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anapaestic, which is typical of marches. They were accompanied by an aulete, but they also carried lyres and swept across the strings with their plectrums. Following a parade of riders on horses with richly ornamented trappings, further massed choirs of young men appeared and sang songs by older Spartan poets, accompanied on the aulos, while at the same time dancers performed the appropriate traditional movements. There were also processions of girls in brightly painted wagons, and enough animals were sacrificed for all the citizens not only to eat well themselves but also to treat their slaves and their friends).32 Other sources refer to a paean sung by men as an important feature of the festival, and to women's choruses dancing at night.33 |
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From state festivals we turn to ceremonies or celebrations that arise from private events (weddings, funerals, etc.) but are also to some extent in the public domain; they spill out of the house, as it were, and involve the whole neighbourhood. |
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One of the principal episodes in a Greek wedding was the conveyance of the bride by the groom from her father's house to her new home. They rode in a wagon, accompanied by all their friends and well-wishers, who waved torches and sang a hymenaeum, while others danced or played instruments. Homer describes such a procession in his account of the shield of Achilles: |
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They were conducting brides from their chambers by torchlight
through the city, and the hymenaeal rang loud;
young male dancers spun about, and among them
auloi and lyres sang out, while the women
standing in their doorways admired it all.34 |
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In an imitation of the passage a sixth-century poet adds dancing choruses and singing to panpipes; there are women dancing to lyres, besides a rout of young men led by a piper.35 But it is Sappho who gives the vividest account of such a scene in her poem on the wedding of Hector and Andromache. As Hector brings his bride into Troy, everyone takes to chariots and mule-cars to accompany him. |
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32 Polycrates, FGrH 588 F I (probably late Hellenistic period). |
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33 Xen. Ages 2. 17; Eur. Hel. 1465ff.; Hieron. Adv. Iovinian 1. 308 M.; Nilsson (as n. 25), 137. |
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34Il. 18. 492-6. |
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35 Ps.-Hes. Sc. 272-85. |
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