And a Bithynian story, not very divergent,
moreover, from those current in Italy, says that
Priapus, a warlike deity, one of the Titans, I
suppose, or one of the Idaean Dactyls who made a
business of giving lessons in fencing, had Ares
put into his charge by Hera while Ares was still a
boy, though hard-muscled and immoderately virile;
and that he did not teach him to handle weapons
until he had made him a perfect dancer. Indeed,
for this he even got a pension from Hera, to receive


 

from Ares in perpetuity a tenth of all that accrued
to him in war. This Bithynian myth of Priapus is not recorded elsewhere, but as it is known that Priapus was held in high honour there, it may well be that he was associated with Ares and that dances played a part in the cult. 
 
As to the Dionysiac and Bacchic rites, I expect you
are not waiting for me to tell you that every bit of
them was dancing. In fact, their most typical dances,
which are three in number, the Cordax, the Sicinnis,
and the Emmeleia, were invented by the attendants
of Dionysus, the Satyrs, who named them all after
themselves, The drama belonged to Dionysus, and each form of it had its typical dance, that of tragedy being the Emmeleia, that of comedy the Cordax, and that of the satyr-play the Sicinnis (Ath., I, 208; cf. below, §26). That they were named from satyrs seems to be Lucian’s own idea, though the Sicinnis was sometimes said to owe its name to its Cretan or barbarian inventor. and it was by the exercise of this art,
they say, that Dionysus subdued the Tyrrhenians,
the Indians, and the Lydians, dancing into subjection
with his bands of revellers a multitude so warlike.
 
Therefore, you amazing fellow, take care that it
isn’t impious to denounce a practice at once divine
and mystic, cultivated by so many gods, performed
in their honour, and affording at once amusement
and profitable instruction in such degree!
 Another thing surprises me in you, since I know
that you are a great lover of Homer and Hesiod—I
am going back, you see, to the poets once more—
how you dare contradict them when they praise
dancing above all things else. When Homer
enumerated all that is sweetest and best—sleep,
love, song, and dance Iliad, XIII, 636 ff. —it was this alone that he
called “blameless,” and what is more, he ascribes
sweetness to song; but both these things pertain
to the dancer’s art, both dulcet song and blameless




 

dancing—which you now take it into your head to
blame! And again, in another part of his poetry: Iliad, XIII, 730, 731. But after épynordy Lucian substitutes for ἐτέρῳ κίθαριν καὶ ἀοιδήν the close of Odyssey, I, 421. 

 One man getteth from God the gift of achievement in warfare, One, the art of the dance, and song that stirreth the heart-strings. The Theogony. 

Singing combined with dancing does in truth stir the
heart-strings, and it is the choicest gift of the gods.
Also, it appears that in classifying all activities
under two heads, war and peace, Homer has set
off against those of war these, and: these only, as
peerless.
 
As for Hesiod, who was not told by
someone else about the dancing of the Muses but
saw it himself at break of day, he begins his poem?
by saying about them as the highest possible praise
that they “dance with delicate footfall about the
violet waters,” circling round the altar of their sire.
 In spite of this, my high-spirited friend, you
insult dancing almost to the point of quarrelling
with the wade and yet Socrates
 
 (the wisest of
men, if we may believe Apollo, who said so) not
only commended it but wanted to learn it, attributing
the greatest value to observance of rhythm and
music, to harmonious movement and to gracefulness
of limb; and he was not ashamed, aged as he was,
to consider it one of the most important subjects
of study. In the Symposium of Xenophon (II, 15-16) Socrates commends dancing as an exercise, and expresses a desire to learn figures that he has just seen. Cf. Diog. Laert., II, 5, 15. He would, of course, be uncommonly
enthusiastic over dancing, since he did not hesitate
to study even what was trivial, and not only used to
attend the schools of the flute-girls, but did not




 

disdain to listen to serious discourse from Aspasia, a
courtesan. See Plato, Menexenus, 2358 and249c; Xen., Oecon., II, 14. Yet the art was just beginning when he
saw it then, and had not yet been elaborated to such
a high degree of beauty. If he could see those who
now have advanced it to the utmost, that man, I
am sure, dropping everything else, would have
given his attention to this spectacle alone; and he
would not have had his young friends learn anything
else in preference to it.