Erik Gelers

The Pyrrhichios dance ("Pyrrhic dance"; Ancient Greek: πυρρίχιος)
was the best known war dance of the Greeks. It was probably
of Dorian origin and practiced at first solely as a training for war.

Plato (Leges, 815a) describes it as imitating by quick movements
the ways in which blows and darts are to be avoided and also
the modes in which an enemy is to be attacked. It was dance to
the sound of the aulos; its time was quick and light, as is also
shewn by the metric foot called pyrrhic.

It was described by Xenophon in his work the Anabasis. In that
work he writes that at a festival was held in Trapezus to celebrate
the arrival of his troops in the city.

Homer refers to Pyrrihios and describes how Achilles danced it around
the burning funeral of Patroclos. The dance was loved in all of Greece
and especially the Spartans considered it a kind of light war training
and so they taught the dance to their children while still young.

The Pyrrhichios dance