But while giving due weight to the effect of these oriental influences, the fact remains that it is chiefly to Greece that Rome owed the entry of new cults. Within the small domain with which we are specially concerned we have already considered the example of the “Game of Troy,” where it was evident that this was borrowed from Greece. Another example which may be cited is the ritual which accompanied the processions of supplication; a solemn dance-step was characteristic of these; such, for instance, was that which went from the temple of Apollo before the _Porta Carmentalis_ to that of _Juno Regina_ on the Aventine; to her an offering of two white cows was made by the _Decemviri_. These latter formed the centre of the procession, and in front of them were twenty-seven virgins who had to sing in honour of Juno. The singing took place during a halt in the _forum_; here the maidens sang their song while dancing with a measured, stately tread. As Wissowa says, the entire ritual was Greek from beginning to end[113]. It is probable that the dancing priests who belonged to the early Roman _cultus_[114] witness also to Greek influence. An interesting case of what may well have been an indirect importation from Greece, and which records one of the earliest instances of the sacred dance among the Romans, is mentioned by Frazer: “In the fourth century before our era,” he writes, “the city of Rome was desolated by a great plague which raged for three years, carrying off some of the highest dignitaries and a great multitude of common folk. The historian who records the calamity informs us that when a banquet had been offered to the gods in vain, and neither human counsels nor divine help availed to mitigate the violence of the disease, it was resolved for the first time in Roman history to institute dramatical performances as an appropriate means of appeasing the wrath of the celestial powders. Accordingly, actors were fetched from Etruria, who danced certain simple and decorous dances to the music of a flute. But even this novel spectacle failed to amuse or touch, to move to tears or laughter, the sullen gods[115]....” The means which were subsequently found to be effective do not concern us here; the point is that the sacred dance was imported from Etruria, and it is well known that the Etruscans were largely indebted to Greece for their religious ideas and ritual.