Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

'278 CHORUS. CHORUS.
dence, are best left undecided. The war-dances whence arose the proverb 7rcivra'T ocTc. At Catana
of the Curetes in Crete in honour of Zeus, seem to there was erected to him an octagonal monument
be quite as ancient as any that we know of in with 8 columns and 8 steps. (Suidas, s. v. ncrTA
honour of Apollo. However dances may have Oicrc6 and:Trs'riXopos.)
originated, it was natural that, like music and In all the Dorian states, especially among the
poetry, they should at a very early period be con- Spartans, these choral performances were cultivated
nected with the worship of the gods; and in that with great assiduity. Various causes contributed
connection it is certainly true that it was among to this, as for example, their universal employment
thile Dorians, and connected with the worship of in the worship of Apollo, the fact that they were
Apollo, that the chorus received its earliest de- not confined to the men, but that women also took
velopment, though there does not appear sufficient part in them, and that many of the dances had a
evidence to support the conclusion that the worship gymnastic character given them, and were emof Apollo existed nowhere without having been ployed as a mode of training to martial exercises.
introduced by the Dorians. [SALTATIO. 1 Hence it arose that the Dorian lyric
The imperfect type of the later chorus appears poets directed their labours almost entirely to supin the earliest period in the paean, as sung by ply the demand for songs and hymns to be sung as
a company either sitting still (It. i. 473), or moving accompaniments to the dances, and that Doric lyric
along with a mecasured step (11. xxii. 391). In poetry became almost exclusively choral, which
the Homeric hymn to the Pythian Apollo we have was not the case with the other great school of
the god himself as leader of the chorus, playing Greek lyric poetry, the Aeolian; so that the Doric
the phorminx, while the chorus of Cretans-follow dialect came to be looked upon as the appropriate
him at a measured pace, and sing the Paean. dialect for choral compositions, and Doric forms
[PAEAN]. This exhibits the Paean in a some- were retained by the Athenians even in the choral
what later stage of development. In Homer it compositions which were interwoven with their
appears as a less formal and systematic perform- dranmas. (Miiller, Dorians, iv. 7. ~ 9.) Still it is
ance. Dancing was very early connected with the not to be supposed that there was no choral poetry
worship of Apollo in Delos (Hymn. Apoll. Del. which was not Doric. Several Lesbian lyric poems
1. 149, &c.), and in Crete. (Hesiod. Fr. 94. appear to have had a choral character. (Miiller,
G-bttI.) It was in Crete that the mimetic dance, Hist. of Lit. of Greece, p. 165.)
called Hyporchema, took its origin [HYroRCHEfnA; The Spartans had various kinds of dances
SALTATIOj, and it was thence also that the sub- (Mtiller, Dor. iv. 6. ~ 8, &c.); but the three prinsequent innovations upon the staid gravity of the cipal styles were the Pyrrhic, the Gymnopaedic,
)Paean wvere derived, traces of the origin of which and the Hyporchematic (Athenaeus, xiv. p. 631,
were preserved in the name of the rhythms and xv. p. 678), in all of which something of a mimetic
dances. (Muiiler, Dorians, ii. 8. ~ 14.) To Tha- character was to be found, but more especially
letas are attributed the most important improve- in the last. Muller (Lit. of Gr. p. 161) expresses
ments. He cultivated the art of dancing no less an opinion that the gymnopaedic style, to which
than that of music, and adapted the evolutions of the edusueXeLa of tragedy corresponded, is not to be
the chorus to the more spirited movements of the confounded with the dances of the gymnopaedic
Phrygian style of music. He is said to have com- festival. The Pyrrhic or war dance (7rpvxls. Homer
posed both paeans and hyporchemes, the latter of calls hoplites rpvAe'es) was made subservient to
which he adapted for the Pyrrhic or war-dance; gymnastic and martial training. Hence the analogy
and from having given them a more artistic form, that may be traced between the construction and
he crine to be regarded by some as the inventor of evolution of the chorus and of the lochus. (MUiller,
them. (Miiller, Hlistory of thie Literatzure f An- Dor. iii. 12. ~ 10; Lucian, de Saltat. 7.) At the
cient G-eece, p. 160, &c.) Paeans began to be Gymnopaedia large choruses of men and boys apsung with an orchestic accompaniment on the part peered, in which great numbers of the citizens
of the chorus, especially at the festival of the would have to take part. (Muller, Dor. iv. 6. ~ 4.)
Gymnopaedia [GvsMNoPAEDIA], and by degrees At several of the festivals there were distinct
became scarcely distinguishable from the hypor- choruses of boys, men, and old men. (Plit. Lity
cheme. (Muller, 1. c. p. 160; Bode, GescL. der cury. 21; Pollux, iv. 107; Mtiller, Dor. iv. 6. ~ 5,
HIellen. Dic/ltk. vol. ii. part i. p. 46.) That com- Hist. of the Lit of' Gr. p. 194.) Dances in which
bination of singing and dancing which we find youths and maidens were intermingled were called
in the choruses of later times, to which the remark op/zoi. (Lucian, de Sait. 12.) It was in the hyporof Lucian applies (de Salt. 30), 7rdXatm [i' y-p oh chematic dance especially that the chorus both
abTrol cal.dos scal copXoyrno, was probably intro- sang and danced. (Athen. xiv. p. 631.)
duced by degrees. It had taken place before the The instrument commonly used in connection
time of Aleman, who introduced into his choral with the Doric choral poetry was the cithara. In
compositions an antistrophic character. A large the Pyrrhic dance, however, the flute was ellnumber of these he composed for choruses of vir- ployed. (Miiller, Dor. iv. 6. ~ 7, Ilist. Cr. Lit.
gins: in some there was a'dialogue between the p. 161.) In the hyporchematic performances at
chorus and the poet. (iiller, I. c. p. 194, &c.) Delos, described by Luciasn (de Salt. 6), both the
In his compositions strophes and antistrophes of cithara and the flute were used. Archilochus
the same measure usually succeeded each other in speaks of the flute as an accompaniment to the
indefinite number. Stesichorus introduced the im- Lesbian paean (ap. Athen. v. p. 180). It is not,
provement of adding an epode, during which the therefore, quite correct to say that wherever we
chorus were to stand still, to the strophe and anti- find the flute employed, we have not a proper
strophe. (Suidas, s. a. T'pia r'Tl~oX6pou; Miiller, chorus but a comus. (Comp. Bode, vol. ii. part i. pp.
1. c. p. 199.) In the arrangement of his choruses 47, 208.) Thaletas, who introduced the Phrygian
he seems to have had a great partiality for the style, probably made use of the flute as well as
octagonal form, or for certain combinations of eight, the cithara. It was *in connection with the by