[458] Horace, Ars Poet. 278-80 ‘post hunc personae pallaeque repertor honestae | Aeschylus et modicis instravit pulpita tignis | et docuit magnumque loqui nitique cothurno.’ [The passage becomes still more significant if we translate ‘tignis’ ‘posts’, i.e. uprights. It bears this sense in Caes. B. G. iv. 17, 3. ‘Tigna bina sesquipedalia paulum ab imo praeacuta ... in flumen defixerat.’ See P. Gardner, J. Hell. Stud. 1899, p. 257.]
[459] Höpken, De Theatro Attico, Bonn, 1884.
[460] Vitruv. v. 7 ‘ita a tribus centris hac descriptione ampliorem habent orchestram Graeci et scaenam recessiorem minoreque latitudine pulpitum, quod λογεῖον appellant, ideo quod eo tragici et comici actores in scaena peragunt, reliqui autem artifices suas per orchestram praestant actiones, itaque ex eo scaenici et thymelici graece separatim nominantur. Eius logei altitudo non minus debet esse pedum decem, non plus duodecim.’ Whether under ‘reliqui artifices’ Vitruvius included the dramatic chorus is very doubtful. The dramatic chorus had almost disappeared in his day. Moreover ‘thymelici’ as opposed to ‘scaenici’ generally means the competitors in musical and literary contests, as opposed to the competitors in dramatic contests. But the words of Vitruvius about the position of the actors upon the stage are free from all ambiguity. [Cp. Frei, de Certaminibus Thymelicis. Dörpfeld’s suggestion (Deutsche Littztg. 1901, p. 1816) that dramatic actors were called σκηνικοί because they were nearer the σκηνή, and musical performers θυμελικοί as being in the centre of the orchestra, round the θυμέλη, forces the words to fit his theory, but gives a far less natural meaning to the distinction. According to this, the members of the chorus in the drama also ought to be called θυμελικοί.]
[461] Ibid. v. 6.
[462] Griech. Theater, p. 364.
[463] Bull. Corr. Hell. 1896, pp. 577 ff.; Athen. Mittheil. 1897, pp. 444 ff.; 1903, p. 386, &c.
[465] [The discussion is continued by Bethe, Hermes, 1898, pp. 313 ff., and Dörpfeld, Ath. Mitth. 1898, pp. 326 ff.; 1903, pp. 424 ff. The latter admits that the Hellenistic stage corresponds better in depth with Vitruvius’ rule, and his further arguments in support of his theory are very unconvincing. (As regards some of them, see pp. 158 ff.) In various other details the Hellenistic and Asiatic theatres nearly all deviate from the exact figures given by Vitruvius, though the approximations are in most cases close. One theatre corresponds in one point with the figures given, one in another, as one would expect: and in most points, other than those above mentioned, neither the Hellenistic nor the Asiatic type has much advantage over the other in respect of precise correspondence. (See Noack, Philologus, lviii, pp. 9 ff.) The clearest result of Dörpfeld’s controversy with Bethe, and later with Puchstein, is that theatres of both types varied much more than most writers have allowed. Why should they not have done so? At the same time, Vitruvius’ rules are as nearly in accordance with the general features of the Hellenistic type as general rules can be reasonably expected to be.]
[466] Poll. iv. 123 καὶ σκηνὴ μὲν ὑποκριτῶν ἴδιον, ἡ δὲ ὀρχήστρα τοῦ χοροῦ. Dörpfeld (p. 347, and Ath. Mitth. 1903, p. 419) says that σκηνή here = ‘the stage-buildings’. But the mention of the λογεῖον in the previous line of Pollux, and the description of the ὑποσκήνιον, almost immediately afterwards, as ὑπὸ τὸ λογεῖον κείμενον, clearly show that the type of theatre described by Pollux was one which possessed a stage. If so, this stage must have been used by the actors.
[467] Poll. iv. 127 εἰσελθόντες δὲ κατὰ τὴν ὀρχήστραν ἐπὶ τὴν σκηνὴν ἀναβαίνουσι διὰ κλιμάκων. Here too Dörpfeld (p. 347, and Ath. Mitth. 1903, p. 406) thinks σκηνή = the house in the background, and that the sentence refers to cases like Aristoph. Nub. 1486, where Strepsiades climbs on to the roof. But why should the actors have used steps to mount the house only when they entered the theatre by the orchestra? They would need them just as much if they entered by the doors in the back-scene.
[468] Schol. Ran. 183 ἠλλοιῶσθαι χρὴ τὴν σκηνὴν καὶ εἶναι κατὰ τὴν Ἀχερουσίαν λίμνην τὸν τόπον ἐπὶ τοῦ λογείου ἢ ἐπὶ τῆς ὀρχήστρας. Ibid. 299 ἀποροῦσι δέ τινες πῶς ἀπὸ τοῦ λογείου περιελθὼν καὶ κρυφθεὶς ὄπισθεν τοῦ ἱερέως τοῦτο λέγει. φαίνονται δὲ οὐκ εἶναι ἐπὶ τοῦ λογείου ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ τῆς ὀρχήστρας. Schol. Equit. 149 ἵνα, φησίν, ἐκ τῆς παρόδου ἐπὶ τὸ λογεῖον ἀναβῇ. διὰ τί οὖν ἐκ τῆς παρόδου; τοῦτο γὰρ οὐκ ἀναγκαῖον. Ibid. 506 λέγεται δὲ παράβασις ... ἐπειδὴ παραβαίνει ὁ χορὸς τὸν τόπον. ἑστᾶσι μὲν γὰρ κατὰ στοῖχον οἱ πρὸς τὴν ὀρχήστραν (i.e. the stage) ἀποβλέποντες· ὅταν δὲ παραβῶσιν, ἐφεξῆς ἑστῶτες καὶ πρὸς τοὺς θεατὰς βλέποντες τὸν λόγον ποιοῦνται. Vit. Aesch. p. 8 (Dindf.) τὰ γὰρ δράματα συμπληροῦσιν οἱ πρεσβύτατοι τῶν θεῶν, καὶ ἔστι τὰ ἀπὸ τῆς σκηνῆς καὶ τῆς ὀρχήστρας θεῖα πάντα πρόσωπα.
[470] Griech. Theater, p. 348.
[471] Griech. Theater, pp. 103, 113-16, 118.
[472] [Noack (Philologus, lviii. p. 6) argues that the reason was that at the north end, where the rock is not cut away, it is much higher, and the cutting and removal would be very expensive. But we know nothing of the willingness or unwillingness of the Sicyonians to spend money on public and religious objects, and the simpler theory seems to be that the space was not wanted. The same remark applies to Noack’s explanation of the case of Eretria by considerations of expense.]
[473] [Noack, l.c., contends that the division of the skene and filling of half the space with earth is later work, and throws no light on the scheme of the Hellenistic theatre. This is very doubtful; but even if it were proved the other cases quoted would be sufficient for the argument in the text.]
[475] This point is well brought out by Chamonard, Bull. Corr. Hell. 1896, p. 296.
[476] Griech. Theater, p. 381.
[477] Chamonard, l.c., p. 294.
[478] Griech. Theater, p. 381.
[480] Lanckoronski, Städte Pamphyliens, &c., vol. ii. plate 10.
[481] Griech. Theater, p. 380. [Also Noack, Philologus, lviii. pp. 2 ff.; to whom Puchstein, Griech. Bühne, pp. 30 ff., replies sufficiently. The evidence of the vases (see below), where actors are shown acting on a stage with columns in front, is conclusive against his contention that the only proper support for a stage is a wall, and that therefore the columns of the proscenium can only represent a back-scene.]
[482] On the subject of these vase-paintings see especially Heydemann, Die Phlyakendarstellungen auf bemalten Vasen, Jahrb. Kais. Deutsch. Archäol. Inst. 1886, pp. 260 ff. Bethe, Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Theaters, pp. 278 ff. Reisch, in Griech. Theater, pp. 311 ff.
[483] They are taken from Wieseler’s Denkmäler, ix. 14 and 15 (= Baumeister, figs. 1828 and 1830).
[484] Fig. 13. Cp. the specimens in Wieseler’s Denkmäl. ix. 8; Griech. Theater, pp. 315, 322, and 323; Baumeister’s Denkmäl., figs. 902, 903, 1826, 1827, 1829.
[487] Baumeister, fig. 903. Griech. Theater, p. 322.
[488] Griech. Theater, p. 327.
[489] [The same must be said of his later suggestion (Jahrb. Arch. Inst. 1901, p. 36) that the columns on the Phlyakes vases are not really curtailed, and do not therefore point to a taller stage, but are complete and imply a stage between three and four feet high.]
[490] Griech. Theater, p. 147.
[491] Puchstein, Griech. Bühne, p. 24.
[492] Griech. Theater, p. 361.
[493] The stage at Athens was about 9 ft. 3 in.; at Epidaurus about 10½ ft. (Griech. Theater, pp. 78, 128). That at Delos was about 10 ft. (Chamonard, Bull. Corr. Hell. 1896, p. 306). As Lechat (Épidaure, p. 208) points out, it is necessary, in calculating the depth, not to measure from wall to wall, but to take into account the projecting cornice. In some cases, as he also remarks, the wall of the back-scene may have been narrower than the wall beneath, on which it rested; and this would add slightly to the depth of the stage.
[494] These facts and measurements have been kindly supplied to me by Dr. Gray.
[495] Griech. Theater, p. 342; Ath. Mitth. 1898, pp. 337, 345, &c.
[496] Fougères, Mantinée et l’Arcadie, pp. 165 ff. According to Dörpfeld’s theory that the proscenium was the back-scene, these lowest seats would be on a level with the roof of the back-scene, which is absurd. His argument that in cases where a removal of the lower rows or steps of seats is certain (as at Assos, Pergamon, and Delphi), we may assume that the theatre was converted from the supposed stageless Hellenistic type to the Asiatic, is most unconvincing. Why were the rows not similarly removed at Priene and Magnesia, though the high stage was erected there? If he can suppose that in these cases seats were allowed to remain which were bad for dramatic performances, why not in other cases?
[497] Wochenschr. für Klass. Phil. 1899, p. 260.
[498] [For controversy on this point, cf. A. Müller, Unters. zu den Bühnenalt., pp. 108 ff.; Dörpfeld, Ath. Mitth. 1899, p. 310; Müller, Philologus, lix. p. 330. Müller accepts Maass’ conclusions, though he corrects some of his figures. Both Müller and Dörpfeld calculate how much of the orchestra or of the actor on the stage could be seen by the spectators in different parts of different theatres. But any conclusions drawn from such calculations are precarious; we have no reason to suppose that there was a larger proportion of good seats in ancient theatres than in modern; still less that the front seats were all necessarily better for seeing the actors, any more than front seats or other seats of honour are in many cases in modern theatres.]
[499] Griech. Theater, p. 342.
[500] Athen. Mittheil. 1893, p. 410.
[501] Griech. Theater, pp. 138, 139.
[502] See Puchstein, Griech. Bühne, p. 88; and P. Gardner, J. Hell. Stud. 1899, p. 258.
[504] Griech. Theater, p. 146.
[505] Vitruv. v. 6.
[506] Griech. Theater, pp. 385 ff.
[509] Griech. Theater, p. 365. Ath. Mitth. 1903, p. 395.
[510] On these points see below, pp. 209-15. Even if we suppose that the theologeion was used in the cases mentioned on p. 213 to exhibit the deus ex machina, the text of the plays shows that the god appeared above the roof, and not upon it. Cp. Ion. 1549 ὑπερτελὴς οἴκων, Orest. 1631 ἐν αἰθέρος πτυχαῖς.
[512] [It is also argued (Noack, Philologus, 1899, 1; Robert, Gött. Gel. Anz. 1902, 418; Dörpfeld, Ath. Mitth. 1903, p. 403) that, because in all the Roman and Graeco-Roman theatres, where the actors stood on the logeion, the back-scene which formed their background was decorated with columns, while the proscenium was not so decorated, it follows that when the proscenium was so decorated, i.e. in the earlier periods, it and not the wall above and behind the logeion must have been the actors’ background, and the actors must have played in front of the proscenium. But this is no proof at all, unless it is assumed that decorations were only employed to make backgrounds for actors, and only disused because not wanted for this purpose. This is neither likely in itself, nor is it confirmed by anything in the evidence.
Dörpfeld also argues (Ath. Mitth. 1903, p. 396) that the grooves for wheels, of which traces are found leading out of the door in the back-scene on to the logeion at Eretria, prove that the logeion was used by gods only, as ordinary personages in chariots came only through the side entrances into the orchestra. But all that can be argued from these grooves is that the logeion was used for something on wheels, whether chariots or the ekkyklema, which Dörpfeld rejects. There is nothing to show who used the vehicle, whatever it may have been. If an actor could do so when representing a god, he could do so when representing a mortal. Cp. Fossum, Amer. J. Arch. 1898, p. 187; cp. P. Gardner, J. Hell. Stud. 1899, p. 252.]
[513] Aristot. Probl. xix. 15 τὰ μὲν ἀπὸ σκηνῆς οὐκ ἀντίστροφα, τὰ δὲ τοῦ χοροῦ ἀντίστροφα· ὁ μὲν γὰρ ὑποκριτὴς ἀγωνιστής, ὁ δὲ χορὸς ἧττον μιμεῖται. Poet. c. 12 ἴδια δὲ τὰ ἀπὸ τῆς σκηνῆς καὶ κομμοί ... κομμός δὲ θρῆνος κοινὸς χοροῦ καὶ ἀπὸ σκηνῆς.
[514] Poet. c. 24 διὰ τὸ ἐν μὲν τῇ τραγῳδίᾳ μὴ ἐνδέχεσθαι ἅμα πραττόμενα πολλὰ μέρη μιμεῖσθαι, ἀλλὰ τὸ ἐπὶ τῆς σκηνῆς καὶ τῶν ὑποκριτῶν μέρος μόνον. Cp. cc. 13, 17.
[515] Griech. Theater, pp. 284, 346.
[516] [Flickinger (The Meaning of ἐπὶ τῆς σκηνῆς in Writers of the Fourth Century, Chicago, 1902) tries to show that ἐπὶ τῆς σκηνῆς in Aristotle and Demosthenes does not mean ‘on the stage’ in any sense which would imply an elevated stage, but simply ‘at the performance’, ‘as part of a play’, &c., like ἐπὶ θέατρον later. He succeeds in interpreting the passages consistently with this, and in showing that in later writers the words often bore this meaning. But the changed application of many technical terms, e.g. ὀρχήστρα, θυμέλη, &c., in later writers shows that no reliance is to be placed on the supposed analogy; and the other meaning still seems by far the most natural in Aristotle. Dörpfeld (Deutsch. Littztg. 1901, p. 1817) thinks that the absence of the expression ἀπὸ τῆς ὀρχήστρας to balance ἀπὸ τῆς σκηνῆς is very significant as proving that all performers alike were in the orchestra. It needs only the most elementary logic to dispose of this argument. Cp. Müller, Unters. zu den Bühnenalt., for the full history of the words σκηνή, &c.]
[517] Equit. 148 δεῦρο δεῦρ’, ὦ φίλτατε, | ἀνάβαινε σωτὴρ τῇ πόλει καὶ νῷν φανείς. Acharn. 732 ἄμβατε ποττὰν μᾶδδαν. Vesp. 1342 ἀνάβαινε δεῦρο χρυσομηλολόνθιον.
[518] Eccles. 1151 τί δῆτα διατρίβεις ἔχων, ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἄγεις | τασδὶ λαβών; ἐν ὅσῳ δὲ καταβαίνεις, ἐγὼ | ἐπᾴσομαι κ.τ.λ. Vesp. 1514 ἀτὰρ καταβατέον γ’ ἐπ’ αὐτούς. In the last passage καταβατέον might perhaps mean ‘I must contend with them’. But it is more probable that the meaning here is the same as in the other passage.
[519] Bodensteiner, Scenische Fragen, pp. 699, 700. Capps, The Stage in the Greek Theatre, pp. 67, 68.
[520] Equit. 169 ἀλλ’ ἐπανάβηθι κἀπὶ τοὐλεὸν τοδί. The significance of this line, as regards the present question, was first pointed out by Zacher. Philologus, 1896, p. 181. Cp. Müller, l.c., pp. 1 ff.
[521] Harzmann, Quaestiones Scenicae, 1889. White, The Stage in Aristophanes, 1891. Capps, The Stage in the Greek Theatre, 1891. Bodensteiner, Scenische Fragen, 1893. Weissmann, Die scenische Aufführung der griechischen Dramen, 1893. Hampel, Was lehrt Aeschylos’ Orestie für die Theaterfrage? 1899. Engelmann, Archäologische Studien zu den Tragikern, 1900. Krause, Quaestiones Aristophaneae Scenicae, 1903.
[522] Eur. El. 489, Ion 727, Herc. Fur. 119. In the last passage it is the chorus which makes the complaint; so that in this case, if there was any visible ascent, it cannot have been the ascent on to the stage.
[523] Eur. Med. 1275. Cp. Agam. 1344, Cyclops 630, Hipp. 780, Hec. 1042, &c.
[524] Aesch. Choeph. 22, 1063; Eum. 140. Eur. Troad. 176; Hel. 385, 517. In Aristoph. Av. 667 Procne (the flute-player of the chorus) enters from the back-scene, and then descends into the orchestra. Several other instances are given by Capps, pp. 9, 10; but they are all very doubtful.
[527] The following instances appear to be certain—Aesch. Suppl. 208, 832; Choeph. 22 ff. Soph. Oed. Col. 826 ff. Eur. Suppl. 1, 815: Hel. 1627 ff.: Rhesus 681; Iph. Aul. 599. Aristoph. Pax 246 ff. Many other examples will be found in the treatises already mentioned; but the evidence for most of them appears to be very slight.
[528] Griech. Theater, pp. 353 ff.
[529] Phot. and Hesych. s.v. λαυροστάται.
[530] [Seats of honour are not of course necessarily the best for seeing or hearing (see p. 159, note), but they are not likely to be the worst.]
[531] Griech. Theater, p. 363.
[533] [Frei, De certaminibus thymelicis, traces back to the second half of the fourth century the distinction of θυμελικοὶ and σκηνικοὶ ἀγῶνες, and so proves the existence of a stage at that time. Engelmann, Archäol. Stud. zu den Tragikern, supports Dörpfeld’s view by reference to vase paintings, which he thinks were suggested by theatrical scenes, and represent actions taking place in the orchestra, with the columnar προσκήνιον as background. But the background could in most cases be equally well the back of the stage; and it is not certain that the vases in question present dramatic scenes at all. Columns, &c., are common on all vases to indicate a house or a temple, where there is no reference to a stage; and in black-figured vases, where all such reference is out of the question, we find Prometheus and Odysseus tied to columns instead of to a rock or a mast. See E. A. Gardner, Class. Rev. 1901, p. 432.]
[534] Bethe, Prolegomena zur Geschichte des Theaters, pp. 205 ff.
[535] Scenische Aufführung, p. 37. Jahrb. für classische Philologie, 1895, pp. 673 ff. See above, p. 167.
[536] Jahrb. für class. Philologie, 1894, pp. 161 ff.
[537] Hermes, 1897, pp. 450 ff.
[538] Vitruv. v. 6.
[539] Plut., Non posse suaviter, &c. 1096 B.
[540] Vitruv. v. 5.
[541] Id. v. 9.
[542] Plut. Pericles, 160 A. Pausan. i. 14. I. See Gardner, Ancient Athens; Harrison, Primitive Athens.
[543] Same references.
[544] Val. Max. ii. 4. 6. C. I. G. 4283.
[545] Plut. X. orat. 841 F.
[546] Pausan. i. 21. I.
[547] Griech. Theater, p. 71.
[548] Suidas s.v. σαυτὴν ἐπαινεῖς.
[550] Schol. Aristid. iii. p. 535, Dindf. So Wilamowitz, Aristoteles und Athen, i. p. 263. Christ, however (Sitzungs. bayer. Akad. der Wissen. 1894, p. 3), thinks the statement about the statues is true, though the scholiast was mistaken in applying it to the passage in Aristides.
[551] Athen., p. 19 E.
[552] C. I. A. iii. 469.
[553] Griech. Theater, p. 70. For the inscription on the Xenocles monument see C. I. A. ii. 1289.
[554] C. I. A. ii. 551.
[555] Hesych. s.v. ᾠδεῖον.
[557] Aelian. Var. Hist. ii. 28. On the outside of the arms, in the throne of the priest of Dionysus, there are two bas-reliefs, in which kneeling Cupids are depicted in the act of setting cocks to fight. The significance of the reliefs is explained by the fact that the annual cock-fight was held in the theatre.
[558] Dem. Meid. § 9.
[559] Thuc. viii. 93, 94.
[560] Plut. Phoc. 757 D.
[561] Id. Demetr. 905 A. Müller (Bühnenalt. p. 74) is mistaken in stating, on the authority of Diod. xvi. 84, that on the news of the capture of Elatea in 339 the Athenians hastily assembled in the theatre. That they met in the Pnyx is proved by the passage in Dem. de Cor. § 169. Diodorus is merely using the language of his own time, when the theatre was the regular meeting-place.
[562] Harpocrat. s.v. περίπολος.
[563] Poll. viii. 132.
[564] Plut. Lycurg. 51 E. Athen. 19 E. Alciphron iii. 20.
[565] Dion Chrysost. or. xxxi. p. 386 (Dindf.). Philostrat. vit. Apoll. iv. 22.
[566] Aesch. Suppl. 189.
[567] Pers. 659. The palace is often referred to (159, 230, 524, 849, 1038); but this does not show that it was supposed to be visible. And the fact that Atossa made her first entrance on a chariot (159, 607), though coming from the palace, seems to prove that it was out of sight.
[568] Septem 95, 240, 265, 549, 823.
[569] Agam. 3, Choeph. 22, Eum. 35, 242.
[570] Reisch (Griech. Theater, pp. 194, 200) thinks the actors’ booth was originally in the side-entrance to the orchestra. He thinks the first stage-buildings were erected about 465, when scenery was introduced; and that these buildings were henceforth used for actors’ rooms. But it is much simpler to suppose that the actors’ booth stood fronting the spectators from the first, and that it was gradually converted into a stage-building.
[571] Aristot. Poet. c. 4 τρεῖς δὲ καὶ σκηνογραφίαν Σοφοκλῆς. Vitruv. vii. praef. § 11 primum Agatharchus Athenis Aeschylo docente tragoediam scaenam fecit et de ea commentarium reliquit. Prof. Jebb (Dict. Antiq. ii. p. 816) thinks the two statements may be reconciled by supposing that the words ‘Aeschylo docente tragoediam’ merely fix the date, without implying that Aeschylus had anything to do with the innovation. [Prof. P. Gardner (J. Hell. Stud. 1899, p. 253) points out that, according to Vitruvius, Agatharchus, like Democritus and Anaxagoras, seems to have studied perspective theoretically; and the story that he was enticed by Alcibiades into his house, and not released till he had painted its interior, combined with Vitruvius’ notice, suggests that he was precisely the kind of painter for a stage; while the date suggested has nothing chronologically against it.]
[572] Vitruv. v. 6.
[573] Viz. Soph. O. R., Antig., Electr., Trach.; Eur. Alc., Med., Hipp., Herc. Fur., Phoen., Hel., Orest., Bacch., Ion, Iph. Taur., Andr., Suppl., Heraclid.
[574] Viz. Eur. Hec., Troad., Iph. Aul., Rhesus.
[575] Viz. the Wasps, Peace, Clouds, Frogs, Ecclesiazusae, Plutus.