Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

DANCES, GAMES, MEALS,

forwards, as though representing drunkenness ; and to this was added a series of grotesque and unseemly movements that ostentatiously and prominently exhibited movements of the body, and apparently unintentional denudation, so that “ Cordax ”’ finally became the typical name for an indecent dance.

Summing up, we may say that the Cordax was the embodiment of what the modern science of sexual psychopathy calls “ exhibitionism”’, but with the fundamental difference, that the Hellenes enjoyed such exhibitions as were occasionally offered them and cleverly avoided public scandal by the formal permission of such extravagances from time to time.

Ball-games are closely connected with the dance as an artistic performance. Their harmonious movements, which set the beauty of bodily forms in the clearest light, can be almost called a dance in the ancient sense. Homer (Od., viii, 370 ff.) introduces the Phzeacians as delighting their guest, Odysseus, with such a game: “And Alcinous bade Halius and Laodamas dance alone, since no one contended with them. And after they had taken the beautiful purple ball in their hand, which the wise Polybus had made for them, the one hurled it into the shadow of the clouds, bending back ; but the other, lifting himself up from the ground, easily caught it in turn before he reached the ground with his feet. And after they had tried their skill in throwing the ball straight upwards, they then proceeded to dance on the all-nourishing earth, in turn and repeatedly ; and the rest of the youths shouted in applause, standing in the crowd; and.a great din arose.”

Athenzus describes various kinds of ball-games, and gives very learned explanations as to the name and origin of these games, quoting the following lines from a comedy of Damoxenus (Ath., i, 14d; Damoxenus, frag. 3 in Kock, CAF., III, 353, from Ath., i, 156): ‘““A boy, who might be about seventeen years of age, was playing at ball. He

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