Iulius Pollux, Onomasticon 4.102: the bibasis in Sparta

Iulius Pollux, Onomasticon 4.102: the bibasis in Sparta

2nd century CE

Onomasticon

Literary source

In this passage from his encyclopaedic dictionary, the Onomasticon, Pollux describes the Spartan dance named bibasis, and provides us with all the information we have about it.

The bibasis seems to referenced as a typically Spartan activity in Aristophanes' Lysistrata, and perhaps it is depicted on an Athenian storage jar of the late sixth century BCE.

Bibasis was a kind of Spartan dance, for which contests were instituted not only for boys but also for girls: one had to kick up the heels and touch the buttocks with one’s feet, and the jumps were counted. Thence comes the epigram about one of the girls:
“I once achieved a thousand in the bibasis, the most jumps of the competitors ever”

translation by Alexander Meeus for the Cynisca project

καὶ βίβασις δέ τι ἦν εἶδος Λακωνικῆς ὀρχήσεως, ἧς καὶ τὰ ἆθλα προὐτίθετο οὐ τοῖς παισὶ μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ ταῖς κόραις· ἔδει δ’ ἅλλεσθαι καὶ ψαύειν τοῖς ποσὶ πρὸς τὰς πυγάς, καὶ ἠριθμεῖτο τὰ πηδήματα, ὅθεν καὶ ἐπὶ μιᾶς ἦν ἐπίγραμμα, χείλιά πόκα βίβαντι· πλεῖστα δὴ τῶν πήποκα.

Wilhelm Dindorf (ed.), Iulii Pollucis Onomasticon cum annotationibus interpretum, Leipzig 1824.