A Smaller Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities

by William Smith

Plan of Greek Theatre.

THĔĀTRUM (θέατρον), a theatre. The Athenians before the time of Aeschylus had only a wooden scaffolding on which their dramas were performed. Such a wooden theatre was only erected for the time of the Dionysiac festivals, and was afterwards pulled down. The first drama that Aeschylus brought upon the stage was performed upon such a wooden scaffold, and it is recorded as a singular and ominous coincidence that on that occasion (500 B.C.) the scaffolding broke down. To prevent the recurrence of such an accident, the building of a stone theatre was forthwith commenced on the south-eastern descent of the Acropolis, in the Lenaea; for it should be observed, that throughout Greece theatres were always built upon eminences, or on the sloping side of a hill. The new Athenian theatre was built on a very large scale, and appears to have been constructed with great skill in regard to its acoustic and perspective arrangements. Subsequently theatres were erected in all parts of Greece and Asia Minor, although Athens was the centre of the Greek drama, and the only place which produced great masterworks in this department of literature. All the theatres, however, which were constructed in Greece were probably built after the model of that of Athens, and, with slight deviations and modifications, they all resembled one another in the main points, as is seen in the numerous ruins of theatres in various parts of Greece, Asia Minor, and Sicily. The Attic theatre was, like all the Greek theatres, placed in such a manner that the place for the spectators formed the upper or north-western, and the stage with all that belonged to it the south-eastern part, and between these two parts lay the orchestra. The annexed plan has been made from the remains of Greek theatres still extant, and from a careful examination of the passages in ancient writers which describe the whole or parts of a theatre.—1. The place for the spectators was in a narrower sense of the word called theatrum. The seats for the spectators, which were in most cases cut out of the rock, consisted of rows of benches rising one above another; the rows themselves (a) formed parts (nearly three-fourths) of concentric circles, and were at intervals divided into compartments by one or more broad passages (b) running between them, and parallel with the benches. These passages were called διαζώματα, or κατατομαί, Lat. praecinctiones, and when the concourse of people was very great in a theatre, many persons might stand in them. Across the rows of benches ran stairs, by which persons might ascend from the lowest to the highest. But these stairs ran in straight lines only from one praecinctio to another; and the stairs in the next series of rows were just between the two stairs of the lower series of benches. By this course of the stairs the seats were divided into a number of compartments, resembling cones from which the tops are cut off; hence they were termed κεοκίδες, and in Latin cunei. The whole of the place for the spectators (θέατρον) was sometimes designated by the name κοῖλον, Latin cavea, it being in most cases a real excavation of the rock. Above the highest row of benches there rose a covered portico (c), which of course far exceeded in height the opposite buildings by which the stage was surrounded, and appears to have also contributed to increase the acoustic effect. The entrances to the seats of the spectators were partly underground, and led to the lowest rows of benches, while the upper rows must have been accessible from above.—2. The orchestra (ὀρχήστρα) was a circular level space extending in front of the spectators, and somewhat below the lowest row of benches. But it was not a complete circle, one segment of it being appropriated to the stage. The orchestra was the place for the chorus, where it performed its evolutions and dances, for which purpose it was covered with boards. As the chorus was the element out of which the drama arose, so the orchestra was originally the most important part of a theatre: it formed the centre around which all the other parts of the building were grouped. In the centre of the circle of the orchestra was the thymele (θυμέλη), that is, the altar of Dionysus (d), which was of coarse nearer to the stage than to the seats of the spectators, the distance from which was precisely the length of a radius of the circle. In a wider sense the orchestra also comprised the broad passages (πάροδοι, e) on each side, between the projecting wings of the stage and the seats of the spectators, through which the chorus entered the orchestra. The chorus generally arranged itself in the space between the thymele and the stage. The thymele itself was of a square form, and was used for various purposes, according to the nature of the different plays, such as a funeral monument, an altar, &c. It was made of boards, and surrounded on all sides with steps. It thus stood upon a raised platform, which was sometimes occupied by the leader of the chorus, the flute-player, and the rhabdophori. The orchestra as well as the theatrum lay under the open sky; a roof is nowhere mentioned.—3. The stage. Steps led from each side of the orchestra to the stage, and by them the chorus probably ascended the stage whenever it took a real part in the action itself. The back side of the stage was closed by a wall called the scena (σκηνή), from which on each side a wing projected which was called the parascenium (παρασκήνιον). The whole depth of the stage was not very great, as it only comprised a segment of the circle of the orchestra. The whole space from the scena to the orchestra was termed the proscenium (προσκήνιον), and was what we should call the real stage. That part of it which was nearest to the orchestra, and where the actors stood when they spoke, was the logeium (λογείον), also called ocribas (ὀκρίβας), in Latin pulpitum, which was of course raised above the orchestra, and probably on a level with the thymele. The scena was, as we have already stated, the wall which closed the stage (proscenium and logeium) from behind. It represented a suitable background, or the locality in which the action was going on. Before the play began it was covered with a curtain (παραπέτασμα, προσκήνιον, αὐλαίαι), Latin aulaea or siparium. When the play began this curtain was let down, and was rolled up on a roller underneath the stage. The proscenium and logeium were never concealed from the spectators. As regards the scenery represented on the scena, it was different for tragedy, comedy, and the satyric drama, and for each of these kinds of poetry the scenery must have been capable of various modifications, according to the character of each individual play; at least that this was the case with the various tragedies, is evident from the scenes described in the tragedies still extant. In the latter however the back-ground (scena) in most cases represented the front of a palace with a door in the centre (i) which was called the royal door. This palace generally consisted of two stories, and upon its flat roof there appears to have been some elevated place from which persons might observe what was going on at a distance. The palace presented on each side a projecting wing, each of which had its separate entrance. These wings generally represented the habitations of guests and visitors. All the three doors must have been visible to the spectators. The protagonistes always entered the stage through the middle or royal door, the deuteragonistes and tritagonistes through those on the right and left wings. In tragedies like the Prometheus, the Persians, Philoctetes, Oedipus in Colonus, and others, the back-ground did not represent a palace. There are other pieces again in which the scena must have been changed in the course of the performance, as in the Eumenides of Aeschylus and the Ajax of Sophocles. The dramas of Euripides required a great variety of scenery; and if in addition to this we recollect that several pieces were played in one day, it is manifest that the mechanical parts of stage performance, at least in the days of Euripides, must have been brought to great perfection. The scena in the satyric drama appears to have always represented a woody district with hills and grottos; in comedy the scena represented, at least in later times, the fronts of private dwellings or the habitations of slaves. The art of scene-painting must have been applied long before the time of Sophocles, although Aristotle ascribes its introduction to him. The whole of the cavea in the Attic theatre must have contained about 50,000 spectators. The places for generals, the archons, priests, foreign ambassadors, and other distinguished persons, were in the lowest rows of benches, and nearest to the orchestra, and they appear to have been sometimes covered with a sort of canopy. The rows of benches above these were occupied by the senate of 500, those next in succession by the ephebi, and the rest by the people of Athens. But it would seem that they did not sit indiscriminately, but that the better places were let at a higher price than the others, and that no one had a right to take a place for which he had not paid. The usual fee for a place was two obols, which was subsequently given to the poorer classes by a law of Pericles. [[Theorica].] Women were allowed to be present during the performance of tragedies, but not of comedies.—The Romans must have become acquainted with the theatres of the Italian Greeks at an early period, whence they erected their own theatres in similar positions upon the sides of hills. This is still clear from the ruins of very ancient theatres at Tusculum and Faesulae. The Romans themselves, however, did not possess a regular stone theatre until a very late period, and although dramatic representations were very popular in earlier times, it appears that a wooden stage was erected when necessary, and was afterwards pulled down again, and the plays of Plautus and Terence were performed on such temporary scaffoldings. In the mean while, many of the neighbouring towns of Rome had their stone theatres, as the introduction of Greek customs and manners was less strongly opposed in them than in the city of Rome itself. Wooden theatres, adorned with the most profuse magnificence, were erected at Rome even during the last period of the republic. In B.C. 55 Cn. Pompey built the first stone theatre at Rome, near the Campus Martius. It was of great beauty, and is said to have been built after the model of that of Mytilene; it contained 40,000 spectators. The construction of a Roman theatre resembled, on the whole, that of a Greek one. The principal differences are, that the seats of the spectators, which rose in the form of an amphitheatre around the orchestra, did not form more than a semicircle; and that the whole of the orchestra likewise formed only a semicircle, the diameter of which formed the front line of the stage. The Roman orchestra contained no thymele, and was not destined for a chorus, but contained the seats for senators and other distinguished persons, such as foreign ambassadors, which are called primus subselliorum ordo. In B.C. 68 the tribune L. Roscius Otho carried a law which regulated the places in the theatre to be occupied by the different classes of Roman citizens: it enacted that fourteen ordines of benches were to be assigned as seats to the equites. Hence these quatuordecim ordines are sometimes mentioned without any further addition, as the honorary seats of the equites. They were undoubtedly close behind the seats of the senators and magistrates, and thus consisted of the rows of benches immediately behind the orchestra.

Plan of Roman Theatre.

THENSAE or TENSAE, highly ornamented sacred vehicles, which, in the solemn pomp of the Circensian games, conveyed the statues of certain deities with all their decorations to the pulvinaria, and after the sports were over bore them back to their shrines. We are ignorant of their precise form. We know that they were drawn by horses, and escorted (deducere) by the chief senators in robes of state, who, along with pueri patrimi [[Patrimi]], laid hold of the bridles and traces, or perhaps assisted to drag the carriage by means of thongs attached for the purpose (and hence the proposed derivation from tendo). So sacred was this duty considered, that Augustus, when labouring under sickness, deemed it necessary to accompany the tensae in a litter. If one of the horses knocked up, or the driver took the reins in his left hand, it was necessary to recommence the procession, and for one of the attendant boys to let go the thong, or to stumble, was profanation. The only gods distinctly named as carried in tensae are Jupiter and Minerva, though others appear to have had the same honour paid them.

THĔŎPHĂNĬA (θεοφάνια), a festival celebrated at Delphi, on the occasion of which the Delphians filled the huge silver crater which had been presented to the Delphic god by Croesus.

THĔŌRĬA. [[Theori].]

THĔŌRĬCA (θεωρικά). Under this name at Athens were comprised the monies expended on festivals, sacrifices, and public entertainments of various kinds; and also monies distributed among the people in the shape of largesses from the state. There were, according to Xenophon, more festivals at Athens than in all the rest of Greece. At the most important of the public festivals, such as the Dionysia, Panathenaea, Eleusinia, Thargelia, and some others, there were not only sacrifices, but processions, theatrical exhibitions, gymnastic contests, and games, celebrated with great splendour and at a great expense. A portion of the expense was defrayed by the individuals upon whom the burden of the liturgies devolved; but a considerable, and perhaps the larger, part was defrayed by the public treasury. Demosthenes complains, that more money was spent on a single Panathenaic or Dionysiac festival than on any military expedition. The religious embassies to Delos and other places, and especially those to the Olympian, Nemean, Isthmian, and Pythian games, drew largely upon the public exchequer, though a part of the cost fell upon the wealthier citizens who conducted them. The largesses distributed among the people had their origin at an early period, and in a measure apparently harmless, though from a small beginning they afterwards rose to a height most injurious to the commonwealth. The Attic drama used to be performed in a wooden theatre, and the entrance was free to all citizens who chose to go. It was found, however, that the crushing to get in led to much confusion and even danger. On one occasion, about B.C. 500, the wooden scaffolding of the theatre fell down, and caused great alarm. It was then determined that the entrance should no longer be gratuitous. The fee for a place was fixed at two obols, which was paid to the lessee of the theatre, (called θεατρώνης, θεατροπώλης, or ἀρχιτέκτων), who undertook to keep it in repair, and constantly ready for use, on condition of being allowed to receive the profits. This payment continued to be exacted after the stone theatre was built. Pericles, to relieve the poorer classes, passed a law which enabled them to receive the price of admission from the state; after which all those citizens who were too poor to pay for their places applied for the money in the public assembly, which was then frequently held in the theatre. In process of time this donation was extended to other entertainments besides theatrical ones; the sum of two oboli being given to each citizen who attended; if the festival lasted two days, four oboli; and if three, six oboli; but not beyond. Hence all theoric largesses received the name of diobelia (διωβελία). It is calculated that from 25 to 30 talents were spent upon them annually. So large an expenditure of the public funds upon shows and amusements absorbed the resources, which were demanded for services of a more important nature. By the ancient law, the whole surplus of the annual revenue which remained after the expense of the civil administration (τὰ περίοντα χρήματα τῆς διοικήσεως) was to be carried to the military fund, and applied to the defence of the commonwealth. Since the time of Pericles various demagogues had sprung up, who induced the people to divert all that could be spared from the other branches of civil expenditure into the theoric fund, which at length swallowed up the whole surplus, and the supplies needed for the purpose of war or defence were left to depend upon the extraordinary contributions, or property-tax (εἰσφοραί). An attempt was made by the demagogue Eubulus to perpetuate this system. He passed a law, which made it a capital offence to propose that the theoric fund should be applied to military service. The law of Eubulus was a source of great embarrassment to Demosthenes, in the prosecution of his schemes for the national defence; and he seems at last, but not before B.C. 339, to have succeeded in repealing it. In the earlier times there was no person, or board of persons, expressly appointed to manage the theoric fund. The money thus appropriated was disbursed by the Hellenotamiae. After the anarchy, the largess system having been restored by Agyrrhius, a board of managers was appointed. They were elected by show of hands at the period of the great Dionysia, one from each tribe.

THĔŌRI (θεωροί), persons sent on special missions (θεωρίαι) to perform some religious duty, as to consult an oracle, or to offer a sacrifice, on behalf of the state. There were among some of the Dorian states, as the Aeginetans, Troezenians, Messenians, and Mantineans, official priests called Theori, whose duty it was to consult oracles, interpret the responses, &c., as among the Spartans there were men called Pythii, chosen by the kings to consult the oracle at Delphi. At Athens there were no official persons called Theori, but the name was given to those citizens who were appointed from time to time to conduct religious embassies to various places; of which the most important were those that were sent to the Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games, those that went to consult the God at Delphi, and those that led the solemn procession to Delos, where the Athenians established a quadriennial festival, in revival of the ancient Ionian one, of which Homer speaks. The expense of these embassies was defrayed partly by the state, and partly by wealthy citizens, to whom the management of them was entrusted, called Architheori (ἀρχιθέωροι), chiefs of the embassy. This was a sort of liturgy, and frequently a very costly one; as the chief conductor represented the state, and was expected to appear with a suitable degree of splendour; for instance, to wear a golden crown, to drive into the city with a handsome chariot, retinue, &c. The Salaminian, or Delian, ship was also called θεωρὶς ναῦς, and was principally used for conveying embassies to Delos, though, like the Paralus, it was employed on other expeditions besides.