character. According to Themistius, he invented a prologue and a rhesis; the former of which "must have been the Proemium which he spoke as exarchus of the dithyramb; the latter, the dialogue between himself and the chorus, by means of which he developed some myth relating to Bacchus or some other deity." We have, then, a kind of drama, composed of two distinct elements, the first and most important, the basis of the represesentation, the modified Doric dithyrambic chorus, and the other, at first brief and secondary in importance, gradually usurping the place of the former, an offshoot of the Ionian epical rhapsody. The office of the actor, at first, was merely to present subjects or occasions on which the chorus expressed its feeling. Thus it was an ally of the action, which was previously exhibited in the sacrifice and mimetic gesticulation. But while the actor merely told the story of the piece in a series of monologues, the Attic tragedy could scarcely be said to differ from the choral songs of the Dorian cities.

We see from the above representation, the necessity of divesting ourselves of the notions of the drama as it appears among us, in estimating that of the Greeks. It is diverse in nature, origin, and design, as well as adapted to an entirely different state of society; and in order to appreciate it, we must place ourselves in the position of a Greek of the age of Peisistratus or Pericles. The effect of a misunderstanding of Greek tragedy, is especially conspicuous in the French tragedians, who, while they made the Greeks their models, struck out, to a great extent, the lyrical parts from their pieces, retaining the absurd law of the unities, especially those of time and place, thus rendering the plot insufficient to fill up the play, without the addition of irrelevant and puerile intrigues, and superabundant rhetoric. This is more evident when we examine the Athalie of Racine and the Cid of Corneille, which, according to Frederic Schlegel, are "the two most glorious productions of French poetry." In the former, the ancient chorus is restored, and the latter is intensely lyrical, which alone gives it such a magical power, that envy and criticism are of no avail against it.3 To the three Greek tragedians who, after Thespis, preceded Aeschylus, we can give but a passing glance. Phrynichus, a pupil of Thespis, was the most celebrated of these, and in great repute upon the Athenian stage, from 512 B. C. until even after the appearance of Aeschylus. His one actor personated different and even female characters, who had not before been brought upon the stage. His great excellence lay in the lyrical parts of his performance, and "his tender, sweet, and plaintive songs were still much admired in the time

1 Donaldson's Gr. Theatre, p. 41. 2 Donaldson's Gr. Theatre, p. 42. 3 See Schlegel's Lectt. on the Hist. of Literature, p. 296 sq.

1849.]

The Athenian and English Theatre.

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of the Peloponnesian war, especially by old fashioned people." Phrynichus also took one further step in advance towards the perfecting of Greek tragedy. He broke up the chorus into parts, in order to produce variety in the lyrical portions of the piece. He also frequently chose, instead of mythical subjects, those connected with the history of his own time. And although he even moved to tears, according to Herodotus, in a representation of the disaster of the Milesians, colonists of Athens, yet, subjected himself to a considerable fine "for representing to them [the Athenians] their own misfortunes;" "a remarkable judgment of the Athenians," says Müller, "concerning a work of poetry, by which they manifestly expected to be raised into a higher world, not to be reminded of the miseries of the present life."

The two contemporaries of Phrynichus, Choerilus, who commenced his career a little earlier (B. C. 524), and Pratinas, perhaps a little later (before 500 B. C.), were most celebrated for their satiric dramas, which, even at this early date, were developed as a separate branch of dramatic composition. Subsequently, those pieces called "sportive tragedies" by Demetrius,3 assumed considerable importance, as forming a connected whole with a trilogy of regular tragedies, which we shall have occasion hereafter to speak of, in connection with Aeschylus.

The Greek Theatre and Manner of representing Plays in it.4

The manner of representation is not of little importance for the right understanding of the Greek drama. We must at once divest ourselves of the idea of a theatre as arranged and decorated by modern art. The difference between the Athenian and English theatre is certainly not less than between a Greek dwelling of the age of Pericles and one in the most fashionable part of a modern city. The place of representation, as with the English drama, began with the rising art, and grew with its growth and strengthened with its strength. In England, before the accession of queen Elizabeth (1558), no theatre had been established. Plays were at first publicly acted in the court yards of great inns, uncovered in fair weather, and protected by an awning in bad. The "Gorboduc" of Sackville, and "Damon

I Müller, Lit. of Ancient Greece, p. 293.

Müller's Hist. of the Lit. of Greece, p. 294.

3 De Elocut. $ 169 : παίζουσα τραγῳδία.

In this part of our subject, we have relied especially upon Donaldson's Greek Theatre, pp. 31-50, and have found much advantage in referring to the Plate, representing the Theatre of Bacchus at Athens, in the beginning of that volume.

They had previously been represented in the Monasteries and Universities.See Warton's History of English Poetry, Vol. III. p. 193 sq.

and Pythias," by R. Edwards, were represented before the queen at Whitehall in 1562, and a translation from the Phaenissae of Euripides, by Gascoigne, called Jacosta, was acted in the refectory of Gray's Inn, in 1566. The first theatre was built in 1570, and a company of players licensed in 1574, a little after Shakspeare first went to London, and several years before the representation of his first play.

1

In Greece, the first scene of representation was about the altar of Bacchus in the Agora, or in some open and level space in the city, large enough for the free movements of the chorus. Here they first moved in a circle around the altar. Subsequently, a platform was raised about the altar, called the thymele, which was the resting place of the chorus; and when temples were consecrated to the god, they of course stood in the place of a theatre. But the union of the dialogue with the chorus, gave rise to structures arranged more in accordance with the nature of the piece to be represented. It should be borne in mind, however, that theatres in Greece were not confined to dramatical representations, but were used for all sorts of public spectacles and popular assemblies, and yet, the general arrangement was accommodated to the drama. It seems that at first, temporary seats were raised for spectators at Athens, as in England; and the falling of a wooden scaffolding was (B. C. 500) the immediate cause of the building of the stone theatre of Bacchus,3 where the plays of the great tragedians were performed, and where many a prize was won and lost. This theatre, of which the ruins are now discoverable, may be taken as a representative of the whole class, although many splendid structures subsequently arose in various parts of Greece and Sicily.

This structure was beneath the south wall of the acropolis, on the east. It was of colossal dimensions,4 so as to be able to contain the

1 About 1589 or 1590; see Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, Vol. IV. p.179 sq., Drake's Life and Times of Shakspeare, 2 vols. 4to. London, 1817, and Hallam's Lit. of Europe, Vol. I. p. 367.

2 According to Smith's Antiquities, Art. Theatrum, this disaster occurred at the representation of the first play that Aeschylus exhibited.

3 This theatre was not perhaps wholly finished for 150 years; but, according to Müller," must very soon have been so far completed, as to render it possible for the master-pieces of the three great tragedians to be represented in it."

4 According to Plato (Sympos. 175. E.), more than thirty thousand persons could be assembled in it: παρὰ σοῦ νέου ὄντος οὕτω σφόδρα ἐξέλαμψε καὶ ἐκφανὴς ἐγένετο πρῴην ἐν μάρτυσι τῶν Ἑλλήνων πλέον ἢ τρισμυρίοις. Wordsworth (Athens and Attica, p. 94, note) contends that rpioμúpioi was used as a general term, to designate the free adult population of Athens, and, in the passage of Plato cited, is no more to be taken literally, than Juvenal's phrase: Totam hostie Romam circus capit. The term 7pioμúpio is still retained as a general designation of the population of the whole of Greece.

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1849.] The Orchestra and Seats in the Greek Theatre. assembled citizens, as well as strangers who flocked to Athens at the time of the festival of the "Great Dionysia" Atorvσia èv äorei, dorixá or μéya,1 as much as, in modern days, to the carnival at Rome. The form of the building was that of a large segment of a circle, of which the centre was occupied by a raised square platform, called thymele [Ovμén), originally an altar of Bacchus, but afterwards, according to the nature of the tragedy, occupied as a funereal, monument, or anything about which the chorus might naturally cluster, and where they took their station when at rest. Around this was the orchestra, adapted to the motions of the chorus, a circular level space, and the lowest part of the building. From this platform, the leader of the chorus, as a representative of the whole, held discourse with the actors, using either the singular or plural number. The orchestra was not, however, strictly confined to the semicircle formed by the seats, but extended across the whole building back of this altar, to the outer wall on the side. This was called the 8pópos (Roman iter), and its extremities, beyond the concavity formed by the seats, was named nápodot, and the entrances into these, on either side, the sodo.

Around the orchestra arose the rows of seats for the auditors, one above another, in the theatre of Bacchus, cut out of solid rock and forming an amphitheatre, surmounted and enclosed by a lofty portico adorned with statues, and encircled by a terrace with a balustrade. In these, the lowest being the seats of honor, the body of the citizens were arranged according to their tribes; whilst the young men sat apart in the 'Eonßixórv, and strangers also had a separate place allotted to them.2 On a level with the lowest tier of seats and over against them, was the part of the stage3 called logeum, λoyɛiov (pulpitum in Latin), connected by two flights of steps with the doóuos, where the actors in the dialogue were placed, thus affording facility of intercommunication between them and the chorus. The width of the loyɛtov was small compared with its length, which extended beyond the circle of the orchestra, since in stage representations as well as in the plastic arts, grouping was little attended to, actors as well as figures in sculpture

1 Theatrical exhibitions also took place at the "country Dionysia," Atovvota kar' úуpovç or μкpú, and at the “Lenaca,” rù Anvara; but the "Great Dionysia" was, par eminence, the time for the exhibition of new pieces, and indeed none but new plays could then be brought out. This festival occurred in the month Elaphebolion, corresponding to the last of March and beginning of April, in our calendar.

2 Donaldson's Gr. Theatre, p. 139.

In the time of Thespis this was a mere table, λcóc. Thus Pollux, IV. 123, says: ἔλεός ἦν τράπηζα αρχαία ἐφ ̓ ἣν πρὸ Θεσπίδος εἰς τις αναβὼς τοῖς χορευταῖς ἀπεκρίνετο.

being arranged in long lines. This logeion raised twelve feet above the orchestra, was ornamented in front and at the ends by pillars, called và vлoo×ýva, between which statues were placed. Behind the λογεῖον was the προσκήνιον, built of stone for the support of the heavy decorations placed there, whilst the front part of the stage (the λογεῖον and προσκήνιον together were called σκηνή) was of wood, so as to reverberate the voice in speaking.

It seems probable that no curtain was employed to conceal the stage from the spectators in the earlier representations of tragedy. In all of the plays of Aeschylus, and generally, if not always, in those of Sophocles, the stage was empty at the beginning of the play, and left unoccupied at the end. But not so in Euripides, and especially in the Comedians where the scene often changed. A curtain drawn up from between the Proscenium and Moyɛtov, not let down as now, was probably employed. It however, of course, only concealed the Proscenium, not the Logeum.

Back of the Proscenium was a high wall representing generally the exterior of a mansion (never the interior) with its colonnades, roofs, towers and accessory buildings, and a temple into which were three entrances. By means of these, the rank of the persons approaching upon the stage from this direction was readily known, since royal personages always approached by the middle and highly ornamented entrance, but menials and those of inferior rank, by those at the side. A principle of stage scenery seemed to be, that the most important and nearer objects should occupy the back ground, whilst openings into the distance were at the sides. Hence there were two other spacious entrances at the ends of the logeum, called nagαoxývia, the one through the Godos on the right, leading to the country, and the other on the left, from the town, and both connected by two halls with the rágodo of the orchestra, and with the portico around the highest range of seats. It was accordingly known by the spectators, whether the persons approaching were from the town, or from the country, or foreign parts. The principal actors might then approach from the back of the stage, or sides, according to the nature of the piece. For illustration, in the Alcestis of Euripides, the king Admetus would come upon the stage, which represents the area in front of his palace, from the middle entrance, which would be the main approach to it. The old servant (Dɛgáraiva) would make her appearance from one of the side entrances, probably the left one, as leading to the apartments of the women on the back of the stage. Hercules would approach by the right soodos, whilst the chorus, con