16
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- tative dance. Indeed, the songs that were written for these choirs were called Hyporchemes (interpretative dances), and lyric poetry is full of them.That the “hyporchematic” style of dancing was interpretative, which in Lucian’s description of it is only implicit, is expressly stated by Athenaeus (I, 15 D).. In previously Forming to it as “dance accompanying song” (τὴν πρὸς τὴν ᾠδὴν ὄρχησις), he seems to agree with Lucian in the point that its ormers do not themselves sing. Elsewhere in his work (XIV, 6310) he gives a definition (from Aristocles) that is diametrically opposed: “when the chorus dances si Bad But this is connected with a highly theoretical classification of dances under six heads, three of which are dramatic (tragic, comic, satyric) and three lyric (pyrrhic, gymnopaedio, ype hematio). was we know that gymnopaedic c need singing,” it seems pretty clear that the definition of “hyporehematic ’» has been incorrectly transmitted in the text.
17
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.
