Fig. 159.
dealt with historical subjects, but usually with legends; therefore a costume must, as it were, be invented for the characters. Art could assist them but little, since it generally represented the gods and heroes in the nude; but the theatre, which at the same time was a religious institution in which all the co-operators were participants in the celebration, sought its effects chiefly by splendour of costume. Thus was developed the ordinary tragic dress, which belonged neither to actuality nor to the past, but was an ideal costume most closely resembling the garments of religious festivities. There were also certain special means adopted for increasing the height of the actor beyond reality, but we must not suppose that this was required by the great distance at which the actors were seen; these attempts at magnifying were rather caused by the desire to make the actors appear super-human, heroic personages, excelling the men of the day in physical power and dignity, just as the wonderful deeds of the Homeric heroes exceeded the weak actions of their descendants. The requirements of costume in comedy were somewhat different; for gods and heroes the same costume was used as in tragedy, but slaves or persons of ordinary life were also introduced, and these could not be clad in solemn garments. It is difficult to find a fixed standard in comedy, since we must take into account not only the difference between the older and the newer comedy, but also the comedy outside Attica—for instance, that of the Sicyonians, the Tarentines, etc.—which had its peculiar character, and, doubtless, also peculiar dress, just as the “Arlecchino” of the Venetian popular comedy appears in a different dress from the Florentine “Stenterello,” and the Neapolitan “Pulcinella,” although originally they were all three the same person. A special costume was not required for the satyric chorus, since all that was necessary here was to imitate as well as possible what was represented by works of art. In stage costume, as in that of real life, we must distinguish between upper and lower garments. The lower garment of the tragic actor, as well as of the chorus, both in male and female parts, was the long chiton, which was worn in Attica before the time of Pericles, and traced its origin to Ionia; this dress was maintained on the stage because it was especially a festive garment, and, like these festive garments, the theatrical dresses were many-coloured, richly adorned with embroidery or borders, and often very costly, if a rich choragus desired to equip his chorus splendidly. As a rule, this chiton was girded in the old fashion, which we see also in the cithara players, immediately under the shoulders, thus forming a very high waist. They also wore long sleeves reaching down to the hands, a peculiarity of festive costume which had disappeared from real life. To increase the magnificence, the chiton often had a train, not only for women but even for men. The upper dress was either the himation and chlamys, common in ordinary life, or else garments peculiar to the stage, of which a number of names have come down to us, but no exact details of their shape and mode of wearing. Here, too, colour was the rule; black clothing was worn
Fig. 160.
by wretched and persecuted people. In their case, of course, the festive costume, which would have formed too sharp a contrast with their parts, was discarded; Philoctetes, Telephus, etc., did not appear in royal splendour, but in simple garments or even in rags. We may remember the description given in the “Oedipus at Colonus” of the appearance of the unhappy exiled prince; and Aristophanes’ jokes show us that Euripides aimed specially at attracting the pity of the spectators by wretched beggars’ dress. The dress of the women, generally speaking, was similar; perhaps there was a difference in the mode in which the upper garment was put on. Subordinate personages in tragedy—messengers, satellites, slaves, etc.—wore the short chiton; paidogogoi appeared in the barbaric dress already described; and thus variety in the appearance of the actors was produced, while the ceremonious dress was reserved for the most important personages. The ivory statuette of an actor, of which two sides are represented in Figs. [161] and [161], gives an excellent notion of the tragic costume. He wears a long chiton, with sleeves (painted blue in the original) decorated with three broad stripes, descending from the girdle to his feet, and with horizontal stripes round his sleeves. The mask, with the high superficies, bears an expression of wild anger; the size of the slits for the eyes is remarkable, and we can see through them the eyes of the actor, as well as a piece of the face immediately round them. As a rule, only the pupil so appears in Greek masks, and therefore the editor (C. Robert) surmises that this points to a Roman custom of the Imperial age. This statuette is also interesting for the shape of the “cothurnus,” the usual foot-gear of the tragic actor. The cothurnus was a tolerably high shoe, but made to fit either foot;
