Men historically have been burdened with fighting in wars gender-structured as violence against men. Women warriors, however, have achieved prominence in public discourse throughout history. In ancient Greek culture, the goddesses Athena and Artemis were eminent women warriors, as were the Amazons. Moreover, men in ancient Greece delighted in viewing nearly naked women performing Pyrrhic war dance. Mortal women warriors did not, however, contribute significantly to Greek military action. As thoughtful Greek military and civic leader Xenophon recognized in his story about conflict between Greek mercenaries and Paphlagonians, women Pyrrhic dancers in ancient Greece show men’s propensity to credit women imaginatively apart from women’s actual responsibility. That propensity impedes actual progress toward gender equality.
The ancient Greek philosopher Plato argued that women should have significant military responsibility. He declared that girls as well as boys, and women as well as men, should receive military training:
We are establishing gymnasiums and all physical exercises connected with military training, including the use of the bow and all kinds of missiles, light skirmishing and heavy-armed fighting of every description, tactical deployments, company-marching, camp-formations, and all the details of cavalry training. In all these subjects there should be public instructors, paid by the State. Their pupils should be not only the boys and men in the State, but also the girls and women. The women will understand all these matters — being practiced in all military drills and fighting while still girls. When grown to womanhood, they will take part in deployments and rank-forming and the piling and shouldering of arms. They will do this, if for no other reason, at least for this reason: if ever the guards of the children and of the rest of the city should be obliged to leave the city and march out in full force, these women should be able at least to take their place. If, on the other hand — and this is quite a possible contingency — an invading army of foreigners, fierce and strong, should force a battle around the city itself, then it would be a sore disgrace to the State if its women were so badly raised as not even to be willing to do as do the mother-birds. Mother-birds fight the strongest beasts in defense of their broods. If, instead of facing all risks, even death itself, our women would run straight to the temples and crowd all the shrines and holy places, they would drown humanity in the disgrace of being the most craven of living creatures.
{ γυμνάσια γὰρ τίθεμεν καὶ τὰ περὶ τὸν πόλεμον ἅπαντα τοῖς σώμασι διαπονήματα τοξικῆς τε καὶ πάσης ῥίψεως καὶ πελταστικῆς καὶ Επάσης ὁπλομαχίας καὶ διεξόδων τακτικῶν καὶ ἁπάσης πορείας στρατοπέδων καὶ στρατοπεδεύσεων καὶ ὅσα εἰς ἱππικὴν μαθήματα συντείνει. πάντων γὰρ τούτων διδασκάλους τε εἶναι δεῖ κοινούς, ἀρνυμένους μισθὸν παρὰ τῆς πόλεως, καὶ τούτων μαθητὰς τοὺς ἐν τῇ πόλει παῖδάς τε καὶ ἄνδρας, καὶ κόρας καὶ γυναῖκας πάντων τούτων ἐπιστήμονας, κόρας μὲν οὔσας ἔτι πᾶσαν τὴν ἐν ὅπλοις ὄρχησιν καὶ μάχην μεμελετηκυίας, γυναῖκας δὲ διεξόδων καὶ τάξεων καὶ θέσεως καὶ ἀναιρέσεως ὅπλων ἡμμένας, εἰ μηδενὸς ἕνεκα ἄλλου, ἀλλ᾿ εἴ ποτε δεήσειε πανδημεὶ πάσῃ τῇ δυνάμει καταλείποντας τὴν πόλιν ἔξω στρατεύεσθαι τοὺς φυλάξαντας παῖδάς τε καὶ τὴν ἄλλην πόλιν, ἱκανοὺς εἶναι τό γε τοσοῦτον, ἢ καὶ τοὐναντίον, ὅγ᾿ οὐδὲν ἀπώμοτον, ἔξωθεν πολεμίους εἰσπεσόντας ῥώμῃ τινὶ μεγάλῃ καὶ βίᾳ, βαρβάρους εἴτε Ἕλληνας, ἀνάγκην παρασχεῖν περὶ αὐτῆς τῆς πόλεως τὴν διαμάχην γίγνεσθαι, πολλή που κακία πολιτείας οὕτως αἰσχρῶς τὰς γυναῖκας εἶναι τεθραμμένας, ὡς μηδ᾿ ὥσπερ ὄρνιθας περὶ τέκνων μαχομένας πρὸς ὁτιοῦν τῶν ἰσχυροτάτων θηρίων ἐθέλειν ἀποθνήσκειν τε καὶ πάντας κινδύνους κινδυνεύειν, ἀλλ᾿ εὐθὺς πρὸς ἱερὰ φερομένας πάντας βωμούς τε καὶ ναοὺς ἐμπιπλάναι καὶ δόξαν τοῦ τῶν ἀνθρώπων γένους καταχεῖν ὡς πάντων δειλότατον φύσει θηρίων ἐστίν. }[1]
Orosius and other ancient historians recognized that women could be fierce and brutal fighters. Nonetheless, in ancient Greece, as in most other societies throughout history, boys but not girls were trained to fight in wars. Almost exclusively men fought and died on battlefields of institutionalized violence.
Despite Greek women not fighting in ancient Greek military actions, Greek men enjoyed watching naked or nearly naked women dance the Pyrrhic war dance. Pyrrhic dance consists of movements like that of a soldier engaged in close, armed fighting.[2] After 460 BGC, numerous ancient Greek vases show paintings of women doing Pyrrhic dance. The majority of these women are naked. The vases seem to be associated mainly with men’s symposia (banquets), the hiring of women dancers, or the training of women dancers. Based on surviving artifacts, vase paintings of women doing Pyrrhic dance apparently were most popular from 440 BGC to 420 BGC.[3] Like accounts of Amazon women warriors, women doing Pyrrhic dance seem to have pleased men’s erotic imagination in democratic Athens.
About half a century after ancient Greek vase paintings of women doing Pyrrhic dance were most numerous, the Athenian military and civic leader Xenophon included in his Anabasis {Ἀνάβασις} a story about a woman performing a Pyrrhic dance. The Anabasis recounts the experience of a large Greek mercenary army (the Ten Thousand) hired to help the Achaemenid prince Cyrus the Younger seize the Achaemenid throne from his brother Artaxerxes II. As the Greek mercenaries traveled back to Greece from Persia, they plundered food in Paphlagonia along the Black Sea in present-day Turkey. The Paphlagonians in turn attacked relatively vulnerable small groups of Greek soldiers. Relations between the Greeks and the Paphlagonians became very hostile:
Then Corylas, who happened at that time to be ruler of Paphlagonia, sent ambassadors to the Greeks. The ambassadors, who rode horses and wore fine clothes, carried word that Corylas was ready to do the Greeks no wrong and to suffer no wrong at their hands. The Greek generals replied that they would take counsel with the Greek army on this matter, but meanwhile they received the Paphlagonian ambassadors as their guests at dinner. The Greek generals also invited to the dinner other men in the Greek army as seemed to them best entitled to an invitation. By sacrificing some of the cattle they had captured and also other animals, the Greeks provided an adequate feast. All dined reclining upon straw mats and drank from cups made of horn found in the country.
{ ὁ δὲ Κορύλας, ὃς ἐτύγχανε τότε Παφλαγονίας ἄρχων, πέμπει παρὰ τοὺς Ἕλληνας πρέσβεις ἔχοντας ἵππους καὶ στολὰς καλάς, λέγοντας ὅτι Κορύλας ἕτοιμος εἴη τοὺς Ἕλληνας μήτε ἀδικεῖν μήτε ἀδικεῖσθαι. οἱ δὲ στρατηγοὶ ἀπεκρίναντο ὅτι περὶ μὲν τούτων σὺν τῇ στρατιᾷ βουλεύσοιντο, ἐπὶ ξένια δὲ ἐδέχοντο αὐτούς· παρεκάλεσαν δὲ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀνδρῶν οὓς ἐδόκουν δικαιοτάτους εἶναι. θύσαντες δὲ τῶν αἰχμαλώτων βοῶν καὶ ἄλλα ἱερεῖα εὐωχίαν μὲν ἀρκοῦσαν παρεῖχον, κατακείμενοι δὲ ἐν στιβάσιν ἐδείπνουν, καὶ ἔπινον ἐκ κερατίνων ποτηρίων, οἷς ἐνετύγχανον ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ. }[4]
This banquet was in effect a diplomatic affair. It provided a hospitable context for settling peacefully the violent conflict between the Paphlagonians and the traveling Greek mercenary soldiers.
At the banquet, Greek soldiers performed war dances ostensibly for entertainment. First two Thracian men danced in full armor to flute music. After some sparring with sabers, one pretended to kill the other and despoil him of his weapons. The victor marched out singing. Other Thracian men carried out the soldier pretending to be dead. The Paphlagonians misunderstood this artful acting. They lamented the Thracian soldier’s death.
The next dance was particularly relevant to the diplomatic occasion. This dance, which Xenophon called the “carpaea {καρπαία},” realistically represented the conflict between Paphlagonian farmers and the Greek mercenary soldiers:
The manner of the dance was this: a man who has laid aside his weapons is sowing by driving his cattle. He turns about frequently, as would a man in fear. A roving bandit approaches. As soon as the sower sees him coming, he grabs his arms, goes to meet him, and fights with him to save his yoked cattle. The two men do all this in rhythm to flute music. In the end, the roving bandit binds the man and steals the yoked cattle. Sometimes, the cattle’s master binds the roving bandit and yokes him along with the cattle. With the roving bandit’s hands tied behind him, the sower then drives on.
{ ὁ δὲ τρόπος τῆς ὀρχήσεως ἦν, ὁ μὲν παραθέμενος τὰ ὅπλα σπείρει καὶ ζευγηλατεῖ πυκνὰ μεταστρεφόμενος ὡς φοβούμενος, λῃστὴς δὲ προσέρχεται· ὁ δ᾿ ἐπὰν προΐδηται, ἀπαντᾷ ἁρπάσας τὰ ὅπλα καὶ μάχεται πρὸ τοῦ ζεύγους· καὶ οὗτοι ταῦτ᾿ ἐποίουν ἐν ῥυθμῷ πρὸς τὸν αὐλόν· καὶ τέλος ὁ λῃστὴς δήσας τὸν ἄνδρα καὶ τὸ ζεῦγος ἀπάγει· ἐνίοτε δὲ καὶ ὁ ζευγηλάτης τὸν λῃστήν· εἶτα παρὰ τοὺς βοῦς ζεύξας ὀπίσω τὼ χεῖρε δεδεμένον ἐλαύνει. }[5]
Xenophon’s concluding description of alternatives destroys the mimesis. Xenophon seems to be prompting the reader to consider critically the action at a higher level of abstraction. Conflict between nomads and farmers have deep historical and mythic roots.[6] In Xenophon’s time, the dominance of sedentary civilizations wasn’t clear. The conflict between the Paphlagonians and the roving Greek mercenaries points to a more general conflict relevant to civic leaders.
Two further dances were less representational. A Mysian soldier entered and performed a dance simulating combat between two and then one enemy soldiers. He “was whirling and doing aerial somersaults while holding shields {τοτὲ δ’ ἐδινεῖτο καὶ ἐξεκυβίστα ἔχων τὰς πέλτας}.”[7] He thus danced “so as to make a fine spectacle {ὥστε ὄψιν καλὴν φαίνεσθαι}.” He then did a different, Persian war dance. Subsequently, Mantinean and Arcadian soldiers, dressed richly in arms, came forward and marched, sang, and danced as if at a festival for the gods. These dances clearly weren’t mimesis of violent conflict.
The final dance at the diplomatic dinner was the most significant and the most influential. The presentation of exclusively war dances created a diplomatic incident:
As they watched, the Paphlagonians were horrified that all the dances were under arms. Seeing that they were astounded by this, the Mysian man persuaded one of the Arcadians who had a dancing girl to let him bring her in after first dressing her in the finest way he could and giving her a light shield. She danced the Pyrrhic with grace. That was followed with great applause, and the Paphlagonians asked whether the Greeks’ women also fought alongside their men. The Greeks replied that these very women had routed the king from his camp. So the evening ended.
{ ὁρῶντες δὲ οἱ Παφλαγόνες δεινὰ ἐποιοῦντο πάσας τὰς ὀρχήσεις ἐν ὅπλοις εἶναι. ἐπὶ τούτοις ὁρῶν ὁ Μυσὸς ἐκπεπληγμένους αὐτούς, πείσας τῶν Ἀρκάδων τινὰ πεπαμένον ὀρχηστρίδα εἰσάγει σκευάσας ὡς ἐδύνατο κάλλιστα καὶ ἀσπίδα δοὺς κούφην αὐτῇ. ἡ δὲ ὠρχήσατο πυρρίχην ἐλαφρῶς. ἐνταῦθα κρότος ἦν πολύς, καὶ οἱ Παφλαγόνες ἤροντο εἰ καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες συνεμάχοντο αὐτοῖς. οἱ δ᾿ ἔλεγον ὅτι αὗται καὶ αἱ τρεψάμεναι εἶεν βασιλέα ἐκ τοῦ στρατοπέδου. τῇ μὲν οὖν νυκτὶ ταύτῃ τοῦτο τὸ τέλος ἐγένετο. }[8]
Greek women warriors surely hadn’t routed the Paphlagonian king from his camp. Men, however, love to credit women, even if that credit has no factual basis. A beautiful woman gracefully dancing a war dance provides men with an imaginative victory over harsh reality.
The Greeks quickly concluded the diplomatic matter. They demanded nothing from the Paphlagonian ambassadors:
On the next day, the Greeks introduced the ambassadors to the army. The Greek soldiers passed a resolution to do the Paphlagonians no wrong and to suffer no wrong at their hands.
{ Τῇ δὲ ὑστεραίᾳ προσῆγον αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ στράτευμα· καὶ ἔδοξε τοῖς στρατιώταις μήτε ἀδικεῖν Παφλαγόνας μήτε ἀδικεῖσθαι. }
The Greek soldiers thus literally accepted the terms that the Paphlagonian king Corylas had given them. Corylas has proposed “to do the Greeks no wrong and to suffer no wrong at their hands {Ἕλληνας μήτε ἀδικεῖν μήτε αὐτὸς ἀδικεῖσθαι}.” After the diplomatic dinner and all the war dances, including a Greek woman’s Pyrrhic dance, the Greeks soldiers resolved “to do the Paphlagonians no wrong and to suffer no wrong at their hands {μήτε ἀδικεῖν Παφλαγόνας μήτε ἀδικεῖσθαι}.” Emphasizing their commitment to not further pillage the Paphlagonians, the Greek army promptly sailed away from Paphlagonia. The Greeks apparently didn’t believe the asserted martial prowess of Greek women. They apparently didn’t even believe that the Paphlagonians were intimidated by the Greek display of martial dances, including a woman performing Pyrrhic dance. Within Xenophon’s story, the woman’s Pyrrhic dance and the claim about Greek women’s military success is treated as a fantasy.[9] Xenophon apparently had contempt for men’s delight in women’s Pyrrhic dancing.
Women’s Pyrrhic dance in ancient Greek served as an idle distraction from military and gender reality. Only Greek men actually were taught to fight and die in institutionalized violence against men such as the horrific and stupid Trojan War. Moreover, while women predominately danced for pleasure, men who danced for pleasure tended to be disparaged as “effeminate.” In ancient Athens, artistic representations of Pyrrhic dance shifted with the rise of democracy from showing men Pyrrhic dancers to showing women Pyrrhic dancers.[10] More extensive and more competitive public discourse seems to favor gender delusions that both men and women enjoy. Those delusions are Pyrrhic victories that impede true progress toward gender equality.
* * * * *
Read more:
- men dancing for war and pleasure in ancient Greek poetry
- Danish woman-warrior Alvild fought like a man and loved a man
- Lysistrata leads men’s strike: “Not while I’m bleeding!”
Notes:
[1] Plato, Laws {Νόμοι} 813D-814B (Book 7), words of the Athenian stranger {Ἀθηναῖος ξένος}, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Bury (1926). The Athenian subsequently queries:
Shall we, then, lay down this law: that up to the point stated, women must not neglect military training, but all citizens, men and women alike, must pay attention to it?
{ Οὐκοῦν τιθῶμεν τὸν νόμον τοῦτον, μέχρι γε τοσούτου μὴ ἀμελεῖσθαι τὰ περὶ τὸν πόλεμον γυναιξὶ δεῖν, ἐπιμελεῖσθαι δὲ πάντας τοὺς πολίτας καὶ τὰς πολίτιδας }
Plato, Laws {Νόμοι} 814C (Book 7), sourced as previously. The Athenian’s interlocutor Cleinias {Κλεινίας} readily agrees to this proposal.
[2] Ancient Greek Pyrrhic dance (pyrrhichē {πυρρίχη}) had a “striking warlike character.” Ceccarelli (2004) p. 91. In the Iliad, Hector’s dance for Ares amid the horrific Trojan War probably was a forerunner of Pyrrhic dance. For Hector’s dance for Ares, Iliad 7.237-43. Fifth-century BGC texts and vase paintings attest to Pyrrhic dance. Plato described this war dance:
The warlike dance division, being distinct from the peaceful, one may rightly call Pyrrhic. It represents modes of eluding all kinds of blows and shots by swerving and ducking and side-leaps upward or crouching. It also represents the opposite kinds of motion, which lead to active postures of offense, when it strives to represent the movements involved in shooting with bows or darts, and blows of every description.
{ τὴν πολεμικὴν δὴ τούτων, ἄλλην οὖσαν τῆς εἰρηνικῆς, πυῤῥίχην ἄν τις ὀρθῶς προσαγορεύοι, τάς τε εὐλαβείας πασῶν πληγῶν καὶ βολῶν ἐκνεύσεσι καὶ ὑπείξει πάσῃ καὶ ἐκπηδήσεσιν ἐν ὕψει καὶ ξὺν ταπεινώσει μιμουμένην, καὶ τὰς ταύταις ἐναντίας, τὰς ἐπὶ τὰ δραστικὰ φερομένας αὖ σχήματα ἔν τε ταῖς τῶν τόξων βολαῖς καὶ ἀκοντίων καὶ πασῶν πληγῶν μιμήματα ἐπιχειροῦσαν1 μιμεῖσθαι. }
Plato, Laws {Νόμοι} 815A (Book 7), sourced as previously. Ancient Greek Pyrrhic dance was performed at contests, festivals, and temple ceremonies. It was “the most eminent martial dance.” Vickers (2016a) p. 41. On Pyrrhic dance, Ceccarelli (2004), Ceccarelli (1998), Goulaki-Voutira (1996), and Poursat (1968).
Pyrrhic dance apparent changed character from fifth-century BGC Greece to the second-century GC Roman Empire. Writing at the end of the second century GC, Athenaeus remarked:
The pyrrichê {Pyrrhic dance} of our times is rather Dionysiac in character and is more respectable than the ancient kind. For the dancers carry Bacchic wands in place of spears, they also hurl at one another fennel stalks, they carry torches, and they dance the story of Dionysus and India, as well as the story of Pentheus.
{ ἡ δὲ καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς πυρρίχη Διονυσιακή τις εἶναι δοκεῖ, ἐπιεικεστέρα οὖσα τῆς ἀρχαίας· ἔχουσι γὰρ οἱ ὀρχούμενοι θύρσους ἀντὶ δοράτων, προΐενται δὲ ἐπ᾿ ἀλλήλους νάρθηκας καὶ λαμπάδας φέρουσιν ὀρχοῦνταί τε τὰ περὶ τὸν Διόνυσον καὶ | τοὺς Ἰνδούς, ἔτι τε τὰ περὶ τὸν Πενθέα. }
Athenaeus of Naucratis, The Learned Banqueters / Deipnosophistae {Δειπνοσοφισταί} 14.631ab (29), ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Olson (2006-2012).
[3] On women Pyrrhic dancers being naked in the majority of surviving paintings, Poursat (1968) p. 605 and Goulaki-Voutira (1996) p. 4. On the chronology of representations of women performing Pyrrhic dance, Osborne (2018) p. 164, Poursat (1968) p. 604. On women’s Pyrrhic dancing mainly occurring at symposia, id p. 8, Douka (2008), and Osborne (2018) pp. 186-7. On dancing at symposia more generally, Olsen (2017) and Jesus (2009). Xenophon’s Symposium describes a boy and girl dancing for the entertainment of the symposiasts. Women also did Pyrrhic dances in services for the goddesses Artemis and Athena. Poursat (1968) pp. 599-604 and Valdés Guía (2020). For a tendentious, resolutely gynocentric analysis, Delavaud-Roux (2017). Women also danced at women’s social gatherings, such as when Nausicaa and her servant-women gathered to wash clothes by the seashore. Odyssey 6.112-21.
Watching dancing was associated with the pleasures of symposia:
Let us fasten garlands
of roses on our brows
and get drunk, laughing gently.
Let a gorgeous-ankled girl
dance to the lyre, carrying
the thyrsus with its rich ivy tresses.
With her let a boy, soft-haired
and with sweet-smelling
mouth, play the lyre,
pouring forth a clear song.{ στεφάνους μὲν κροτάφοισι
ῥοδίνους συναρμόσαντες
μεθύωμεν ἁβρὰ γελῶντες.
ὑπὸ βαρβίτῳ δὲ κούρα
κατακίσσοισι βρύοντας
πλοκάμοις φέρουσα θύρσους
χλιδανόσφυρος χορεύῃ.
ἁβροχαίτας δ᾿ ἅμα κοῦρος
στομάτων ἁδὺ πνεόντων
κατὰ πηκτίδων ἀθύρῃ
προχέων λίγειαν ὀμφάν. }
Anacreontea 43.1-11, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified insubstantially) from Campbell (1988).
[4] Xenophon of Athens, Anabasis {Ἀνάβασις} 6.1.2-4, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified slightly) from Brownson & Dillery (1998). Subsequent quotes above are similarly sourced from Xenophon, Anabasis 6.1.8-14. Vickers (2016b) provides a slightly modified translation of Anabasis 6.1.1-15. The Greek army of mercenaries is conventionally known as the Ten Thousand.
[5] Here “roving bandit” translates the ancient Greek λῃστής, which describes a robber, pirate, or buccaneer and comes from the Epic form ληΐς, meaning booty or spoils. Xenophon used a similar term in describing actions of some of the Greek mercenaries: “and others (of the Greek mercenary army) lived by pillaging in Paphlagonia {οἱ δὲ καὶ λῃζόμενοι ἐκ τῆς Παφλαγονίας}.” Anabasis 6.1.1.
[6] E.g. the conflict between Abel the pastoralist and Cain the farmer in Genesis 4:1-16. The Sumerian myth The debate between Winter and Summer hints of conflict between farmer and the sheep-herder. It describes a conflict between the brothers Winter (the god Enten, perhaps associated with a farmer and stored grain) and Summer (the god Emesh, perhaps associated with sheep-herders). The head god Enlil declares Enten to be a faithful farmer and superior to Emesh. Here’s the Sumerian composite text and an English translation via ETCSL. Kramer called this work Emesh and Enten: Enlil Chooses the Farmer-God and described it as “the closest extant Sumerian parallel to the Biblical Cain-Abel story.” Kramer (1972) p. 49.
Highly developed mobile societies continued to exist in central Eurasia long after the rise of cites in northern Mesopotamia and elsewhere. These mobile societies moved long distances. Mongol invasions of Eastern Europe early in the thirteenth century and the Mongol sacking of Baghdad in 1258 indicate a type of military threat that Xenophon probably recognized about 1600 years earlier.
[7] On interpreting the described bodily movements, Vickers (2016a) pp. 36-7.
[8] The reactions of the Paphlagonians to all the martial dances (Anabasis 6.1.12) is δεινὰ ἐποιοῦντο: “they thought it most strange,” Brownson & Dillery (1998); “they were indignant,” Vickers (2016a) p. 30, Vickers (2016b) handout. The Paphlagonians here are also described as “indignant/upset.” Vickers (2016a) p. 33.The ancient Greek adjective δεινός encompasses horrible, fear-inspiring, and strange. In the next sentence, the Mysian soldier observes that the Paphlagonians “were astonished {ἐκπεπληγμένους αὐτούς}.” The Paphlagonians feeling “resentment” doesn’t seem fitting here. Cf. Vickers (2016a) p. 30. Given the overall context, I’ve translated δεινὰ ἐποιοῦντο as “they were horrified.”
In “they (the Greeks) said that these very women had routed the king from his camp {οἱ δ᾿ ἔλεγον ὅτι αὗται καὶ αἱ τρεψάμεναι εἶεν βασιλέα ἐκ τοῦ στρατοπέδου}” (Anabasis 6.1.13), the referent of “king {βᾰσῐλεύς}” isn’t clear. It’s typically taken to be the Persian king Artaxerxes II. E.g. Olsen (2021) p. 189; Olsen (2017) p. 28, n. 33; Vickers (2016a) p. 30; Flower (2012) p. 185; Ma (2010) p. 512. Flower takes this claim to be an allusion to the action of the concubine from Miletus in Anabasis 1.10.2-3. Flower (2012) p. 185. However, the Paphlagonians weren’t plausibly aware of that action, nor of the Persian king of kings being in some “camp {στρᾰτόπεδον}.” Making an incomprehensible quip to the Paphlagonians isn’t conversationally reasonable. In context, “king {βᾰσῐλεύς}” makes better sense as an obviously ridiculous reference to the Paphlagonian leader Corylas, whom Xenophon previously called “ruler {ᾰ̓́ρχων}.” The Paphlagonians would recognize a reference to Corylas as “king {βᾰσῐλεύς}” to be bombastic and the alleged military action of the Greek women to be ridiculously fictitious. They would laugh along with the Greeks at it. This interpretation is consistent with Xenophon’s ending of the story, as analyzed above.
[9] At least one ancient Greek reader seems to have read in a simple, partisan way Xenophon’s story about the conflict with the Paphlagonians. Modern scholars have scarcely been more critical. A leading study of the Anabasis declared:
Whether Xenophon intended this “grim pleasantry” {the claim that Greek women routed the king} simply to be read in context as a means for the Ten Thousand to inspire fear in the Paphlagonians (you had better not mess with us when even our women can fight in pitched battles) or to serve as a timeless example of how simple it is for Greeks to defeat Persians, one can readily imagine why later Greek readers would have picked up on the latter implication.
Flower (2012) pp. 185-6, with “grim pleasantry” quoting the Hellenistic writer Demetrius, On Style 131. Id. p. 185. Neither of these two alternative interpretations provide a perceptive, sophisticated reading of Xenophon’s story.
Modern scholarly readers have projected their own fantasies onto Xenophon’s story. One scholar declared:
The dances, whatever their original context (symposiastic or festive), are used for a purpose, to entertain but also to intimidate the Paphlagonians, by giving an image of the prowess, the diversity but also the unity of the Ten Thousand: fencing, light infantry raiding and footwork, hoplitic square-bashing. (The Paphlagonians duly ask for alliance after these terrifying displays.)
Ma (2010) pp. 511-2. The Paphlagonians didn’t “ask for alliance after these terrifying displays.” After these displays, the Greeks accepted the terms that the Paphlagonian ambassadors had brought to Greeks prior to the banquet.
Modern scholars have interpreted the dance show more literally and more obtusely than the Paphlagonians probably did. One scholar declared:
The series of dances, taken together, indicates the performers’ martial, physical, and even cultural superiority.
Vickers (2016a) p. 33. The Greek mercenaries thus enacted a “cultural triumph of martial mousike.” Id. p. 35. The woman’s Pyrrhic dance was “the climax {sic} of the evening” and helped the Greek mercenary army to “convey an impression of martial strength.” Baragwanath (2019) p. 124. In a presentation entitled, “The Cultural Triumph of Martial Dance in Xenophon’s Anabasis 6.1.1-14,” Vickers declared:
I argue that the sequence of performances is purposefully crafted to create a choreographic narrative, which substitutes for actual battle; the Greek army ‘defeats’ the Paphlagonians with dance, not war.
Vickers (2016b). The fictive quality of this literary analysis becomes inescapably clear with a textual citation:
The message of the evening’s entertainment is inescapable, and the Paphlagonians duly accept peace (6.1.14). The episode and its dancing warriors indeed showcase the cultural superiority of the Ten Thousand, and their martial prowess.
Id. In Anabasis 6.1.14, the Paphlagonian ambassadors don’t speak or act. In that passage, the Greek mercenary army (the Ten Thousand) unconditionally accept the Paphlagonian king’s prior terms for peace.
Scholars seem to have idealized the Greek mercenary army in a way that Xenophon didn’t. A scholar thus perceived that the Greeks’ performance for the Paphlagonians sent the message that “the Greeks are powerful and ever-ready warriors, who use weapons skillfully even in their leisure-time pursuit of dance.” Olsen (2016) p. 176, Olsen (2021) p. 191. That interpretation is then bluntly forced upon Xenophon’s story:
When the Greeks subsequently make peace with the Paphlagonians and depart from the region (ἔδοξε τοῖς στρατιώταις μήτε ἀδικεῖν Παφλαγόνας μήτε ἀδικεῖσθαι, 6.1.14), the agreement is tinged by the prior evening’s display of Greek force and skill. Xenophon implies that the Greek army possesses the ability to defeat the Paphlagonians by force, but instead magnanimously agrees to leave them in peace.
Olsen (2016) p. 176, Olsen (2021) p. 191. Xenophon was a sophisticated rhetorician. He wrote nothing indicating that the Greek mercenaries “magnanimously” agreed to leave the Paphlagonians in peace. In contrast, the ending of his story is meaningfully jarring.
[10] Athenian pottery made before 460 BGC depicts men doing Pyrrhic dances. After that date, only women Pyrrhic dancers appear on Athenian pottery. Osborne (2018) p. 164, Poursat (1968) p. 604. Depictions of women performing Pyrrhic dance apparently were most popular from 440 BGC to 420 BGC. Depictions of Pyrrhic dance subsequently became rare. Poursat (1968) p. 604. The change from representing men Pyrrhic dancers to representing women Pyrrhic dancers is a component of a broad pattern of change in the content of paintings of everyday life on Athenian pottery. The change in the content and style of Athenian paintings seems to be linked to the rise of democratic values and greater appreciation for contemplation and collaboration. Osborne (2018). The gender structure of dance in ancient Greece illustrates the instrumentalization and devaluation of men’s lives. The importance of public deliberation in driving such a change is consistent with Georges Duby’s rise to eminence as a scholar of medieval women.
[images] (1) Pyrrhic dancer and aulos-player. Painting by the Cassel painter on a red-figure krater (vessel for mixing wine and water). Painted in Athens about 440-430 BGC. Preserved as inventory # Cp 761; G 480 in the Louvre Museum (Paris, France), which supplied the source image.
(2) Women Pyrrhic dancers, depicted along with the winged god Eros and the young man Kallias, charged with mutilating herms. In a lower register, a young man amorously pursues a young woman. Painting by the Polygnotos group on an Attic red-figure hydria (water jug). Painted about 430 BGC in Athens. Preserved as inventory # 4014 in Museo Archaeologico Nazionale, Firenze (Florence, Italy). Source image thanks to ArchaiOptix and Wikimedia Commons. This hydria is Beazly Archive 213776. For some artistic analysis, Matheson (1995) p. 287, which catalogs it as PGU 168.
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(3) Woman dancer / acrobat. Above her are beads and two tympana (drums), instruments associated with dancing. Painting by the Foundling Painter and made on a red-figure hydria. Painted about 340-330 BGC in Campania, Italy. Preserved as museum # 1814,0704.566 in the British Museum, which supplied the source image.
(4) Women Pyrrhic dancers in a banquet scene. The winged god Eros is next to the leftmost woman Pyrrhic dancer and next to the woman aulos-player. Painted about 430 BGC on a red-figure hydria made in Athens. Preserved as item # 7359 in the National Museum of Denmark (Copenhagen), which supplied the source image under a CC-BY-SA license via Osborne (2018) Plate 27. For discussion of this painting, id. pp. 164-6.
(5) Young woman doing Pyrrhic dance as part of women’s physical training. Painted by Polygnotos on a red-figure hydria in Athens c. 440 BGC. Preserved as item H3232 (Naples, inv. 81398) in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy. For additional photos of this painting and some analysis, Matheson (1995) pp. 23-5, including Plate 17. Matheson cataloged this hydria as P 67.
(6) Young woman performing Pyrrhic dance at an ancient Greek symposium. Perhaps a symposium of the gods (Dionysian feasting), with the goddess Athena doing Pyrrhic dance. Painted about 400 BGC on an Athenian red-figure krater by a painter associated with the Talos Painter. Preserved as item H 5708 in the Martin von Wagner Museum (Würzburg, Germany), also cataloged as ARV 1339 5 / Beazley Archive 217527. Source image thanks to ArchaiOptix and Wikimedia Commons. Here’s an alternate image.
(7) Women Pyrrhic dancer and aulos-player between two young men, with temple in background. Painting by the Pothos painter on red-figure krater made in Athens in the second half of the fifth century BGC. Preserved as item 732 in Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria, which supplied the source image. Also cataloged as Beazley Archive 215764.
For additional, freely available images of women performing Pyrrhic dance, Poursat (1968) and Goulaki-Voutira (1995). A painting of a woman Pyrrhic dancer running in front of men symposiasts, Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale: STG 281 (Beazley Archive 213564), attributed to the Lykaon Painter, is shown in Osborne (2018) p. 184 (Figure 7.19) and Matheson (1995) p. 94 (Plate 70).
(8) Two young men doing Pyrrhic dance. Painted on an Attic red-figure hydria by a painter similar to the Dikaios painter. Part of the Pioneer Group. Painted about 500 BGC. Preserved as accession # 21.88.2 (credit: Rogers Fund, 1921) in The Met Museum, New York, USA, which supplied the source image.
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