Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/52

 34 THE TRAGIC CHORUS. — ARION. the horsemen as well as by the foot-soldier ^ Connected with the rites of the Curetes in Crete, and of the Dioscuri in Lacedsemon, the Pyrrhic was danced in later times to the notes of the flute ; and the same was the case with the Castoreum and the embateria. But we have positive evidence that the lyre was the original accompa- niment in the Cretan and Spartan marches, and that the flute was substituted only because its notes were shriller and more piercing^. The Hyporcheme was, as its name implies^, a dance expressing by gesticulations the words of the accompanying poem. It had thus, in eifect, two different kinds of leaders. Going back to the earliest description of this dance, we find that not only is the citharist, who sits in the middle of the chorus and sings to his lyre while the youths and maidens dance around him, described as leading off {e^dpx^^v) their /uloXtti], or rhythmical steps and gesticulations, but that there are always two chief dancers, sometimes called " tum- blers" {/cvjSicFTrjTrjpe), by whose active and violent motions the words of the song are expressed, and the main chorus regulated^. These leaders of the chorus seem to have been essential to the Hyporcheme, and particularly to that species of it which was called the " Crane" {'y£pavo<i), where they led forward the two horns of a semicircle until they met on the other side of the altar of Apollo^. The Hyporcheme originated in Crete, and was thence imported into Delos, where it seems to have retained its primitive characteristics even in the days of Lucian^. Though connected originally with the religious rites of Apollo*^, it was subsequently introduced into the worship of Bacchus by Pratinas *, and into that of Minerva of Iton by Bacchylides^. 1 This must be the meaning of what Pindar says of Bellerophon and Pegasus, 0. XIII. 86: dyaj3as 5' evdvs evoirXta xaA/cw^ets 'iiraL^ev. Cf. Virg. Oeorg. III. 115 sqq. : Frena Pelethronii Lapithae gyrosque dedere Impositi dorso, atque equitem docuere sub armis Insultare solo, et gressus glomerate superbos. 2 Miiller, Dor. Book iv. c. 6, § 6, 7. On the orgiastic nature of the flute-music see Aristot. Pol. viii. 7, § 9. 3 See Gesner, on Lucian de Salted,. (Tom. v. p. 461, Lehmann). ^ See the passages quoted by Miiller, Dor. ii. 8, § 14, note g. ^ De Saltat. § 6: 'Ei/ Ar](^...irai5iou x°P°^ aweXddvres iyr' av($ Kal Kiddpq, ol jxh iX^P^^oP} VTrcjpxovyro de ol apiaroi, irpOKpidivres i^ avrCov. to. 'yovv Tots xopots ypa<p6- fxeva To^Tois g!a/j.aTa, V7ropxri,u^Ta ^/caXetro : where 01 dpLO-Toi manifestly agree with the Kv^KXTTjTTJpes, which was another name for particularly active dancers. 7 See Menandr. de Encom. p. 27, Heeren: roi)s [j.^v ydp els 'ATriXXajj^a iraLavat Kal viropxVP-o-T'^ vofii^oixev. ^ Athen. p. 617. ^ Fragm. ed. Neue, p. 33.
 * • Compare II. xviii. 591 — 606 {Od. iv. 17 — 19) with Hymn. Apoll. 182 — 206.