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That is just what happened, they say, in the case of Demetrius the Cynic. He too was denouncing the dance just as you do, saying that the dancer was a mere adjunct to the flute and the pipes and the stamping, himself contributing nothing to the presentation but making absolutely meaningless, idle movements with no sense in them at all; but that people were duped by the accessories of the business—the silk vestments, the beautiful mask, the flute and its quavers, and the sweet voices of the singers, by all of which the dancer’s business, itself amounting to nothing at all, was embellished. Thereupon the dancer at that time, under Nero, in high repute, who was no fool, they say, and excelled, if ever a man did, in remembrance of legends and beauty of movement,Probably the first of the several famous dancers who took Paris as their stage name, of whom the emperor, some said, was so jealous that he put him to death (Suetonius, Nero, 54). made a request of Demetrius that was very reasonable, I think—to see him dancing and then accuse him; he promised, indeed, to perform for him without flute or songs. That is what he did; enjoining silence upon the stampers and flute-players and upon the chorus itself, quite unsupported, he danced the amours of Aphrodite and Ares, Helius tattling, Hephaestus laying his plot and trapping both of them with his entangling bonds, the gods who came in on them, portrayed individually, Aphrodite ashamed, Ares seeking cover and begging for mercy, and everything that belongs to this story,Homer, Odyssey, VIII, 266-320; cf. Lucian, Deor. Dial., 21 (17). in such wise that Demetrius was delighted beyond measure with what was taking place and paid the highest possible tribute to the dancer; he raised his voice and shouted at the top of his lungs: ‘I hear the story that you are acting, man, I do not just see it; you seem to me to be talking with your very hands!”
