Wrestling is to be pursued as a military exercise, but the meaning of
this, and the nature of the art, can only be explained when action
is combined with words. Next follows dancing, which is of two kinds;
imitative, first, of the serious and beautiful; and, secondly, of the
ludicrous and grotesque. The first kind may be further divided into the
dance of war and the dance of peace. The former is called the Pyrrhic;
in this the movements of attack and defence are imitated in a direct and
manly style, which indicates strength and sufficiency of body and mind.
The latter of the two, the dance of peace, is suitable to orderly and
law-abiding men. These must be distinguished from the Bacchic dances
which imitate drunken revelry, and also from the dances by which
purifications are effected and mysteries celebrated. Such dances cannot
be characterized either as warlike or peaceful, and are unsuited to a
civilized state. Now the dances of peace are of two classes:--the first
of them is the more violent, being an expression of joy and triumph
after toil and danger; the other is more tranquil, symbolizing the
continuance and preservation of good. In speaking or singing we
naturally move our bodies, and as we have more or less courage or
self-control we become less or more violent and excited. Thus from the
imitation of words in gestures the art of dancing arises. Now one man
imitates in an orderly, another in a disorderly manner: and so the
peaceful kinds of dance have been appropriately called Emmeleiai, or
dances of order, as the warlike have been called Pyrrhic. In the latter
a man imitates all sorts of blows and the hurling of weapons and the
avoiding of them; in the former he learns to bear himself gracefully
and like a gentleman. The types of these dances are to be fixed by the
legislator, and when the guardians of the law have assigned them to the
several festivals, and consecrated them in due order, no further change
shall be allowed.