The History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece, Volume 2 (of 3)

It is far from being my purpose to repeat the information which may be obtained from a hundred authors on the rise and progress of scenic representation in Greece. I shall, on the contrary, confine myself chiefly to those parts of the subject which others have either altogether neglected, or treated in a concise and unsatisfactory manner. It would, nevertheless, be beside my purpose to attempt the clearing up of all such difficulties as occur in the accounts transmitted to us of the Hellenic drama; and, in fact, notwithstanding the laborious investigations into which I have been compelled to enter, I feel that there are many points upon which I can throw no new light, and which appear likely for ever to baffle the ingenuity of architects and scholars.

Dionysos, being a deity connected with agriculture, his worship naturally took its rise, and for a long time prevailed chiefly, in the country. His festivals were celebrated with merriment; and, the power of mimicry being natural to man, the rustics, when congregated to set forth the praise of their tutelar god, easily glided into the enactment of a farcical show. And dramatic exhibitions at the outset were little superior to the feats of Punch, though, so great was their suitableness to the national character, that, in the course of time, every town of note had its own theatre, as it had of old its own dithyrambic bard;^[864] and dramatic writers were multiplied incomparably beyond what they have been in any other country.

Both tragedy and comedy,^[865] properly so called, took their rise in Attica, and there only, in the ancient world, flourished and grew up to perfection. The theatre, in fact, formed at length a part of the constitution, and, probably, the worst part, its tendency being to foster personal enmities, to stir the sources of malice, and, while pretending to purge off the dross of the passions by the channels of sorrow and mirth, to induce habits of idleness and political apathy, by affording in the brilliant recesses of a mock world a facile refuge from the toils and duties of the real one. Nevertheless, it may be curious to open up a view into that universe of shadows wherein the vast creations of Æschylus, of Sophocles, of Euripides, of Aristophanes, and Menander displayed themselves before the eyes of the Athenians, with a costly grandeur and magnificence never equalled save in imperial Rome.

It has been already remarked, that to the Dionysiac theatre of Athens the architectural speculations of Vitruvius on dramatic edifices apply, this building having constituted the model on which similar structures were afterwards erected.^[866] By carefully studying its details, therefore, we shall be enabled to form a tolerably just conception of all the theatres once found in Greece, though each, perhaps, may have been slightly modified in plan, general arrangement, and decorations, by the peculiarities of the site, and the science or taste of its architect.

The great theatre of Bacchos, partly scooped out of the rock on the face of the hill at the south-eastern angle of the Acropolis, stretched forth, on solid piers of masonry, a considerable distance into the plain, and was capable of containing upwards of thirty thousand people. The diameter, accordingly, if it did not exceed, could have fallen little short of five hundred feet.^[867] For we are not to suppose that, while Sparta,^[868] and Argos, and Megalopolis, cities comparatively insignificant, possessed theatres of such dimensions, Athens, incomparably the largest and most beautiful of Hellenic capitals, would have been content with one of inferior magnitude.^[869]

To determine accurately the various parts of the theatre, and thus affix a distinct meaning to every term connected with it, has exercised the ingenuity of critics and architects for the last three hundred years, still leaving many difficulties to be overcome. I can scarcely hope in every case to succeed where they have failed. But the following explanation may, perhaps, convey of its interior an idea sufficiently exact for all practical purposes.

Supposing ourselves to be standing at the foot of the Katatomè,^[870] a smooth wall of rock, rising perpendicularly from the back of the theatre to the superimpending fortifications of the Acropolis, we behold on either hand, surmounted by porticoes, lofty piers of masonry projecting like horns down the rocky slope into the plain and united at their extremities by a wall of equal height, running in a straight line from one point of the horseshoe to the other. The space thus enclosed is divided into three principal parts,—the amphitheatre for the spectators, the orchestra,^[871] filling all the space occupied by the modern pit, for the chorus, and the stage, properly so called, for the actors. Each of these parts was again subdivided. Looking down still from the Katatomè, we behold the benches of white marble, sweeping round the whole semicircle of the theatre, descend like steps to the level of the orchestra, and intersected at intervals by narrow straight passages converging towards a point below.^[872] A number of the upper seats, cut off, by an open space extending round the whole semicircle, from the rest, was set apart for the women. Other divisions were appropriated to other classes of the population, as the tier of seats immediately overlooking the orchestra to the senators, or dicasts, another portion to the youth, another to foreigners and the guests of the state, while the remainder was occupied by the dense mass of citizens of all ages,^[873] with crowns of flowers on their heads.

Above the level of the most elevated range of seats, and stretching round the whole sweep of the edifice,^[874] arose a spacious portico,^[875] designed to afford shelter to the spectators during the continuance of a sudden shower. Another range of porticoes extended along the small lawn or grove within the limits of the theatre, at the back of the stage, so that there was little necessity for the Athenian people to take refuge, as some have imagined, from the weather in the public buildings, sacred or civil, in the vicinity.

It would appear from an expression in Pollux,^[876] that the lower seats of the theatre, appropriated to persons of distinction, were covered with wood,^[877] notwithstanding which, it was usual, in the later ages of the commonwealth, for rich persons to have cushions brought for them to the theatre by their domestics,^[878] together with purple carpets for their feet. Theophrastus, accordingly, whom few striking traits of manners escaped, represents his flatterer snatching this theatrical cushion from the slave, and adjusting and obsequiously smoothing it for his patron.^[879] To render their devotion to Dionysos still less irksome, it was customary to hand round cakes and wine during the representation, though, like Homer’s heroes, they were careful to fortify themselves with a good meal before they ventured abroad. We are informed, moreover, that when the actors were bad there was a greater consumption of confectionary, the good people being determined to make up in one kind of enjoyment what they lost in another. Full cups, moreover, were habitually drained on the entrance and exit of the chorus.^[880]

The orchestra, being considerably below the level of the stage, had in the middle of it a small square platform, called the Thymele,^[881] sometimes regarded as a bema on which the leader of the chorus mounted when engaged in dialogue with the actors; sometimes as an altar on which sacrifice was offered up to Dionysos. That part of the orchestra which lay between the Thymele and the stage was denominated the Dromos, while the name of Parodoi was bestowed on those two spacious side-passages,^[882] the one from the east, the other from the west, at the extremities of the tiers of seats which afforded the chorus ample room for marching in and out in rank and file, in the quadrangular form it usually affected.

At the extremity of the orchestra a pier of masonry called the Hyposcenion, adorned with columns and statues, rose to the level of the stage, where a most intricate system of machinery and decoration represented all that was tangible to sense in the creations of the poet. The stage was divided into two parts; first, the Ocribas or Logeion,^[883] floored with boards, and hollow beneath, for the purpose of reverberating the voice; second, the Proscenion,^[884] a broader parallelogram of solid stonework, necessary to support the vast apparatus of machinery and decoration required by the character of the Grecian drama. The descent from the stage^[885] into the orchestra was by two flights of steps situated at either extremity of the Logeion, at the point where the Parodoi touched upon the Dromos. Beyond the Proscenion arose the Scene,^[886] properly so called, the aspect of which was constantly varied, to suit the requirements of each successive piece. In most cases, however, it represented the front of three different edifices, of which the central one, communicating with the stage by a broad and lofty portal, was generally a palace. Sometimes, as in the Philoctetes, this portal was converted into the mouth of a cavern,^[887] opening upon the view, amid the rocks and solitudes of Lemnos, while in other plays it formed the entrance to the mansion of some private person of distinction, but was always appropriated to the principal actor. The building on the right assumed in comedy the appearance of an inn, through the door of which the second actor issued upon the stage, while the portal on the left led into a ruined temple, or uninhabited house. In tragedy the right hand entrance was appropriated to strangers, while on the left was that of the female apartments, or of a prison.^[888]

Upon the stage, in front of the doors, stood an altar of Apollo Aguieus, and a table covered with cakes and confectionary,^[889] which appears sometimes to have been regarded as the representative of that ancient table, on which, in the simplicity of Prothespian times, the solitary actor mounted when engaged in dialogue with the chorus.

When the stage was fitted up for the performance of comedy, there stood near the house a painted scene representing a large cattle-shed, with capacious double gates, for the admission of waggons and sumpter oxen, with herds and droves of asses, when returning from the field. In the Akestriæ of Antiphanes,^[890] this rustic building was converted into a workshop. Beyond each of the side-doors on the right and left were two machines,^[891] one on either hand, upon which the extremity of the periactoi abutted. The scene on the right represented rural landscapes, that on the left prospects in the environs of the city, particularly views of the harbour. On these periactoi,^[892] were represented the marine deities riding on the waves, and generally all such objects as could not be introduced by machinery. By turning the periactoi on the right, the situation was changed, but when both were turned a wholly new landscape was placed before the eye. Of the parodoi, or side-passages, that on the right led from the fields, from the harbour, or from the city, as the necessities of the play required, while those arriving on foot from any other part entered by the opposite passage, and, traversing a portion of the orchestra, ascended the stage by the flights of steps before mentioned.

The machinery^[893] by which the dumb economy of the play was developed consisted of numerous parts, highly complicated and curious. To avoid labour, and, perhaps, some tediousness, these might be passed over with such a remark as the above, but this would be to escape from difficulties not to diminish them. I shall descend to particulars.

First, and most remarkable, was that machine called an Eccyclema,^[894] much used by the ancients when scenes within-doors were to be brought to view. It consisted of a wooden structure, moved on wheels, and represented the interior of an apartment. In order to pass forth through the doors, it was formed less deep than broad, and rolled forth sideways, turning round afterwards, and concealing the front of the building from which it had issued. The channels in the floor, which were traversed by the wheels, doubtless concealed beneath the lofty basis, received the name of Eiscyclema.^[895] Sometimes, as in the Agamemnon, it presented to view “the royal bathing apartment with the silver laver, the corpse enveloped in the fatal garment, and Clytemnestra, besprinkled with blood, and holding in her hand the reeking weapon, still standing with haughty mien over her murdered victim.”^[896] On other occasions a throne, a corpse, the interior of a tent, the summit of a building, were exhibited; and in the Clouds of Aristophanes the interior of Socrates’ house was laid open to the spectators, containing a number of masks, gaunt and pale, the natural fruit of philosophy.^[897] It should be remarked that the Eccyclema issued through any of the doors, as the piece required the cells of a prison, the halls of a palace, or the chambers of an inn, to be placed before the eyes of the audience.

That peculiar machine in which the gods made their appearance,^[898] or such heroes as enjoyed the privilege of travelling through the air,—Bellerophon, for example, and Perseus,—stood near the left side-entrance, and, in height, exceeded the stone skreen at the back of the stage. This, in tragedy, was denominated Mechanè, and Kradè in comedy,^[899]—in this case resembling a fig-tree, which the Athenians called Kradè. The watch-tower, the battlements, and the turret, were constructed for the use of those watchmen, such as the old man in the Agamemnon, who looked out for signals, or indications of the coming foe. The Phructorion^[900] was a pharos, or beacon-tower. Another portion of the stage was the Distegia, a building two stories high in palaces, from the top of which, in the Phœnissœ of Euripides,^[901] Antigone beholds the army. It was roofed with tiles, (and thence called Keramos,) which they sometimes cast down upon the enemy. In comedy, libertines and old women, or ladies of equivocal character, were represented prying into the street for prey from such buildings.

The Keraunoskopeion^[902] was a lofty triangular column, which appears to have been hollow, and furnished with narrow fissures, extending in right lines from top to bottom. Within seem to have been a number of lamps, on stationary bases, from which, as the periactos whirled round, sheets of mimic lightning flashed upon the stage from behind the scenes.

The construction of the Bronteion,^[903] or thunder magazine, I imagine to have been nearly as follows:—a number of brazen plates, arranged one below another, like stairs, descended through a steep, vaulted passage behind the scene, into the bottom of a tower, terminating in a vast brazen caldron. From the edge of this, a series of metallic apertures,^[904] probably spiral, pierced the tower wall, and opened without in funnels, like the mouths of trumpets.

When some deity was required to descend to earth in the midst of lightning and sudden thunder, the Keraunoskopeion was instantaneously put in motion, and showers of pebbles from the sea-shore were hurled down the mouth of the Bronteion, and, rolling over the brazen receptacles, produced a terrific crash, which, with innumerable reverberations, was poured forth by the Echeia upon the theatre.^[905]

In a lofty gallery called the Theologeion, extending over the marble skreen at the back of the stage, appeared the gods, when the drama required their presence; and hence, I imagine, the Hebrew colony which makes its appearance nightly near the roof of our own theatres have obtained the name of gods. Here Zeus, and the other deities of Olympos, were assembled in that very extraordinary drama of Æschylus, the Psychostasia, or weighing in the balance the souls of Achilles and Hector.

They employed in the theatre the machine called a Crane,^[906] the point of which being lowered, snatched up whatever it was designed to bear aloft into the air. By means of this contrivance, Eos, goddess of the dawn, descended and bore away the body of Memnon, slain by Achilles before Troy. At other times strong cords, so disposed as to resemble swings, were let down from the roof, to support the gods or heroes who seemed to be borne through the air.

Though by turning the Periactoi three changes of scene could be produced, many more were sometimes required, and, when this was the case, new landscapes were dropped, like hangings, or slided in frames in front of those painted columns. These usually represented views of the sea, or mountain scenery, or the course of some river winding along through solitary vales, or other prospects of similar character, according to the spirit of the drama.

The position of the Hemicycle is more difficult to comprehend. It appears to have been a retreating semicircular scene, placed facing the orchestra, and masking the marble buildings at the back of the stage, when a view was to be opened up into some distant part of the city, or shipwrecked mariners were to be exhibited buffeting with the waves. Not very dissimilar was the Stropheion,^[907] which brought to view heroes translated to Olympos, or on the ocean, or in battle slain, where change of position with respect to the spectator was produced by the rotatory motion of the machine.

The position of the Charonian staircase,^[908] by which spectres and apparitions ascended from the nether world, is exceedingly difficult to be determined; but that it was somewhere on the stage appears to me certain, notwithstanding the seeming testimony of Pollux to the contrary. The hypothesis which makes the ghosts issue from a door immediately beneath the seats of the spectators, and rush along the whole depth of the orchestra, among the chorus and musicians, is, at any rate, absurd. It must have been somewhere towards the back of the stage, near the altar of Loxios, the table of shew-bread and those sacred and antique images which in certain dramas were there exhibited. Here, likewise, was the trap-door, through which river-gods issued from the earth, while the other trap-door, appropriated to the Furies, seems to have been situated in the boards of the Logeion, near one of the flights of steps leading down into the orchestra.

The above synopsis of the machinery and decorations employed by the Greeks in their theatrical shows may, possibly, from its imperfection, suggest the idea of a rude and clumsy apparatus. But, as the arts of poetry, sculpture, painting, and architecture reached in Greece the highest perfection, and, as this perfection was coëtaneous with the flourishing state of the drama, it is impossible to escape the conviction, that the art of scene-painting and the manufacturing of stage machinery, likewise, underwent all the improvements of which by their nature they are susceptible. For, in the first place, it is not easy to suppose, that a people, so fastidious as were the Athenians, would have tolerated in the theatre displays of ignorance and want of skill which everywhere else they are known to have overwhelmed with contempt and derision; more especially as, in the first place, the landscapes and objects represented were usually those with which they were most familiar, though the fancy of the poet sometimes ventured to transport them to the most elevated and inaccessible recesses of Mount Caucasus, to the summit of the celestial Olympos, to the palaces and harems of Persia, to the wilds of the Tauric Chersonese,^[909] or even to the dim and dreary regions of the dead. The names, nevertheless, of few scene-painters, besides Agatharchos,^[910] have come down to us, though it is known, that, in their own day, they sometimes divided with the poet the admiration of the audience, and, on other occasions, enabled poets of inferior merit to bear away the prize from their betters.

The character, however, of stage-scenery differed very widely in tragedy, comedy, and satyric pieces,^[911] usually consisting, in the first, of façades of palaces, with colonnades, architraves, cornices, niches, statues, &c.; in comedy, of the fronts or courts of ordinary houses, with windows, balconies, porticoes, &c.; while, in the satyric drama, the fancy of the painter and decorator was allowed to develope before the audience scenes of rural beauty remote from cities, as the hollows of mountains shaded with forests, winding valleys, plains, rivers, caverns, and sacred groves.

Of the Grecian actors,^[912] whose business and profession next require to be noticed, too little by far is known, considering the curious interest of the subject. Their art, however, would appear to have sprung from that of the rhapsodists, who chanted in temples, during religious festivals, and afterwards in the theatres, the heroic lays of Greece. To a certain extent, indeed, the rhapsodist was himself an actor. His art required him to enter deeply into the spirit of the poetry he recited, to suit to the passion brought into play the modulations and inflexions of his voice, his tone, his looks, his gesture, so as vividly to paint to the imagination the picture designed by the poet, and sway the whole theatre by the powerful wand of sympathy through all the gradations of sorrow, indignation, and joy.^[913] By some writers, accordingly, the rhapsodist is apparently confounded with the actor, that is, he is considered an actor of epics,^[914] though in reality his imitations of character were partial and imperfect.

Actors formed at Athens part of a guild, or company, called the Dionysiac artificers,^[915] among whom were also comprehended rhapsodists, citharœdi, citharistæ, musicians, jugglers, and other individuals^[916] connected with the theatre. These persons, though for the most part held in little estimation, were yet somewhat more respectable than at Rome, where to appear on the stage was infamous.^[917] Like the rhapsodists, they generally led a wandering life, sometimes appearing at Athens,^[918] sometimes at Corinth, or Sicyon, or Epidauros, or Thebes, after the fashion approved among the strollers of our own day. In the course of these wanderings they now and then fell in with rare adventures, as in the case of that company of comedians which, on returning from Messenia towards the Isthmus, was met by king Cleomenes and the Spartan army near Megalopolis.^[919] To exhibit the superiority of his power and his contempt for the enemy, Cleomenes threw up, probably with turf and boards, a temporary theatre, where he and his army sat all day enjoying the jokes and wild merriment of the stage, after which, he bestowed, as a prize, upon the principal performers, the sum of forty minæ, or about one hundred and sixty pounds sterling.

About this period, however, it was usual for the armies of Greece, republican as well as royal, to be followed by companies of strollers, jugglers, dancing girls, and musicians.^[920] Even in the army of Alexander, when proceeding on the Persian expedition, the “flatterers of Dionysos”^[921] were not forgotten; in fact, the son of Philip set a high value upon the performances of these gentlemen, and with truly royal munificence allowed them to enjoy their full share of the plunder of the East. Thus, when Nicocreon, king of Salamis, and Pasicrates, king of Soli,^[922] played the part of Choregi in Cyprus, in getting up certain tragedies there performed for the amusement of Alexander, and the actors, Thessalos, and Athenodoros the Athenian, contended for the prize; he was piqued at the victory of the Athenian, and, though he commended the judges for bestowing the prize on him whom they regarded as the best performer, said, he would have given a part of his kingdom rather than have beheld Thessalos overcome by a rival.

Afterwards, when Athenodoros was fined by his countrymen for absenting himself from Athens during the Dionysiac festival, evidently contrary to the statutes in that case made and provided, Alexander paid the fine for his humble friend, though he refused to make application to the people for its remission.

An anecdote related of Lycon of Scarphe, also shows the high value set by the Macedonian prince upon the amusements of the stage, and the influence exercised over his mind by the Dionysiac artificers, though, according to Antiphanes, he wanted the taste to discriminate between a good play and a bad one. The Scarpheote being one day in want of money, as actors sometimes are, introduced into the piece he was performing a line of his own making, beseeching the conqueror to bestow on him ten talents; Alexander, amused by his extravagance, or captivated perhaps, by the flattery which accompanied it, at once granted his request, and thus upwards of two thousand four hundred pounds of the public money were expended for the momentary gratification of a prince.^[923]

The philosophers, almost of necessity, thought and spoke of these wandering performers with extreme contempt. Plato observes, that they went about from city to city collecting together thoughtless crowds, and, by their beautiful, sonorous, and persuasive voices, converting republics into tyrannies and aristocracies. Aristotle endeavoured to account for their evil character and agency.^[924] They were worthless, he says, because of all men they profited least by the lessons of reason and philosophy, their whole lives being consumed by the study of their professional arts, or passed in intemperance and difficulties.

Nevertheless, even among them there were different grades, some aiming at the higher walks of tragedy and comedy; while others were content to declaim rude, low songs, seated on waggons like mountebanks during the Lenæan festival.^[925] Nor must this fashion be at all regarded as Prothespian, since it prevailed down to a very late period. And as in every thing the Greeks aimed at excellence and distinction, so even here we find that there was a contest between the poets who wrote the comic songs sung by these humble performers from their waggons.^[926]

The various classes of actors known to the ancients were numerous. Among the lower grades were the Magodos, and the Lysiodos,^[927] who though confounded by some, appear clearly to have been distinct; the former personating both male and female characters; the latter female characters only, though disguised in male costume. But the songs, and every other characteristic of their performances, were the same. The spirit of the coarse satirical farces they acted forbids my explaining their nature fully.

There were even several authors who attained a “bad eminence” in this department of literature, which especially affected the Ionic dialect, as Alexander, the Ætolian,^[928] Pyretos of Miletos, a city noted for its dissolute characters, and Alexos, who obtained on this account an opprobrious sobriquet. The most remarkable, however, of this vicious brood would appear to have been Sotades^[929] the Maronite, and his son Apollonios who wrote a work on his father’s poems. Sotades was probably the original imitated by Pietro Aretino, who obtained in modern times a like reputation, though timely penitence may have snatched him from a similar end. The ancient libeller, enacting the part of Thersites, fastened with peculiar delight on the vices of princes, not from aversion to their manners, but because such scandal paved the way to notoriety. Thus at Alexandria, he covered Lysimachos with obloquy, which, when at the court of Lysimachos, he heaped upon Ptolemy Philadelphos. His punishment, however, exceeded the measure of his offences. Being overtaken in the island of Caunos by Patrocles, one of Ptolemy’s generals, the obsequious mercenary caused him to be enclosed in a leaden box and cast into the sea.^[930]

The Magodos, then, was a wandering farce actor, not unlike the tumbling mountebanks one sometimes sees in France and southern Europe. He travelled about with an apparatus of drums, cymbals, and female disguises, sometimes impersonating women, sometimes adulterers or the mean servants of vice; and the style of his dancing and performances corresponded with the low walk he selected, being wholly destitute of beauty or decorum. It seems necessary, therefore, to adopt the opinion of Aristoxenos, who considered the art of the Hilarodos as a serious imitation of tragedy; that of the Magodos as a comic parody, brought down to the level of the grossly vulgar. The latter art would appear to have derived its name from the charms, spells, or magical songs chanted by the mountebanks who likewise pretended to develope the secrets of pharmaceutics.

Superior in every way to the Magodos and Lysiodos was the Hilarodos,^[931] who, though a wandering singer like the Italians and Savoyards of modern Europe, affected no little state, and was evidently treated with some respect. His costume, in conformity with the popular taste, displayed considerable magnificence, consisting of a golden crown, white stole and costly sandals, though in earlier ages he appeared in shoes. He was usually accompanied by a youth or maiden who touched the lyre as he sung. The style of his performances was decorous and manly. When a crown was given him in token of approbation by the audience, it was bestowed on the Hilarodos himself, not on the musician.

A class of actors existed, also from very remote times, among the Spartans. They were called Deikelistæ,^[932] and their style of performing showed the little value set upon the drama at Sparta. The poetry of the piece, if poetry it could be called, was extempore and of the rudest description, and the characters were altogether conformable. Sometimes the interest of the play turned upon a man robbing an orchard, or on the broken Greek of an outlandish physician, whom people respected for his gibberish. This weakness, prevalent of course at Athens also, is wittily satirised by Alexis in his Female Opium Eater.