The Dance (16-20)

At Delos, indeed, even the sacrifices were not without dancing, but were performed with that and with music. Choirs of boys came together, and while they moved and sang to the accompaniment of flute and lyre, those who had been selected from among them as the best performed an interpre-

Yet why do I talk to you of the Greeks? Even the Indians, when they get up in the morning and pray to the sun, instead of doing as we do, who think that when we have kissed our hand the prayer is complete, face the sunrise and welcome the God of Day with dancing, posturing in silence and imitating the dance of the god; and that, to the Indians, is prayer and dance and sacrifice all in one. So they propitiate their god with those rites twice each day, when it begins and when it declines.

The Ethiopians, moreover, even in waging war, do it dancing, and an Ethiopian may not let fly the shaft that he has taken from his head (for they use the head in place of a quiver, binding the shafts about it like rays) unless he has first danced, menacing the enemy by his attitude and terrifying him in advance by his prancing.[*]

Since we have spoken of India and of Ethiopia, it will repay us to make an imaginary descent into Egypt, their neighbour. For it seems to me that the ancient myth about Proteus the Egyptian means nothing else than that he was a dancer, an imitative

Next in order, it is proper that we should not forget that Roman dance which the best-born among them, called Salii (which is the name of a priesthood), perform in honour of Ares, the most bellicose of the gods—a dance which is at once very majestic and very sacred.