Cheironomia
χειρονομία
Cheironomia (χειρονομία). The movement of the hands was an important part of Greek and Roman dancing [SALTATIO], and had the name of χειρονομία. Herodotus, in the story of Hippoclides standing on his head before the guests of Clisthenes, uses the curious expression τοῖσι σκέλεσι ἐχειρόνομησε (6.129). It was also a feature of any pantomimic performance ( chironomon Ledam,
Juv. 6.63). [PANTOMIMUS] The word is also used in the sense of σκιαμαχία, or sparring. (Plat. Legg. viii. p. 830 C; Paus. 6.10.3.) [PUGILATUS]
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.