Lucian De saltatione 69

[69] Then, too, all the rest are activities of one or the other of the two elements in man, some of them activities of the soul, some of the body; but in dancing both are combined. For there is display of mind in the performance as well as expression of bodily development, and the most important part of it is the wisdom that controls the action, and the fact that nothing is irrational. Indeed, Lesbonax of Mytilene, a man of excellent parts, called dancers “handiwise,” ¹ and used to go to see them with the expectation of returning from the theatre a better man. Timocrates, too, his teacher, one day, for the sole and only time, came in by chance, saw a dancer ply his trade and said: “What a treat for the eyes my reverence for philosophy has deprived me of!”

[69] Other arts call out only one half of a man’s powers—the bodily or the mental: the pantomime combines the two. His performance is as much an intellectual as a physical exercise: there is meaning in his movements; every gesture has its significance; and therein lies his chief excellence. The enlightened Lesbonax of Mytilene called pantomimes ‘manual philosophers,’ and used to frequent the theatre, in the conviction that he came out of it a better man than he went in. And Timocrates, his teacher, after accidentally witnessing a pantomimic performance, exclaimed: ‘How much have I lost by my scrupulous devotion to philosophy!’