Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/45

 CHAPTER III. THE TRAGIC CHORUS.— ARION. Dock hurtig in dem Kreise ging's, Sie tanzten rechts, sie tanzten links. GoTHE. IN the earliest times of Greece, it was customary for the whole population of a city to meet on stated occasions and offer up thanksgivings to the gods for any great blessings, by singing- hymns, and performing corresponding dances in the public places This custom was first practised in the Doric states. The main- tenance of military discipline was the principal object of the Dorian legislators; all their civil and religious organisation was subservient to this ; and war or the rehearsal of war was the sole business of their lives ^. Under these circumstances, it was not long before the importance of music and dancing, as parts of public education, was properly appreciated: for what could be better adapted than a musical accompaniment to enable large bodies of men to keep time and act in concert? What could be more suitable than the war- dance, to familiarize the young citizen with the various postures of attack and defence, and with the evolutions of an army? Music and dancing, therefore, were cultivated at a very early period by the Cretans, the Spartans, and the other Dorians, but only for the sake of these public choruses^: the preservation of military ^ This is the reason why, according to Pausan, ill. ii, 9, the dyopd at Sparta was called xop'^s- We are rather inclined to believe that the Chorus of Dancers got its name from the place; x^P^^ ^^ only another form of x^p-os: and hence the epithet evp&xppos which is applied to Athens (Dem, Mid. p. 531) as well as to Sparta (Athen. p. 131 C, in some anapaests of Anaxandrides). Welcker's derivation of xopos from X"'/) {Rhein. Mus. for 1834, p. 485) is altogether inadmissible. See farther, New Cra- tylus, § 280 ; Antigone, Introduction, p. xxix. 2 (XTpaTOTrihov yap (says an Athenian to a Cretan, Plato, Legg. 11. p. 666) iroXiTeiav ^X^Tc' dXX' ovK iu dareai KaTi^K-qKOTwv. All the Dorian governments were aristo- cracies, and therefore necessarily warlike, as Vico has satisfactorily shown, whatever we may think of his derivation of TrdXefios from TroXts (Scienz. Nuov. Vol. II. p. 160). 3 " We and the Spartans," says Clinias, " ovk dWrjv dv rwa. dwaifieOa i^d7]v t] ^v iv roh xopoTs ifxado/xev ^vv-qdeis dbeiv y€v6fJt.euoi." Plato, Legg. p. 666.