Museum of Antiquity: A Description of Ancient Life

by L. W. Yaggy; T. L. Haines

The assembled people in a crowded theatre must have been an imposing spectacle, in which the gorgeous colors of the dresses were blended with the azure of a southern sky. No antique rendering of this subject remains. The spectators began to assemble at early dawn, for each wished to secure a good seat, after paying his entrance fee. This, not exceeding two oboloi, was payable to the builder or manager of the theatre. After the erection of stone theatres at Athens, this entrance fee was paid for the poorer classes by Government, and formed, indeed, one of the heaviest items of the budget. For not only at the Dionysian ceremonies, but on many other festive occasions, the people clamored for free admission, confirmed in their demands by the demagogues. Frequently the money reserved for the emergency of a war had to be spent for this purpose. The seats in a theatre were, of course, not all equally good, and their prices varied accordingly. The police of the theatre had to take care that everybody took his seat in the row marked on his ticket. Most of the spectators were men. In older times women were allowed only to attend at tragedies, the coarse jokes of the comedy being deemed unfit for the ears of Athenian ladies. Only hetairai made an exception to this rule. It is almost certain that the seats of men and women were separate. Boys were allowed to witness both tragedies and comedies. Whether slaves were admitted amongst the spectators seems doubtful. As pedagogues were not allowed to enter the schoolroom, it seems likely that they had also to leave the theatre after having shown their young masters to their seats. Neither were the slaves carrying the cushions for their masters' seats admitted amongst the spectators. It is, however, possible that when the seats became to be for sale, certain classes of slaves were allowed to visit the theatre. Favorite poets and actors were rewarded with applause and flowers; while bad performers had to submit to whistling, and, possibly, other worse signs of public indignation. Greek audiences resembled those of southern Europe at the present day in the vivacity of their demonstrations, which were even extended to public characters amongst the spectators on their clearing the theatre.

Vitruvius has given some minute directions, strongly illustrative of the importance of the subject, for choosing a proper situation for a theatre. "When the Forum is finished, a healthy situation must be sought for, wherein the theatre may be erected to exhibit sports on the festival days of the immortal gods. For the spectators are detained in their seats by the entertainment of the games, and remaining quiet for a long time, their pores are opened, and imbibe the draughts of air, which, if they come from marshy or otherwise unhealthy places, will pour injurious humors into the body. Neither must it front the south; for when the sun fills the concavity, the inclosed air, unable to escape or circulate, is heated, and then extracts and dries up the juices of the body. It is also to be carefully observed that the place be not unfitted to transmit sound, but one in which the voice may expand as clearly as possible."

The ancient scene was not, like that of the modern stage, capable of being shifted. It consisted of a solid building (scena stabilis), representing the facade of a royal palace, and adorned with the richest architectural ornaments. It was built of stone, or brick cased with marble, and had three doors, of which the middle one, called porta regia, larger and handsomer than the others, was supposed to form the entrance to the palace. This was used only in the representation of tragedies, and then only by the principal personages of the drama. The door in the right wing was appropriated to inferior personages, and that on the left to foreigners or persons coming from abroad. In our plan, the five angles of the triangles not yet disposed of determine the disposition of the scene. Opposite the centre one are the regal doors; on each side are those by which the secondary characters entered. Behind the scene, as in the Greek theatre, there were apartments for the actors to retire into; and under it were vaults or cellars, which, as in the modern stage, served for the entrance of ghosts, or the appliance of any needful machinery. The proscenium, or space between the orchestra and the scene, answering to our stage, though deeper than the Greek, was of no great depth, which was not required for the performance of ancient dramas, in which only a few personages appeared on the stage at once. Besides, in the absence of any roof, the voice of the performers would have been lost if the stage had been too deep. That of Pompeii is only about twenty-one feet broad, though its length is one hundred and nine.

Along the front of the stage, and between it and the orchestra, runs a tolerably deep linear opening, the receptacle for the aulæum, or curtain, the fashion of which was just the reverse of ours, as it had to be depressed instead of elevated when the play began. This operation, performed by machinery of which we have no clear account, was called aulæum premere, as in the well-known line of Horace:[19]

Quatuor aut plures aulæa premuntur in horas.

It should, however, be mentioned that the ancients seem also to have had movable scenery (scena ductilis), to alter the appearance of the permanent scene when required. This must have consisted of painted board or canvas.

Another method of illusion was by the use of masks. These were rendered necessary by the vastness of the ancient theatres, and the custom of performing in the open air.

In the eastern portico of the Triangular Forum are four entrances to different parts of the greater theatre. The first two, as you enter, lead into a large circular corridor surrounding the whole cavea; the third opens on an area behind the scene, from which there is a communication with the orchestra and privileged seats; the fourth led down a long flight of steps, at the bottom of which you turn, on the right, into the soldiers' quarter, on the left, into the area already mentioned. The corridor is arched over. It has two other entrances, one by a large passage from the east side, another from a smaller passage on the north. Six inner doors, called vomitoria, opened on an equal number of stair-cases which ran down to the first præcinctio. The theatre is formed upon the slope of a hill, the corridor being the highest part, so that the audience upon entering descended at once to their seats, and the vast staircases, which conducted to the upper seats of the theatres and amphitheatres at Rome, were saved. By the side of the first entrance is a staircase which led up to the women's gallery above the corridor; here the seats were partitioned into compartments, like our boxes. The benches were about one foot three inches high and two feet four inches wide. One foot three inches and a half was allowed to each spectator, as may be ascertained in one part, where the divisions are marked off and numbered. There is space to contain about five thousand persons. Here the middle classes sat, usually upon cushions which they brought with them; the men of rank sat in the orchestra below, on chairs of state carried thither by their slaves. Flanking the orchestra, and elevated considerably above it, are observable two divisions, appropriated, one perhaps to the pro-consul, or duumvirs and their officers, the other to the vestal virgins, or to the use of the person who gave the entertainments. This is the more likely, because in the smaller theatre, where these boxes, if we may call them so, are also found, they have a communication with the stage.

This theatre appears to have been entirely covered with marble; the benches of the cavea were of marble, the orchestra was of marble, the scene with all its ornaments was also of marble; and yet of this profusion of marble only a few fragments remain.

It appears, from an inscription found in it, to have been erected, or much improved, by one Holconius Rufus. Upon the first step of the orchestra was another inscription, composed of bronze letters let into the marble. The metal has been carried away, but the cavities in the marble still remain. They were placed so as partly to encompass a statue, and run thus: