In the preceding discussion some changes in the festival program have already been mentioned, for the program was not, like Athena, fully grown at birth. For example, the requirement that each tragic poet should present three tragedies and a satyric drama in a group did not go back to the introduction of tragedy by Thespis in 534 B.C. and cannot be established for any poet before Aeschylus. It is likely that this regulation, together with the main outlines of the program as known at a later period, dates from about 501 B.C., when the festival seems to have been reorganized (see [p. 319], below). This is the period with which the official records began, when also the κῶμοι, that is, the volunteer performances from which formal comedy was derived, were first added to the festival. In addition to the changes that have already been noticed we may now mention the following: It was not customary for plays to be performed more than once at Athens. It is true that the more successful plays in the city might be repeated at the Rural Dionysia, which were held in the various demes (townships) during the month Posideon (December), and that some of these provincial festivals, notably that at the Piraeus, were almost as splendid as those at Athens itself; yet the fact remains that at Athens the repetition of a play was an exceptional thing. Thus, when Aeschylus died in 456 B.C., honor was shown him by the provision that his plays might be brought out in rivalry with the new productions of living tragedians, and they are said to have won the prize in this way several times.[300] This explains what Aeschylus is represented as saying in Aristophanes’ Frogs (vss. 866 ff.), where he protests against contending with Euripides “here in Hades” on the ground that they will not be on equal terms, “for his poetry,” he says, “died with him [and came down to Hades], so that he will be able to recite it, but mine did not die with me.” There is here not only the obvious meaning that Aeschylus thought his poems had achieved an immortality which Euripides’ never could, but also an allusion to the special privileges bestowed upon them. Again, the Athenians conceived such an admiration for the parabasis of Aristophanes’ Frogs, doubtless on account of the sensible and patriotic advice therein given the citizens to compose their differences, that the play was given a second time by request. As a result of such precedents, in 386 B.C. the repetition of one old tragedy was given a regular place in the program, as a separate feature, however, no longer in rivalry with new works; and in 339 B.C. this arrangement was extended also to old comedies. It must further be remembered that the program was susceptible of considerable modification from year to year. When a single satyr-play was brought out as a substitute for one in each poet’s group (see [p. 199], above), naturally each playwright presented three tragedies and nothing more, and this actually happened in 341 B.C. But in the following year each of the three poets produced but two tragedies. The program was therefore flexible enough to meet special needs or emergencies.
It must be understood that the discussion of the festival program up to this point applies as a whole to the City Dionysia alone and only in part to the Lenaea. For example, at the Lenaea there were no dithyrambic contests, and there is no evidence for the presentation of old plays or even of satyric dramas. Our most tangible information is an inscription for the years 419 and 418 B.C. (see [p. 184], above). On these occasions there were two poets and each brought out two tragedies.
Possibly the first thing, apart from physical conditions, which would strike the modern theatergoer’s attention after entering an ancient Greek theater would be the fact that he was provided with no playbill. For this lack he received compensation in three ways: The first was the proagon (προαγών; πρό “before” + ἀγών “contest”), i.e., the ceremony before the contest. This was held in the nearby Odeum on the eighth day of the month Elaphebolion (end of March), which was probably the second day before the City Dionysia proper began. In this function the poets, the actors (without their masks and stage costumes), the choregi (see [pp. 270 f.], below), and the choruses participated. As the herald made announcement each poet and choregus with their actors and chorus presented themselves for public inspection. It was therefore possible for anyone interested, simply by being present on this occasion, to learn what poets were competing, the names of their actors and plays, the order of their appearance, and similar details. Moreover, the mere titles of the plays by themselves would often convey considerable information to the more cultured members of the audience. Thus, names like Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes, Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, and Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis or Iphigenia among the Taurians indicate the locale and general theme of the play on their face, and to the more cultivated spectators titles such as Sophocles’ Oedipus the King or Euripides’ Alcestis would be equally significant. On the other hand, such names as Euripides’ Suppliants or Phoenician Maids would be either mystifying or misleading, especially if the hearer was well enough versed in Greek drama to remember that Aeschylus and Phrynichus, respectively, had applied these titles to plays which actually dealt with entirely different incidents.
The proagon furnished the name and scene for one of Aristophanes’ (or Philonides’) comedies, but unfortunately we have no inkling as to how the theme was treated. In 406 B.C. the news of Euripides’ death came from Macedonia just before this ceremony. Sophocles appeared in garments indicative of mourning and had his chorus leave off their accustomed crowns. The spectators are said to have burst into tears. In Plato’s Symposium (194B) Socrates is represented as referring to the proagon at the Lenaean festival of the year 416 B.C. as follows: “I should be forgetful, O Agathon, of the courage and spirit which you showed when your compositions were about to be exhibited, when you mounted the platform with your actors and faced so large an audience altogether undismayed, if I thought you would on the present occasion The second compensation for the absence of a playbill was provided within the plays themselves. First, with reference to the imaginary scene of action. The mythological stories which uniformly supplied the tragic playwrights with their themes were always definitely localized, and the tragic poets seemed to feel the necessity of indicating the place of action. This was commonly done by having an actor refer to “this land of so-and-so,” or even address it or some conspicuous object. At the beginning of Sophocles’ Electra the aged servant says to Orestes, “This is ancient Argos for which you longed” (vs. 4); in the Bacchanals, Dionysus in a typical Euripidean prologue states, “I come to this land of the Thebans” (vs. 1); Apollo begins Euripides’ Alcestis with the words, “O house of Admetus!” (vs. 1); and Eteocles in Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes addresses the spectators, “O citizens of Cadmus” (vs. 1). When the scene is changed within a play each locality is clearly identified. Thus at the beginning of Aeschylus’ Eumenides, Delphi is indicated as the scene in the usual way; a little later Apollo bids Orestes “go to the city of Pallas” (vs. 79), and still later, when the shift is supposed to have taken place, Orestes enters and says, “O Queen Athena, I come at the bidding of Loxias” (vs. 235). Euripides was most punctilious about this matter: he usually identified his scene within the first five lines and always within the first fifty. Aeschylus and Sophocles were not always so particular: in the Antigone, Thebes is not mentioned until vs. 101; and in the Persians, though it early becomes apparent that the action is laid in Persia, Susa is not actually shown to be the place of action before vs. 761. On the other hand, Euripides sometimes plays a little joke upon his audience; for example, the Andromache begins, “O pride of Asia, city of Thebe, whence I came to Priam’s princely halls as Hector’s bride,” as if the scene were laid in Asia Minor; but in vs. 16 we learn that the scene is really placed in Phthia! In comedy the situation was somewhat different. Except in mythological parodies the stories are independent of tradition and newly invented, and usually are very slightly attached to any definite locality. As a result the plays of Old Comedy are generally thought of, somewhat vaguely, as taking place in Athens, though this fact is seldom expressly stated, and we rarely have any indication as to precisely where in the city the scenic background is supposed to stand. Occasionally we hear of the Pnyx (Acharnians, vs. 20) or Chloe’s temple (Lysistrata, vs. 385). But there is not a word in the Clouds or in the Women at the Thesmophoria to show where in Athens Socrates’ thinking-shop or Agathon’s house is situated. A shift of scene is not uncommon. At the beginning of the Frogs, Dionysus visits his brother Heracles. Since no other location is specified, this scene is probably laid in Athens.[301] At vs. 182 the orchestra represents the subterranean lake, and at vs. 436 the chorus informs Dionysus that he has reached Pluto’s door (see [pp. 88-90], above). By the time of New Comedy, unless we are definitely informed to the contrary, the scene is so uniformly laid in Athens that there was no necessity of saying so. It is true that Athens is mentioned in Plautus’ The Churl, vss. 1 ff.: “Plautus asks for a tiny part of your handsome walls where without the help of builders he may convey Athens,” but it is evident that these words were added by the Roman poet to the original and so are no exception to the Greek practice. That the action did customarily take place in Athens is expressly stated in Plautus’ Menaechmi, vss. 8 ff.: “And this is the practice of comic poets: they declare that every thing has been done at Athens, so that their play may seem more Greek to you.” So thoroughly was this principle ingrained in the playwrights’ consciousness that they were in danger of a lapse when they evaded it. Thus Calydon is the imaginary scene of Plautus’ The Carthaginian (cf. vs. 94); nevertheless at vs. 372 one character says to another, “If you will but have patience, my master will give you your freedom and make you an Attic citizen,” as if they were in Athens! When the poet, as in this instance, deviated from the usual scene of action, he had one of the actors, generally the prologus, warn the audience by saying, “This town is Ephesus” (Plautus’ The Braggart Captain, vs. 88); “Diphilus wished this city to be named Cyrene” (Plautus’ The Fisherman’s Rope, vs. 32), etc. It is only natural that this same period should witness the rise of the convention that the side entrance (parodus) at the spectators’ right led to the harbor or the market place and that at their left into the country, since the scene was regularly placed in Athens and since these were the actual topographical relationships in the Athenian theater (see [p. 233], below). So firmly was this convention established that in Plautus’ Amphitruo, Thebes, an inland town, is represented as having a harbor like Florence, Milan, Rome, etc., in Shakespeare, or as Bohemia has a seacoast in The Winter’s Tale. But the plays not only informed the audience where the scene was laid, but also made known the identity of the dramatic characters. It is obvious that the first character to appear would have to state his own name with more or less directness and then introduce the next character. The latter he might do (a) by announcing bluntly “Here comes so-and-so,” (b) by addressing the newcomer by name, (c) by himself inquiring his name and so eliciting his identity, or (d) by loudly summoning him out of the house or from a distance. All four of these means are actually resorted to. Now the earliest Greek plays have no prologue, but begin with the entrance song of the chorus (the parodus, see [p. 192], above). Accordingly, in Aeschylus’ Persians the very first words are intended to reveal the personnel of the chorus: We are the Persian watchmen old,