Tyrtæus the anapæstic verses only were sung as marches, and that they were embateria, is now generally admitted.(1580) The elegies were sung in campaigns, at meals, and after the pæan, not in chorus, but singly, and for a prize. The polemarch decided,(1581) and the victor was rewarded with a chosen piece of meat.(1582) The Cretans had also embateria, named after Ibycus, a musician.(1583) 7. That war among these ancient nations had something of an imitative nature, and that it was by imperceptible transitions connected with the pure imitations of art, I have already attempted to show;(1584) and the same may be inferred from what has been just said. A transition of this kind was formed by the Pyrrhic dance, the dancers of which bore the same name as the practised, armed and expert combatant (πρύλις).(1585) The Pyrrhic dance was undoubtedly a production of the Doric nation in Crete and Sparta,(1586) although in the former state it was fabulously connected with the Curetes and the rites of the ancient Idæan Zeus,(1587) and at Sparta with the Dioscuri. It was danced to the flute,(1588) and its time was very quick and light, as is shown by the name of the Pyrrhic foot. Hence in Crete Thaletas was able to add hyporchematic or mimic variations to it,(1589) which had likewise quick measures. From this account it may be also inferred that the war-dance of Crete was of an imitative kind; and indeed Plato says of the Pyrrhic dance in general that it imitated all the attitudes of defence, by avoiding a thrust or a cast, retreating, springing up, and crouching, as also the opposite movements of attack with arrows and lances, and also of every kind of thrust.(1590) So strong was the attachment to this dance at Sparta, that, long after it had in the other Greek states degenerated into a Bacchanalian revel, it was still danced by the Spartans as a warlike exercise, and boys of fifteen were instructed in it.(1591)