In 63 BC, Cicero defended the Roman consul Lucius Licinius Murena against charges of electoral bribery. Cato was among the prosecutors, and inter alia he accused Murena of having a poor character, including being a pantomime dancer (saltator).
Cicero addresses this supposed calumny in a speech that has come down to us as Pro Murena. His audience understands that men of the ruling class are not trained, and can never be trained, to be professional pantomime dancers. Thus, Cicero points out that for a man to begin a Marcel Marceau routine (not his own words), he must be drunk, or stupid, or totally undisciplined, and yet Cato has not accused Murena of that.
The image that comes to my own mind is an inebriated man who, whether from secret longings or contempt for professional dancers, rises up from his couch after the floor show has retired and pirouettes around the room, crying, “I am the Goddess of the Dawn!”
Professional dancing in the Greco-Roman world is a very interesting topic, though of course a digression in a blog about social dancing. Pantomime dancing was so popular a spectacle in antiquity that various accounts and debates about it have come down to us through classical texts. In Xenophon’s Symposium, Socrates praises the male and female performers and makes his friends laugh by asking the Syracusan troupe-master for lessons. Socrates argues, however, that dancing would be a great full-body workout and help him both sleep better and lose weight.
The Finnish scholar Manna Satama writes here about Greco-Roman pantomime dance, and I was struck by her reference to the Indian kathakali tradition as I know a professional kathak dancer (see Deepti here). Classical Indian dances, like the Bollywood dances derived from them, are deeply rooted in Hinduism, and kathak dances tell stories about Hindu deities, just as Greco-Roman pantomime dances told stories about Zeus and Co. The connection between pantomime dancing and paganism must be a reason why some early Christians objected to the former.
Communal, or “social”, dances of antiquity were not paid performances, of course, although they too often had religious significance. Happily, some still exist today via Greek folk dancing. One, originating in the Aegean Islands and Crete, began as a military dance but became more of a courtship dance, and you can see a lovely version of the Sousta below. Swing-dancers may be very surprised to see some familiar movements:
In his work On Pantomime Dancing, Lucian of Samosata tantalisingly gives a brief mention of Spartan communal dances, including those in which men and women dance together:
The Lacedaemonians, who are reputed the bravest of the Greeks, ever since they learnt from Castor and Pollux the Caryatic (a form of dance which is taught in the Lacedaemonian town of Caryae), will do nothing without the accompaniment of the Muses: on the field of battle their feet keep time to the flute’s measured notes, and those notes are the signal for their onset. Music and rhythm ever led them on to victory. To this day you may see their young men dividing their attention between dance and drill; when wrestling and boxing are over, their exercise concludes with the dance. A flute-player sits in their midst, beating time with his foot, while they file past and perform their various movements in rhythmic sequence, the military evolutions being followed by dances, such as Dionysus and Aphrodite love.
Hence the song they sing is an invitation to Aphrodite and the Loves to join in their dance and revel; while the other (I should have said that they have two songs) contains instructions to the dancers: ‘Forward, lads: foot it lightly: reel it bravely’ (i.e. dance actively).
It is the same with the chain dance, which is performed by men and girls together, dancing alternately, so as to suggest the alternating beads of a necklace. A youth leads off the dance: his active steps are such as will hereafter be of use to him on the field of battle: a maiden follows, with the modest movements that befit her sex; manly vigour, maidenly reserve,— these are the beads of the necklace. […]
Writing from Scotland, I find this fascinating, for Highland dances used to be exclusively military dances and were taken up by women (especially girls) only in the early 20th century. Traditional Scottish dances involve both soldierly dances (like, obviously, the Sword Dance) and chain-dances, as you can see in Scottish country dancing and its riotous little sister ceilidh dancing.
And I think I have read more about dancing in Classical Antiquity this morning than I did in four years of my Classical Civ studies!
UPDATE (September 22): I’m delighted to report that this post was listed a few days ago by Big Pulpit.