A dance or game which has thus spread over Europe, and survived in a fashion to modern times must have been very popular, and bearing in mind how often with the decay of old faiths the serious rites and pageants of grown people have degenerated into the sports of children, we may reasonably ask whether “Ariadne’s Dance,” or the “Game of Troy,” may not have had its origin in religious ritual. The ancients connected it with Cnossus and the Minotaur. Now we have reason to hold, with many other scholars, that Cnossus was the seat of a great worship of the sun, and that the Minotaur was a representative or embodiment of the sun-god. May not, then, “Ariadne’s Dance” have been an imitation of the sun’s course in the sky? And may not its intention have been, by means of sympathetic magic, to aid the luminary to run his race on high?... If there is any truth in this conjecture it would seem to follow that the sinuous lines of the labyrinth which the dancers followed in their evolutions may have represented the ecliptic, the sun’s apparent annual path in the sky. It is some confirmation of this view that on the coins of Cnossus the sun or a star appears in the middle of the labyrinth, the place which on other coins is occupied by the Minotaur[104]. Frazer’s interesting suggestion points to the originally religious character of “Ariadne’s Dance,” which in course of time it lost. Like the dances at Harvest and Vintage festivals, “Ariadne’s Dance” was one of the mediums whereby the sacred dance developed into a purely secular amusement. The same may be said of the _Geranos_, or “Crane Dance,” danced at Delos, which was apparently derived from “Ariadne’s Dance[105]”; and also of the _Hormos_, or “Chain Dance,” which was also performed by youths and maidens holding their hands in a changing line[106]. Finally, reference may be made to a few representations of the sacred dance found in Cyprus, in addition to those already mentioned. On a vase, numbered cxxxii. 1 by Ohnefalsch-Richter[107], a dance is represented in which men and women are taking part, two of the former hold semi-circular instruments with which they accompany the dance; also, three of the men, one of whom seems to be acting as the leader, carry small swords at their sides; this illustrates the words of Homer in the quotation given above (lines 597-8). Again, on two bronze vases, numbered cxxix. 2 and cxxx. 1, the dance represented shows women only, some of whom are playing instruments, pipe, harp, and drum[108]; a similar representation occurs on a painted Etruscan vase (cxxxii. 4), while on a thin golden plate from a grave near Corinth[109] women are portrayed dancing and clothed with long garments; this is numbered xxv. 15. VI