In spite of this, my high-spirited friend, you insult dancing almost to the point of quarrelling with the wade and yet Socrates
(the wisest of men, if we may believe Apollo, who said so) not only commended it but wanted to learn it, attributing the greatest value to observance of rhythm and music, to harmonious movement and to gracefulness of limb; and he was not ashamed, aged as he was, to consider it one of the most important subjects of study.In the Symposium of Xenophon (II, 15-16) Socrates commends dancing as an exercise, and expresses a desire to learn figures that he has just seen. Cf. Diog. Laert., II, 5, 15. He would, of course, be uncommonly enthusiastic over dancing, since he did not hesitate to study even what was trivial, and not only used to attend the schools of the flute-girls, but did not disdain to listen to serious discourse from Aspasia, a courtesan.See Plato, Menexenus, 2358 and249c; Xen., Oecon., II, 14. Yet the art was just beginning when he saw it then, and had not yet been elaborated to such a high degree of beauty. If he could see those who now have advanced it to the utmost, that man, I am sure, dropping everything else, would have given his attention to this spectacle alone; and he would not have had his young friends learn anything else in preference to it.