Beginning at the left hand below, we notice first the breast-wall dividing the orchestra from the auditorium, and below it again the partially covered channel for rain-water. In the foremost row of marble seats or thrones, the third seat to the right is that of the Priest of Dionysos, distinguished by the exquisite relief, on the arm of the throne, of Eros engaged in cock-fighting. Higher up in the auditorium are pedestals for honorary statues.
existence. Immediately in front of the seats is a circular wall, which appears to have been erected as a protection from wild beasts in the time of the Roman gladiatorial exhibitions. On the other side of the orchestra, facing the auditorium, are the remains of a stage with figures in relief, representing the birth of Dionysus and other cognate subjects, and a crouching Silenus supporting the stage. These were probably not set up in their present form before the third century A.D., though the marbles themselves may date from the time of Nero. Farther back there are the foundations of other stages of an earlier date, with a stoa or colonnade, intended as a shelter for the people in case of rain. Traces have also been found, partly beneath the present orchestra, of the primitive enclosure which served as an orchestra before the construction of the theatre. It was probably here that the most famous Greek tragedies were exhibited, though it appears to have been at a different spot, in the Agora, that the first play of Æschylus was enacted, when the scaffolding on which the people sat gave way, rendering it necessary that some new arrangement should be provided. At first a cart or table is said to have served as a stage for the actor, a booth being provided at a later time as a background and dressing-room, with some kind of platform for a stage, in the neighbourhood of a spot suitable for dancing and overlooked by a rising ground from which the spectators might be able to hear and see what was going on. It was probably not till about 330 B.C., in the days of Lycurgus, that the elaborately constructed theatre was erected, whose ruins still excite so much interest and admiration. Immediately to the west of the theatre are the remains of a colonnade—the Stoa of Eumenes—which led from the theatre to the Odeum of Herodes Atticus, one of the most munificent of the Roman benefactors of Athens in the second century A.D. The Odeum was built in memory of his wife Regilla, and though the marble-covered seats and cedar roof are gone, its arches form an imposing ruin.
Historically speaking, Greek tragedy, the flower and crown of Greek poetry, had a very humble origin. It was developed from the dithyramb, a lyric hymn in honour of Dionysus (Bacchus), which seems to have been derived from Thrace, and was of a wild, impassioned, semi-oriental character. Hence the theatre stood within the precincts sacred to Dionysus: and the foundations of a shrine, as well as of a larger temple in which the image of the god in gold and ivory was preserved, have been discovered in the immediate neighbourhood of the theatre. About 600 B.C. the dithyramb entered on a new phase in the hands of Arion of Methymna in Lesbos, who found Corinth a congenial scene for such revelry. He organised a chorus of fifty members in the form of satyrs[7] (whence the name of
