[Blackie’s translation]
Here again there is no need of supposing that the choral car does not rest solidly upon the ground. Its aërial motion is entirely off-scene.
Even at a later period, when more sophisticated devices were available, the gods still continued on occasion to use strictly terrestrial means of locomotion and to stand in the orchestra on a level with purely human characters. For example, in Sophocles’ Ajax, Athena appears before the tent of that hero and converses first with Odysseus and then with Ajax. In Euripides’ posthumous Bacchanals, Dionysus is seen in propria persona before the house of Pentheus and afterward (in disguise) enters and departs from its portals. Still again, in the pseudo-Euripidean Rhesus, which is usually regarded as a fourth-century production, Athena comes before Hector’s tent to advise and encourage Odysseus and then to deceive Paris (cf. especially vss. 627 f.). On the contrary, the words of the chorus in vss. 885 f. of this play show that the Muse appears above their heads. Thus it is an error to think that the more primitive methods of presenting divinities were entirely superseded by later ones; the different methods existed side by side and might even be used in the same play.
After the erection of a scene-building, about 465 B.C., it became possible to employ the roof as a higher stage for certain scenes. At the beginning of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon the guard is found posted upon the palace roof, on watch for the last in the series of beacon lights from Troy. In Euripides’ Phoenician Maids, Antigone and an old servant appear on top of the royal palace in order to view the hostile army (cf. vss. 88 ff.). In these and other instances the roof of the scene-building (or at a later period the top of the proscenium) was pressed into service. Moreover, although this spot was of course not the exclusive place of speaking, yet, since it was never used for dancing but only for speaking, it came to be called the logium (λογεῖον) or “speaking-place” par excellence (see [p. 59], above). This arrangement was especially useful when a scene was to be thought of as taking place in heaven. So in Aeschylus’ lost play entitled The Weighing of Souls, Zeus was represented as placing the fates of Achilles and Memnon into the scales, while Thetis and Eos prayed for their sons. The same meaning is assigned the logium also in Aristophanes’ Peace, in which Trygaeus on the back of his beetle mounts from earth to heaven, i.e., from the orchestra to the top of the proscenium. The dramatists were not slow to perceive that no other part of the theater was so well adapted for the awe-compelling theophanies with which the Greeks were so fond of terminating their tragedies. There is no doubt that this method of introducing divinities was employed in several of our extant plays, but the absence of stage directions makes it difficult to differentiate the instances sharply.
Finally about 430 B.C. the machine (μηχανή) came into use. Possibly this is employed in Euripides’ Medea (431 B.C.) in order to carry away that heroine and the bodies of her children in the chariot of the sun-god, but the situation is doubtful. It is almost certainly a mistake, however, to attribute the machine, as some do, to the time of Aeschylus. Whether Euripides was its inventor or not, he was extraordinarily fond of using it. Indeed it has been remarked that “in almost every play of Euripides something flies through the air.” At any rate the earliest sure instance of the machine occurs in Euripides’ lost Bellerophon, which was brought out some time before 425 B.C. By its means the hero in this play was enabled to mount from earth to heaven, i.e., from the orchestra to the top of the proscenium, upon the winged steed, Pegasus. This scene is parodied in Aristophanes’ Peace (421 B.C.), in which Trygaeus makes a similar flight on the back of a beetle. Somewhat later the same device enabled Perseus in Euripides’ lost Andromeda to fly to the rocks upon which that heroine had been bound. In Aristophanes’ Clouds (423 B.C.) it was employed to suspend Socrates in a basket, whence he could look down upon the troubles of mortals and survey the heavenly bodies. Especially important is the situation in Euripides’ Orestes (408 B.C.). Orestes and Pylades have fled to the palace roof, dragging Hermione with them. Menelaus is outside the bolted door below. Suddenly Apollo appears (vs. 1625) with Helen at his side. The divinity begins to speak as follows:
Menelaus, peace to thine infuriate mood:
I, Phoebus, Leto’s son, here call on thee.
Peace thou, Orestes, too, whose sword doth guard
Yon maid, that thou mayst hear the words I bear.