That is why
the song which they sing while dancing is an invocation of Aphrodite and of the Loves, that they may
join their revel and their dances. The second of the
songs, moreover—for two are sung—even contains
instruction how to dance: “Set your foot before you,
lads,” it says, “and frolic yet more featly,” We have no knowledge of these two songs from any other sources. Lucian’s quotation from the second is given among the Carmina Popularia by Bergk (17) and Diehl (22). that is,
dance better. 
The same sort of thing is done by those who dance
what is called the String of Beads.
 
That is a dance
of boys and girls together who move in a row and
truly resemble a string of beads. The boy precedes,
doing the steps and postures of young manhood,
and those which later he will use in war, while the
maiden follows, showing how to do the women’s
dance with propriety ; fence the string is beaded
with modesty and with manliness. In like manner
their Bareskin Plays are dancing. Very little is known about the Spartan “Bareskin Plays” except that they included processional choruses of naked youths which competed with each other in dancing and singing, in a place called the Chorus, near the agora. 
 
Taking it that you have read what Homer has to
say about Ariadne in “The Shield,” and about the
chorus that Daedalus fashioned for her, Iliad, XVIII, 593. I pass it
by; as also the two dancers whom the poet there
calls tumblers, who lead the chorus, and again what
he says in that same “Shield” : ‘ Youthful dancers
were circling”; which was worked into the shield
by Hephaestus as something especially beautiful. Iliad, XVIII, 605-606. 
And that the Phaeacians should delight in dancing







 

was very natural, since they were people of refinement and they lived in utter bliss. In fact, Homer
has represented Odysseus as admiring this in them
above all else and watching “the twinkling of their
feet.”” Odyssey, VITI, 256-258. 
 
In Thessaly the cultivation of dancing made such
progress that they used to call their front-rank
men and champions “fore-dancers.”” This is
demonstrated by the inscriptions upon the statues
which they dedicated in honour of those who showed
prowess in battle. “The citie,” they say, “hath
esteemed him fore-dancer;” and again, “To
Eilation the folk hath sett up thys ymage for that
he danced the bataille well.” No such inscriptions are known to us, and I fear there is little likelihood that the soil of Thessaly will ever confirm the testimony of Lycinus. 
 
I forbear to say that not a single ancient mysterycult can be found that is without dancing, since they
were established, of course, by Orpheus and Musaeus,
the best dancers of that time, who included it
in their prescriptions as something exceptionally»
beautiful to be initiated with rhythm and dancing.
To prove that this is so, although it behoves me to
observe silence about the rites on account of the
uninitiate, nevertheless there is one thing that
everybody has heard; namely, that those who let
out the mysteries in conversation are commonly
said to “dance them out.”