Now the common enemy has prevented the celebration of the Country Dionysia for six years. How is it possible, under such circumstances, to conceive of Euripides as composing tragedies in the country? How could the general Lamachus be living out of the city in such a time of danger? Certainly the play itself gives us authority that this scene also is in Athens. At v. 241 Dicaeopolis would go forth with his procession to hold the rural Dionysia in his deme. Prevented from doing so, he is from this on busy with the duties and pleasures of the Choes. His altercation with the chorus and with Lamachus ended, he (v. 623 f.) announces that he will open a market for all Boeotians, Megarians, and Peloponnesians. He sets up (v. 719) the bounds of his markets, and appoints three "himantes" as agoranomi. These officials are suggestive of those busy at the Anthesteria. [179] The first customer, from Megara comes in with: "Hail, agora in Athens" (v. 729), and brings for sale pigs suitable for sacrifice at the Mysteries (v. 747 and 764). The Lesser Mysteries came in Anthesterio first after the Anthesteria.
Footnote 179:[ (return) ] MOMMSEN, Heortologie v. Anthesteria.
There is no change of place in the course of the action. The scene, the Pnyx with the houses of Dicaeopolis, Lamachus, and Euripides near by, remains the same. There is no indication of a jump in time from Posideo to Gamelio, and again from Gamelio to Anthesterio.
Amid all the preparations for the Anthesteria made in the play, two statements cannot fail to attract attention. In v. 504 f. the poet informs us that this is not the Greater Dionysia, when strangers, tribute-bearers, and allies were present. It is the contest at the Lenaeum. In v. 1150 f. the chorus frees its mind concerning the miserly fashion in which Antimachus treated them at a previous celebration of the Lenaea. Shall we say that the poet, in order to speak of things present before the eyes of the Athenians, steps, in these two passages, entirely outside the action of the play? By no means. The poet is dealing with a vital issue. He is fighting against the ruinous war. The power of his genius is shown by the masterly manner in which he uses the moment which was present to his hearers. The victor at the Choes sat among the spectators; the very walls of the theatre had hardly ceased to resound with the din of the carousers. Here, or elsewhere, there is mention of but one επι Ληναίω αγων, that is the Lenaea, or the dramatic contest at the Anthesteria.
In fixing the date of the "Dionysia at the Lenaeum," we have the authority of some interesting inscriptions which have been collected in Dittenberger S.I.G. II. 374. They are the record of moneys obtained from the sale of the hides of the victims sacrificed at various festivals of the Attic year. A portion of each of four separate lists has been preserved. In the first and fourth of these, as they stand in Dittenberger, three Dionysiac festivals are mentioned: that at Piraeus, the Dionysia εν αστει, and the Dionysia επι Ληναίω. The third list ends with the Dionysia in Piræus. The remaining incription mentions two Dionysiac festivals, the one at the Lenaeum, and that εν αστει. The part of the record which should cover the Dionysia at Piræus is wanting. The calendar order of all the festivals mentioned is strictly followed.
Köhler in C.I.A., led by the other inscriptions found with these four, says that the lists do not contain mention of all the festivals at which public sacrifices of cattle were made in that portion of the year covered by the inscriptions, but that these are to be considered only as records of the hide-money which was to be devoted to particular uses. As a matter of fact, however, nearly all the public festivals of importance, as well as some of less note, are included in these lists; and it would be difficult to demonstrate that they do not contain a complete record of the public hide-money for the portion of the year in which these festivals fall.
In these inscriptions the peculiarity with reference to the Dionysia is the same which we find in all other accounts which seem to give a complete record of these festivals. Only three are mentioned as held under public authority. Did the omission of the Lenaea and Anthesteria occur only in this case, we might, following Köhler, admit that the hide-money from this particular festival was not devoted to this special purpose, and that for this reason the name did not appear in these records. But since in no case are there more than three mentioned; and since the third name is one which covers all celebrations in honor of Dionysus at the Lenaeum, this assumption cannot be granted. The important point, and one that cannot be too strongly emphasized, is that neither in these nor in any other inscription or official record is there any mention of the Lenaea or Anthesteria as such. The official language appears always to have been, as here: Διονύσια επι Ληναίω, or: η επι Ληναίω πομπή, or, where the dramatic contest alone was intended: ό επι Ληναίω αγών. Once only in the 5th century [180] do we find Λήναια used; and here it is synonymous with ό επι Ληναίω αγών. Wilamowitz has well said that Λήναια as a name of a separate festival is an invention of the grammarians. Aristophanes, in the passage from the Acharnians, shows that this name may have been used commonly for the dramatic contest at the Lenaeum, and we know from Thucydides that Anthesteria was also used of the entire festival. It is impossible that in a record like the hide-money inscriptions, the official title Διονύσια επι Ληναίω should be employed to cover two festivals separated by an interval of a month.
Footnote 180:[ (return) ] Acharnians, 1155.
But was the Anthesteria a state festival, at which public sacrifices of cattle were made? The story of its institution by Pandion shows that it was public from the beginning. Aristophanes informs us [181] that it maintained this character; for the Basileus awarded the prize at the Choes. The question of sacrifice requires fuller treatment.
Suidas [182] and a scholiast [183] to Aristophanes quote from Theopompus the story of the establishment of the Chytri. On the very day on which they were saved, the survivors of the flood introduced the celebration of this day of the Anthesteria by cooking a potful of all sorts of vegetables, and sacrificing it to the Chthonian Hermes and those who had perished in the waters. The scholiast adds that sacrifice was offered to no one of the Olympian gods on this day.