TEXTS AND IMAGES AS SOURCES FOR THE STUDY OF DANCE IN ANCIENT GREECE

J. HE anciem Greek world displayed a level of saltatory enthusiasm which, although not unique, is quite remarkable. This has resulted in a considerable corpus of written evidence and of images in several media. The number of individual dances and of occasions on which dance was deemed appropriate or indispensable, mentioned or depicted in these sources is very large. Of course the (in)frequent occurrence of a phenomenon in the record does not stand in a one to one relationship to this phenomenon's (un)importance, as every statistician will explain and every archaeologist (but not every ancient historian) knows. But in this instance, I suggest a good case can be made. Dance is omnipresent in our source material, because it was omnipresent in ancient Greek society. Consequently, dance should be given its due in scholarship. This is, however, hardly the case, although the specialist bibliography on dancing in Antiquity is certainly extensive- the first monograph on the subject dating from 1618 (Meursius)- most studies, whether scholarly or popularizing, dealing with ancient Greek society, culture, religion ormentalité do not men-tion dance at all or only as an unimportant side-issue. Several different reasons can be adduced to explain why this is so; one seems to be a failing source criticism