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[241] μέλπεσθαι Ἄρηϊ, to dance the war-dance to Ares. So when Meriones ‘dodges’ to avoid a spear, Aineias calls him an “ὀρχηστής,” 16.617. The allusion is evidently to the primitive war-dances in which all savage peoples delight, the warriors going through a whole battlescene in dumb-show. Hector means, ‘I can dance the war-dance not only in mimicry at a feast of Ares, but in grim reality on the battle-field.’ The custom, as we know, survived till historical times in Greece, under the name of “πυρρίχη”.

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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