The Athenians, however, seem to have imagined that there was nothing in nature which might not be imitated in the dance, by the turns and mazes of which they accordingly sought to represent the movements of the stars.[1010] A similar fancy, if Lucian may be credited, possessed the Indian Yoghis, who every morning and evening before their doors saluted the sun, at his rising and setting, with a dance resembling his own,[1011] which, as that luminary no otherwise dances than by turning on its axis, must have been a performance resembling that of the whirling derwishes, whose broad symbolical petticoats are meant, I presume, to represent the disk of the sun. But the dance most difficult of comprehension is that upon which they bestowed the name of κόσμου εκπύρωσις,[1012] or the “Conflagration of the World.” Of the figure and character of this performance antiquity, I believe, has left us no account, though it probably represented, by a train of allegorical personages and movements, the principal events which, according to the Stoics, are to precede the delivering up of the Universe to fire.[1013] Scaliger,[1014] who does not attempt to explain this strange exhibition, observes, however, pertinently, that it was a dance in which Nero might have figured, his burning of Rome deserving in some sort to be regarded as a rehearsal of this piece. ----- Footnote 1010: It may possibly have been in this dance that Eumelos or Arctinos, an old Corinthian poet, introduced Zeus himself sporting the toe:— Μέσσοισιν δ᾽ ὠρχεῖτο πατὴρ ἀνδοῶν τε θεῶν τε. Athen. i. 40. Cf. Plut. Sympos. ix. 15. Footnote 1011: Luc. de Saltat. § 17. Footnote 1012: Athen. xiv. 27. Footnote 1013: Cf. Lips. Physiolog. Stoic. ii. 22. t. iv. p. 955. Footnote 1014: De Poet. i. 18. ----- There existed among the Spartans[1015] an elegant dance denominated Hormos, or the Necklace, performed by a chorus of youths and virgins who moved through the requisite evolutions in a row. The line was headed by a young man who executed his part in the firm and vigorous steps proper to his age, and which he would afterwards be expected to preserve in the field of battle. A maiden immediately followed, but, instead of imitating his masculine manner, confined herself to the modest graceful paces and gestures of her sex, and this alternation and interweaving, as it were, of force and beauty, suggesting the idea of a necklace composed of many coloured gems, gave rise to the appellation. ----- Footnote 1015: Luc. de Saltat. § 12. -----