Greece / Painted by John Fulleylove; described by J.A. McClymont

by J. A. M'Clymont

This is the site of the Choragic monument of Thrasyllus. The square opening is cut in the scarped face of the Acropolis rock at the top of the Theatre of Dionysos. Above stand two columns, which supported tripods dedicated to the god.

tragedy or “goat song”), who danced around the altar or image of the wine-god. Half a century later this performance was introduced at Athens, and became a feature of the greater Dionysia which were instituted by the “Tyrant” Peisistratus. By and by, at one of these celebrations, Thespis, in order to give a rest to the chorus, came forward as a reciter of poetry, which he seems to have addressed not to the chorus, but to a person who was described as hypocritēs (“answerer”), which became the name for an actor. The dramatic element thus introduced was strengthened a few years later by Æschylus, who provided employment for two actors and gave dialogue a more important place, though the entertainment was still largely of a lyrical character. A farther step was taken by Sophocles (who gained a victory over the great founder of Greek tragedy in 468 B.C.) by the addition of a third actor and the adoption of scene-painting. Sophocles arranged his plays in trilogies or sets of three, frequently choosing subjects that had no connection with each other, instead of the tetralogy (set of four), which had formerly been the fashion. As a result of this change the number of the chorus was increased to fifteen instead of twelve, which had been approximately the fourth part of Arion’s chorus of fifty.

What strikes a western mind as the most remarkable thing about Greek tragedy is its high moral and religious character, notwithstanding its association with the worship of Bacchus and the prominence assigned to dancing. Its subjects were almost always of a heroic nature, drawn from the national mythology, and the problems of human sin and suffering were treated from a deeply religious point of view. As Prof. J. S. Blackie says in his translation of Æschylus (vol. i. pp. xxxviii-xxxix):—

“Our modern Puritans, who look upon the door of a theatre (according to the phrase of a famous Edinburgh preacher) as the gate of hell, might take any one of these seven plays which are here presented in an English dress, and, with the simple substitution of a few Bible designations for heathen ones, find, so far as moral and religious doctrine is concerned, that, with the smallest possible exercise of the pruning-knife, they might be exhibited in a Christian church, and be made to subserve the purposes of practical piety as usefully as many a sermon. The following passage from the Agamemnon is not a solitary gem from a heap of rubbish, but the very soul and significance of the Æschylean drama:—

For Jove doth teach men wisdom, sternly wins
To virtue by the tutoring of their sins;
Yea! drops of torturing recollection chill
The sleeper’s heart; ’gainst man’s rebellious will
Jove works the wise remorse:
Dread Powers, on awful seats enthroned, compel
Our hearts with gracious force.”

And again (p. xlviii):—

“The lyrical tragedy of the Greeks presents, in a combination elsewhere unexampled, the best elements of our serious drama, our opera, our oratorio, our public worship, and our festal recreations. The people who prepared and enjoyed such an intellectual banquet were not base-minded. Had their stability been equal to their susceptibility, the world had never seen their equal.”

The religious element is not so prominent in the poetry of Sophocles, who brought his compositions to the highest perfection of art; and the rationalising element is still more apparent in Euripides, with whom philosophy may be said to have gained the ascendency. In his hands the Athenian drama lost to a large extent its ideal and heroic character, becoming realistic in its mode of thought, and showing the same speculative tendencies as the Sophists had begun to indulge in. Euripides represents a period of decline; but for intellectual keenness and subtlety, for humane sentiment and tender pathos, he is generally regarded as the greatest of the three. It gives us some idea of the marvellous intellectual wealth of Athens at this period in her history when we remember that the great poets we have mentioned were sometimes defeated by competitors, whose writings have unfortunately perished.

Side by side with the later developments of Greek tragedy, Attic comedy reached its culminating point in the writings of Aristophanes, whose plays, eleven in number (dating from 427 B.C. onwards), are all that exist of the comic literature of this period. It originated in the droll procession, with merry song and rude comments on public affairs, which formed one of the features of the “Greater Dionysia”—borrowed no doubt from the rustic celebrations at vintage and harvest which are usually attributed to the Dorian genius. At first voluntary, the procession afterwards became a recognised part of the Athenian festival, and was subsidised by the state, the result being that it assumed a dramatic character in the hands of the poet Cratinus. While fun and laughter were the primary objects it was intended to serve, it found room for an infusion of beautiful lyric poetry; and the chorus became the mouth-piece of the poet for expressing his mind on the questions of the day, and satirising the vices and follies of politicians and other public men. Unfortunately Aristophanes did not spare even such a salutary teacher as Socrates, whom we find caricatured in the Clouds. Though the comic poets were generally conservative in their instincts and bitterly opposed to philosophic radicalism, they owed their right of criticism very largely to the free spirit of the Athenian democracy; and they soon gave up their scathing personalities when power passed out of the hands of the people. Moreover the revelry associated with the worship of Dionysus seemed to justify the licence which they claimed; and when the old religion lost its hold on the mind of the nation they lost their courage and independence as public censors. In Menander and others the “New Comedy” became little more than an amusing reflection of the social life of the day.

The plays in the theatre were only part of the Dionysiac festival, which was celebrated with great magnificence by a public procession and sacrifices. During the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., when the Greek drama was at its best, the responsibility of