8. But we must return to the subject whence we digressed, the connexion between gymnastic exercises and dancing. These two arts were connected by the pentathlon, a pattern of adroitness, activity, strength and measured motions, which was accompanied by the music of the flute.(1592) In later times any tunes were used for this exhibition; but earlier certain fixed measures were played, one of which had been composed by Hierax, a disciple of Olympus:(1593) nor at that time did distinguished artists disdain to appear as actors in these sports, as, for example, Pythocritus of Sicyon. At Argos, at the Sthenia, the combatants wrestled to the sound of the flute;(1594) and a melody of this same Hierax was played(1595) when the women carried flowers (at a festival) to the temple of Here. At Sparta the chief object of the Gymnopædia was to represent gymnastic exercises and dancing in intimate union, and indeed the latter only as the accomplishment and end of the former. One of the principal games at this festival resembled the _anapale_, or wrestling-dance; the boys danced in regular time with graceful motions of the hands, in which the methods of the wrestling-school and the pancration were shown; at the same time, however, this dance had some mixture of the Bacchanalian kind.(1596) Thus also the youths (ephebi) of Sparta, when they were skilled in their exercises, danced in rows behind each other, to the music of the flute, first military, then choral dances, and at the same time repeated two verses, of which one was an invitation to Aphrodite and Eros to join them, the other an exhortation to one another.(1597) There was also a dance with a ball at Sparta and Sicyon.(1598) The _Bibasis_, a dance of men and women, was of the gymnastic kind;(1599) all the dancers struck their feet behind, a feat, of which a Spartan woman in Aristophanes prides herself.(1600) Prizes were given to the most skilful; and we are told by a verse which has been preserved that a Laconian girl had danced the Bibasis a thousand times more than any other had done.(1601) Besides the Bibasis the _Dipodia_ is mentioned;(1602) but so little is known about it, that the origin of its name even is not clear.(1603) In a comedy of Aristophanes a chorus of Lacedæmonians danced a Dipodia to the flute, and sing, chiefly in trochaic metre, of the battles of Thermopylæ and Artemisium, and the friendship of Sparta and Athens; after which follows another song, which was probably danced in the same manner. In this the chorus implores the Laconian Muse to come from mount Taygetus, and to celebrate the tutelar deities of Sparta; and urges itself to the dance in words which give a very good idea of its character: “Come hither with a light motion to sing of Sparta. Where there are choruses in honour of the gods, and the noise of dancing, when, like young horses, the maidens on the banks of the Eurotas rapidly move their feet; while their hair floats,