DANCER AND MUSICIAN. 209 



up in later days performances which ministered solely to 

 aesthetic enjoyments. Distinguishing the sacred from the 

 secular, Mahaffy says the first &quot; were quite separate from the 

 singing and playing in private society, which were culti 

 vated a good deal at Athens, though not at all at Sparta, 

 where such performances were left to professional mu 

 sicians.&quot; 



Parallel evidence is furnished by Roman history. We 

 read in Mommsen that 



&quot;In the most ancient religious usages dancing, and next to dancing 

 instrumental music, were far more prominent than song. In the great 

 procession, with which the Roman festival of victory was opened, the 

 chief place, next to the images of the gods and the champions, was 

 assigned to the dancers grave and merry . . . The leapers (salii) 

 were perhaps the most ancient and sacred of all the priesthoods.&quot; 

 So, too, Guhl and Koner write: 



&quot;Public games were, from the earliest times, connected with re 

 ligious acts, the Roman custom tallying in this respect with the 

 Greek. Such games were promised to the gods to gain their favour, 

 and afterwards carried out as a sign of gratitude for their assistance.&quot; 



Congruous with this statement is that of Posnett, who, after 

 quoting an early prayer to Mars, says 



&quot; This primitive hymn clearly combined the sacred dance . . . with 

 the responsive chant ; and the prominence of the former suggests how 

 readily the processional or stationary hymn might grow into a little 

 drama symbolizing the supposed actions of the deity worshipped.&quot; 



Here we see a parallelism to the triumphal reception of 

 David and Saul, and are shown that the worship of the hero- 

 god is a repetition of the applause given to a conqueror when 

 alive in celebration of his achievements: the priests and 

 people doing in the last case that which the courtiers and 

 people did in the first. Moreover in Rome, as in Greece, 

 there eventually arose, out of the sacred performances of 

 music, secular performances a cultivation of music as a 

 pleasure-giving art. Says Inge 



&quot;In republican days a Roman would have been ashamed to own him 

 self a skilled musician . . . Scipio ^Emilianus delivered a scathing 



