Slide to the Left: Training Martial Attributes Through Dance in the Ancient Greek World
Terracotta Hydria, ca. 500 BCE. Public Domain. Metropolitan Museum of Art 2000-2024
Shouting across the battlefield, Hector taunts Ajax, “I know how to stand and fight to the finish, twist and lunge in the War-god’s deadly dance”, in one of our earliest references to martial dance in the Greek World. (Iliad 7 271-285, Fagles). Although the ancients themselves posit Athena, Achilles, Neoptolemus, and others as the creator of martial dance, it is clear that pantomiming battle was an activity with wide participation in numerous contexts. To modern people the concept of dance as martial training may seem unlikely, but several ancient authors praise dance’s value for just this purpose, often explicitly. It seems that martial dance (often called “Pyrrhic” dance in honor of Neoptolemus’s nickname) was common through many periods and throughout the Greek world, not only for fighting men but sometimes for women and children as well. Visual depictions, primarily on vases but also in low relief sculpture, support the texts. In many of these depictions, the figures’ postures are the same as the postures found depicted in scenes of combat. Through both text and artistic depictions, there is an emphasis on the merits of martial dance in building attributes of a warrior, particularly those of defense.
The most explicit connections of dance to martial training come from Socrates and Plato. Socrates’ words come from Athenaeus centuries later, but clearly state that Socrates considers the best dancers to also be best “in all deeds of war” (Ath. Deipnosophists XIV 628, C.D. Yonge). In Laws, Plato’s Athenian differentiates “pacific” and “warlike” dance, the latter of which he says should be taught in the wrestling schools. He describes this type of dance as one that “represents modes of eluding all kinds of blows and shots by swervings and duckings and side-leaps upward or crouching; and also the opposite kinds of motion, which lead to active postures of offence, when it strives to represent the movements involved in shooting with bows or darts, and blows of every description.” (Plato Laws VII 815a, R.G. Bury).
In Plato’s mind, it should be law to teach this type of dance in wrestling schools as part of the holistic training of a citizen body ready for war. Whether martial dance was ever a state requirement is unclear, but it must have been real and commonplace enough for Plato to consider it crucial for society. If the symposium in Xenophon’s Anabasis is any indication, martial dance was indeed widespread at the time as every dance mentioned is a dance “under arms” (Xen. Anabasis VI 5-13, Brownson).
The emphasis on building defensive attributes through the practice of dance pervades the texts through all periods. The earliest mentions of dance related to combat are in the Iliad, such as in Hector’s taunt above. Later in the epic, Aeneas is frustrated after Meriones dodges his spear, citing the latter’s skill as a dancer as the reason that the blow did not land true (Iliad 16 707-720, Fagles). Meriones is further characterized by epithets mentioning his dexterity throughout the text. Euripides also implicitly characterizes dance as martially valid in Andromache as Neoptolemus fights to escape with his life from multiple attackers (Euripides Andromache 1120-1140, Kovacs), and much is made of his “Trojan Leap” by Borthwick (Trojan Leap and Pyrrhic…Borthwick 1967). Feats of dexterity are common in the dances presented in Xenophon’s Anabasis, but the Mysian’s dance in particular makes use of two shields against multiple imagined opponents and “he would whirl and throw somersaults” to evade these phantom enemies (Xen. Anabasis VI 6, Brownson). Philostratus also characterizes the famously warlike Spartans as training dance for “dexterous use of the shield” and “warding off missiles” (Phil. De Gymnastica 19, C.L. Kayser). Concerning the Spartans, Strabo details the importance of martial dance to their society as well (Strabo Geography x.4 16).
Artistic depictions also show clear use of crouches, leaps, and dexterous footwork. Both ancient texts and modern experimentation through “sparring” at Liberty Sword Club (a historical martial arts organization in Jersey City, USA) as well as reenactment events with The Greek Phalanx (a reenactment group in North America, thegreekphalanx.org) show such maneuvers to be defensively and offensively sound. A black figure lekythos dated 490-480 BCE from the British Museum shows a crouching man in panoply beside an aulos player. Similar depictions of figures crouching, often on the balls of the feet to remain ready for motion are prevalent among scenes of martial dance.
Lekythos, 1st quarter 5th century BCE Public Domain. Metropolitan Museum of Art 2000-2024
Although less common, there are also several scenes of martial dancers in the act of leaping with one or both feet off of the ground. One particularly vigorous example of a female dancer in shield and helmet leaping off of the ground comes from a krater dated 430 BCE from the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples (Beazley 213564). There are also at least two examples of cross stepping footwork similar to a modern “grapevine” step shown by dancers in panoply, as in a red figure cup dated 500-450 BCE from the Louvre (Beazley 202280). All of these actions match descriptions of “Pyrrhiche” dance as described by Plato in the section of Laws above as well as Philostratus’s De Gymnastica which mentions a “jump up from the ground”. Interestingly, there are also three depictions of dancers engaged in a double shield dance, backing up the account in Anabasis with visual representation.
If this is not enough to convince the skeptics, perhaps a Bithynian legend recounted by Lucian in De Saltatione will be. Entrusted by Hera with training the mighty Ares, the divinity Priapus refused to put a weapon into the war god’s hands - the same war god invoked by Hector in our opening - until he was a “perfect dancer”. According to the legend, Priapus was granted one tenth of Ares’ spoils for this training, which sounds like generous royalties given the god of war’s penchant for collecting booty. The fact that this legend spread from a colony in Asia minor to southern Italy to survive in a Roman author’s writings is yet another testament to the importance that dance held in the minds of people in the ancient Greek world.
Standing in Homer’s epic tale, grape vine stepping through multiple genres of classical era authors, and pirouetting into the histories and dialogues of Roman authors, martial dance is a pervasive and consistent thread in the ancient Greek world. Using visual depictions in pottery and sculpture from the time, we can make a connection and attempt to reconstruct some of these ancient movements lost to the spinning of time.
With spear and shield at hand, we may try!
The author utilizing a crouch in combat.
About the author
Jeffrey is a husband, father, and public school music teacher in the northeast United States. He is a lifelong martial artist and history enthusiast who currently studies Historical Martial Arts, and reenacts both Ancient Greek and late 15th century Medieval Europe. He often enjoys bringing both music and martial/physical culture to light at reenactment events.