In the second place, Ridgeway considers that Thespis made the “grand step” in the evolution of tragedy when he
detached his chorus and dithyramb from some particular shrine, probably at Icaria, his native place, and taking his company with him on wagons gave his performances on his extemporised stage when and where he could find an audience, not for religious purposes but for a pastime. Thus not merely by defining more accurately the rôle of the actor but also by lifting tragedy from being a mere piece of religious ritual tied to a particular spot into a great form of literature, he was the true founder of the tragic art. This view offers a reasonable explanation of Solon’s anger on first seeing Thespis act. A performance which he would have regarded as fit and proper when enacted in some shrine of the gods or at a hero’s tomb, not unnaturally roused his indignation when the exhibition was merely “for sport,” as Thespis himself said (and doubtless also for profit), and not at some hallowed spot, but in any profane place where an audience might conveniently be collected [op. cit., p. 61].
Not only does such an interpretation find no support in Plutarch’s anecdote but it is highly improbable as well. It may be granted that after long neglect Thespis’ “wagon”[46] seems to be enjoying a recrudescence of favor. Dieterich and von Wilamowitz have referred to it in all seriousness.[47] There is nothing improbable about the tradition nor any compelling reason for supposing it borrowed from the history of early comedy. It is natural to suppose that Thespis did not restrict his activities to Icaria, but extended them to such other demes as were interested or found them appropriate to their festivals. In that case, means of transportation for performers and accessories became imperative. The use of such a vehicle in the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus shows that it need not necessarily have served also as a stage, as has sometimes been thought. Now, as a matter of fact, several Attic vases, dating from the close of the sixth century B.C., represent the “wagon-ship” of Dionysus ([Fig. 65]). Just what relationship subsisted between primitive drama and the scenes depicted upon these vases has yet to be definitely established. Dr. Frickenhaus would associate them with the preliminary procession at the City Dionysia (see [p. 121], below). But at least, until such time as any connection with Thespis’ wagon has been shown to be impossible, the suggestion can scarcely be laughed out of court as utterly ridiculous. On the other hand, to suppose that Thespis entirely dissociated his performances from shrines and festivals not only rests upon no evidence but is so out of harmony with other data as to be incredible.
Whether the innovation of treating non-Dionysiac themes in tragedy must also be credited to Thespis before he brought his career to a close must remain a matter of doubt, though personally I am inclined to suppose so. Suidas[48] reports Phorbas or the Prizes of Pelias, Priests, Youths, and Pentheus as the titles of four of his plays. Of these the last is clearly Dionysiac, the first probably is not, and the other two are noncommittal. This evidence, however, cannot be relied upon, for the reason that Aristoxenus is said to have declared that Heraclides Ponticus wrote tragedies and attributed them to Thespis.[49]
But as we are not told that these plays bore the same titles as those ascribed to Thespis by Suidas, it does not by any means follow that the latter are spurious. But even if the titles were the same, it is not unlikely that Heraclides would have chosen as titles for his spurious compositions names declared by tradition to be those of genuine works of the Father of Attic Tragedy. The titles as they have reached us indicate that the ancients most certainly did not believe that Thespis confined himself to Dionysiac subjects.[50]
In any case, this development could not have been long deferred after 534 B.C. To the more conservative it is said to have given offense; according to some authorities, the expression “Nothing to do with Dionysus” took its rise at this juncture.[51] Simultaneously, or at least only a little subsequently, the tragic choreutae were no longer dressed to represent sileni but whatever the needs of the individual play demanded, often plain citizens of Athens, Corinth, Thebes, etc.
Even after all that Thespis did for it tragedy must still have been a crude, coarse, only semi-literary affair. Nevertheless, in 534 B.C., when Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens, established a new festival called the City Dionysia, in honor of Dionysus Eleuthereus,[52] he made a contest in tragedy the chief feature of its program. As was but fitting, Thespis won the first goat prize ever awarded in this Athenian festival.[53] It is unnecessary to enlarge upon this recognition except to protest against a not uncommon tendency to assume that terms like τραγῳδία and τραγῳδός were not in use before this date. Of course, the matter can not be definitely proved, but the evolution which I have been tracing at Sicyon and Icaria distinctly favors the other view.
We have seen that Aristotle’s statements ought not to be ignored or lightly rejected. On the other hand, it is no less important to read nothing into his language which does not belong there. Thus, when he declares: “Discarding short stories and a ludicrous diction, through its passing out of its satyric stage, tragedy assumed, though only at a late point in its progress, a tone of dignity,”[54] the phrase διὰ τὸ ἐκ σατυρικοῦ μεταβαλεῖν ὀψὲ ἀπεσεμνύνθη has generally been taken to mean that tragedy developed out of a form like the satyric dramas known to us, in the next century, from Sophocles’ Trackers and Euripides’ Cyclops. For such a historical development no other testimony can be cited until Byzantine times (see [p. 29] and [n. 2], below). Now this interpretation of Aristotle’s phrase has always involved certain difficulties and has been pronounced inconsistent with his other statement that tragedy developed “from the leaders of the dithyramb.” But in my opinion we must accept Reisch’s interpretation: “We are certainly not warranted in translating ἐκ σατυρικοῦ baldly as ‘from the satyr-play.’ On the contrary, Aristotle is speaking only of the ‘satyr-play-like origin’ and of the ‘satyr-like poetry’ (as Theodor Gomperz suitably renders it in his translation); and from this, first of all, only a family relationship between primitive tragedy and the satyr-play, not an identity, may be inferred.”[55] The same thought recurs in Aristotle’s next sentence, when he says: “The iambic measure then replaced the trochaic tetrameter, which was originally employed when the poetry was of the satyric order, and had greater affinities with dancing.”[56] In other words, though early Attic tragedy never received the name of “satyric drama,” and though its choreutae were probably sileni and not satyrs, nevertheless, since the Thespian and pre-Thespian performances, by reason of their obscenities, grotesque language, ludicrous and undignified tone, the predominance of choral odes, etc., bore a certain resemblance to the contemporaneous exhibitions of satyrs in the Peloponnesus and to Pratinas’ satyric drama in Athens at a later period, it can truthfully be said that tragedy had passed through a “satyric stage” and had had a “satyric” tinge which it was slow to lose.
What, then, was the origin of the performance which in the fifth century constituted the final member of tetralogies? Such tetralogies cannot be made out for any playwright before Aeschylus; and the number of plays attributed to Pratinas, eighteen tragedies and thirty-two satyric dramas, throws additional doubt upon the probability that the early poets were required to present four plays together.[57] We have thus far considered three types of performances: the improvisational dithyramb, which was still continued in rural and primitive districts; the improved dithyramb (in 508 B.C. dithyrambic choruses of men were added to the program of the City Dionysia at Athens), and tragedy. The last two had by this time become semi-literary types. Now we are expressly told, and there is no reason to discredit the information, that Pratinas of Phlius in the Peloponnesus was “the first to write satyr-plays.”[58] The general situation is clear. After tragedy had lost its exclusively Bacchic themes and had considerably departed from its original character, Pratinas endeavored to satisfy religious conservatism by introducing a new manner of production, which came to be called satyric drama. This was a combination of the dramatic dithyramb of his native Phlius, which of course had developed somewhat since the days of Arion and Epigenes, and of contemporary Attic tragedy; and it had the merit of continuing, at least for a while, the Dionysiac subjects which were so appropriate to the god’s festival. It appears that at first satyr-plays were brought out independently of tragedy and in greater numbers, comparatively, than was afterward the case. But about 501 B.C. the City Dionysia was reorganized: the goat prize was abandoned; κῶμοι, i.e., the volunteer performances from which comedy was later to develop, were added to the program; and, in particular, the regulation was established that each tragic poet must present three tragedies and one satyr-play in a series. Pratinas is known to have competed against Aeschylus about 499 B.C. His innovation doubtless fell somewhere between the institution of the tragic contest in 534 B.C. and the reorganization of the festival program in 501 B.C., possibly about 515 B.C.
There remains the difficult problem as to the appearance of the choreutae in the satyric drama at different periods in Athens. Fortunately the aspect of non-dramatic sileni and satyrs is fairly certain. Already on the François vase, an amphora signed by Clitias and Ergotimus and belonging to about 600-550 B.C., there are representations of three ithyphallic creatures with equine ears, hoofs, and tails ([Fig. 3]).[59] An inscription ΣΙΛΕΝΟΙ leaves no doubt as to the identity of the figures. Mr. A. B. Cook lists six other inscribed vases from Attica which tell a similar story.[60] None of these seven vases, however, betrays any relationship to the theater.