The cordax (), was a provocative, licentious, and often obscene mask dance of

ancient Greek comedy Ancient Greek comedy () was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece; the others being tragedy and the satyr play. Greek comedy was distinguished from tragedy by its happy endings and use of comically ex ...

. In his play ''

The Clouds ''The Clouds'' (, ''Nephelai'') is a Greek comedy play written by the playwright Aristophanes. A lampooning of intellectual fashions in classical Athens, it was originally produced at the City Dionysia in 423BC and was not as well received as th ...

'',

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

complains that other playwrights of his time try to hide the feebleness of their plays by bringing an old woman onto the stage to dance the cordax. He notes with pride that his patrons will not find such gimmicks in his plays.

Petronius Arbiter Gaius Petronius Arbiter"Gaius Petronius Arbiter"
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

the ''

Satyricon The ''Satyricon'', ''Satyricon'' ''liber'' (''The Book of Satyrlike Adventures''), or ''Satyrica'', is a Latin work of fiction believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius in the late 1st century AD, though the manuscript tradition identifi ...

'' has Trimalchio boast to his dinner guests that no one dances the cordax better than his wife, Fortunata. The nature of this dance is described in the

satires of Juvenal The ''Satires'' () are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written between the end of the first and the early second centuries A.D. Juvenal is credited with sixteen poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman g ...

, who says "the girls encouraged by applause sink to the ground with tremulous buttocks." atire XIThe poet

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC), Suetonius, Life of Horace commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). Th ...

and playwright

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus ( ; 254 – 184 BC) was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by Livius Andro ...

refer to the same dance as ''ionici motus''. Juvenal makes specific mention of the ''testarum crepitus'' (clicking of castanets). In the earlier Greek form,

finger cymbals Zills, zils, or sagat, also known as finger cymbals, are small metallic cymbals used in belly dance, belly dancing and similar performances. They are similar to Tibetan tingsha bells. In Western music, several pairs can be set in a frame to make ...

were used.

Citations

General references

* at the ''

Dictionary of Classical Antiquities The ''Dictionary of Classical Antiquities'' (1891), covers Ancient Greek and Roman antiquities, mythology and literature in over 2,500 articles. It was written in German by Oskar Seyffert and edited by Henry Nettleship and John Edwin Sandys ...

''
"Dancing Girls"
at the

Internet Sacred Text Archive The Internet Sacred Text Archive (ISTA) is a Santa Cruz, California-based website dedicated to the preservation of electronic public domain religious texts. History The website was first opened to the public on March 9, 1999, by John Bruno Hare ...

Ancient Greek dances Concert dance Masked dances {{Europe-dance-stub