If the dance does not feature in contests, I maintain that it is because the governors of the games thought the thing too important and too grand to be called into competition. I forbear to mention that a city in Italy, the fairest that belongs to the Chalcidian race, has added it, by way of embellishment, to the games that are held there.The allusion is to Naples and to the important games instituted there by Augustus in 2 a.d., on which see R. M. Geer, “The Greek Games at Naples,” Transactions of the American Philological Association, LXVI (1935), especially n. 19 in regard to the inclusion of pantomimic contests. rR 2
At this point I should like to defend the numerous omissions in my account, that I may not create an impression that I lack sense or learning. I am not unaware that many before our time who have written about the dance have made it the chief matter of their essays to enumerate all its forms and list their names, telling what each is like and by whom it was discovered, thinking to make a display of wide learning thereby. But for my own part, first and foremost, I think that to be zealous about these things is tasteless, pedantic, and as far as I am concerned, out of place, and for that reason I pass them over.
