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

DANCE AND BatL-Games

More and more were handed to her, until quite a dozen rose and fell between her hands and the ceiling, and the spectators loudly applauded the grace of her movements and her dexterity.

‘Then a large hoop was brought in, set round with pointed knives, laid on the floor and fastened down. The girl began the dance again. threw a summersault into the middle of the hoop, and then out again, repeating the feat several times, so that the spectators were afraid that the beautiful girl might hurt herself. Then the boy also came on, and danced with a skill that gave greater and clearer effect to the symmetry of his youthful body. His entire form became an exhibition of most expressive movement; one could not distinguish whether his hands, heels, or feet had more share in producing the impression which the grace of his postures made upon the spectators. He also was noisily applauded, and several of those present were of opinion that they preferred the boy’s performance to the girl’s.”

Carousals and drinking-bouts in ancient times took place in private houses, restaurants and hotels being unknown. Certainly there were, at least in later Athens, many sorts of places, where people met to play dice, drink, and enjoy sociable conversations, as it is said in ASschines (Timarchus, 53): “ He spent his days in the gaming-house, where cocks and quails are set fighting, and dice-playing goes on”; yet places of that kind cannot be called restaurants in the modern sense.

It was also impossible to dispense with hotels in ancient times, for as early as the time described by Homer the right of hospitality was so far developed that travellers in foreign parts could be sure of a friendly reception. This was also still the case in historical times. The story in Herodotus (vi, 35) is well known—that Miltiades, when sitting before his house and seeing people whom he recognized as friends by their dress pass by, got up and offered them the shelter of hospitality. Indeed, we know of

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