[363] According to late authorities Greek theaters were provided with revolving prisms (periacti) with a different view painted on each of their three sides. These could be turned to indicate a change of scene. There is no evidence, however, that this contrivance was employed during the classical period of Greek drama, although Dörpfeld thought that a place was provided for it in the earlier parascenia at Epidaurus (cf. Das griechische Theater, p. 126). The geranos (“crane”) and the krade (“branch”) were probably only other names for the μηχανή.
[364] Cf. Themistius Oration xxvi, 316 D.
[365] Cf. Poetics 1451b26.
[366] Cf. Archer, Play-making, p. 119.
[367] Cf. Hamburgische Dramaturgie, Zimmern’s translation, p. 377.
[368] Cf. Euripides and His Age, p. 206.
[369] Cf. Reitzenstein, Hermes, XXXV (1900), 622 ff.
[370] Cf. Kock, Fragmenta Comicorum Atticorum, II, 500, fr. 79.
[371] Aristotle’s theory of the purificatory effects of tragedy has not fallen within the scope of my text, but I cannot forbear citing Fairchild, “Aristotle’s Doctrine of Katharsis and the Positive or Constructive Activity Involved,” Classical Journal XII (1916), 44 ff.
[372] Cf. Capps, “Dramatic Synchoregia at Athens,” American Journal of Philology, XVII (1896) 319 ff.; “Catalogues of Victors at the Dionysia and Lenaea,” ibid., XX (1899), 388 ff.; “The Dating of Some Didascalic Inscriptions,” American Journal of Archaeology, IV (1900), 74 ff.; “The Introduction of Comedy into the City Dionysia,” Decennial Publications of the University of Chicago, VI (1904), 259 ff.; and “Epigraphical Problems in the History of Attic Comedy,” American Journal of Philology, XXVIII (1907), 179 ff.; Wilhelm, Urkunden dramatischer Aufführungen in Athen (1906), and “Eine Inschrift aus Athen,” Anzeiger d. Akademie d. Wissenschaften in Wien, phil.-hist. Klasse, XLIII (1906), 77 ff.; Clark, “A Study of the Chronology of Menander’s Life,” Classical Philology, I (1906), 313 ff.; Oxyrhynchus Papyri, IV (1904), 69 ff., and X (1914), 81 ff.; O’Connor, Chapters in the History of Actors and Acting in Ancient Greece (1908); Jachmann, De Aristotelis Didascaliis (1909); and Flickinger, “Certain Numerals in the Greek Dramatic Hypotheses,” Classical Philology, V (1910), 1 ff.