10–11
Even now you may see their young men studying dancing quite as much as fighting under arms. When they have stopped sparring and exchanging blow for blow with each other, their contest ends in dancing, and a flute-player sits in the middle, playing them a tune and marking time with his foot, while they, following one another in line, perform figures of all sorts in rhythmic step, now those of war and presently those of the choral dance, that are dear to Dionysus and Aphrodite.
That is why the song which they sing while dancing is an invocation of Aphrodite and of the Loves, that they may join their revel and their dances. The second of the songs, moreover—for two are sung—even contains instruction how to dance: “Set your foot before you, lads,” it says, “and frolic yet more featly,”We have no knowledge of these two songs from any other sources. Lucian’s quotation from the second is given among the Carmina Popularia by Bergk (17) and Diehl (22). that is, dance better.
The same sort of thing is done by those who dance what is called the String of Beads.
