Pyrrhichios

Pyrrhic dancers

The Pyrrhichios or Pyrrhike dance ("Pyrrhic dance"; Ancient Greek: πυρρίχιος or πυρρίχη,[1] but often misspelled as πυρρίχειος or πυρήχειος) 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. According to ancient sources, it was a weapon dance.[2]

  1. ^ From πύρριχος "red", itself from πυρρός "blazing red" (cf. πῦρ "fire") from Proto-Greek *purwo- from Proto-Indo-European *peh2-ur "fire" (see R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, pp. 1260 and 1264).
  2. ^ Pyrrhic Dance and Female Pyrrhic Dancers, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Spring 1996), p. 3