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THE POLITICS OF DANCE: EUNOMIA AND THE EXCEPTION OF DIONYSUS IN PLATO'S LAWS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2020

Kenneth W. Yu
Kenneth W. Yu*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
*
kenneth.yu@utoronto.ca
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Extract

How to inculcate virtue in the citizens of Magnesia by means of the dance component of choreia constitutes one of the principal concerns in the Laws (= Leg.), revealing Plato's evolving ideas about the expediency of music and paideia for the construction of his ideal city since the Republic. Indeed, a steady stream of monographs and articles on the Laws has enriched our understanding of how Plato theorizes the body as a site of intervention and choral dance as instrumental in solidifying social relations and in conditioning the ethical and political self. As one scholar has aptly put it: ‘a city and its sociopolitical character [are] effectively danced into existence.’ Drawing on this recent work, I focus on an enigmatic passage in Laws Book 7 that merits more attention than it has received, in which Plato curiously singles out Bacchic dances from those that are ‘without controversy’ (815b7–d4):

τὴν τοίνυν ἀμφισβητουμένην ὄρχησιν δεῖ πρῶτον χωρὶς τῆς ἀναμφισβητήτου διατεμεῖν. τίς οὖν αὕτη, καὶ πῇ δεῖ χωρὶς τέμνειν ἑκατέραν; ὅση μὲν βακχεία τ᾽ ἐστὶν καὶ τῶν ταύταις ἑπομένων, ἃς Νύμφας τε καὶ Πᾶνας καὶ Σειληνοὺς καὶ Σατύρους ἐπονομάζοντες, ὥς φασιν, μιμοῦνται κατῳνωμένους, περὶ καθαρμούς τε καὶ τελετάς τινας ἀποτελούντων, σύμπαν τοῦτο τῆς ὀρχήσεως τὸ γένος οὔθ᾽ ὡς εἰρηνικὸν οὔθ᾽ ὡς πολεμικὸν οὔθ᾽ ὅτι ποτὲ βούλεται ῥᾴδιον ἀφορίσασθαι: διορίσασθαι μήν μοι ταύτῃ δοκεῖ σχεδὸν ὀρθότατον αὐτὸ εἶναι, χωρὶς μὲν πολεμικοῦ, χωρὶς δὲ εἰρηνικοῦ θέντας, εἰπεῖν ὡς οὐκ ἔστι πολιτικὸν τοῦτο τῆς ὀρχήσεως τὸ γένος, ἐνταῦθα δὲ κείμενον ἐάσαντας κεῖσθαι, νῦν ἐπὶ τὸ πολεμικὸν ἅμα καὶ εἰρηνικὸν ὡς ἀναμφισβητήτως ἡμέτερον ὂν ἐπανιέναι.

So, first of all, we should separate questionable dancing far from dancing that is without controversy. Which is the controversial kind, and how are the two to be distinguished? All the dancing that is of a Bacchic kind and cultivated by those who indulge in intoxicated imitations of Nymphs, Pans, Sileni and Satyrs (as they name them), when performing certain rites of expiation and initiation—this entire class of dancing cannot easily be marked off either as pacific or as warlike, nor as of any one particular kind. The most correct way of defining it appears to me to be this—to place it away from both pacific and warlike dancing, and to pronounce that this type of dancing is οὐ πολιτικόν; having thus set aside and dismissed it, we will now return to the warlike and pacific types, which without controversy belong to us.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , December 2020 , pp. 605 - 619
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association.

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Footnotes

For providing important comments on earlier drafts that enabled me to avoid a large number of infelicities and mistakes, my warmest thanks are due to Christopher Faraone, Bruce Lincoln, Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi, Julia Pfefferkorn, and the journal's anonymous referee, as well as audiences at the University of Chicago and UCLA.

References

1 Cf. Rowe, C., ‘The relationship of the Laws to other dialogues: a proposal’, in Bobonich, C. (ed.), Plato's Laws: A Critical Guide (Cambridge, 2010), 29–50Google Scholar; Brunt, P.A., ‘The model city of Plato's Laws’, in id., Studies in Greek History and Thought (Oxford, 1993), 245–81Google Scholar; Laks, A., ‘Legislation and demiurgy: on the relationship between Plato's Republic and Laws’, ClAnt 9 (1990), 209–29Google Scholar.

2 Woerther, F., ‘Music and the education of the soul in Plato and Aristotle: homoeopathy and the formation of character’, CQ 58 (2008), 89–103, especially 94–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Prauscello, L., Performing Citizenship in Plato's Laws (Cambridge, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ead., ‘Choral persuasion in Plato's Laws’, in Gagné, R. and Hopman, M.G. (edd.), Choral Mediations in Greek Tragedy (Cambridge, 2013), 257–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peponi, A.-E. (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato's Laws (Cambridge, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Folch, M., The City and Stage: Performance, Genre, and Gender in Plato's Laws (Oxford, 2015)Google Scholar; Panno, G., Dionisiaco e alterità nelle ‘Leggi’ di Platone: ordine del corpo e automovimento dell'anima nella città-tragedia (Milan, 2007)Google Scholar; B. Kowalzig, ‘Changing choral worlds: song-dance and society in Athens and beyond’, in P. Murray and P. Wilson (edd.), Music and the Muses (Oxford, 2004), 39–65; R. Kamtekar, ‘Psychology and the inculcation of virtue in Plato's Laws’, in C. Bobonich (ed.), Plato's Laws: A Critical Guide (Cambridge, 2010), 127–48; F. Pelosi, Plato on Music, Soul and Body (Cambridge, 2010); and F. Spaltro, ‘Dancing for Athena: the pyrrhic dance and the perfect citizen in Plato's Laws’ (Diss., The University of Chicago, 2011). The literature on ancient Greek dance is vast, but see particularly Fitton, J.W., ‘Greek dance’, CQ 23 (1973), 254–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lawler, L.B., The Dance in Ancient Greece (Middletown, 1965)Google Scholar; Lonsdale, S.H., Dance and Ritual Play in Greek Religion (Baltimore, 1993)Google Scholar; Schlapbach, K., The Anatomy of Dance Discourse: Literary and Philosophical Approaches to Dance in the Later Graeco-Roman World (Oxford, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Naerebout, F., Attractive Performances: Ancient Greek Dance, Three Preliminary Studies (Amsterdam, 1997), especially 209–53Google Scholar, on the iconography of Greek dance (with an admirable historiography and glossary of the subject).

3 P. Wilson, ‘The sounds of cultural conflict: Kritias and the culture of mousikê in Athens’, in C. Dougherty and L. Kurke (edd.), The Cultures within Ancient Greek Culture (Cambridge, 2003), 181–206, at 181.

4 I print the text of J. Burnet, Platonis Opera (Oxford, 1907). Translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

5 On the passage's textual difficulties, see England, E.B., The Laws of Plato (Manchester, 1921), 2.302–3Google Scholar, who translates οὐ πολιτικόν as ‘not fit for a civilized community’ (at 303). K. Schöpsdau, Platon. Nomoi (Gesetze). Buch IV–VII (Göttingen, 2003), 592–3: Bacchic dances are rejected for their ‘ekstatisch-rauschhafte[s] Element’ and because their mimetism requires costumes. Folch (n. 2), 217–18: ‘Ecstatic and Bacchic dances thus represent the alter ego to Magnesia's version of a regulated sympotic and festival culture.’ Morrow, G., Plato's Cretan City: A Historical Interpretation of the Laws (Princeton, 1960), 362–5Google Scholar summarizes the scholarly views and contrasts politikos—‘what belongs to the province of the statesmen’—with the private and sacred. This passage is not explicated in Benardete, S., Plato's “Laws”: The Discovery of Being (Chicago, 2000)Google Scholar; Schlapbach (n. 2), 150; and Prauscello (n. 2 [2014]), 174. M. Griffith, ‘Cretan harmonies and universal morals: early music and migrations of wisdom in Plato's Laws’, in A.-E. Peponi (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato's Laws (Cambridge, 2013), 15–66, at 47 calls the passage a ‘cop-out’ without further discussion. Two recent volumes on Dionysus neglect this passage entirely: Α. Bernabé et al. (edd.), Redefining Dionysos (Berlin, 2013) and R. Schlesier (ed.), A Different God? Dionysos and Ancient Polytheism (Berlin, 2011).

6 Morrow (n. 5), 363 and 365.

7 The journal's referee rightly notes the use of βακχεύω and βακχιάζω to describe the behaviour of satyr choruses at Soph. Ichneutae 133 and Eur. Cyc. 204. Also Griffith, M., Greek Satyr Play: Five Studies (Berkeley, 2015)Google Scholar: ‘While no satyr choruses are mentioned as such or even implied, these performances would seem to involve many of the elements of satyr drama’ (164–5). My point rather is that tragedians are tapping into general satyric motifs and imagery that had a wide currency in many media, and one therefore need not advance an argument that strictly links the passage of interest in Laws with this performance genre.

8 The lengthy passage at 816c2–d5 constitutes a clear transition from Plato's discussion of Bacchic dances (and his general outline of different dance modalities that accompany sacrificial feasts) to his evaluation of drama particularly (816d5–817d9). C. Calame rightly emphasizes that Plato's primary interest in the initiatory potential of chorality in the Laws is in relation to melos, not to epic or drama: ‘Choral practices in Plato's Laws’, in A.-E. Peponi (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato's Laws (Cambridge, 2013), 87–108.

9 See IG II2 2320 with B.W. Millis, ‘Inscribed public records of the dramatic contests at Athens: IG II2 2318–2323a and IG II2 2325’, in E. Csapo et al. (edd.), Greek Theatre in the Fourth Century b.c. (Berlin, 2014), 425–45, especially 435–6; Collinge, N.E., ‘Some reflections on satyr-plays’, PCPhS 5 (1958), 28–35, at 28 n. 5Google Scholar; Shaw, C.A., Satyric Play: The Evolution of Greek Comedy and Satyr Drama (Oxford, 2014), 141CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and M. Silk, ‘The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives’, in E. Bakola, L. Prauscello and M. Telò (edd.), Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres (Cambridge, 2013), 15–39, especially 36. Scholarship on satyr drama has been flourishing, for which see Griffith (n. 7); R. Lämmle, Poetik des Satyrspiels (Heidelberg, 2013); P. O'Sullivan and C. Collard, Euripides: Cyclops and Major Fragments of Greek Satyric Drama (Oxford, 2013); and B. Seidensticker, ‘Dance in satyr play’, in O. Taplin and R. Wyles (edd.), The Pronomos Vase and its Contexts (Oxford, 2010), 213–29.

10 Symp. 223c–d. Shaw (n. 9), 15. Silk (n. 9), 36–7 casts doubt on the supposed reference to satyr-play in this passage.

11 401d5–7: μάλιστα καταδύεται εἰς τὸ ἐντὸς τῆς ψυχῆς ὅ τε ῥυθμὸς καὶ ἁρμονία, καὶ ἐρρωμενέστατα ἅπτεται αὐτῆς φέροντα τὴν εὐσχημοσύνην. Cf. Resp. 399a5–c4, with Woerther (n. 2), 98 and passim.

12 Pelosi (n. 2) provides a full discussion; also M. Schofield, ‘Music all pow'rful’, in M.C. McPherran (ed.), Plato's Republic: A Critical Guide (Cambridge, 2010), 229–48. More generally on beauty and virtue: G.R. Lear, ‘Plato on learning to love beauty’, in G. Santas (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Plato's Republic (Malden/Oxford, 2006), 104–24.

13 Music in Plato: Anderson, W.D., Ethos and Education in Greek Music: The Evidence of Poetry and Philosophy (Cambridge, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 64–110; also the pioneering West, M.L., Ancient Greek Music (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar. Remarkably, both men and women train in the military, reminiscent of Spartan sociality: K. Moore, Sex and the Second Best City: Sex and Society in the Laws of Plato (New York, 2005), 69–70. On the ideology of gender in Laws: Folch (n. 2), 225–97.

14 Cf. Leg. 669c3–5: ‘For the Muses would never go wrong so far as to assign a tune and gesture for women (τὸ χρῶμα γυναικῶν καὶ μέλος) to verses composed for men (ῥήματα ἀνδρῶν).’

15 On Athenian age organization: J. Davidson, ‘Revolutions in human time: age-class in Athens and the Greekness of Greek revolutions’, in S. Goldhill and R. Osborne (edd.), Rethinking Revolutions through Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 2006), 29–67, and in relation to paideia: M. Griffith, ‘Public and private in early Greek education’, in Y.L. Too (ed.), Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Leiden, 2001), 23–85, at 36–61.

16 Cf. 653d4–654a1. On the establishment of choruses, see Prauscello (n. 2 [2014]), 152–91. O. Murray, ‘The chorus of Dionysus: alcohol and old age in the Laws’, in A.-E. Peponi (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato's Laws (Cambridge, 2013), 109–22, at 117 and K. Schöpsdau, Platon. Nomoi (Gesetze). Buch I–III (Göttingen, 1994), 305–6 note that Plato echoes, or perhaps even influenced, the Spartan model of three age-based choruses. Cf. Plut. Lyc. 21.

17 For the mimetic and theoric aspects of dance, see also Leg. 815a–b and Resp. 395e4 with H. Koller, Die Mimesis in der Antike (Bern, 1954); A. Nightingale, ‘Liberal education in Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics’, in Y.L. Too (ed.), Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Leiden, 2001), 133–74, at 138–9; Morrow (n. 5), 306–8; Panno (n. 2), 211–13; and Prauscello (n. 2 [2014]), 192–222.

18 On the age range of the third chorus, see Prauscello (n. 2 [2014]), 162. Those above sixty, the μυθολόγοι, no longer sing or dance, but join the ranks of the Nocturnal Council and chant edifying myths, for which see Leg. 951d and 961b–962c10, with L. Brisson, ‘Le collège de veille (nukterinòs súllogos)’, in F.L. Lisi (ed.), Plato's Laws and its Historical Significance (Sankt Augustin, 2001), 161–77; Folch (n. 2), 113–51; and M.L. Bartels, ‘An objective aesthetics of seniors in Plato's Laws’, in I. Sluiter and R.M. Rosen (edd.), Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity (Leiden, 2012), 133–58.

19 The locus classicus of age-grade rituals is Ar. Lys. 640–6. For Greek rituals of initiation: C. Sourvinou-Inwood, Studies in Girls’ Transitions (Athens, 1988) and A. Brelich, Paides e Parthenoi (Rome, 1969). On temporality and choreia, see B. Kowalzig, ‘Broken rhythms in Plato's Laws: materialising social time in the chorus’, in A.-E. Peponi (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato's Laws (Cambridge, 2013), 171–211, especially 179–81.

20 On pacific dances, see e.g. Ath. Deipn. 630e with the classic L. Séchan, La danse grecque antique (Paris, 1930), especially 115–50; M. Griffith, ‘Music and dance in tragedy after the fifth century’, in V. Liapis and A.K. Petrides (edd.), Greek Tragedy after the Fifth Century (Cambridge, 2019), 204–42, at 206 n. 10; and Prauscello (n. 2 [2014]), 173–82.

21 796b3–d5. See also Ath. Deipn. 631c with P. Ceccarelli, La pirrica nell'antichità greco romana (Pisa and Rome, 1998); ead., ‘Dancing the pyrrhichê in Athens’, in P. Murray and P. Wilson (edd.), Music and the Muses (Oxford, 2004), 90–117; E.K. Borthwick, ‘Trojan leap and pyrrhic dance in Euripides’ Andromache 1129–41’, JHS 87 (1967), 18–23; Lonsdale (n. 2), 137–68; Morrow (n. 5), 359–62; and M.-H. Delavaud-Roux, Les danses armées in Grèce antique (Aix-en-Provence, 1993).

22 On the normative body in Greek thought: F. Bourriot, Kalos kagathos–kalokagathia: d'un terme de propagande de sophistes à une notion sociale et philosophique (Hildesheim, 1995); A.L. Boegehold, When a Gesture Was Expected: A Selection of Examples from Archaic and Classical Greek Literature (Princeton, 1999); and J. Bremmer, ‘Walking, standing, and sitting in ancient Greek culture’, in id. and H. Roodenburg (edd.), A Cultural History of Gesture (Ithaca, 1991), 15–35.

23 Likely a nod to the Spartan practice of observing helots and perioikoi perform debasing dances: Plut. Lyc. 28.

24 Laws Book 6 elaborates on the tasks of Magnesian administrators (e.g. 759a–b, 759e and 764c–d). On Egyptian models in Laws: I. Rutherford, ‘Strictly ballroom: Egyptian mousike and Plato's comparative poetics’, in A.-E. Peponi (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato's Laws (Cambridge, 2013), 67–83. Plato may be reacting to the mixing of musical modes in the fourth century, for which see Leg. 698a–701c with Kowalzig (n. 2).

25 Resp. 424b–c. The obsession with purity rebounds at Resp. 399e, where Plato bans polyharmonic or multi-stringed instruments that produce variation (ποικίλους … παντοδαπὰς βάσεις).

26 Cf. Phdr. 244a–257a, Phlb. 17d and Symp. 187b–c with, inter alia, A. Laks, ‘Plato's Laws’, in C. Rowe and M. Schofield (edd.), The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought (Cambridge, 2000), 258–92, at 277; id. (n. 1), 227–8; L. Kurke, ‘Imagining chorality: wonder, Plato's puppets, and moving statues’, in A.-E. Peponi (ed.), Performance and Culture in Plato's Laws (Cambridge, 2013), 139–46; Spaltro (n. 2); and Woerther (n. 2), 95–6.

27 See C. Sourvinou-Inwood, Hylas, the Nymphs, Dionysos and Others: Myth, Ritual, Ethnicity (Stockholm, 2005), 103–12 and 149–240 on this divine collectivity in the cultic, mythic, and iconographic record; A. Henrichs, ‘Greek maenadism from Olympias to Messalini’, HSPh 82 (1978), 121–60; and J.N. Bremmer, ‘Greek maenadism reconsidered’, ZPE 55 (1984), 267–86. For the anti-institutional ritual loci of these deities, see F. Graf, ‘Dionysus, madness, and scholarship’, ARG 12 (2010), 167–80, at 175. Lonsdale (n. 2), 261–75 discusses the musical features characteristic of Pan and the Nymphs.

28 Brelich (n. 19), especially 28–44 and 62 n. 33. For the opposite view that Dionysiac dithyramb was collective in its ritual experience, see B. Kowalzig, ‘“And now all the world shall dance!” (Eur. Bacch. 114): Dionysus’ choroi between drama and ritual’, in E. Csapo and M.C. Miller (edd.), The Origins of Theater in Ancient Greece and Beyond: From Ritual to Drama (Cambridge, 2007), 221–51, at 229–31.

29 Seidensticker (n. 9), 227. See also V. Festa, ‘Sikinnis. Storia di un’ antica danza’, Memorie della Reale Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti di Napoli 3 (1918), 35–74. F. Lissarrague, La cité des satyres: une anthropologie ludique (Paris, 2013), 165–7 on the difficulty of determining if Bacchic scenes represent precise dance movements, ecstatic gestures, or instances of chase. Likewise, E. Csapo, Actors and Icons of the Ancient Theater (Chichester/Malden, 2010), 5 problematizes the facile linking of Attic vase paintings with tragic performances. Note [Longinus], Subl. 39.2, however, in which Corybantic revellers are said to dance to measured rhythm and tune.

30 Seidensticker (n. 9), 227–8.

31 On the ambiguity of the Dionysiac, see Calame, C., Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece: Their Morphology, Religious Role, and Social Functions (Lanham, 1997), 134–8Google Scholar; H. Versnel, Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman Religion (Leiden, 1990), 1.131–46; the essays of A. Henrichs (13–43), F. Lissarrague (207–20), and M. Jameson (44–64) in T. Carpenter and C.A. Faraone (edd.), Masks of Dionysus (Ithaca, 1993); A. Henrichs, ‘Changing Dionysiac identities’, in F. Meyer and E.P. Sanders (edd.), Jewish and Christian Self-Definition (London, 1982), 137–60, at 138–9, with Eur. Bacch. 451–7, 821–46.

32 E.R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley, 1951), 76; id., Euripides Bacchae (Oxford, 1960). On hybrid deities: R. Seaford, Dionysos (New York, 2006), 15–25; for visual depictions of Dionysus and his entourage, see G. Hedreen, Silens in Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painting (Ann Arbor, 1992); id., ‘Silens, nymphs, and maenads’, JHS 114 (1994), 47–68; and F. Lissarrague, ‘Why satyrs are good to represent’, in J.J. Winkler and F. Zeitlin (edd.), Nothing to do with Dionysus? (Princeton, 1990), 228–36. Images of satyr drama: Griffith (n. 7), 14–74.

33 This passage has been subject to considerable scholarly discussion: I.M. Linforth, ‘Corybantic rites in Plato’, CPCP 13 (1946), 121–62, at 129–34 and Folch (n. 2), 215–19.

34 Cf. Resp. 364b–365a, Phdr. 244a–d and Ion 533e–534e on the ecstatic rituals of Corybantes and Bacchoi. On chaos and order in the Timaeus, see Laks (n. 26), 226–7. On music, dance and madness, see G. Rouget, Music and Trance: A Theory of the Relations Between Music and Possession (Chicago, 1985), especially 187–226 for the ancient Greek materials.

35 I concur with Linforth (n. 33), 133 that ἕκαστοι suggests that these dances could be applied to various gods associated with mania, i.e. Nymphs, Pans, Sileni and Satyrs. But note the critical remarks on Linforth in Folch (n. 2), 341 n. 52.

36 On music and virtue: Pelosi (n. 2), 68–113. Kamtekar (n. 2), 146: ‘The student ascends from appreciating the order in physical movement to appreciating the more abstract order in mathematics or virtuous action.’

37 Cf. Eur. Cyc. 3–4.

38 See Graf (n. 27), 171; Jeanmaire, H., Dionysos. Histoire du culte de Bacchus (Paris, 1951), 292Google Scholar.

39 Benardete (n. 5), 58: ‘One can say, then, that the triad Muses, Apollo, Dionysus stands to the dyad Muses and Apollo as restoration stands to education. Dionysus set the purpose the Muses and Apollo carry out.’ He follows Strauss, L., The Argument and the Action of Plato's Laws (Chicago, 1975), 23Google Scholar: education takes place through Apollo and the Muses, while Dionysus ‘is responsible for the safeguarding of education’.

40 Pace Schöpsdau (n. 16), 264: ‘Dionysos fehlt bei der, “ersten Erziehung”, da er seine erzieherische Macht erst in dem mit Weingenuss verbundenen Chorgesang der über 30 Jahre alten Sänger entfaltet.’

41 On fifth-century debates between Dionysiac music (and the related aulos) and Apollo and the Muses’ kithara, ‘a symbol and an engine of social order and hierarchy’, see Wilson (n. 3), 183.

42 Lonsdale (n. 2), 81–3 calls Dionysus a ‘competing prototype of dance’ to Apollo but without further explanation. Indeed, J.J. Bachofen aligns with Plato in his ordering of cultural stages embedded within a narrative of progress, wherein the masculine and civilizing Apolline Kulturgeist replaces the Dionysian. Where Nietzsche stresses the coexistence of conflicting cultural drives, Bachofen (echoing Plato) perceives the transition from Dionysus to Apollo as one sweeping succession resulting in heightened formalism and order. On Bachofen's cultural stages, see B. Lincoln, ‘From Bergaigne to Meuli: how animal sacrifice became a hot topic’, in C.A. Faraone and F.S. Naiden (edd.), Greek and Roman Animal Sacrifice: Ancient Victims, Modern Observers (Oxford, 2012), 13–31, at 25–6.

43 Cf. P. Voelke, Un théâtre de la marge (Bari, 2001), 143–9.

44 Ariadne myth: Pherec. FGrHist 3 F 148; Diod. Sic. 4.61, 5.51; Paus. 1.20.3, 10.29.4; on Zeus and the Cretan Nymphs: Diod. Sic. 5.70; Apollod. Bibl. 1.1.6.

45 So Panno (n. 2), 148 and Morrow (n. 5), 315: ‘The wild Dionysiac dances are perhaps to be excluded, but not the spirit of Dionysus.’

46 M. Tecusan, ‘Logos sympotikos: patterns of the irrational in philosophical drinking: Plato outside the Symposium’, in O. Murray (ed.), Sympotica (Oxford, 1990), 238–60, at 244–51; Belfiore, E., ‘Wine and catharsis of the emotions in Plato's Laws’, CQ 36 (1986), 421–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; A. Larivée, ‘Du vin pour le college de veille? Mise en lumiere d'un lien occulté entre le choeur de Dionysos et le νυκτερινὸς σύλλογος dans les Lois de Platon’, Phronesis 48 (2003), 29–53; and Strauss (n. 39), 19–21, 32–3, 36, with Leg. 665e–666c, 674a–c, 775b and Cri. 49d1–5.

47 See S. Olson, ‘Kinesthetic choreia: empathy, memory, and dance in ancient Greece’, CPh (2017), 153–74, especially 165–7 for a related argument about elders in tragic choruses. Murnaghan, S., ‘The nostalgia of the male tragic chorus’, in Billings, J., Budelmann, F. and Macintosh, F. (edd.), Choruses, Ancient and Modern (Oxford, 2014), 173–88Google Scholar: ‘Being old means not being able to dance, and thus having no place in the idealized community of the chorus’ (at 176).

48 Laks (n. 1), 283: the Nocturnal Council safeguarding the laws exercises only intellectual and not political authority.

49 Pace Benardete (n. 5), 76: ‘The chorus of children would thus be alone in leading the best life, and everyone else in the city be continuously coming closer to despair as they departed more and more from what time by itself would put out of reach.’