The Greek theater and its drama

by Roy C. Flickinger

A really great artist can always transform the limitations of his art into valuable qualities.—Oscar Wilde.

CHAPTER II
THE INFLUENCE OF CHORAL ORIGIN[242]

Tragedy and satyric drama were derived from the dithyramb; comedy from the comus (see [pp. 6], [23 f.], [36], and [43 f.], above). Now both the dithyramb and the comus were entirely choral. Consequently early tragedy and comedy were also choral. No other fact in the history of Greek drama is better authenticated, both by literary tradition and the extant plays, than this.[243] The dithyrambic chorus consisted of fifty dancers, and this seems to have been the size of the chorus also in early tragedy. So the chorus in Aeschylus’ Suppliants (between 500 and 490 B.C.) was made up of the fifty daughters of Danaus. Whether this was still the regular practice or a reversion, on this occasion, to the earlier number cannot now be determined. At least by 487 B.C. the tragic chorus had been reduced to twelve. It is supposed that this came about as follows: During the fifth century each tragic poet was required to present four plays at a time in the annual competition at the City Dionysia, three tragedies and one satyric drama. This grouping of plays cannot be proven for any poet before Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.) and probably was introduced at a rearrangement of the festival program which took place about 501 B.C. The members of the chorus (the choreutae) must have found it irksome to memorize the words, music, dance steps, and stage business for so many plays. To relieve this burden Aeschylus or a contemporary divided the choreutae at his disposal into four groups of twelve each, assigning one group as a chorus for each of his four plays. Whether the dramatist continued to be provided with forty-eight or fifty choreutae or whether, as the rôle of the chorus lost its bulk and importance, a single group of twelve choreutae appeared in all four pieces is unknown. In the former case, the three groups of choreutae that would normally be idle during any one play could be conveniently employed as a supplementary chorus, mute attendants, etc. But however this may be, twelve was the size of the chorus in the three extant tragedies of Aeschylus which followed the Suppliants; and it continued to be such until the middle of the fifth century, when Sophocles raised the number to fifteen.[244] This innovation enabled the chorus to enter the orchestra in three files of five men each and to retain this formation for their dance movements. This gave better results than to draw them up, as was previously necessary, in two files of six men each or three files of four each. Furthermore, the chorus leader (the coryphaeus) could now stand to one side occasionally without spoiling the symmetry of the two half-choruses, each of which had a sub-leader of its own. Aeschylus probably adopted Sophocles’ innovation in the three plays which he brought out in 458 B.C. One of the test passages is Agamemnon, vss. 1344-71, where a single tetrameter line seems to be assigned to each of three choreutae and an iambic couplet to each of the remaining twelve. There is no reason to believe that the number was altered again for a long time; but further information of a change is lacking until Roman times—at Cyrene a wall-painting of a tragic chorus represents but seven choreutae.

It is unlikely that the chorus in the early comus consisted of any fixed number. Toward the end of the fifth century the comic chorus contained twenty-four choreutae. Probably this number was chosen at the time that comedy was granted the official recognition of the state, 486 B.C. If such was the case the comic chorus was just twice as large as the tragic chorus of that period. The reason for doubling the number is found in the hostility which frequently rent the chorus of ancient comedy and in the parallelism which is an outstanding feature of its choral odes (cf. [p. 42], above). About the close of the fourth century, when the functions of the comic chorus had been greatly curtailed, it is likely that its size was also reduced. At any rate, the chorus at the Soteric festival at Delphi from 272 to 269 B.C. contained but seven or eight choreutae and at Delos in the next century only four.

The chorus of Greek comedy was Protean in the forms that it assumed. In accordance with the animal disguises which were so popular in the early comus (see [p. 54], above), we hear of choruses representing wasps, birds, frogs, goats, snakes, bees, gall-insects, fishes, ants, storks, etc. A suggestion as to the appearance of such choruses is afforded by five Attic vase paintings of about 500 B.C. (Figs. [12-16]). Still more fantastic were choruses of clouds, dreams, cities, seasons, islands, laws, ships, sirens, centaurs, sphinxes, dramas, etc. Less grotesque would be choruses of Persians, knights, graces, athletes, poets, etc. These lists convey but a slight hint of the diversity which the fancy of the poets provided for the choruses of Old and Middle Comedy. The choreutae, of course, were always men, but some or all of them might be dressed to represent women. Thus, the clouds in Aristophanes’ play are thought of as women, and in his Frogs the chorus of initiates comprises both men and women. At the beginning of Aristophanes’ Women in Council the choreutae are men dressed to represent women who have tried to disguise themselves as men! By the time of New Comedy the chorus had sunk to a position of comparative insignificance and had become more conventional, usually consisting of men engaged in a carousal (κῶμος). In the earliest form of Attic tragedy the chorus was invariably composed of sileni.[245] But when its themes were no longer exclusively Dionysiac (see [p. 123], above), the choruses became more sedate, generally consisting simply of men or women. In most cases these are citizens of the imagined scene of action. In addition to sex it was customary to indicate whether they were thought of as being young or old. Sometimes they are characterized as foreigners. For example, the scene of Euripides’ Phoenician Maids is laid in Thebes; but dress, accent, and the habit of oriental prostration mark the women in the chorus as non-Hellenic. The staid character of tragic choruses is abandoned in the unique furies of Aeschylus’ Eumenides. According to tradition their black garments, bloody faces, and snaky locks produced so frightful an impression that boys fainted and women miscarried. In satyric drama the chorus always consisted of satyrs (see [pp. 125 f.], above).

One of the first problems that confronted the Greek dramatist was the choice of such a character for his chorus as would make it an integral part of the play’s action. The never-changing character of the chorus in the satyr-plays prevented, for the most part, anything but the loosest of connections between chorus and actors there, as we have already noted ([pp. 126 f.], above). In tragedy the task was somewhat easier, yet still most difficult. In the earliest Greek tragedy extant, Aeschylus’ Suppliants, the chorus, the fifty daughters of Danaus who have fled from Egypt to Argos in order to escape marriage with their fifty cousins, are themselves the story. The actors are of secondary importance. From the standpoint of dramatic interest Danaus himself, the king of Argos, and the suitors’ herald do not compare with the girls themselves. In the Persians and the Seven against Thebes, Aeschylus has been nearly as successful. In these plays the fate of the chorus, though not the prime object of interest, is almost inextricably bound up with that of the other dramatic characters. In the former the Persian elders, for patriotic as well as personal motives, are no less concerned than the queen mother (Atossa) or King Xerxes himself in the fate of the army invading Greece. Similarly, in the Seven against Thebes the possibility of the city’s being captured has as vital a meaning to the chorus of Theban girls as to the others, and frightens them more. Here we find a new note; for whereas in the first part of the play the thought of the danger threatening themselves and the city swallows up all else, in the last part their hearts are torn with fear for Eteocles as he fares forth to single combat with his brother. This latter motivation, viz., that the chorus should be moved by a more or less sentimental interest in some actor rather than by a vital fear for itself, or for others and itself, was destined to play a prominent part in the history of the dramatic chorus. It recurs in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, Agamemnon, and Libation-Bearers (not to mention the plays of Sophocles and Euripides), in all of which the interest of the chorus in the action is more or less adventitious. Even in such cases, however, it was the practice of Greek playwrights, if possible, to bind the chorus more intimately to the hero in the final catastrophe. Thus, in Prometheus Bound the daughters of Oceanus, who constitute the chorus, bear no real relationship to the leading character; nevertheless, at the close (vs. 1067) they declare their wish to share his fate, mount the crag where he is fastened, and with him are hurled to Tartarus. A final refinement is found in Aeschylus’ Eumenides. Here the chorus of furies, so far from fearing for or sympathizing with one of the characters, is set in deadly opposition to Orestes and is bent upon tracking the guilty man down. Inasmuch as this was the especial duty of furies the chorus is raised once more to a point of primary importance. Thus it appears that from the standpoint of choral technique Aeschylus’ earliest play, the Suppliants, and his last play, the Eumenides, are the most successful.

In general, the chorus in Sophocles and Euripides is less intimately related to the plot than in Aeschylus. Yet there are notable exceptions to this statement. Thus, the chorus of Euripides’ Suppliants consists of Argive women together with their handmaids—the mothers of the seven chieftains who fell in the attack upon Thebes. They implore the aid of Theseus to force the Thebans to surrender the bodies of their sons for burial. According to ancient thought this was a matter of paramount importance and the whole play is occupied with it. The mothers are in fact the chief personages of the drama; the other characters speak and act only in their behalf. Not even the Danaids of Aeschylus’ Suppliants are more indispensable to the mechanism of the piece. On the other hand, the connection between chorus and plot in Euripides’ Phoenician Maids is of the flimsiest. This tragedy deals with the same subject as Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes. But the Aeschylean chorus consists, as we have observed, of Theban girls who are vitally concerned in the outcome of the battle. Euripides’ chorus is made up of Tyrian virgins on their way to Delphi. They have no personal interest in the possible capture of Thebes or in the fratricidal strife of Eteocles and Polynices.

The same sort of thing occurs also in Old Comedy. Dr. Fries (op. cit., p. 35) correctly points out that the knights in Aristophanes’ play of that name are present rather to listen than to act. In Aristophanes’ Clouds and Frogs the connection between chorus and action is of the slightest and entirely artificial. In general it can be said that the character of comic choruses is chosen rather to fit into some fantastic situation, and may be largely ignored toward the end of the play. Thus, in Aristophanes’ Women at the Thesmophoria the women of Athens assemble to contrive a punishment for Euripides, who has been maligning their sex. Euripides’ father-in-law, made up as a woman, tries to defend him but is detected. During vss. 871-1160 Euripides under various disguises attempts to rescue his relative, but each time is frustrated. But the chorus of Euripides-haters assist in balking him neither by word nor deed. Their original character, if retained throughout these lines, would have too effectually thwarted the humor of his stratagems.

It is possible, however, to detect more subtle effects in the relations between chorus and actors. Since the chorus is usually friendly to the principal character, the bond of sympathy is often strengthened by having the chorus of the same sex and of about the same age as that character. So, in Aeschylus’ Libation-Bearers the choreutae are Trojan slave women who are cognizant of conditions in the palace and fully share Electra’s eagerness to avenge her father’s murder. In Sophocles’ Maidens of Trachis the chorus of girls is in thorough accord with the gentle, unsophisticated Deianira. Furthermore, men or older women might have warned her against sending to her husband a robe dipped in the centaur’s blood, an act which is so essential to the plot; but such innocence is made to seem entirely plausible by reason of the youth and inexperience of the chorus. On the contrary, sometimes the run of the plot requires an effect precisely the opposite. In Sophocles’ Antigone, for example, the isolation of the heroine is intensified by a chorus, not only of men but of old men, who would be least sympathetic with her violation of a public edict. In Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound the defiant Titan would have scorned the overtures of a group of men, whoever they might be, but the feminine tact and sympathy of the Oceanides reach his heart at once. Such a chorus, moreover, is an effective foil the better to emphasize the hero’s indomitable strength and will-power. In Aeschylus’ Persians the chorus of Persian elders is not only natural in itself, but such experienced men’s fear for the army and their grief at its misfortunes produce an impression of utter collapse beyond the power of any chorus of women to effect. In Aristophanes’ Knights the chorus, in spite of criticisms, was appropriately constituted, since it represented a body of men who are said to have entertained a special grudge against Cleon. It would be easy to extend this topic to a great length. Suffice it to state that both the extant plays and the ancient commentaries upon them[246] prove that the Greek poets expended no little thought upon this detail of their dramaturgy.

Having once selected his chorus, the necessity rested upon the poet of composing choral odes appropriate to the character chosen. In this they were not always successful. In Euripides’ Electra the chorus consists of virgins from the Argive countryside. At vss. 434-78 they give an elaborate description of Achilles’ armor. Such women would have had no opportunity of seeing Achilles at Troy themselves, and hearsay would scarcely have been so circumstantial. Again, in Euripides’ Phoenician Maids, vss. 638-75, 801-27, and 1019-67, the Tyrian girls unroll the scroll of Theban history like antiquarians. Their knowledge is not justified by the fact that Thebes had been founded, some five generations before, by a Phoenician prince. Again, in Euripides’ Hippolytus, vss. 1102-19, women of Troezen, the intimates of a local washerwoman (!), discourse upon the conflict between faith and reality! Still again, in Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis, vss. 794-800, a band of unassuming women from Chalcis throw doubt upon the mythological tradition that Zeus had appeared unto Leda in the form of a swan. The first two examples are somewhat different from the last two. The former arise simply from failure to find a satisfactory solution for the problem under consideration. But the latter reveal the poet dropping his mask and using the chorus as a mouthpiece for his own philosophizing and skepticism.