[18]
We are told that the Spartans even
regarded a certain form of dance as a useful
element in military training. Nor again did the
ancient Romans consider such a practice as disgraceful: this is clear from the fact that priestly and
ritual dances have survived to the present day, while
Cicero in the third book of his de Oratore1 quotes the
words of Crassus, in which he lays down the
principle that the orator “should learn to move his
body in a bold and manly fashion derived not from
actors or the stage, but from martial and even from
gymnastic exercises.” And such a method of training has persisted uncensured to our own time.
1 lix. 220.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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