In the works of the ancients, rope-dancers are frequently mentioned. The passages where they occur have been collected by various authors, though never completely; and I am inclined to think that those who have seen many performers of this kind would be able to clear up some that are obscure. I have seen many myself; but I have forgot the greater part of what I observed; and there are other reasons also which prevent me from undertaking that task: I dread the reproach of “multum agendo nihil agis.” That I may not, however, pass over this subject entirely, I shall present the reader with what follows[308]. We meet with various appellations given to rope-dancers, which do not, as some have imagined, point out different kinds, but allude only to new-invented arts, leaps, or dexterities, which, while recommended by novelty, were much wondered at, though they were afterwards imitated by all. To these belong the _schœnobatæ_, _oribatæ_, _neurobatæ_, _petaminarii_, _funambuli_, &c. Some of the ancient rope-dancers seem to have used a balancing-pole, or at least to have had weights in their hands to preserve an equipoise[309]. It is certain also that rope-dancers were not wanting in the middle ages. In the year 1237 they were very common in Italy[310]; and in 1393 there were some of them at Augsburg, who exhibited their dexterity on the rope, and received from each spectator three German halfpence[311]. To place men upon the shoulders of each other in such a manner that every row consists of a man fewer, till they form a pyramid ending in a single person, upon whose head a boy often stands with his feet upwards, is likewise an ancient piece of dexterity. This exhibition is varied many ways; and on that account it is difficult to form even conjectures respecting it, especially as the description given of it by a Roman poet is very unintelligible[312]. I am however still less acquainted with an art in which hoops and wheels were employed by the _petauristæ_, who excited great astonishment among the populace. The first part of the art may have consisted in nothing more than the varied contortions and tumbling which we still see practised by children trained for that purpose. Cilano explains a well-known passage of Manilius, as if the performers had darted through suspended iron hoops, made often red-hot. Of this I entertain less doubt than how we ought to understand the _corpora jactata petauro_ of Juvenal[313]; and the _corpora valido excussa petauro_ of Manilius[314], which many have attempted to explain already. At any rate this wheel was different from that upon which a female dancer, as mentioned by Xenophon, wrote and read while it turned round with great velocity[315].