That dancing was highly esteemed as an accomplishment for young ladies in the Heroic Age we may gather from the sixth book of the Odyssey, when gentle white-armed Nausicaa, the daughter of a king, is represented as leading her companions in the choral lay after they had washed their linen in the stream, and amused themselves awhile with a game of ball. Ulysses compliments her especially upon her choric skill, saying that if she should chance to be one of those mortals who dwell on earth her brother and venerable mother must be ever delighted when they behold her entering the dance. We read how Ulysses was entertained at the court of Alcinous, the father of the young lady who had befriended him, and whose dancing he had so greatly admired. The admiration of the wanderer was excited by the rapid and skillful movements of the dancers, who were not maidens only, but youths in the prime of life. Presently two of the most accomplished youths, Halius and Laodamus, were selected by Alcinous to exhibit their skill in a dance, during which one performer threw a ball high in the air while the other caught it between his feet before it reached the ground. From the further description it appears that this was a true dance and not a mere acrobatic performance, and that the purple ball was used by the participants simply as an accessory. The twenty-third book of the same poem tells us that dancing among the guests at wedding festivals formed in these early times an essential part of the ceremonies. The wanderer, having been recognized by the faithful Penelope, tells his son, Telemachus, to let the divine bard who has the tuneful harp lead the sportive dance, so that anyone hearing it from without may say it is a marriage. Homer thought so highly of dancing that in the ‘Iliad’ he calls it ‘irreproachable.’ In describing various scenes which Vulcan wrought on the shield of Achilles, he associates dancing with hymeneal festivities. No Athenian festivals were ever celebrated without dancing. The design with which the gods used to adorn the shields of heroes represented the dance contrived by Dædalus for fair-haired Ariadne. In this dance youths with tunics and golden swords suspended from silver belts, and virgins clothed in fine linen robes and wearing beautiful garlands, danced together, holding each other by the wrists. They danced in a circle, bounding nimbly with skilled feet, as when a potter, sitting, shall make trial of a wheel fitted to his hands, whether it will run; and at other times they ran back to their places between one another.