhythm of those songs seems not to be derived from speech.

Such an idea is however hardly compatible with an oftenrepeated notion of ancient metrics: the primeval unity of text and music, in which music more or less reproduced the shapes

- rhythmical and perhaps even melodic — that the lyrics provided.

Instead of the primacy

of the words

that create the

rhythm, the analysis of the glyconic into regular metra inevitably posits the primacy of an autonomous, genuinely musical, * Plato, Resp. 400b; Aristox. Rhythm.

as in p. 201 ἢ. 1.

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STEFAN

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rhythmical structure, which the text merely fills and fits. There is indeed no way in which Greek speech would have imparted the required accent on the short syllables. So what are the credentials of textual primacy? On the one hand, it is the modern scholar’s experience with modern poetry, that reading a text in mostly normal speech would render

an acceptable metrical performance. This is of course true, but it is chiefly an experience of poetry in stress languages, where the accentuated syllables tend to carry not one but both rhyth-

mical qualities, loudness and length. On the other hand, the presumed musical unity under the guidance of the word derives from a customary reading of Plato’s Republic,

with

its famous

discussion

of which

kinds

of music might be accepted in the ideal state. Phrased in the words of West once more, “Plato insists that in his ideal republic melody and rhythm must follow the words, not vice versa, implying that it is not always that way round in contemporary music”.’ At first glance, this seems a fair rendition

of the statement quoted below the heading of this chapter: “surely melody and rhythm must be in accord with the lyrics”, with ἀκολουῦεἴν establishing the priority of the text, which the harmonies as well as the rhythm ought to ‘follow’. The same

idea is expressed slightly later in the Republic, when the discussion moves on to rhythms (Plato, Resp. 399e-400): "18. δή, ἔφην, καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ καϑαίρωμεν.

ἑπόμενον γὰρ δὴ ταῖς ἀρ-

μονίαις ἂν ἡμῖν εἴη τὸ περὶ ῥυθμούς, μὴ ποικίλους αὐτοὺς διώκειν μηδὲ παντοδαπὰς βάσεις, ἀλλὰ βίου ῥυϑμοὺς ἰδεῖν κοσμίου τε καὶ

ἀνδρείου τίνες εἰσίν" oc ἰδόντα τὸν πόδα τῷ τοῦ τοιούτου λόγῳ ἀναγχάζειν ἕπεσϑαι καὶ τὸ μέλος, ἀλλὰ μὴ λόγον ποδί τε καὶ μέλει.

Come on, I said, let’s clean up the rest as well. After the modes the

next thing for us to deal with are the rhythms, so that we do not pursue very diverse ones nor all kinds of steps, but realise which are

the rhythms of an orderly and manly life style, and, once we have recognised these, force the foot to follow the words and the melody of such a life style, and not the words to follow the foot and the melody. * West 1992, 132. Of course I do not imply that scholarship has invariably read the passage this way (for a reading along the lines proposed here cf. e.g. Peponi 2013, 415 n. 3).

LANGUAGE

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Obviously Plato indeed “insists that ... melody and rhythm must follow the words”, but I do not think that his main concern here is “that it is not always that way round in con-

temporary music”. Nor do I agree that Plato intends to defend his state from musical distortions of the words’ proper rhythm. Firstly, without scholarly immersion within a traditional nartative of “The New Music’, I do not think many would un-

derstand, in the given context, the notion of ‘the rhythm must follow the words’ in terms of ‘the rhythm must follow the rhythm of the words’. After all, few would argue that Plato,

when saying that ‘melody must follow the words’, insists that melody must follow the melody of the words. Following the pitch contours of spoken language was only possible in non-

strophic compositions as were so typical for “Ihe New Music’, while being impossible in traditional strophic choral song. It is the latter, however, that seems to be Plato’s model for politi-

cally constructive music in the Laws." And indeed, when proceeding to the details, it is not melodic movement that comes into view, but harmoniai, sets of notes used together in typical

ways. In a similar way it is clear that the rhythmical to be gained from Damon concerns the usage of cal patterns, and certainly not the proper way of rhythmical word shapes. Secondly, all the context is

expertise rhythmimatching about the

ethical connotations of different kinds of text, musical modes and rhythms. Therefore the natural reading is simply that the ethos of the mode and the ethos of the rhythm must be in ac* Plato, Leg. 663e-667b. After years of experimenting with possible models myself, I have dismissed the idea that strophic song might have adapted the melodies to the word

accents: with identical melodies this

is basically impossible, especially for many-strophed songs, and I cannot see why one would have wanted to adjust the melodies for each strophe.

There was hardly any incentive for doing so, as the Greek accent only rarely affects the meaning. Aeolic with its fixed accent was still perfectly understandable, and a fixed accent carries just as little information as does no accent at all - apart from matters beyond the scope of the word, such

as clisis and sentence intonation.

Compare,

however,

the results

of Cosgrove-Meyer 2006, indicating that the Orestes fragment may still have been composed deliberately against the accent.

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STEFAN

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cord with the ethos of the text.‘ The order in which the three components of song are discussed naturally proceeds from the obvious to the obscure. The lyrics come first, because their

ethical implications are easily read from the text. The harmoniai are trickier, but still possibly accessible in terms of association

with cultural practice: some are used for laments or drinking songs, others in war songs.* The rhythms, finally, do not display such nice correlations,’ so a proper discussion is replaced by the reference to the specialist one would need to consult.

The notion of ‘following’, which seemed to establish a primacy of the lyrics, therefore refers more to the structure of the discussion in the Republic than to its subject. As the proper content of the lyrics was determined at the outset, the other

elements needed to ‘follow’ it, 1.6. adhere to the same principles and remain in ethical accord with it.* If assigning ethos * This concern that poor artistry might fail to match content and form is expressed more clearly in the Laws 669c: ... διὰ τὸ τοὺς ποιητὰς φαυλοτέρους εἶναι ποιητὰς αὐτῶν τῶν Μουσῶν. οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἐκεῖναί ye ἐξαμάρτοιέν ποτε τοσοῦτον ὥστε ῥήματα ἀνδρῶν ποιήσασαι τὸ χρῶμα γυναικῶν καὶ μέλος ἀποδοῦναι, καὶ μέλος ἐλευϑέρων αὖ καὶ σχήματα συνϑεῖσαι ῥυθμοὺς δούλων καὶ ἀνελευϑέρων προσαρμόττειν, οὐδ᾽ αὖ ῥυθμοὺς καὶ σχῆμα ἐλευϑέριον ὑποϑεῖσαι μέλος ἣ λόγον ἐναντίον ἀποδοῦναι τοῖς ῥυθμοῖς ..., “... because the composers are worse composers than the Muses. These would never

fail so spectacularly as, when composing text spoken by males, to assign the colouring and melodic style of females, or again, when combining melodic style and dance movements of gentlemen, to add rhythms of slaves or proletarians, or again, when building upon noble rhythms and dance movements, to assign a melody or text that is contrary to the rhythms ...”. 51 have argued elsewhere that I still do not regard the details as Plato’s own voice, and that this is signalled in the text and was well understood by Aristotle (Hagel, forthcoming). 3 Cf. Wallace 2005, 151-3. * In the passage following those discussed, Plato continues using the concept of ‘to follow’, playfully shifting its meaning: instead of ἀκολουϑεῖν det “needs to follow” and ἀναγκάζειν ἕπεσϑαι “make

follow”

as establishing required agreements and therefore principles of composition that might as well be violated, he moves on to ἀκολουϑεὶῖ “follows” (400c) establishing an automatic agreement between the nature of the rhythms

and edoynpooivn/azcynuocivn

“good/bad disposition”, which in

the musical context first evoke the idea of dance movement (σχήματα), but are then taken as general characteristics of life. Treating the agree-

LANGUAGE

to rhythms had been a

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209

straightforward enterprise, and easier

than discerning the ethos of the text, the order would have changed, demanding that the text follows the rhythm. But it

is less straightforward, and the ethical assessment of the nontextual components remains an obscure task.’ Along these lines the final words in the quoted passage may be understood: the notion that “the words” might “follow the foot and the

melody” envisage, for the sake of the argument, a composer starting with some nice music and then creating a fitting text for it. This is not accepted as a viable procedure exactly for the reason that there are not sufficient means for passing judgment on the acceptability of a musical composition: such an endeavour might therefore easily set out from a harmful start and would consequently end up with an unacceptable text as well, as long as text and music fit together (as they would in any technically good composition). Since the metrical interpretation of Plato’s words seems not

to be backed by the context at all, why would it have been conceived in the first place? I think the ultimate reason is that, as regards technical details, we know so little about the development of Greek music in the later fifth and earlier fourth centuries B.C. Therefore scholarship almost inevitably tries to conflate the available bits of information into a coherent

whole. In this way, sources are read as elucidating each other which may in fact address very different aspects. When searching for musical practices Plato might have disapproved of, old comedy is a choice place to turn to.* There, among a wealth of ment of the text/speech, melody and rhythm as (now) also established (400d ἕπεται), and positing an automatic agreement between character and speech (again ἕπεται), Plato finally sums up the entire chain from a good character to a graceful lifestyle -- which surprisingly emerge as not immediately dependent on each other but mediated by music. τ Cf. the more

practice-oriented approach

of the Laws, where a sci-

ence of musical ethos is envisaged as possible (657b), but, as it has not yet been established, for the moment being, experienced citizens are entrusted with judgment on music. * Another template for reading Plato is found in an often-quoted fragment of Pratinas (708 PMG, found in Ath. 14, 617c-f): τὰν ἀοιδὰν κατέστασε Πιερὶς βασίλειαν: ὁ δ᾽ αὐλὸς ὕστερον χορευέτω, καὶ γάρ ἐσθ᾽ ὑπηρέτας,

“It is the song that the Muse has made queen. The aulos shall dance

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technically unspecific references, one notorious passage from Aristophanes’ Frogs yields obvious information, evidently focusing on the distortion of the straightforward metrical shapes of words by musical means: when imitating Euripides’ style,

Aeschylus twice distends the first syllable of a form of eiXtoow. The

text indicated

this by repeating

the diphthong

several

times:' from the early musical documents we know that repetition of a vowel generally implied a melisma.* As I will show elsewhere, however, overlong syllables were already a common

practice in Pindar, so increasing the duration of a long syllable beyond the normal two morae cannot per se have spawned accusations of modernism. What Aristophanes here actually ridicules must have been something more extravagant. As the

parody is connected to one of the later Euripides’ favourite words,’ meaning ‘turning, rolling’, it is much more likely that the extended melisma not only protracted the syllable but also

commented

on the sense (the movement

of dolphins) musi-

cally. A rather bland example of word painting, this may have been regarded as a cheap trick, little worthy of the older styles. If it is acknowledged that some amount of protraction already behind; after is evoked to tween lyrics for attention.

all, it is a emphasise and music, All three

servant”. Here the visual image of ‘following’ a hierarchy. However, it is not a hierarchy beand the former are certainly not singled out elements discussed by Plato are here of course

part of ‘song’. Here it is crucial to keep in mind that what Pratinas calls ‘song’ was identical with the ancient poet-composer’s work. He or she

wrote the lyrics and provided a melody, including the rhythm, while the instrumental accompaniment was not notated, but left to the individual performer to create. Thus Pratinas’ criticism targets a development in which public appreciation was perceived to shift from the poetic art to matters of performance. In spite of the superficial resemblance, it does

not overlap with the argument from the Republic discussed here. * Ran. 1314 εἰειειειειειλίσσετε δακτύλοις φάλαγγες; 1349 εἰειειλίσσουσα χεροῖν. The number of cı’s varies in the manuscripts.

* This Hellenistic practice, later replaced by rhythmical notation accompanying the note signs, has so far only been observed for melismata within the normal metrical duration of a syllable. The multiple repeti-

tion in the Frogs suggests a protracted time value as well. 3 For the interpretation and the plausible relation to Eur. EA 437, Cropp 1988, 169, following Borthwick 1994, 31; Csapo 2003, 72 f. and Triclinius.

LANGUAGE

AND

DANCE

211

occurred in earlier lyric, this impinges on a metrical interpretation of Plato’s statement anyway. Even if, for the sake of the argument, its technical reading were taken for granted, it could

not possibly apply in a strict sense, as in this case Plato would have included three-time longs within the accepted ‘natural’ rendition of speech. In this way, the consolation modern metrical

scholarship has gained from the passage breaks down, since it was based upon the belief that Plato testifies to a strict rhythmical composition in the times before “The New Music’ emerged. Admittedly, this line of reasoning does not take us beyond what I have stated in the preceding paragraph - but it may be worth-

while, when proposing a new interpretation, to demonstrate that there is hardly a gain in keeping the old one anyway. Having got Plato out of the way - or rather an improperly Platonising view of ancient music -- we may finally embrace

the three-time analysis of the glyconic family for what it is: a genuinely musical rhythm, which for us survives only where

a text was written for it. Its typology, however, which cannot have been conceived in a mora-timed pitch-accent language, indicates that the origins are related to instrumental, most

likely dance music. Of course, ancient instrumental rhythms are almost entirely lost, and fully so for the earliest periods. Only a handful of short and sometimes fragmentary pieces from Roman times survive. Fortunately these open a window

on exactly the world we are looking for: musical rhythms in their own right, which only partially correspond to known poetic metres. Above all, instrumental music was not restricted to

the mixture of long and short durations that made up normal speech, and which poetry only could overcome in a most artifi-

cial way. So we find three-time rhythms of three notes in each bar’ as well as typical iambics* and catalectic iambics combined

NF

with a choriamb,’ bars of four beats,* but also elaborate pe-

PMich.

1205, Pöhlmann-West

2011, No. 61.

Anon. Bell. § 97, Pöhlmann-West 2011, No. 33.

hw

Anon. Bell. § 104, Pöhlmann-West 2011, No. 32. Anon. Bell. § 100, Pöhlmann-West 2011, No. 34; PBerol.6870, Pöhlmann-West 2011, No. 51.

13-5,

212

STEFAN

HAGEL

riods of eleven,’ twelve,* fifteen (?)? or eighteen* time units with varied internal structure. There is of course no reason to believe that earlier periods would have restricted themselves to instrumental music that imitated the rhythm of songs. At least

in the case of the “pyrrhic’ four-beat rhythm consisting of four notes it is clear that its name derives from the traditional dance in arms called pyrriche. It was accompanied by the aulos, and would not have lent its fast metre to poetry. Other rhythms, however, did, and from such we must expect that the fam-

ily of the glyconic derives its origin. In a technical sense, the words would here indeed have followed the rhythm, not the rhythm emanated from the words. Music, in the end, was not

ancillary to poetry even in archaic times. It might have been, had archaic Greek musical experience been limited to genres such as epic and iambic -- and perhaps lyric of the type that one sang to the lyre while reclining in the symposium. Dance, however, enjoyed an at least partly independent tradition from time immemorial. This tradition was apparently strong enough

to imprint its rhythms, expressed above all by the dancers’ bodies and likely elaborated upon by the instrumentalists, on the songs that were conceived to accompany various dance

forms. In this way both Greek metre and Greek music become more complex than the textual evidence, stripped not only of its music but of all its music-cultural context, might suggest.

A single explanation, such as ancient metre being based on princeps positions defined by long elements, no more fits the entire range of ancient musical activity. Whenever it comes to potentially choral poetry, ancient metre needs to be reconsidered in terms of dance. Two questions remain for further deliberation. Firstly, apart from the discussed type of ‘Aecolic’, to which metres might

a similar reasoning apply? Dochmiacs are a likely candidate, since in the notation of the Orestes papyrus their second shesis * Anon. Bell. § 98, Pöhlmann-West 2011, No. 35. For the rhythmical interpretation of this and the following patterns see Hagel 2008. * Anon. Bell. § 99, Pöhlmann-West 2011, No. 36. 3 PBerol.

6870, 20-2, Pöhlmann-West

2011, No. 52.

4 Anon. Bell. S101, Pöhlmann-West 2011, No. 37.

LANGUAGE

AND

DANCE

213

starts with a short position.‘ On the other hand, dochmiacs go well with iambics, and iambics create a big problem: when scanned in metres, each foot starts with a short or anceps position, so that the beat would seem never to fall on the

‘principes’. In halfway brisk dance this might not be perceived as problematic, the steps being felt to coincide with the entire couple of syllables that constitutes a foot. But how would the spoken iambs of dialogue fit such a perception? Would

the princeps positions not inevitably emerge as rhythmically predominant? At any rate, iambic rhythm as such is described as having the strong beat on the long position.* Would there have been a fundamental difference in the perception of lyric and spoken iambic verse? After all, interpreting dialogue me-

tre in terms of princeps-generated rhythm seems to make perfect linguistic sense.’ Finally, if we derive glyconic-type music from the instrumental realm, what becomes of the hypothesis that the glyconic preserves, albeit with advanced regularisation, an old Indo-European verse form?* For my part, I cannot see a way

to reconcile both hypotheses in their present form, so it might be that the latter needs to be rejected or substantially modified if the former prevails. LITERATURE

Allen W. S., 1973: Accent and Rhythm: Prosodic Features of Latin and Greek, Cambridge. Borthwick E. K., 1994: New Interpretations of Aristophanes Frogs 12491328, Phoenix 48/1, 21-41.

Cosgrove Ch. H., Meyer M. C., 2006: Melody and Word Accent Relationships in Ancient Greek Musical Documents: The Pitch Height Rule, JHS 126, 66-81. Cropp M., 1988: Euripides, Electra, Warminster. Csapo E., 2003: The Dolphins of Dionysos, in E. Csapo - M. C. Miller (eds.), Poetry, Theory, Praxis. The Social Life of Myth, Word and Im* PVindob. G 2315, Pöhlmann-West 2011, No. 3. ? Aristid. διπλασίου

Quint.

De

mus.

1, 16,

2 W.-L.:

ἴαμβος

ἐξ ἡμισείας

ἄρσεως

ϑέσεως.

3 Cf. Devine-Stephens 1994, 117-56.

4 Cf. esp. West 1973.

214

STEFAN

HAGEL

age in Ancient Greece. Essays in Honour of William J. Slater, Oxford, 69-98.

Devine A. M. - Stephens, L. D., 1994: The Prosody of Greek Speech, Oxford. Gentili B. - Lomiento L., 2008: Metrics and Rhythmics, Pisa. Geörgiades Th. G., 1977: Der griechische Rhythmus: Musik,

Reigen,

Vers und Sprache, "Tutzing. Hagel S., 2008: Ancient Greek Rhythm: The Bellermann Exercises, QUCC nus. 117, 125-38. Hagel S., (forthcoming): Shaping Characters: An Ancient Science of Musical Ethos?, in R. Eichmann - M. Howell - G. Lawson (eds.), Sound, Political Space and Political Condition in the Ancient World, Berlin. Korzeniewski D., 1968: Griechische Metrik, Darmstadt. Maas P., 1962: Greek Metre, Oxford. Peponi A.-E. (ed.), 2013: Performance and Culture in Plato’s Laws,

Cambridge. Pohlmann E. - West M. L., 2001: Documents of Ancient Greek Music: The Extant Melodies and Fragments, Oxford.

Sicking Ch. M. J., 1993: Griechische Verslehre, München. Silva Barris J., 2011: Metre and Rhythm in Greek Verse, Wien.

Wallace R. W., 2005: Performing Damon's harmoniai, in S. Hagel - Ch. Harrauer (eds.), Ancient Greek Music in Performance, Wien, 147-57. West M. L., 1973: Greek Poetry 2000-700 B.C., CQ 23/2, 179-92. West M. L., 1982: Greek Metre, Oxford.

West M. L., 1992: Ancient Greek Music, Oxford.

9. ARISTOTLE’S

DEFINITION

ANASTASIA-ERASMIA

OF

DANCE

PEPONI

D

1D Aristotle ever dance? Did the Macedonian monarchy, in the environment of which Aristotle grew up, promote dances for the young as consistently as democratic Athens or

oligarchic Sparta did? Would he, the son of a physician with close ties to the Macedonian court, actively participate in choral dances performed by his age-mates?’ The notoriously inadequate

account of both the chorus and the dance in the Poetics might not inspire much pondering over dancing’s appeal to Aristotle.*

Even more, the eighth book of his Politics, with its ostensible approval of cultural models ascribing different status to performers and spectators, implicitly favoring the latter, may well prompt doubts about whether Aristotle ever endorsed dance as a noble

activity, let alone about whether he himself ever practiced dance.’ Whether or not the philosopher’s brief definition of dance in the first chapter of the Poetics entails a personal exposure to the temptations of rhythmic movement, this essay wishes to make a case for both the accuracy and the elegance of one section of it: the often disregarded portion where Aristotle refers to

the medium of dance mimesis, namely rhythm.* Moreover, I hope to show that, unlike other relevant ancient sources, this

section of Aristotle’s definition captures in a remarkably acute way thythm’s role in the overall sensorium of dance. RHYTHM

ALONE,

WITHOUT

MELODY

Aristotle’s definition of dance, along with its immediately preceding analysis in the first chapter of the Poetics, goes this way (1447a 18-28): * On Aristotle’s Macedonian origins and on his father in the court of the Macedonian king see Diog. Laert. 5, 1. * On the chorus in the Poetics see Halliwell 1986, 238-52; more recently Peponi 20134, 23-5.

3 Arist. Pol. 1339b-1341b. On Aristotle’s ideas regarding performance see Peponi 2013b, 223-32, esp. 227-9. 4 Arist. Poet. 14472 26-8.

216

ANASTASIA-ERASMIA

PEPONI

ὥσπερ γὰρ καὶ χρώμασι καὶ σχήμασι πολλὰ μιμοῦνταί τινες ἀπεικάζοντες (οἱ μὲν διὰ τέχνης οἱ δὲ διὰ συνηϑείας), ἕτεροι δὲ διὰ τῆς φωνῆς, οὕτω κἀν ταῖς εἰρημέναις τέχναις ἅπασαι μὲν ποιοῦνται

τὴν μίμησιν ἐν ῥδυϑυῷ καὶ λόγῳ καὶ ἁρμονίᾳ, τούτοις δ᾽ N χωρὶς N μεμιγμένοις: οἷον ἁρμονίᾳ μὲν καὶ ῥυθμῷ χρώμεναι μόνον ἥ τε αὐλητιγὴ

καὶ ἡ κιϑαριστικὴ

κἂν

εἴ τινες

ἕτεραι

τυγχάνωσιν

οὖσαι

τοιαῦται τὴν δύναμιν, οἷον ἡ τῶν συρίγγων, αὐτῷ δὲ τῷ ῥυθμῷ χωρὶς ἁρμονίας ἡ τῶν ὀρχηστῶν (καὶ γὰρ ῥυθμῶν μιμοῦνται καὶ ἤϑη καὶ πάθη

οὗτοι διὰ τῶν καὶ πράξεις).᾽ἢ

σχηματιζομένων

Just as people (some by formal skill, others by a knack) use colours

and shapes to render mimetic images of many things, while others again use the voice, so too all the musical arts mentioned produce mimesis in rhythm, language, and melody, whether separately or in combinations.* That is melody and rhythm alone are used by music for aulos and lyre, and by any other types with this capacity, for example music for panpipes; rhythm on its own, without melody, is

used by the art of dancers (since they too, through rhythms translated into movements, create mimesis actions) (transl. Halliwell 1999, 29-31).

of character, emotions,

and

The portion of this definition that has attracted most attention is the one stating the mimetic foundation of dance, namely the dancers’ capacity to represent (or enact) characters, emotions

and actions.’ Dance as mimesis, much celebrated by influential dance figures of the earlier modern era such as Jean-Georges

Noverre or renounced later by others, is without question key in Aristotle’s understanding of the performing arts in general.

* Contentious as this sweeping and quite influential claim

* Text of the Poetics as in Halliwell 1999, which slightly deviates from Kassel 1965 (corr. repr. 1966). ? I substitute “musical arts” for Halliwell’s “poetic arts” in order to

stay as close as possible to the Greek understanding of poetry as part of mousike (the inclusive term for verbal, kinetic, and instrumental activity or of any combination of them). 3 Emotions tends to be the preferred English equivalent for pathe that, in its original contexts, encompasses a wide variety of physical and psychical experiences to which an individual may be subjected.

4 Noverre 1930 (1760), esp. 9-31 about his endorsement of the mimetic function of dance, which blends Aristotelian views with the later establishment of pantomime dancing. For negative approaches to the mimetic aspects of dance see Scott 2005.

ARISTOTLE’S

DEFINITION

OF

DANCE

217

may be, I do not intend to discuss it here. Instead I would like to explore the other part of this concise definition, the phrase

διὰ τῶν σχηματιζομένων

ῥυθμῶν, both by itself and in rela-

tion to the statement that it is through rhythm on its own, without melody that the art of dancers takes place. My special interest

in this portion of Aristotle’s definition of dance is elicited first and foremost by the remarkable conceptual density of the phrase schematizomenos rhythmos and second by its quite noticeable resistance to a straightforward translation into modern

languages along with some misunderstandings it has occasionally caused.’ Αὐτῷ τῷ ῥυθμῷ χωρὶς ἁρμονίας, that is rhythm alone, without melody has often been understood (although not without some puzzlement), as dance with no musical accompaniment at all.” For instance, Gerald Else had suggested that “Aristotle implies dancing alone, without any music,” but he continues, “normally, at any rate, music and dancing went together”.? Similarly, Lucas mentions that “Aristotle must refer to unaccompanied

solo dancing which can hardly have been common”. * It goes without saying that in this opening chapter of the Poetics poetry and the domain of mousike in general are treated as a whole and on the basis of their most established practices.

It is highly unlikely, therefore, that in such a context Aristotle’s definition of dance-mimesis would refer to an exception rather

than to the Greek cultural norm. Likewise it is unlikely that Aristotle would be thinking of dance as an exclusively visual art without audible components. Dance practices of different cultures show that the auditory presence of rhythm, in some form or another, is indeed the norm for both dance training and dance performance.’ Greek dance practices consistently corroborate this principle both in texts and in visual depictions of dance. In this regard the importance of the au/os (double pipe) * On translations into modern languages see p. 233 n. 1. * Several commentaries, as for instance Dupont-Roc -Lallot 1980, 147-

8 and Janko 1987, 68 f. do not comment on this particular issue. 3 Else 1957, 33-5, esp. 34. * Lucas 1972, 58. ’ See for instance Goodridge 1999; Royce 2002, 192-211, esp. 198 f. See also Naerebout 1997, esp. 160-6.

218

ANASTASIA-ERASMIA

PEPONI

is indisputable and its key role specifically in providing rhythm is explicitly mentioned in Greek poetry and prose throughout

antiquity. A long list of cases where the au/os is mentioned as setting the rhythm for the dance would be superfluous in this context, yet a representative example from Xenophon’s Sympo-

sium is particularly illuminating (Xen. Symp. 2, 21 f.): Αγε δή, ἔφη ὁ Φίλιππος, καὶ ἐμοὶ αὐλησάτω, ἵνα καὶ ἐγὼ ὀρχήσωμαι. ἐπειδὴ δ᾽ ἀνέστη, διῆλθε μιμούμενος τήν τε τοῦ παιδὸς καὶ τὴν

”

5

FA

x

yy

Δ

€

>

τῆς παιδὸς

,

,

x

5

—

ὄρχησιν. καὶ πρῶτον

x

5

,

iA

ad

,ὔ

μὲν

x

--

ὅτι ἐπήνεσαν

5

x

>

,ὔ

x

x

ὡς ὁ παϊς

x

σὺν

τοῖς σχήμασιν ἔτι καλλίων ἐφαίνετο, ἀνταπέδειξεν ὅ τι κινοίη τοῦ σώματος ἅπαν τῆς φύσεως γελοιότερον ὅτι δ᾽ ἡ παῖς εἰς τοὔπισϑεν χκαμπτομένη τροχοὺς ἐμιμεῖτο, ἐκεῖνος ταὐτὰ εἰς τὸ ἔμπροσθεν ἐπικύπτων μιμεῖσϑαι τροχοὺς ἐπειρᾶτο. τέλος δ᾽ ὅτι τὸν παῖδ᾽ ἐπήνουν ὡς ἐν τῇ ὀρχήσει ἅπαν τὸ σῶμα γυμνάζοι, κελεύσας τὴν αὐλητρίδα ϑάττονα ῥυθμὸν ἐπάγειν ἵει ἅμα πάντα “aL σκέλη καὶ γεῖοας καὶ κεφαλήν.

“Come”

said Philip, “let me have some flute music, so that I may

dance too”. So he got up and mimicked in detail the dancing of both the boy and the girl. To begin with, since the company had applauded the way the boy’s natural beauty was increased by the grace of the dancing postures, Philip made a burlesque out of the performance by rendering every part of his body that was in motion more grotesque than it naturally was; and whereas the girl had bent backward until she resembled a hoop, he tried to do the same by bending forward. Finally, since they had given the boy applause for putting every part of his body into play in the dance, he told the flute

girl to

hit up

the rhythm faster,

and danced awav,

flinging

legs, hands, and head all at the same time (transl. Todd

out

1923, 553,

slightly adapted).

In order to be able to perform his dance Philip first the aulos to play and soon thereafter requests a faster to which he may let his body respond accordingly. a most telling passage, clearly showing how kinetic

asks for rhythm This is activity

is linked to acoustic stimuli and consequently how the aural structure provided by the aw/os, namely rhythm, regulates the visual structure of dancing movement. It is an emblematic instance demonstrating the correlation between the aural and the visual aspects of rhythmos and especially the way they are expe-

ARISTOTLE’S

DEFINITION

OF

DANCE

219

rienced as a unity in cultural practice, even in an impromptu

performance taking place in the casual and intimate setting of a symposium. Apart from the awlos, percussion instruments, especially the various types designated as krotala or krembala, usually made of wood and held in the hands of the dancers, are repeatedly depicted in vase paintings representing choral or solo dancers, both mortals and gods.’ According to Athenaeus, who refers to earlier sources, bronze could also be used for (or attached to) such percussion instruments, along with rocks, shells, or bits of pots.* The lines of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo praising the

choral performance of the Delian maidens are among the most interesting early sources that reflect current aesthetic views on song-and-dance excellence while also referring to the practice of playing krembala.* The often ignored or rejected variant xpeuβαλιαστύς, which fits well the meaning of these lines, literally means rhythmic patterning created by Arembala and entails unity of sound and movement, thus designating the kinetic activity in which the Delian chorus is said to excel along with their vo-

cal activity.* Finally, in texts where musical instruments are not mentioned, an ordered system of sound is often indicated, for

instance clapping of the hands or, more often, beating of the feet. In the eighth book of the Odyssey, for example, the youths

enjoying the virtuoso dance of Halios and Laodamas are said to beat the time for them.’ Stamping is consistently mentioned in

poetry describing dance, as for instance in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata where choral dances and rhythmic patterning are depicted as closely interconnected, while &rozos, in this case the sound resulting from beating of the feet, is explicitly called χορωφελήτας,

namely “helping the choral dance”. ° These are a few indicative examples

of the quite extensive

evidence according to which acoustic patterns of rhythm were * Peponi 2009, esp. figg. 1-6 (including the Muses dancing to the Arotala). * Ath. 14, 636c-e. 3 Hymn.

Hom. Ap. 156-64, esp. 162 f.

4 For an extensive analysis of this issue, detailed argumentation including relevant iconography, and bibliography see Peponi 2009. 5 Od. 8, 379. 6 Ar. Lys. 1301-9.

220

ANASTASIA-ERASMIA

PEPONI

either accompanying dance movement or were created by it, a cultural norm that Aristotle was undoubtedly well aware of. Thus, contrary to questions raised in some secondary literature regarding either the transparency of the phrase with rhythm alone without melody or the regularity of the dance practices it

may have alluded to, Aristotle’s contemporaries would most probably have an immediate grasp of its meaning and of the deeply rooted practices it assumed. The phrase dia ton schematizomenon rhythmon, however, to which I will now turn, may have been a less familiar conceptual and verbal formation even in Aristotle’s times. Schema vs. schematizomenos rhythmos Although, as we shall see, juxtapositions and combinations of the terms schema and rhythmos with the verbs ῥυθμίζεσϑαι (to be rhythmized) and σχηματίζεσθαι (to be shaped) are encountered in Greek texts, the specific phrase schematizomenos rhythmos, namely the combination of the verb schematizesthai with rhythmos as its subject, appears to be a hapax. As will be-

come clear in the course of this exploration, Aristotle’s opting for this phrase in his brief definition of dance is significant. Its employment emerges as a marked and deliberate deviation from the simpler and established term schema (shape, figure), which is the one usually present in ancient attempts to define orchesis or to determine its main constituents. Schema was also

the term that dance vocabulary consistently shared with the vocabulary of painting and it is noteworthy that Aristotle did employ this term, along with the term chroma (color), in a section preceding his definition of dance, where he refers to

painting as one of the mimetic arts.’ Among other attempts to determine the main constituents of the art of dance in antiquity, Libanius’ off-hand definition in his On Behalf of the Dancers, provides a typical and interesting instance of the way traditional terminology would come to be used in similar contexts (64, 28): * For the entire passage of the Poetics, including both the section on painting and the section on dance, see p. 216.

ARISTOTLE’S

DEFINITION

OF

DANCE

221

φέρε YAO, OV κίνησιν TOY μελῶν σύντονον μετά τινων σχημάτων καὶ ῥυθμῶν τὴν ὄρχησιν εἶναι λέγεις; Come then, do you not define the dance as the vigorous motion of the limbs along with certain figures and rhythms?

(transl. Molloy 1996, 149). Contrary to the complete absence of the body’s physical existence in Aristotle’s brief definition of dance, Libanius’ impromptu and equally brief definition in the fourth century A.D. reclaims both the physicality and the intensity of a dancer’s moving limbs as defining aspects of dance. At the same time, it resorts to the term habitually used in such contexts, namely the term schemata, here put side by side with the term rhythmoi. Though one can legitimately speculate that the terms schema and rhythmos ate purposely juxtaposed by Libanius and presumably meant to be associated, they are nevertheless far

from conceptually intertwined in the way they are in Aristotle’s phrase schematizomenos rhythmos. Rather, a certain vagueness tints Libanius’ overall formulation." Despite dim similarities between the two otherwise very distinct definitions of dance, Libanius’ much later version should not necessarily be considered a half-digested reproduction or a distant echo of Aristotle’s. Even in a cavalier definition like his, we should probably expect to encounter those conceptual

ingredients that seem to have been indispensable in all discourses engaging with dance throughout antiquity: rhythmos and schema. Yet, as already mentioned, Aristotle’s schematizomenos rhythmos emerges as an unusual synthesis of these invariable ingredients, a verbal fine-tuning most likely meant to capture

a key feature of dance. In an effort to shed more light on this feature, it will be helpful to explore instances of similar diction

in the broader chronological frame of Aristotle’s times, namely the fourth century B.C. * Libanius’ vagueness is apparent in his μετά τινων σχημάτων καὶ ῥυθμῶν

(i.e. with some or certain figures and rhythms), which deprives his definition of any conceptual specificity regarding the exact role of rhythm and schema in dance and especially the relationship between the two.

222

ANASTASIA-ERASMIA

PEPONI

The participle schematizomenos is tarely encountered in discourses of the Classical period engaging with the broader field of mousike. Interestingly, though, Aristoxenus, Aristotle’s pu-

pil, used the term in the surviving Second Book of his ΞΔ ementa Rhythmica in an illuminating context (2, 3 f.): Νοητέον δὲ δύο τινὰς φύσεις ταύτας, THY τε τοῦ ῥυθμοῦ καὶ τὴν τοῦ ῥυθμιζομένου, παραπλησίως ἐχούσας πρὸς ἀλλήλας ὥσπερ ἔχει τὸ σχῆμα καὶ τὸ σχηματιζόμενον πρὸς αὑτά. Ὥσπερ γὰρ τὸ σῶμα πλείους

ἰδέας λαμβάνει σχημάτων, ἐὰν αὐτοῦ τὰ μέρη τεϑῇ διαφερόντως, ἤτοι πάντα

ἤἢ τινα

αὐτῶν,

οὕτω

καὶ

τῶν

ῥυθμιζομένων

ἕκαστον

πλείους

λαμβάνει μορφάς, οὐ κατὰ τὴν αὑτοῦ φύσιν, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ δυθμοῦ. ἡ γὰρ αὐτὴ λέξις εἰς χρόνους τεϑεῖσα διαφέροντας ἀλλήλων λαμβάνει τινὰς διαφορὰς τοιαύτας, αἵ εἰσιν ἴσαι αὐταῖς τῆς τοῦ δυθϑμοῦ φύσεως διαφοραῖς. Ὃ αὐτὸς δὲ λόγος καὶ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ μέλους

nal εἴ τι ἄλλο πέφυκε χρόνων συνεστηκώς.

ῥυθμίζεσθαι

τῷ τοιούτῳ

ῥυθμῷ

ὅς ἐστιν ἐκ

One must understand that there are these two natures, that of rhythmos and that of the rhythmizomenon |lit. “that which is made rhythmic”],

these being related to one another in the same way as are shape (Zo schema) and what is shaped (40 schematizomenon). For just as a body takes on many

kinds

of shapes

(πλείους

ἰδέας λαμβάνει

σχημάτων),

if all or some of its parts are disposed in different ways, so each of the rhythmizomena takes on many forms (πλείους λαμβάνει μορφάς),

in accordance not with its own nature, but with that of rhythm. For the same utterance [/exis], when disposed into durations that differ

from one another, takes on differences of a sort that are equal to the differences in the nature of the rhythm themselves. The same can be said about melody too, and about anything else whose nature it is to be made rhythmic [rhythmizesthai| by the sort of rhythm that is

constituted out of durations (transl. Barker 1990, 185).' The above passage is part of the introductory sections of Book

2, where Aristoxenus explores the conceptual affinities between the two realms of schema and schematizomenon (shape and shapeable medium) on the one hand, and rhythmos and rhythmizomenon (thythm and rhythmizable medium) on the other. Given

the focus of his treatise on rhythm as an aural property, the * Brackets are the translator’s, parentheses are mine. On a section of

this passage see also Rocconi in this volume, p. 189.

ARISTOTLE’S

DEFINITION

OF

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223

examination of rhythm together with shape in the introductory sections of Book 2 reflects a sustained theoretical interest in the cultural and notional associations between the two domains. Certainly, rhythmos was considered a property of visual arti-

facts as well as of aural ones, its visual facet clearly attested in evidence as early as the late archaic period and continuing well into Aristotle’s times and beyond.’ Aristotle’s own understanding of the domain of rhythmos not only as an aural property

but also as a visual one is particularly illuminating as it brings up some interesting aspects of the compatibility and complementarity of the domains of schema and rhythmos. In a passage of his Physics, for instance, where he discusses theories about the substantive existence of primary materials such as wood or bronze, he uses the term ἀρρύϑμιστα (literally: un-rhythmized) in order to make clear the conceptual differentiation between the unformed materials themselves as opposed to the formed products that are made of them, such as a bed that is made of

wood or a statue that is made of bronze.* Similarly, in another passage of the same work he contends that when a material is completely shaped (schematizomenon) and arranged (rhythmizomenon) we no longer name it by the name of the material but by the name of its derivative, as for instance in the case of the bed, which we no longer call “wood” but “wooden” (PA. 2450 9-12): τὸ μὲν γὰρ σχηματιζόμενον καὶ ῥυθμιζόμενον ὅταν ἐπιτελεσϑῇ, οὐ λέγομεν ἐκεῖνο ἐξ οὗ ἐστιν, οἷον τὸν ἀνδριάντα χαλκὸν ἣ τὴν πυραμίδα κηρὸν ἣ τὴν κλίνην ξύλον, ἀλλὰ παρωνυμιάζοντες τὸ μὲν χαλκοῦν, τὸ

δὲ κήρινον, τὸ δὲ ξύλινον. For when any material has been completely shaped or arranged into a structure, we no longer call it by its own name but by a derivative: the statue is not brass but brazen, the candle is not wax but waxen, the bench not wood but wooden (transl. Cornford-Wicksteed 1957, 229). * For an overview of the conceptual breadth of the term rhythmos in Greek texts see the seminal article by Benveniste 1971. See also the extensive and meticulous work by Ross 1971. * Arist. Ph. 1938.

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The juxtaposition of schematizomenon and rhythmizomenon here, both applying to the formation of primary materials in visually recognizable structures, is not repetitive. * It implies affinity but also subtle differentiation between the two domains of schema and rhythmos, the latter most probably meant to be understood

primarily as the specific ratios governing the structure of the former.* Thus, although in the verbal fabric of Aristotle’s text the two domains are merely juxtaposed, they can best be understood as conceptually intersecting and mutually complementary.

With Aristoxenus’ Elementa Rhythmica, however, things are

different. Although he explores the fields of schema and schematizomenon as presenting affinities with the realm of rhythmos and rhythmizomenon, his general tendency is to discuss the two

domains in parallel, not as intersecting. In the course of this discussion, each time he mentions shape (schema) or substances that can acquire shape (schematizomena), he clearly refers to formations of material entities for which he consistently employs the term soma, to be literally translated as body. In his analysis of rhythmos and rhythmizomenon, on the other hand, Aristoxenus consistently refers to divisions of time, chronos. In other words, his tendency is to treat rhythmos as pertaining to arrangement of time units and schema to arrangement of material parts. The two domains -- schema and schematizomenon, rhythmos and rhythmizomenon — though carefully juxtaposed and compared, do not cross over or intermingle. Consequently, a conceptual and ver-

bal synthesis similar to Aristotle’s combinatory schematizomenos rhythmos is not to be found in Aristoxenus’ analysis.

Only in one case does Aristoxenus’ coextensive exploration of the domains of schema and rhythmos lead to a conceptual intercrossing, and this takes place in a passage where he explains how time (chronos) is divided by the rhythmizable enti* Printed here as in W. David Ross’ Oxford Classical Text. The words καὶ ῥυθμιζόμενον are present in all manuscripts except for the family 2. * The visual aspect of rhythmos is usually identified as proportion: LS

s.v. See also Benveniste 1971, 283 and 287.

ARISTOTLE’S

DEFINITION

OF

DANCE

ties (rhythmizomena), the latter listed as speech, bodily movement (Ainesis somatike): '

225

melody,

and

ὥστε διαιρήσει τὸν χρόνον ἡ μὲν λέξις τοῖς αὑτῆς μέρεσιν, οἷον γράμμασι καὶ συλλαβαῖς καὶ ῥήμασι καὶ πᾶσι τοῖς τοιούτοις τὸ δὲ μέλος τοῖς ἑαυτοῦ φϑόγγοις τε καὶ διαστήμασι καὶ συστήμασιν-: ἡ δὲ κίνησις σημείοις τε καὶ σχήμασι καὶ εἴ τι τοιοῦτόν ἐστι κινήσεως μέρος.

Consequently speech will divide the time by its own parts, namely letters, syllables, and words, and so on. Melody will divide it by its own parts, notes, and silent intervals, and groups of notes; bodily movement will divide it by signals (semeiois) and positions (schema/a) and whatever other parts of movement there may be (transl. Pearson

1990, 7). Indeed schema and rhythmizomenon seem to intersect here - the former is defined specifically as one of the elements by which one of the three rhythmizomena, namely bodily movement, is divided. In this case, however, Aristoxenus does not refer to

schema in connection with the comprehensive domain of matter and its formation, as he does in the previous sections. Schemata

here are set side by side with what Aristoxenus calls semeia, on the one hand, and the area vaguely designated as whatever other parts of movement there may be, on the other. All three categories,

the two clearly specified and the third that is left vague, come across as equally effective means by which bodily movement may be segmented.

Orchesis is not explicitly mentioned in this passage, yet there is no question that dance is precisely what Aristoxenus refers to in this section and what his readers would understand. His

vocabulary is indicative. The term semeia, to be alternatively translated as gestures, signs, or points, refers to signification

through bodily language and may include what several centuties later Plutarch named deixis, namely pointing, and defined as the process by which the dancers “indicate (δηλοῦσι) their vety objects of reference such as the earth, the sky, them-

* Aristox. Rhythm. 2, 9. On this passage see also Rocconi in this volume, p. 190.

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selves, or the bystanders”.' Schemata, mentioned next, is used

by Aristoxenus in an equally technical meaning as one of the elements that contribute to the division of bodily movement. The idea that schemata, namely

dance figures, serve more

or

less as stationary elements in the flow of bodily movement is also articulated in Psellus’ /ntroduction to the Study of Rhythm, the eleventh-century Byzantine scholar’s rendering of Aristoxenus’

work:* Τῶν δὲ ῥυθμιζομένων ἕκαστον οὔτε κινεῖται συνεχῶς οὔτε ἠρεμεῖ, ἀλλ᾽ ἐναλλάξ. καὶ τὴν μὲν ἠρεμίαν σημαίνει τό τε σχῆμα καὶ ὁ φθόγγος καὶ

ἡ συλλαβή, οὐδενὸς γὰρ τούτων ἐστὶν αἰσϑέσϑαι ἄνευ τοῦ ἠρεμῆσαι" τὴν

δὲ κίνησιν

ἡ μετάβασις

ἡ ἀπὸ

σχήματος

ἐπὶ

σχῆμα

καὶ ἡ ἀπὸ

φϑόγγου ἐπὶ φθόγγον καὶ ἡ ἀπὸ συλλαβῆς ἐπὶ συλλαβήν. No rhythmizomenon is continuously in movement or at rest, but there

is alternation. Rest is indicated by the position or the note or the syllable. None of these can be perceived by the senses unless there is rest. And movement is indicated by the shift from position to position from note to note, from syllable to syllable (transl. Pearson 1990, 23).

In such cases, therefore, schema (translated here as “position”) is associated specifically with the stationary intervals of dance movement that allow for eremia, namely repose or tranquility. This is the way Plutarch also explained schema in dance, in

the relevant discussion encountered in Table-Ta/k and mentioned previously. Though extant ancient discourses on dance theory are limited, the use of similar interpretive terminology in Plutarch’s work seems to reflect a quite solid tradition that, despite changing cultural attitudes and trends in performance over the centuries, conceptualized dance schema in the same vein (Lable-Talk 747¢): φορὰς μὲν οὖν τὰς κινήσεις ὀνομάζουσι, σχήματα δὲ «τὰς: σχέσεις καὶ διαϑέσεις, εἰς ἃς φερόμεναι τελευτῶσιν αἱ κινήσεις, ὅταν ᾿Απόλλωνος

* Barker 1990, 186 translates semeia as “points”. For a similar usage of the term sémeion in rhapsodic performances as well as in solo singing see Arist. Poet. 1462a 4-8. For the explanation of deixis in dance see Plut.

Quaest. conviv. 747e and Lawler 1954. * Psel. 6 (= 22, 6-11 Pearson).

ARISTOTLE’S ἢ Πανὸς A τινος Βάχχης τοῖς εἴδεσιν ἐπιμένωσι.

DEFINITION

OF DANCE

227

σχῆμα διαϑέντες ἐπὶ tod σώματος γραφικῶς

They call the moving parts motions or trajectories (phoras); and (they call) poses (schemata) the stationary states (scheseis) and arrangements (diatheseis), to which the movements lead and conclude, as when the

dancers, having arranged their bodies in the pose of Apollo or Pan or a Bacchant, retain these figures as in a painting.’ Clearly, Plutarch uses schema to refer to a stationary arrangement of the body, its stillness further emphasized by his explic-

itly articulated analogy to painting. In other words, there is a notable convergence here between schema in the realm of dance and schema in the realm of painting. In painting, the schema

of a body depicts a frozen instant of its visually implied but non-representable movement; in dance, schema is identified as the moving body’s pose in the moment of arrest. Whether or

not Plutarch’s overall terminology in this passage, along with its explication, represent generally accepted perceptions and norms, his understanding of schema, in particular, does indeed

reflect tendencies encountered throughout antiquity.* Remarkably, such an understanding of schema, allowing for the closest possible approach between dance and painting, coincides with

the broadest and most inclusive definition of the concept of schema in its most general meaning, as this is articulated in Aristoxenus’ work (Rhythm. 2, 5): Τῶν te γὰρ πεφυκότων σχηματίζεσϑαι σωμάτων οὐδενὶ οὐδέν ἐστι τῶν σχημάτων τὸ αὐτό, ἀλλὰ διάϑεσίς τίς ἐστι τῶν τοῦ σώματος μερῶν

τὸ σχῆμα, γινόμενον ἐκ τοῦ σχεῖν mag ἕκαστον σχῆμα. ἐκλήθη.

αὐτῶν, ὅϑεν δὴ καὶ

No object capable of assuming different shapes is to be identified with any of the shapes. The shape (schema) is a particular arrange-

ment of the parts of the object. It results from the way each part “has itself” (schein). That is why it is called schema (transl. Pearson

1990, 5). * Translation is mine. On this passage and the static nature of schema in Greek dance see also Rocconi in this volume, p. 195.

* For a general commentary on the passage see Teodorsson 1996, 378 f. See also Lawler 1954; Schlapbach 2011.

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The translation of the Greek word soma not as body, as one would tend to translate it, but as object, is due to the persuasive

argument that in this passage, which represents another section of Aristoxenus’ introductory remarks in the Second Book of his Elementa Rhythmica, the text does not refer to the human body specifically (and consequently to dance) but to matter

and its formation in general.’ Yet the interesting overlapping not just of the terminology used in both the area of physical substances and of dance but, even more so, of the common

conceptual footing that lies beneath overlapping terminology, suggest that fourth-century B.C. philosophical discourses about matter and form had much to share with critical discourses

about the arts, both aural and visual. Be that as it may, the passage clearly corroborates the perception that schema, even in

its most general applications, signifies an attained and settled condition of form.*

It is precisely this connotation of the term schema, I submit, its semantic underscoring of form as a set configuration, that

Aristotle probably intended to circumvent in his definition of dance by employing the phrase schematizomenos rhythmos. In

other words, unlike his reference to painting in the immediately preceding sentence, where he did employ the term schema, his brief definition of dance clearly strove to capture the dis-

tinctive attribute of dance, namely movement, for which the term schema would fall short in both clarity and exactitude. Before I return to more specific aspects of Aristotle’s compound phrase, however, it is worth looking at an interesting passage in Plato’s Laws that brings up several of the issues discussed so far (672e-673a): ΑΘ. Kal τὰ μὲν δὴ τῆς χορείας ἡμίσεα διαπεπεράνθω: ὅπως ἂν ἔτι δοκῇ, περανοῦμεν 7) καὶ ἐάσομεν.

τὰ δ᾽ ἡμίσεα,

* On the meaning of the term soma as any material object in this passage see Pearson 1990, 49. ? On the fixedness of schema

(esp.

as opposed

to rhythmos)

see also

the brief reference by Benveniste 1971, 285. For an outline of schemata in dance (including a passing reference to Aristotle’s Poetics) see Catoni

2005, 133-234.

ARISTOTLE’S

DEFINITION

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229

KA. Ποῖα δὴ λέγεις, καὶ πῶς ἑκάτερα διαιρῶν;

ΑΘ. Ὅλη μέν που χορεία ὅλη παίδευσις ἦν ἡμῖν, τούτου 8’ αὖ τὸ μὲν ῥυϑμοί τε καὶ ἁρμονίαι, τὸ κατὰ τὴν φωνήν. ΚΛ. Ναί. ΑΘ. Τὸ δέ γε κατὰ τὴν τοῦ σώματος

κίνησιν

ῥυθμὸν

μὲν κοινὸν τῇ

τῆς φωνῆς εἶχε κινήσει, σχῆμα δὲ ἴδιον. ἐκεῖ δὲ μέλος ἡ τῆς φωνῆς χίνησις. Ath. And half of the discussion about choral art has been completed.

Shall we complete the other half in whatever way may seem well, or shall we skip it?

Kl. What are you talking about and how are you making this division? Ath. Presumably the choral art as a whole is for us the same as education as a whole, and the vocal aspect of this is rhythms and harmoniae. Kl. Yes. Ath. Now

the aspect that pertains to the bodily movement

has

rhythm, which is shared by the movement of the voice, and posture (schema), which is peculiar to it alone; while peculiar to the move-

ment of the voice is melody (transl. Pangle 1988, 55).

Plato’s co-examination of the vocal and the kinetic components of performance in this passage is due to his preoccupation with choreia (song-and-dance) in the Laws. That both bodily and vocal movement share rhythm in common may be detected as

an underlying fact in Aristotle’s Poetics as well. In the passage preceding his definition of dance, rhythmos, logos and melody are mentioned as the media that, in different combinations, inform

different genres of mousike.' Yet the way Plato delineates the function of rhythmos by explicitly juxtaposing song and dance in the above passage not only highlights the singularity of schema as bodily movement’s distinctive trait but it also indicates that schema is better understood here not just as a settled or fixed

form but as the embodiment of the mobility of rhythm, rhythm having been defined as ordered movement earlier in the same work.” In other words,

unlike the understanding

of schemata

* Arist. Poet. 14474 20-23 and supra. 2 Pl. Leg. 665a: τῇ δὴ τῆς κινήσεως τάξει ῥυθμὸς ὄνομα εἴη, τῇ δὲ αὖ τῆς φωνῆς, τοῦ τε ὀξέος ἅμα καὶ βαρέος συγκεραννυμένων, ἁρμονία ὄνομα προσαγορεύοιτο, χορεία δὲ τὸ συναμφότερον κληϑείη-

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we see in Aristoxenus and in a long tradition afterwards that stresses their stationary quality, in Plato’s earlier examination

one senses a tendency to use the term less strictly, in order to encompass the bodily formations that emerge integrally out of the overall flow of motion. To put it differently, in this passage the use of schema comes across as an attempt to capture dance movement in foto, as the sum of motions and rests, the latter likely regarded as the necessary organizational implement for

the rhythmic development of the former. RHYTHM

AS

A

SYNESTHETIC

UNITY

Still, despite the fact that both terms schema and rhythmos are present in this Platonic passage and even though their interrelation is implied, the particular way in which shape and rhythm actually intersect in dance is far from spelled out as concretely as in the verbal and conceptual knot we encounter in Aristotle’s schematizomenos rhythmos. To my knowledge rhythmos, either as a strict grammatical subject of the verb schematizesthai in any of its forms, or more generally as an entity subjected to the act of shaping, is not to be encountered anywhere else in Greek texts. No doubt, then, Aristotle’s unusual choice carries its own significance. It is worth noting, however, that formulations involving the same two terms mutually transposed and conceptually inverted, namely with the broader domain

of schema presented as the one acted or impacted upon by that of rhythmos, are in fact encountered in the Greek corpus. Two such instances from the fourth century B.C. are illuminating, the first coming from Aristotle himself. In De cae/o (306 Ὁ 9-15) Aristotle writes: Ἔπειτα φαίνεται πάντα μὲν τὰ ἁπλᾶ σώματα σχηματιζόμενα τῷ περιέχοντι τόπῳ, μάλιστα δὲ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ ὁ ἀήρ. Διαμένειν μὲν οὖν τὸ τοῦ στοιχείου σχῆμα ἀδύνατον: οὐ γὰρ ἂν ἥπτετο πανταχῇ τοῦ περιέχοντος τὸ ὅλον. ᾿Αλλὰ μὴν εἰ μεταρρυϑμισϑήσεται, οὐκέτι ἔσται ὕδωρ, εἴπερ τῷ σχήματι διέφερεν. “Ὥστε φανερὸν ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ὡρισμένα τὰ σχήματα. αὐτῶν. Secondly, all simple bodies (hapla somata) are observed to be shaped (schematizomena) by the place in which they are contained, particu-

ARISTOTLE’S

DEFINITION

OF

DANCE

231

larly in the case of water and air. ‘The shape (schema) of the element

therefore cannot survive, or it would not be everywhere in contact with that which contains the whole mass. But if its shape is modified (metarrhythmisthesetai), it will no longer be water, since its shape

was the determining factor. Clearly then the shapes (schemata) of the elements are not defined (transl. Guthrie 1939, 319, slightly adapted). For the specific purposes of our exploration the passage offers an interesting example where shape is conceptualized as subject to the formative impact of rhythm, rhythm understood here as a property of the material and thus visually perceived world.

In other words, schema is here conceived as capable of being rhythmized. To put it differently, in lieu of the formulation schematizomenos rhythmos employed in the Poetics, a phrase such as rhythmizomenon schema could adequately capture the content of this passage in De cae/o. One encounters a similar idea with

a slightly readjusted meaning in the quite different context of pseudo-Demosthenes’ Froticus, an underexplored text most probably written in the fourth century B.C. (Erot. 11 f.):" ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐδὲ ταῦτ᾽ ἔστιν αἰτιάσασϑαι πρὸς τὴν σὴν ὄψιν, ἃ πολλοῖς

ἄλλοις ἤδη συνέπεσεν τῶν κάλλους μετασχόντων. ἢ γὰρ δι᾽ ἀρρυϑμίαν τοῦ σχήματος ἅπασαν συνετάραξαν τὴν ὑπάρχουσαν εὐπρέπειαν, ἣ δι᾽ ἀτύχημά τι καὶ τὰ καλῶς πεφυκότα συνδιέβαλον αὐτῷ. ὧν οὐδενὶ τὴν σὴν ὄψιν εὕροιμεν ἂν ἔνοχον γεγενημένην. Furthermore,

it is impossible to impute to your looks even those

blemishes which in the past have marred many another who has shared in beauty. For either through lack of rhythm in their bearing (di’arrhythmian tou schematos) they have ruined all their natural

comeliness or through some misfortune have involved their natural attractions in the same disfavour. By none of these could we find your looks afflicted (transl. DeWitt-DeWitt 1949, 51, adapted).

This is part of an extensive pederastic discourse, an encomion to the young beloved, here focusing on the boy’s appealing looks (opsis). The expression δι᾽ ἀρρυϑμίαν tod σχήματος (translated here as through lack of rhythm in their bearing) applies to others whose appearance is by comparison less outstanding than the * For the Eroticus as a spurious but fourth-century B.C. text see more recently Worthington 2006, 40.

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ANASTASIA-ERASMIA

PEPONI

beloved’s and should be understood primarily in its purely visual demeanor

(as lack of ideal proportion) and secondarily

as a defect related to matters of comportment and style. As in Aristotle’s De caelo, then, in this otherwise very different case

too rhythm is conceived of as operating within the broader realm of shape and as having a visually observable impact on it. To sum up, the idea that shape (schema) is rhythmizable appears to be familiar in fourth-century B.C. discourses engag-

ing with issues of perception and the sensory from different angles; it surfaces in verbal combinations that connect the two components, schema and rhythmos, in various ways. In such cases rhy¢hmos is understood as a visual property. Contrary to the idea that shape is rhythmizable, the idea expressed in the Poetics through the phrase dia ton schematizomenon rhythmon is that

rhythm is shapeable. The two ideas, that shape is rhythmizable and that rhythm is shapeable, are certainly based on the much

broader perception that the two domains of shape and rhythm are mutually compatible, yet they convey different conceptual priorities and thus encapsulate differing notions. That shape is

rhythmizable, the idea that turns out to be more familiar in extant texts, seems to capture the perception that a visual entity,

shape, can be altered partially or wholly in its visually perceivable ratios. That rhythm is shapeable, on the other hand, presupposes the idea that an existing set of ratios may acquire material, and consequently visual, structure. In the unique case where the latter idea is encountered in antiquity, Aristotle’s Poetics, these ratios are undoubtedly conceived of as aural entities,

their shapeable quality designating their immediate transformability from aurally perceivable stimuli into visual ones. This intuitive mutation in the modality of the senses is key to Aristotle’s conception of dance. Had he used the established

term schema, which as we saw was habitually employed in antiquity not only in less ambitious definitions (such as the one encountered in Libanius) but also in earlier and quite ambitious ones, like Plato’s in the Laws, this fundamental aspect of dance in relation to rhythm’s synesthetic mechanics would have been left unarticulated and obscure or absent, as it ap-

pears to be in all other cases. In addition, avoiding the term

ARISTOTLE’S

DEFINITION

OF

DANCE

233

schema, which as we saw tended to carry the semantic nuance of an attained and settled form, enabled Aristotle to spell out with an absolute exactitude, which is missing from Plato’s formulation, not shape as an accomplished form but the very ‚process of shaping. What Aristotle strove to convey is an aural

property in the course of being turned into a visual one. In order to express this notion succinctly he used the participle of the verb schematizesthai not as a substantival neuter participle (schematizomenon), as Aristoxenus did in Elementa Rhythmica, but as an adjectival participle with progressive force, thus indicating the phenomenon of being shaped as a process. A translation closer to what a contemporary of Aristotle would

probably understand when reading the Poezics would be something like “through the rhythms as they are being turned into visual structures they (the dancers) enact characters, emotions,

actions”. Despite its unattractive and unavoidable verbosity such a rendering into English offers a clear way to convey the intention of Aristotle’s formulation.’ * As mentioned earlier, the phrase dia ton schematizomenon rhythmon re-

sists a straightforward translation into modern languages. A few representative samples ate indicative:

- Bywater 1980 (1909'): “Rhythm alone, without harmony, is the means in the dancer’s imitations; for even he, by the rhythm of his attitudes,

may represent men’s characters, as well as what they do or suffer”. - Else 1957: “[A]nd that of the dancers [imitates] (using) its rhythms alone, without melody; for they too, through their rhythms incorporated in dance-figures, imitate both characters and experiences and actions”. - Gallavotti 1997 (1974'): “Ma producono imitazione con il ritmo per sé solo, senza musica, gli attori dei balletti; questi riescono, con le danze figurate, a riprodurre caratteri ed emozioni e fatti”.

- Dupont-Roc, Lallot 1980: “C’est au moyen du rythme seul, sans la mélodie, que l’art des danseurs représente (en effet, c’est en donnant figure a des rythmes qu’ils représentent caractéres, émotions, actions)”. - Fuhrmann 1982: „[...] die Tanzkunst allein den Rhythmus ohne Melodie; denn auch die Tänzer ahmen mit Hilfe der Rhythmen, die die Tanzfiguren durchdringen, Charaktere, Leiden und Handlungen nach“.

- Lanza

1987: “Di solo ritmo & P’arte dei danzatori, anche costoro

infatti per mezzo di ritmi figurati imitano caratteri, emozioni e azioni”.

- Janko 1987: “[F]or they too can represent characters, sufferings, and actions, by means of rhythms given form”.

- Heath 1996: “[W]hile dance uses rhythm by itself and without melody (since dancers too imitate character, emotion and action by means of rhythm

expressed in movement)”.

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ANASTASIA-ERASMIA

PEPONI

It is conceivable that the phrase schematizomenos rhythmos was

coined by Aristotle himself and that, as the extant Greek corpus at least indicates, it was not used by later authors. Whether or not its absence from later sources should be attributed to its

peculiar semantic density or simply to the limited readership of the Poetics for several centuries after Aristotle’s death is an open question.’ Be that as it may, it is worth pointing out that, as we saw earlier, the philosopher’s own student, Aristoxenus,

though presumably familiar with his teacher’s conceptual apparatus, seems to have taken a noticeably differing stance when referring or alluding to dance in the surviving Second Book of Elementa Rhythmica, despite similarities in his use of diction. THE

TOUCH

OF

RHYTHM

By capturing the synergy — indeed the inextricability -- of the aural and the visual aspects of rhy¢hmos in its unfolding Aristotle encapsulated the quintessence of dance as a fundamen-

tally synesthetic act. These sensory underpinnings of rhythm, and by extension of dance, remained mostly latent in ancient discourses. Interestingly, however, in Aristides Quintilianus’ De musica thythm and the senses are openly and cogently addressed in ways pertinent to our discussion (De mus. 1, 13): “Ῥυϑμὸς τοίνυν ἐστὶ σύστημα ἐκ χρόνων κατά τινα τάξιν συγκειμένων. nal τὰ τούτων πάϑη καλοῦμεν ἄρσιν καὶ ϑέσιν, ψόφον καὶ ἠρεμίαν. καϑόλου γὰρ τῶν φϑόγγων διὰ τὴν ὁμοιότητα τῆς κινήσεως ἀνέμφατον

τὴν μέλους ποιουμένων πλοκὴν καὶ ἐς πλάνην ἀγόντων τὴν διάνοιαν

Despite the effort of all translators to capture the original text, their

divergence from the concept conveyed in the original phrase dia ton schematizomenon rhythmon, as analyzed here, is evident in all cases with the

exception of Janko’s and Lanza’s (the latter provided by the anonymous reader, whom I thank) which are the closest to the original. The problems emerge either in the translation of the term rhythmos or (mainly) in the translation of the participle schematizomenon, or finally in the difficulty

of modern languages in isolating the participle syntactically. * For the history of the text of the Poetics in antiquity see recently Tarän-Gutas 2012, 11-35. For a quite different understanding of Aristotle’s phrase as “crystalized, frozen postures” see Rocconi in this volume, p. 183.

ARISTOTLE’S

τὰ

τοῦ

ῥυθμοῦ

μέρη

τὴν

DEFINITION

δύναμιν

τῆς

OF

DANCE

μελῳδίας

ἐναργῆ

235

καϑίστησι,

παρὰ μέρος μέν, τεταγμένως δὲ κινοῦντα τὴν διάνοιαν. ἄρσις μὲν οὖν ἐστι φορὰ μέρους σώματος ἐπὶ τὸ ἄνω, ϑέσις δὲ ἐπὶ τὸ κάτω ταὐτοῦ μέρους. ῥυθμικὴ δέ ἐστιν ἐπιστήμη τῆς τῶν προειρημένων χρήσεως. Πᾶς μὲν οὖν ῥυθμὸς τρισὶ τούτοις αἰσθητηρίοις νοεῖται: ὄψει, ὡς

ἐν ὀρχήσει:

ἀκοῇ, ὡς ἐν μέλει"

ἁφῇ, ὡς οἱ τῶν ἀρτηριῶν σφυγμοί:

δὲ κατὰ μουσικὴν ὑπὸ δυεῖν, ὄψεώς τε καὶ μουσικῇ κίνησις σώματος, μελῳδία, λέξις.

ἀκοῆς.

ῥυθμίζεται

ὁ

δὲ ἐν

Rhythm, then, is ἃ systéma of durations put together in some kind of order. ‘The modifications of these durations we call arsis and thesis, and sound and silence. Notes as such, because of the lack

of differentiation in their movement, leave the interweaving of the melody obscure and confuse the mind : it is the elements of rhythm that make clear the character of the melody, moving the mind part by part, but in an ordered way. Arsis is the upwards movement of a part of the body, thesis the downwards movement of the same part.

Rhythmics is the science of the employment of the things we have mentioned. Rhythm in general is perceived by three senses, which are these: sight, as in dancing; hearing, as in melody; and touch, by which we perceive, for instance, the pulsations of the arteries. Musi-

cal rhythm, however, is perceived by two of them, sight and hearing. Rhythm is imposed in music upon the movement of the body, upon melody, and upon diction (transl. Barker 1990).'

Apart from several uncertainties regarding Aristides Quintilianus, as for instance the century he lived in, there are questions about the sources he might have used in his work on

music.* For his discussion of rhythm, in particular, Aristoxenus’ work has been suggested as an obvious source, probably

known to Aristides through various compilations.’ Yet in the extant part of Aristoxenus’ Elementa Rhythmica there are no references to the sensorium of rhythm similar or roughly close to the ones encountered in Aristides Quintilianus’ passage.

Even though it is hard to locate the latter’s specific source, the * See commentary in Barker 1990, 433-5. On a section of this passage in relation to the visual aspect of dance see Rocconi in this volume, p.

195. * He lived between the first century B.C. and the fourth century A.D. See Mathiesen 1983, 10; Barker 1990, 392. On his sources see Mathiesen 1983, 14-57; Barker 1990, 392-9. 3 Barker 1990, 433 f.

236

ANASTASIA-ERASMIA

PEPONI

apparent ease with which he registers a more or less taxonomical approach to the complex issue of rhythm and perception leaves little doubt that his text reflects ideas that enjoyed some authority in his era. Aristides’ focus on perception and the senses is evident first

of all in the way he engages with rhythm’s effects on the mind (dianoia). One is in a state of mental disarray when perceiving melody

that lacks rhythm, Aristides says, as opposed to the

state of mental lucidity brought by the introduction of rhythmic structure. As we saw earlier, one can easily trace back to Plato a definition of rhythm as ¢he order of movement but what

is different here is the rephrasing of such a definition in order to address concerns regarding perception: it is one’s mind (danoia) that rhythm moves in an orderly manner, according to

Aristides’ formulation. In the same context, what is quite intriguing is Aristides’

account of the senses that are activated in the perception of rhythm. Here he creates two categories, rhythm in general, on the one hand, and musical rhythm, on the other. The first category, rhythm in general, includes sight, exemplified by dance;

hearing, exemplified by melody;

and touch, exemplified by

arterial pulse. The second category, Aristides says, namely mu-

sical rhythm, is perceived by two senses, sight and hearing, his specific references here being bodily movement, melody, diction. Clearly, then, there is an interesting slippage in Aristides’ thought, for his two bigger categories, the general and the

musical, turn out to almost overlap. Two of his three examples in the first (supposedly general) category happen to be specific

examples from the field of mousike: dance, that Aristides associates with sight, and melody, that he associates with hearing.

Two points are particularly relevant to our discussion. First, although Aristides Quintilianus’ overall focus on issues of rhythm and perception brings him quite close to addressing the multiple senses involved in dance, he never actually does so. In both of his categories, general and musical, dance is treated by him as a purely visual event, melody as an aural one. Later in the same passage he mentions that each of the three fields regulated by musical rhythm (i.e. bodily move-

ARISTOTLE’S

ment, melody,

DEFINITION

OF

DANCE

237

and diction) may be attended either by itself

or in conjunction with either or both of the other two other fields. “Rhythm is perceived (νοεῖται) in and of itself” Aristides says, “in the case of unaccompanied dance; with me/os in the case of cola; and with diction alone in dramatized recitations

of poems”.' These affirmations may not be particularly lucid yet two things seem quite clear. First, Aristides almost equates

pure rhythm, bodily movement, and unaccompanied dance. And second, he presents them as conducive to being combined with

either melody

or diction.

This

is an interesting point

implicitly touching on the issue of sense perception, since the potential coexistence of bodily movement with either melody

or diction would require activation of the sense of hearing in addition to sight. Still, this occasional co-existence or even co-ordination of bodily movement, as a visual stimulus, with

aural stimuli is very different from what Aristotle captured in his definition of dance. What Aristotle encapsulated with his dia ton schematizomenon rhythmon is thythm’s own dual sensory infrastructure, the idea that rhythm zése/f has the potential to be

simultaneously acoustic and visual and that dance activates this duality. Such a conception is not addressed or even alluded to by Aristides Quintilianus.

Second, one wonders what prompted to rhythm as a phenomenon perceivable touch, with the arterial pulse being his is the sense used to feel one’s pulse is

Aristides’ reference through the sense of example. That touch frequently stated in

ancient medical discourses, for instance in Galen’s works, yet the context of Aristides’ reference is wholly different.* Indeed

Aristides brings up the example of arterial pulse in his first, general, category of rhythm but, as mentioned earlier, in this same category his two other sensory references are drawn from the broader field of mousike. In brief, Aristides’ reference to touch and pulsation stands out as the only one in this passage that comes from an entirely different area of experience. * This is a paraphrase of De mus. 1, 13, 28 ff. W.-I. * See for instance Gal. De placitis Hipp. οἱ Plat. 6, 8, 46; De puls. 8, 457, 5-10;

8,

453,

1-5;

8,

461,

10

f.;

De

diff. puls.

8,

337,

9-14.

238

ANASTASIA-ERASMIA

Or, should we suppose sation may in fact be a discourses lost to us that and practices of mousike?

PEPONI

that his reference to touch and puldistant echo, indeed a remnant, of were originally attached to theories Over the last several decades in our

era, dance research has focused more intensely on issues of kinesthetic communication in dance, emphasizing the essentially haptic modality of feeling movement within one’s body. By haptic modality 1 refer to what has been formulated in current

literature as “the changing relation between rhythm and muscular tension” or “the changing contours of touch within our bodies”.* Could we imagine that similar ideas were advanced in musical circles and among dance practitioners in antiquity? In this case, what may now strike us as a misplaced or out of context clue about rhythm and pulsation in Aristides’ text, could have originally been part of ideas about the experience of music and dance in relation to the body’s own creation of, and responsiveness to, rhythm and movement. Relevant references in the Galenic corpus and another passage in Aristides’

treatise On Music, which discusses different types of rhythms along with their implicit and explicit association with dance and pulsation, provide significant indications that the issue may have been part of established cultural and scientific discourses. * Aside from Aristides’ text, however, had we direct testimonies of ancient dancers about their sensory perception of rhythm, we would probably hear not only about their expe-

rience of the inseparability of the visual and the aural, but also (and perhaps even more) about the awakening of tactile sensations in their bodies. “When I dance, I love to turn the

music up really loud. I want to fee/ the sonic waves in the floor, feel them over my skin as 1 dance through space”.’ This is the voice of a professional, contemporary, dancer, a testimony among many others one may encounter in current media or in earlier, * Sklar 2008, esp. 87 f. * See especially Gal. Syn. puls. 9, 459; Aristid. Quint. De mus. 2, 15, 16-25 W.-I. On

attempts to develop

a theory of the pulse after the 3°

century B.C. in relation to musical theory see Lloyd 1973, 79 f. 3 Cendese 2011, underlining mine.

ARISTOTLE’S

DEFINITION

OF

DANCE

230

twentieth-century, writings. Here is, for instance, what Isadora Duncan wrote about her experience in a Students” Cabaret in

Buenos Aires with young men and women dancing the tango: I had never danced the tango but the young Argentine who was our cicerone persuaded me to try. From my first timid steps I felt my pulses respond to the enticing languorous rhythm of this voluptuous dance, sweet as a long caress, intoxicating as love under southern skies, cruel and dangerous as the allurement of a tropical forest.’

Lack of similar surviving references to a dancer’s own somatic feeling of rhythm in antiquity does not mean that kinesthetic awareness was absent from the experience of dance.* In all likelihood, ancient dancers would also feel their “pulses respond to the enticing rhythm” and would have a wide range of physical responses to reverberations reaching both the outer

and the inner body from outside or springing from the inner body out. Though

not explicit, this is what a great number

of extant sources seem to allude to. The din arising from the song and the stamping of the dancing performers is repeatedly documented, in both ancient poetry and prose.’ The archetypal chorus of the Muses in Hesiod’s Theogony, for instance,

is said to create powerful vibrations with both their song and their processional walking and dancing: “and around them black earth resounded as they sang, and from under their a lovely din rose up as they headed towards their father”.* unfortunate that we do not have more evidence about the

the feet It is way

such vibrations created tactile sensations in the body of both the dancers and their audiences, yet surely they further stimulated kinetic impulses. Nonetheless, what we do know with

absolute certainty is that the thrust of rhythm was consistently conceptualized in antiquity as having an irresistible and immediate impact on bodily locomotion. The idea that rhythm

dominates the body is evident in the remarkable variety of ex* Duncan 1955, 325. * On this issue see Olsen, forthcoming. 3 See for instance Eur.

Tro. 542-6; LA

436-8; Timoth.

Pers. 196-201;

Pratin. fr. 3 Sn. (77rGF 1). The tradition continues with pantomime dancing for which see Lucian, Salt. 2; Lib. Or. 64, 96 f.

4 Hes. Theog. 69-71 (transl. Most 2006, 9, adapted).

240

ANASTASIA-ERASMIA

PEPONI

pressions repeatedly encountered in ancient texts and denoting that dancers get into, by, with or even under the rhythm.’ Can we detect any such preoccupations with the purely or-

ganic impact of rhythm in Aristotle’s brief definition of dance? One might be initially inclined to give a negative answer. Yet, despite the absence

of the physical

and the somatic

on the

surface of Aristotle’s definition, one may trace a subtler implication of its existence. Though far from openly addressing

rhythm’s peculiar tactility, Aristotle does allow for rhythm to be thought of as an almost material property. As we saw eatlier, in fourth-century thought schematizomenon, the quality of being shapeable, is predominantly understood as applicable to material entities. This was clear in the examples we examined in the works of both Aristotle and of his pupil, Aristoxenus. They both employ the term soma (with its meaning ranging from material objects in general to the human body in particular) whenever they use any form of the verb schematizesthai. The connection between the domain of the shapeable and the human body, in particular, is confirmed both in ancient medical discourses and in surviving discourses about dance. It is the body as a whole (soma), or parts of it, such as for instance, the

hands, elbows etc. that are subjected to the force of shaping in the Hippocratic corpus.* Likewise it is the dancer as a physical, somatic entity that is said to be shaped (schematizesthai) or to shape himself (Aeautous schematizontes) in Lucian’s treatise On the Dance.’ Contrary to such sources and to the time-honored perceptions they represent, in his definition of dance Aristotle opted for an unusual conceptual and verbal formation, making rhythm itself the very subject of the verb schematizesthai, the very entity that is being shaped. In short, by employing the phrase dia ton schematizomenon rhythmon Aristotle envisioned and

captured the rhythms as having the agency of a living being, the vitality of a physical body, and the plasticity of matter. Rhythm is, or at least is like, a soma. * See for instance Ar. Thesm. 954-6; Xen. An. 6, 1; Pl. Leg. 670b; Men. Dys. 950-2; Plut. Lye. 22, 3; Ath. 14, 622c-d; Lucian, Sal. 10. * Hippoc. Fract. 2, 16-20; 15, 10-7; Art. 10, 7-14.

3 Lucian, Salt. 17 and 19.

ARISTOTLE’S

DEFINITION

OF

DANCE

241

One might think that this remarkably dense phrase, which encapsulated in two words the synesthetic infrastructure of rhythm and hinted at its kinesthetic impact, is the product of

an exceptionally sharp mind. Yet this intriguing phrase should also embolden us to reckon that, after all, Aristotle may have indeed experienced the thrust of rhythm overtaking his body and shaping it from within. LITERATURE

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DEFINITION

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DANCE

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Snell B., 1986: Tragicorum Grascorum Fragmenta τ. Didascaliae Tragicae, Catalogi Tragicorum et Tragoediarum, Testimonia et Fragmenta Tragicorum minorum, Gottingen. Taran L. - Gutas D., 2012: Aristotle Poetics: Editio Maior of the Greek Text with Historical Introductions and Philological Commentaries, Leiden.

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BIBLIOTECA «QUADERNI DI

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Collana fondata da Bruno Gentili, diretta da Paola Bernardini e Carmine Catenacci

. L’ebos minore, le tradizioni locali e la poesia arcaica, Atti dell’incontro di studio, Urbino, 7 giugno 2005, a cura di Paola Angela Bernardini, 2007. 10. La citta greca. Gh spazi condivisi, Atti del convegno del Centro Internazionale di Studi sulla Grecita Antica, Urbino, 26-27 settembre 2012, a cuta di Paola Angeli Bernardini, 2014. 11. A pitt mani. Linee di ricerca tracciate in “Sapienza”, a cata di Luca Bettatini, 2015. 12. Le funzioni del silenzio nella Grecia antica. Antropologia, poesia, storiografia, teatro, Convegno del Centro internazionale di studi sulla cultura della Grecia antica, Urbino, 9-10 ottobre 2014, a cura di Paola Angeli Bernardini, 2015. 13. Chorentika. Performing and theorising dance in Ancient Greece, edited by Laura Gianvittorio, 2017.

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