14
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.
15
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.”