Chap. VI.] APPENDIX. 403 



and some of their breed born in this country. When their limb.? 

 were beginning to become firm, a person familiar with such 

 animals instructed them by a strange and surprising method of 

 teaching ; using only gentleness and kindness, and adding to his 

 mild lessons the bait of pleasant and varied food. By this means 

 he led them by degrees to throw off all wildnes.% and, as it were, 

 to desert to a state of civilisation, conducting themselves in a 

 manner almost human. He taught them neither to be excited 

 on hearing the pipe, nor to be disturbed by the beat of drum, 

 but to be soothed by the sounds of the reed, and to endure un- 

 musical noises and the clatter of feet from persons while march- 

 ing ; and they were trained to feel no fear of a mass of men, nor 

 to be enraged at the infliction of blows, not even when compelled 

 to twist their limbs and to bend them like a stage-dancer, and 

 this too, although endowed with strength and might. And there 

 is in this a very noble addition to nature, not to conduct them- 

 selves in a disorderly manner and disobediently towards the 

 instructions given by man ; for after the dancing-master had 

 made them expert, and they had learnt their lessons accurately, 

 they did not belie the labour of his instruction whenever a 

 necessity and opportunity called upon them to exhibit what they 

 had been taught. For the whole troop came forward from this 

 and that side of the theatre, and divided themselves into parties ; 

 they advanced walking with a mincing gait and exhibiting in 

 their whole body and persons the manners of a beau, clothed in 

 the flowery dresses of dancers ; and on the ballet-master giving 

 a signal Avith his voice, they fell into line and went round in a 

 circle, and if it were requisite to deploy, they did so. They 

 ornamented the floor of the stage by throwing flowers upon it, 

 and this they did in moderation and sparingly, and straightway 

 they beat a mea.sure with their feet and kept time together. 



" Now that Damon and Spintharus and Aristoxenus and 

 Xenophilus and Philoxenus and others should know music ex- 

 cellently well, and for their cleverness be ranked amongst the 

 few, is indeed a thing of wonder, but not incredible, nor contrary 

 at all to reason. For this reason that a man is a rational animal, 

 and the recipient of mind and intelligence. But that a joint- 

 less animal {avapdpov) should understand rhythm and melody, 

 and preserve a gesture, and not deviate from a measured move- 

 ment, and fulfil the requirements of those who laid down 

 instructions, these are gifts of nature, I think, and a peculiarity 

 in every way astounding. Added to these there were things 



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