It should be noted that the Greek _orcheisthai_ (ὀρχεῖσθαι), to dance, implied more than mere steps with the feet. It included much that goes to make a really good ballet-dancer of to-day--interpretative dancing and mimetic gesture. The Greeks in fact had some of the material, if they did not have as we know it--the Ballet. The earliest dramatic poets, Thespis, Phrynichus, were called “dancers” because in addition to providing the drama as poets, their function was to train their choruses in the dances which, accompanied by singing, were introduced in the play. One of the most celebrated of the actors in the plays of Æschylus, Telestes, was said not merely to indicate feelings but to “describe” events with his hands; and this, which was really miming, was considered as part of dancing, which Aristotle defined as “the representation of actions, characters and passions by means of postures and rhythmic movements.” Plutarch analyses dancing as “Motions, Postures and Indications,” a “posture” being the attitude of the dancer at the moment of arrested movement, and an “indication,” the gesture which indicated an external object referred to in a poet’s lines, such as the sky; or such as an orator would use when raising his hand heavenward invoking the gods. The chief dances used in the Greek drama were the _Emmeleia_, a stately measure; _Hyporchemata_, lively dances; the _Kordax_, a very coarse and rough comic dance; and finally the _Sikinnis_, which was attached especially to satyric comedies and parodied as a rule the measure of the _Emmeleia_. These were all a part, though a subordinate part, of the classic drama, and, according to some authorities, had their foundation in the rhythm of the poet’s verse as it was sung by the chorus or declaimed by the chief actors. But apart from these there were mimetic dances. One, in which we may perhaps even see a hint of the origin of dancing itself, is found in Longus’ novel, _Daphnis and Chloe_, in which Dryas performs a vintage-dance, “pretending to gather grapes, to carry them in panniers, to tread them in a vat and pour the flowing juice into jars, and then to drink of the wine thus newly made”; and all done so cleverly that the spectators were deceived for the time and thought they really saw the grapes, the vats, and the wine the actor made pretence of drinking. This, probably an incident drawn from life, was indeed a “_representation ingenieuse_,” and even suggests yet another of the many possibilities as to the origin of the Dance, namely--that dancing itself may have originated from the treading of grapes.