14. That the _pæan_ was a song of thanksgiving for deliverance has been mentioned above. With respect, however, to the manner in which it was performed, we learn from Homer that it was sung after the sacrificial feast,(1459) when the goblets were carried round after the sacred libation; and this was also the case at Sparta and Athens.(1460) It was generally sung in a sitting posture, although in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo that god is represented as accompanying the Cretans who sing in a measured step.(1461) At Sparta it was danced in choruses.(1462) On the whole it required a regular and sedate measure,(1463) even when it assumed a more lively air, as for the nome, and the solemn σπονδειακὸν, sung at libations.(1464)
But the most lively dance which accompanied the songs used in the worship of Apollo, was that termed the _hyporcheme_.(1465) In this, besides the chorus of singers who usually danced around the blazing altar, several persons were appointed to accompany the action of the poem with an appropriate pantomimic display (ὑπορχεῖσθαι). Homer himself bears witness to the Cretan origin of this custom, since the Cnosian dance, represented by Hephæstus on the shield of Achilles, appears from the description to have been a kind of hyporcheme,(1466) and hence all dances of this description were called Cretan.(1467) From that island they passed at an early period over to Delos, where, even in Lucian’s time, the wanderings of Latona and her island, with their final repose, were represented in the above manner.(1468) At the same time also probably took place the custom mentioned in the hymn to the Delian Apollo as characterizing the songs of the young women of that island; viz., that they represented the voices and gestures of every nation:(1469) perhaps they introduced the peculiar dances of the various countries which Latona visited in her wanderings. The ludicrous, and at the same time complicated dance (γέρανος) which Theseus is said first to have danced with his crew round the altar at Delos,(1470) was probably of the same description. All that can be clearly ascertained respecting the rhythm of these compositions is that the hexameter was altogether unfitted to their playful and joyous character.(1471) But both the hyporcheme and pæan were first indebted for their systematic improvement to the Doric musicians, Xenodamus of Sparta, and Thaletas of Elyrus in Crete (about 620 B.C.),(1472) who first brought the Cretic or Pæonic metre into general use; which names point out beyond doubt its Cretan origin, and its use in pæans.(1473) Cretics form a quick and lively, though a pleasing and by no means inharmonious(1474) rhythm, being particularly adapted to rapid motion. Thus a joyous and agreeable harmony was added, at the festivals of Apollo, to the serious and solemn music, although the softness and insipidity of several Ionian and Asiatic tunes were, without doubt, always rejected.