CHAPTER VII
THE INFLUENCE OF NATIONAL CUSTOMS AND IDEAS[343]
It is unnecessary to state that the differences between ancient life in Greece and modern life in America and Western Europe are endless. To attempt to enumerate them all would require a separate volume. In the present chapter I shall undertake to touch upon some of the features which more intimately affected Greek drama.
First of all a modern can scarcely avoid a feeling of surprise that plays were almost always brought out in competition; but no instinct was more thoroughly imbedded in the Greek consciousness than this. From the time of the first celebration of the Olympian games in 776 B.C. or before, a contest of some kind formed, to their minds, the most natural setting for the display of athletic, musical, and literary skill. Associated with this fact was another, viz., that the prizes awarded upon these occasions were usually more honorific than intrinsically valuable. The victors in the Olympian games received a garland of wild olive and a palm branch. It is true that the delighted fellow-citizens of the victors usually supplemented the award by something more substantial, but the fact remains that these trivial objects were the sole official reward for many arduous months of preparation and training. In like manner we are informed by the most ancient tradition that the original prize in tragic contests was a goat (see [p. 13 f.] above); and what is more, it is said to have been customary for the victorious poet to offer up his prize in immediate sacrifice to the god of the festival. After the reorganization of the City Dionysia about 501 B.C., however, it seems likely that pecuniary awards were established for the tragic victors. Though we are in ignorance as to their amount, some notion can be formed from the fact that prizes of ten, eight, and six minae,[344] respectively, were granted dithyrambic victors at the Piraeus festival toward the close of the fourth century B.C. Three prizes seem to have been available in tragedy at the City Dionysia also, so that every contestant was sure of some compensation. In other words, to be chosen to compete at all was sufficient honor to entitle even the poorest of the three to a suitable reward. Only the winner of the first prize, however, was technically regarded as “victor.” In comedy, according to tradition, the original prize was a jar of wine, which likewise gave place to financial awards after comedy came under state control at the City Dionysia of 486 B.C. These arrangements were extended to the Lenaea, when first comedy and then tragedy were introduced there (see [p. 119], above), and to contests between actors, as these were established at the two festivals (see [p. 202], above). The successful playwrights, actors, and “choregi” (see below) seem to have been crowned with garlands of ivy by the presiding archon—the archon eponymus at the City Dionysia and the king archon at the Lenaea.
In several particulars the government under which the Athenians lived was indirect in its provisions. For example, though valuable mines belonged to the state, they were not worked by government officials but were leased to private parties. Accordingly, although the dramatic festivals were under the direct control of the state, the financial management was relegated to lessees, who agreed to keep the theater in repair and to pay a stipulated sum into the public treasury in return for the privilege of collecting an admission fee. During the fourth century B.C. the lessees of the Piraeus theater paid thirty-three minae annually. This system explains why the authorities, when they wished to enable even the poorest citizens to attend the dramatic exhibitions, did not simply throw open the doors to all or issue passes. Instead, toward the end of the fifth century it was provided that any citizen might receive two obols from the “theoric” fund in order to pay his own way into the day’s performances (see [p. 120], above).
Another instance of the indirect exercise of governmental functions is seen in the practice of various kinds of “public service” (λειτουργία). Thus when the Board of Generals had provided the hull of a warship (“trireme”) they did not proceed also to rig it and to hire a commander. Instead some rich citizen was required to contribute toward its rigging and upkeep and to command it for one year. This obligation was laid upon the wealthier citizens in rotation; and if anyone considered that he was being called upon too frequently or that someone of greater substance was escaping his just responsibilities, he could challenge him to an exchange of property (ἀντίδοσις). According to law the man so challenged was restricted to the two options of either assuming the burden or trading estates. This system of liturgies applied to the maintenance not only of the naval service but also of dramatic and dithyrambic contests, the torch race, etc. It was provided that no one need act as trierarch more frequently than once in three years, bear any liturgy two successive years, or two liturgies in the same year. But it was the glory of Athenian citizenship that they served oftener and spent their means more generously than the law demanded. The bearers of the theatrical liturgies were called choregi (χορηγοί), and there was no surer method of displaying one’s wealth and of currying favor with the populace than by voluntary and lavish assumption of the choregia. The evidence is not sufficient to establish just how the charges were distributed. The state seems to have paid the actors, and the choregus to have been responsible for assembling and hiring a body of choreutae, engaging a trainer to drill them, purchasing or renting costumes for the chorus, employing mute characters, providing showy extras of various kinds, etc. As regards the flute-player a distinction was perhaps drawn between the dithyrambic and dramatic contests, the state employing him in the former and the choregus in the latter. The question of an additional actor has already been discussed (see [pp. 172-82], above). A speaker in one of Lysias’ orations[345] claims to have spent, within a period of seven years, thirty minae for a tragic choregia, sixteen minae for one in comedy, fifty minae for a dithyrambic chorus of men, fifteen minae for a chorus of boys, three hundred and sixty minae for six trierarchies, twelve minae as gymnasiarch, etc. Since this man’s ambition led him to do more than his share, these outlays are probably somewhat larger than they need to have been; in fact, he declares that the law would not have required of him one-fourth as much. But in addition to indicating how much some were willing to spend, the figures are valuable also as showing the comparative expense of the different events. Needless to state, a poet’s chance of victory was considerably affected by the wealth and disposition of his choregus. An ambitious and lavish man like Nicias, who is declared by Plutarch[346] never to have been worsted in any of his numerous choregias, could manifestly do much to retrieve a poor play. But woe betide the playwright whose success was largely in the keeping of a sponsor who would spend no more than law and public opinion could wring from him. In 405 and 404 B.C., while Athens was experiencing a financial stringency just before the close of the Peloponnesian War, the number of choregi at the City Dionysia was temporarily doubled, so that two synchoregi might divide between them the burden which normally fell to one man. Finally about 308 B.C. the dearth of rich men caused the abandonment of the choregic system and the annual appointment of an agonothete (ἀγωνοθέτης) or “master of contests,” whose own resources were supplemented by a state subsidy and who assumed entire control and financial responsibility for all the dithyrambic and dramatic contests at the festival.
One of the most characteristic features of the Athenian democracy was the large rôle assigned to the lot in the selection of officials. For example, in Aristotle’s day the nine archons were chosen by lot from five hundred men, who had themselves been previously chosen by lot, fifty from each of the ten tribes. Whatever may have been the other objects of this system, at least one was the prevention of bribery and manipulation; and without a doubt this was the motive which led to the use of the lot in theatrical matters. Thus the judges in the contests seem, though the scheme is largely conjectural and depends upon insufficient notices, to have been selected and to have rendered decisions somewhat as follows: Some days before the festival a certain number of names was taken from each tribe and deposited in ten sealed urns in the Acropolis. Just before the contest began, these vessels were brought into the theater and the presiding archon drew one name from each tribal urn. The men so chosen came forward and swore to judge truly. When the performances were over, each judge wrote down his verdict and the ten ballots were placed in a single urn. The archon now drew out half of these, which were alone used in arriving at the ultimate decision! So cumbersome a system can be justified only by its results; and it must be allowed that, so far as we can now determine, no poet suffered any great injustice from its operation. The playwrights usually won whom later critics were unanimous in considering the greatest. Each of the tragic triad wrote about one hundred plays: Aeschylus, whose career fell before the admission of tragedy to the Lenaea, gained thirteen victories at the City Dionysia; Sophocles, eighteen City and at least two Lenaean victories; and Euripides, fifteen (or possibly only five) victories at both festivals (see [p. 325], below). It must be remembered that several plays would be simultaneously crowned at each victory in tragedy (see [p. 198], above). The most astounding reversal occurred when Philocles, Aeschylus’ mediocre nephew, defeated Sophocles’ didascalic group in which was included his Oedipus the King, perhaps the greatest tragedy of ancient times! However, this apparent lapse of judgment is possibly to be explained by the factor mentioned in the last paragraph, a parsimonious choregus.
The lot was employed also in another connection. Immediately after the beginning of each civil year in Hecatombaeon (July), the archon eponymus and the king archon attended to the appointment of tragic choregi for the City Dionysia and the Lenaean festival, respectively. During the fifth century they chose the comic choregi as well, but Aristotle informs us that in his day their selection was managed by the tribes.[347] After this detail had been arranged the archons proceeded to “grant a chorus” to a suitable number of playwrights. For this purpose doubtless an untried poet was required to submit a more or less finished copy of what he wished to produce; from seasoned writers probably the presentation of a scenario or even less was deemed sufficient. At any rate Dr. Ruppel has shown that in Aristophanes’ comedies the plot was sometimes essentially modified by or even integrally depended upon events which took place but a few weeks before the festival. It is evident that the archons exercised considerable discretion in selecting the playwrights; at least we are told that no less a personage than Sophocles was once refused a chorus when one was granted to an obscure Gnesippus.[348] When poets and choregi had finally been chosen, the troublesome task of matching them still confronted the officials. Naturally the important consequences which we have seen to grow out of the assignment of a generous or niggardly choregus to a poet served only to enhance the difficulty of the situation. And in the light of what has just been said concerning the Athenian fondness for the lot, it is not surprising that the problem was met by its use. After the actors passed from private to public management, about 449 B.C. (see [p. 183], above), the lot was employed also to distribute the protagonists among the dramatists. In the fourth century the more equitable system became possible of permitting each protagonist to appear in a single one of each tragedian’s three plays (see [p. 185], above).
One of the most prominent traits of the Greek, and especially of the Athenian, character was litigiousness. Inasmuch as from the time of Pericles citizens of Attica received a slight stipend for serving upon juries, which ranged from 201 to 2,500 in membership and sometimes reached an aggregate of 6,000, there was scarcely an Athenian but was personally acquainted with courtroom procedure and not a few practically supported themselves in this way. Moreover, this situation was intensified by the fact that the fifth century witnessed the rise of formal oratory at Athens and its exploitation by numerous rhetorical and sophistic teachers. It is hardly possible that all these influences should have allowed contemporaneous drama to escape unscathed. Their first effect is seen in the actual introduction of a courtroom scene, as in Aeschylus’ Eumenides, in which Orestes is put on trial before the Council of the Areopagus for having murdered his mother. Athena is the presiding judge, Apollo the attorney for the defense, and the chorus of Furies conducts the prosecution. Aristophanes satirized the Athenian weakness in his Wasps, the chorus of which appeared in the guise of those quarrelsome insects; and that inveterate juryman, Philocleon, was provided with a domestic court wherein one dog was duly arraigned by another for having pilfered a round of Sicilian cheese! Again, certain scenes in other plays, though not ostensibly placed in the courtroom, are practically treated as if they were. For example, in Euripides’ Trojan Women, Menelaus meets his truant wife for the first time since her elopement. Will he pardon or slay her? Helen herself naturally hopes to be forgiven and restored to her husband’s favor; but the Trojan women, who hold her responsible for their country’s downfall, wish condign punishment to be meted out to her. Consequently the play degenerates into a quasi-trial in which Menelaus presides as judge, Hecabe, ex-queen of Troy, represents the prosecution, and Helen pleads her own cause. In the third place, when a court scene was out of the question a debate of some kind was often dragged in. Of course “struggle” is of the essence of drama and a formal “agon” was by derivation almost indispensable in Old Comedy (see [pp. 42-44]), but I am now referring to something different. Perhaps the most glaring instance is found in Euripides’ Madness of Heracles (vss. 158 ff.). Lycus has resolved upon Amphitryon’s speedy death, yet they both stop to argue whether it be better to fight with the spear or the bow! Finally, since in the law courts the addresses of the contending parties were equalized by means of the “water-clock” (the clepsydra), it is not surprising that the speeches of sharply contrasted characters in tragedy are occasionally made of exactly the same length. The best example occurs in Euripides’ Hecabe, where Polymestor’s speech of fifty-one lines is exactly balanced by that of the Trojan queen (cf. vss. 1132-82 and 1187-1237). In Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes there are seven pairs of contrasted speeches, two of which are exactly equal (cf. vss. 422-36 = 437-51, and 568-96 = 597-625, and two others are nearly so; cf. vss. 375-96 ≠ 397-416 and 631-52 ≠ 653-76). If we had before us the ipsissima verba of the tragic writers it is likely that these and some other minor inequalities would be resolved. Thus in Euripides’ Medea, Jason speaks fifty-four lines in reply to the heroine’s fifty-five (cf. vss. 465-519 ≠ 522-75); but there is some reason for believing that vs. 468 is interpolated. Again, in Sophocles’ Antigone the speeches of Creon and Haemon would precisely correspond (cf. vss. 639-80 and 683-723), if we suppose a verse to have dropped out after vs. 690. In conclusion it ought to be stated that such balancing was quite congenial to the fondness for symmetry which characterized the Greek genius in every field of endeavor.
Perhaps the one idea which was most fixed in the popular consciousness of ancient Greece was that of Nemesis, the goddess who punished the overweening presumption arising from long-continued prosperity and success. Herodotus’ history exemplifies the notion both in its main theme, the crushing defeat which brought Persia’s long series of victories to a close, and in numerous digressions, such as the story of Polycrates and his ring. Accordingly, when Phrynichus in his Phoenician Women and afterward Aeschylus in his Persians undertook to celebrate the Persian rout they were careful to avoid a display of the pride which had ruined the invading host, by laying the scene in the Orient and exhibiting the mourning of Persia, not the triumph of Greece (see [p. 124], above). Again, in the seven pairs of contrasted speeches just mentioned as occurring in Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes, a messenger states in turn the name of the Argive champion who is to assail each of the seven gates of Thebes, describing his actions, words, the device upon his shield, etc., and the king in a similar manner matches each enemy with a warrior of his own. It is not without significance that to a Greek mind “the boasts and blazons of the champions convict them of presumption, and doom them beforehand to failure. The answers of Eteocles are always right, take advantage of the enemy’s insolence, and secure divine favour by studied moderation.”[349] Still again, in the same playwright’s Agamemnon appears an incident which to the uninitiated modern reader seems forced and unworthy of the prominence and space assigned to it. Clytemnestra has been untrue to her lord during his long absence at Troy and is now prepared by her paramour’s help to murder him. Agamemnon himself, thanks to the recent smiles of fortune, is in the sort of position which would easily expose him to the vengeance of Nemesis. In the play (vss. 905-57) Clytemnestra skilfully takes advantage of this situation in order to array the powerful goddess upon her side. She urges Agamemnon not to set his conquering foot upon the common earth but to pass from his chariot into the palace over a purple tapestry. The king shrinks from an act which would be more becoming to a god than a mortal, but finally yields to his wife’s insistence. The result is that to a Greek audience he would seem to invite and almost to deserve the doom which his unfaithful spouse quickly brings upon him. These instances from the many available suffice to indicate Greek feeling on the subject.