The Conditions of Dramatic Production to the Death of Aeschylus Hammond, N G L Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Winter 1972; 13, 4; ProQuest pg. 387 The Conditions of Dramatic Production to the Death of Aeschylus N. G. L. Hammond STUDENTS of ancient history sometimes fall into the error of read­ ing their history backwards. They assume that the features of a fully developed institution were already there in its earliest form. Something similar seems to have happened recently in the study of the early Attic theatre. Thus T. B. L. Webster introduces his excellent list of monuments illustrating tragedy and satyr-play with the following sentences: "Nothing, except the remains of the old Dionysos temple, helps us to envisage the earliest tragic background. The references to the plays of Aeschylus are to the lines of the Loeb edition. I am most grateful to G. S. Kirk, H. D. F. Kitto, D. W. Lucas, F. H. Sandbach, B. A. Sparkes and Homer Thompson for their criticisms, which have contributed greatly to the final form of this article. The students of the Classical Society at Bristol produce a Greek play each year, and on one occasion they combined with the boys of Bristol Grammar School and the Cathedral School to produce Aeschylus' Oresteia; they have made me think about the problems of staging. The following abbreviations are used: AAG: The Athenian Agora, a Guide to the Excavation and Museum! (Athens 1962). ARNon, Conventions: P. D. Arnott, Greek Scenic Conventions in the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford 1962). BIEBER, History: M. Bieber, The History of the Greek and Roman Theatre2 (Princeton 1961). BROADHEAD, Persae: H. D. Broadhead, ed. The Persae of Aeschylus (Cambridge 1960). DENNISTON-PAGE, Agam.: J. D. Denniston and D. L. Page, edd. Aeschylus' Agamemnon (Oxford 1957). DINSMOOR: W. B. Dinsmoor, ""The Athenian Theater of the Fifth Century," Studies presented to D. M. Robinson I (St Louis 1952) 309-30. DORP­ FELD, Theater: W. Dorpfeld, Das griechische Theater (Athens 1896). FlBCHTER, Theater: E. Fiechter, Das Dionysos-Theater in Athen (Stuttgart 1935). GARVIE, Supplices: A. F. Garvie, Aeschylus' Supplices: Play and Trilogy (Cambridge 1969). PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE, Theatre: A. W. Pickard-Cambridge, The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens (Oxford 1946). PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE­ WEBSTER, DTC2: A. W. Pickard·Cambridge, Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy, 2nd ed. rev. by T. B. L. Webster (Oxford 1962). SBCHAN: L. Sechan, Etudes sur la tragedie grecque dans ses rapports avec la ceramique2 (Paris 1967). THOMSON, Oresteia: G. Thomson, ed. The Oresteia of Aeschylus (Cambridge 1938). VERRALL, Eumenides: A. W. Verrall, ed. The Eumenides of Aeschylus (London 1908). WEBSTER, AGT: T. B. L. Webster, "Staging and Scenery in the Ancient Greek Theatre," BullRylands 42 (1960) 493-509. WEBSTER, Monuments: T. B. L. Webster, Monuments illustrating Tragedy and Satyr Play, BICS Supp!. 14 (London 1962). WEBSTER, Production: T. B. L. Webster, Greek Theatre Production2 (London 1970). WYCHERLEY, Agora: The Athenian Agora III, Literary and Epigraphical Testimonia, by R. E Wycherley (Princeton 1957). 387 388 DRAMATIC PRODUCTION TO THE DEATH OF AESCHYLUS For the theatre which lasted from ca. 47~20 B.C. a stage building with an ekkyklema must be assumed for Persae, Eumenides, Ajax etc."l Again, in the second edition of his Greek Theatre Production, «in fact the Persae, like all later plays, demands a stage-building with a practicable door, unless we should rather think of Dareios appearing on the roof of his tomb."2 Similarly, P. D. Arnott refers the raised stage and a building at the back of the orchestra to the time of the earliest plays.3 In this article I work forward from the performances in the villages to those in the Agora, and thence to the early performances in the precinct of Dionysus, the early plays of Aeschylus and finally the Oresteia. In so doing I have attempted to dismiss from my mind all preconceptions and in particular the physical image of the later theatre. There is something new to be said about the production of plays in the Agora in consequence of the American excavations. The vindication by W. B. Dinsmoor4 ofD6rpfeld's report on the site of the present theatre in the precinct of Dionysus has encouraged me to look with a fresh eye at his discoveries and to make some new inferences. The most important evidence still lies within the plays themselves. In studying them I have kept to the chronological order, as far as it is known, and I have discussed the Oresteia apart from the other plays. Contemporary vase-paintings, though few in number, make a significant contribution. The article falls into the following sections. I. Literary tradition and archaeological evidence. II. Evi­ dence of the plays excluding the Oresteia. III. Vase-paintings in relation to the earliest plays. IV. The evidence of the Oresteia. V. The testimonia in relation to the Oresteia. VI. Summary of general conclusions. 1 Webster, Monuments 3; cf AGT 498f, esp. 504: "there is no reason to suppose that in fundamentals the theatre of Euripides and Aristophanes looked any different from the theatre of Aeschylus and the theatre of Thespis." As I am advancing a new view, it is inevit­ able that I should disagree with the main exponents of the current view, in particular T. B. L. Webster and P. D. Arnott; at the same time I am greatly in their debt, as all stu­ dents of the ancient theatre are, for their illumination of the subject. S Webster, Production 8; he uses the word 'roof' because he has a stage-building in mind here, whereas in Monuments 3 he suggested the possibility that "the pyre on the ekkyklema was the method of showing Dareios' tomb." 3 Arnott, Conventions 1-41, especially 8. 'Dinsmoor 310: "perhaps the chief result of this study is the corroboration of his [Dorp­ feId's] discernment of the facts, as expressed in his great work of 1896 and his sketchy revision of 1925." N. G. L. HAMMOND 389 I. Literary Tradition and Archaeological Evidence The literary tradition has come down to us mainly through very late writers. How do we evaluate it? By the date, say, of Pollux or Thelllistius, or by the nature of the source on which they drew? The question was posed by Pickard-Calllbridge in this form: "What reason have we to think that Pollux knew the names of the 'stage­ properties' of the days before Thespis?" He replied himself: "It is very unlikely that Pollux had any such knowledge."5 Of course this is correct in the sense that Pollux, writing 700 years after Thespis, knew nothing of himself about such matters; but this does not preclude Pollux from having drawn his information from a source which did have knowledge. The same might be said of Themistius, writing 150 years later than Pollux; and it so happens that Themistius mentions his source, who was Aristotle. My own supposition is that these and other late writers-admittedly men of varying ability and capable of error-were not inventing their own theories but were drawing upon the best authorities they could find. Aristotle was one of them, but certainly not the earliest; for Plutarch and Athenaeus presumably derived some of Sophocles' sayings, as Webster remarks,6 from Sophocles' own work, On the Chorus, that is 'On Tragedy', whether directly or indirectly. Nor is Sophocles likely to have been the only writer on the topic in the fifth century; it was an age in which special­ ist works were written on the techniques of the literary arts, and in no other literary form was Athens so famous as in drama. The only treatise of this specialist genre which has survived, the Poetics of Aristotle, omits certain aspects of the development of early tragedy expressly because they were well known, undoubtedly through earlier expositions of the subject.7 We may then rephrase the question: "What reason have we to think that Sophocles (or a contemporary writer) knew the names of 5 Pickard-Cambridge-Webster, DTC2 87. • T. B. L. Webster, Sophocles (Oxford 1936) 7f. 7 Poet. 1449a28 and 36: "Let the traditions of the individual development of the other aspects (of tragedy) be taken as told ... Indeed the stages through which tragedy passed and the originators of them are well known, whereas this is not so in the case of comedy." The examples he goes on to give are "the numbers of actors, the adoption of masks, the introduction of prologues and all such matters." It is thus clear that Aristotle and his pupils had to hand abundant information, presumably written, about the details of early and subsequent tragedy. It was available, too, to the great scholars of the Alexandrian library. 390 DRAMATIC PRODUCTION TO THE DEATH OF AESCHYLUS the - "\J _-A---_ lot-,-- -........... "./ .. _---B-------.. ...... " /// ", ... , .. ,..- ................. " // /",' ..........', --,--- ..... -..... - /,' ""... \----'--,' /" '\ ~ ... /! :rw-··=~ If 'I~'~ I : : - " " I 'e: I : 'Ul'wt .:------~ I: l I \ ~ ; I __ _ \ , , ,--- --_______ \\ : I up.Y.01)OS --____ ,\ ,'/.l. __ .- _. PARODOS Q~\ ~!/------ T--------------.:~,w x R ", ~y' np~u~ L •• ",. D_r AREA BACK Of STAGE o Metres 10 HHHHHI .............. ~---------' .... Figure 3. THE SETIING OF Eumenides IN 458 B.C. A Circle of 26m. diameter as drawn by Dorpfeld B Circle of 24m. diameter as drawn by Dorpfeld C Forecourt with continuous shallow steps at front D Q R V as in Figure 2 W X Y Z Raised wooden platform resting on very low supporting beams, continuous shallow steps at front Y -Z Temple farade with large door and two small doors N. C. L. HAMMOND 413 in the orchestra or towards the audience but not towards both. It fol­ lows then that the platform was placed behind the orchestra, so that the voice was projected both to the Chorus and the audience: see Figure 3. In order to make the actors more visible now that the dis­ tance between the platform and the audience was greater than it had been between V and the audience, an improved mask and probably some new elements of costume were introduced by Aeschylus. As the acting-area and the back-wall of the platform now faced the audience, it was suitable for the display of a painted backcloth or painted panels. Aeschylus is said to have employed for such painting one Agatharcus, who had an understanding of perspective. This can only have been very late in Aeschylus' lifetime.49 In the Poetics Aristotle attributes to Sophocles the introduction of the third actor and of CK7Jvoypacp{a. It is apparent that both were introduced during the period when Aeschylus and Sophocles were active as established dramatists, that is between 468 and 456 B.C., and it was later a matter of dispute whether the one or the other was the first to think up a third actor. 50 On the other hand it was agreed that it was Aeschylus who made the radical change; for by creating the platform he 'or­ ganised the skene' ('T~V 'TE CK7JvryV JKdCfL7JCE, Vit.Aesch. 14) ;51 that is to say, he organised what we call 'the stage building'. When we look at Figure 2 and remember the drop at the back of the orchestra, we can see that a considerable reshaping of the site must have been required. If Aeschylus had simply set his stage-platform on the backward third of the orchestra, he would not have left suffi­ cient room in the rest of the orchestra for large crowd scenes; and this he evidently did not do, for crowd scenes are a feature of the Oresteia, produced in 458 B.C. What then did he do? I envisage two possibilities. The first was to take some space away from the cavea, move the orchestra forward into it and place the new stage-platform on the liberated area at the back of the orchestra. It sounds simple until one visualises a rectangular platform being set on an area shaped like a 49 As the literary tradition associates Agatharchus with Aeschylus, Anaxagoras, Demo­ critus and Alcibiades, it is clear that he was a very young man in 470-60 B.C. and could not have been painting before that decade. 60 The introduction of a third actor is attributed in Poet. 1449a18 to Sophocles and in the fragment of Aristotle in Themistius to Aeschylus. Such a disparity in two works ascribed to Aristotle is familiar enough to a student of the Ath.Pol. and the Politics; it indicates that the matter was disputed at the time. 51 For a similar use of KOCI-'EW see Poet. 1449a29. 414 DRAMATIC PRODUCTION TO THE DEATH OF AESCHYLUS waning moon with a drop of two metres or more at the back; more­ over, the space behind the platform would be small in size and awk­ ward in shape, with its curving wall and a two-metre drop. The other possibility was to reconstruct the southernmost part. This entailed removing the backmost part of the orchestra together with its supporting wall, building in its place a much larger rectangular foundation, and providing on it a platform, a back-stage and a back-entry. This second course seems to me the only practical one. Indeed an indication of it may be inferred from Dorpfeld's excava­ tions. Neither Dorpfeld nor Dinsmoor asked why the only surviving parts of the original orchestra's supporting wall in the southern seg­ ment were the two pieces Q and R at corresponding places on the periphery, and why all the rest had disappeared. Now the blocks at Q were found by Dorpfeld underneath the footing of the breccia base of a pillar-socket, and we know now that this breccia base was laid dur­ ing the building of the Periclean theatre. The builders at that time did not remove these particular blocks.52 Similarly at R the builders left a piece of curving wall one metre high underground, while they were extending the stage-platform area above it. It is reasonable to suppose that they would have left the lower part of the rest of the orchestra's supporting wall in the same way, if it had still been there. My suggestion is that the whole of the wall south of the line Q-R had already been removed during the Aeschylean reconstruction which provided a stage-platform. If so, Q and R indicate roughly the length of this Aeschylean stage, namely some 18 metres.53 The walls at Q and R thus continued to support the orchestra, on which the stage­ platform encroached only slightly. As the Vita Aeschyli put it, "it was Aeschylus who organised the skene." The classical form of the Attic theatre was now achieved. It is shown in Figure 3. In the literary tradition no one attributed any change in this matter to any of his successors, not even to the poets who flourished when the builders of the so-called Periclean theatre 52 In other words they did not dig down more than a metre in remaking a foundation for the stage. 53 The length of the platform in the Periclean theatre. as indicated by the postholes in the breccia wall, was some 28m.; and the length of the fa~ade between the wings of the Lycurgan theatre was reckoned at 20m. by Webster, AGT 495. Fiechter, Theater 1.39, argued from the lack of a wall continuing R southwards that Dorpfeld was wrong in attributing R to an old orchestra. N. C. L. HAMMOND 415 UlTORIO ~ U Pa lI-t- /,,----T-----... ...... / I " /' ! "- // I " I i Aa \ / ,-----,------- \ / ,,---1! ------ \ r /.-' I \ -'-" \ f PC / / i \ ",\ PC ___ 11 ,/ i' t\ __ _ -p-P'RODOSI,' i i ~':' '." P _-- \: I 1 I·' --- o _-I,' " I • _.' v:'. PARODOS \ ,f i'l ' , . . \ • f' \ ; ! \ /; \: ! I /: _- ~_-=-'':;~i.::-___ ....,jl __ .l..i· __ .-;/ __ .: --..-- OS 1------------... 0 g g p.. pj\.ROD_ . PERICLEAN STAGE _-- _D ___ ~PARODOS __ 0 g Q\ rir:';;;:;'::;;;:;p~~I~''§§-'-§' '11fir-- P [Lf,..,---_-A--:;7--JI P ---------------------- o Metres 10 HHHHH! Figure 4. THE THEATRE OF THE Oresteia IN 458 B.C. AND THE PERICLEAN THEATRE ca. 420 B.C. A Stage-building and forecourt in 458 B.C. Aa Axis of theatre and orchestra circle (24m. diam.) in 458 B.C. A PARODOS Parodoi in 458 B.C. D Q R V as in Figure 2 P Stage-building and stage ca. 420 B.C. Pa Axis of theatre and orchestra circle ca. 420 B.C. P PARODOS Parodoi ca. 420 B.C. PC Southernmost part of cavea ca. 420 B.C. pushed the orchestra forward and enlarged the stage-building (Fig.4); rightly, for these were changes of location and not of form.54 We do not know when the rock-outcrop at V was removed. The plays themselves may perhaps yield some clues. 64 I show in Fig.3 a 'back stage area' into which the two-leaved door of the fa~ade leads. See Fiechter, Theater 1.89f, for the dating of the 'Halle', as he calls it, and the two-leaved door. When the Periclean theatre was built, I take it that a similar two-leaved door led into a back stage area, which was in the Stoa. Others have believed so, but Webster, AGT 504, thinks that the Stoa wall was solid and so puts the stage-building and its eccyclema in front of the wall. The consequence is that the acting platform in front of the eccyclema becomes only one metre deep, which seems crippling for the actors, e.g. in Soph. EI. 1466f. 416 DRAMA TIC PRODUCTION TO THE DEATH OF AESCHYLUS II. Evidence of the Plays (excluding the Oresteia) The dates which I attach to the plays are as follows: Persae 472 B.C., Septem 467 B.C., Supplices 463 B.C.,55 Prometheus Vinctus 1, Oresteia 458 B.C. I shall consider the first four plays separately from the Oresteia, because they contain more explicit J.T)JJtKoU lOvovc m.2 (Athens 1970-) 356. 422 DRAMATIC PRODUCTION TO THE DEATH OF AESCHYLUS King (orchestra) and Herald (side of pagos), King (orchestra) and Chorus (pagos); Chorus (orchestra) and Danaus (pagos). This interchange of conversation between the two areas is not due to any restriction in the number of speaking actors; for there could easily have been a three­ sided conversation between King, Danaus and Chorus, or between King, Herald and Chorus. It is due rather to the position of the pagos on the side of the orchestra and the fact that its length in practice faces the orchestra and not the audience. The actor on the pagos, speaking to someone in the orchestra, is sideways to the audienc~, or part sideways, and facing his respondent in the orchestra. In the same way a second speaker on the pagos would also face the orchestra. If the speakers talk to one another, they are directly in front of the Chorus in the orchestra but they are sideways to the audience in the cavea. We are so familiar with a platform-stage set not sideways to but fronting the audience that we find the set positions of the speakers in this play difficult to understand and accept.64 I turn now to the other three plays and consider in them (1) the form which the pagos takes, (2) its position in relation to the orchestra and the parodoi, (3) the existence of a stall or skene, and (4) the uses to which the pagos is put. I therefore divide what follows into four sec­ tions. 1. The form of the pagos. In Septem the pagos is Hthis acropolis," and it has statues of the gods . (240 ,~., , , \ , .,~ <, d 211 '\ \' , \ upon It TallO €C aKp0Tf'TOI\W, TLIUOV €OOC, 'KO(.Lav, an a/\/\ €Tf" Sat(.L6vwv Tf'p6Spo(.LoC ~'\Oov apxa'i:a {3P€77J). The Chorus go up onto Hthis acropolis," give offerings to the gods (101), approach the statues (211), and prostrate themselves before them (185). Here too there is no doubt about the solidity of the pagos. In Prometheus Vinctus the pagos is Hthis pagos" or Hthis rock" (20 T0S' aTf'avOpwTf'CfJ Tf'ayCfJ; 117 T€p(.L6vtOV Tf'ayoll; 130 T6vSE" Tf'ayov; 272 TOVS' " , 31' ~ , 748 ~~, '\ '../,.\ , ayE"tTOVOC Tf'ayov; 77JVUE" • • • Tf'E"TpaV; 77Jcu aTf'O CTV",I\OV Tf'€TpaC; 968 rfjS€ .•. Tf'€Tpq.). It is solid enough when Prometheus is nailed to it, and Hephaestus moves down its side to shackle his legs. Prometheus is fixed there, upright, straight-legged, in the open air, high on the rock face (32 opOocTaS7]v ••• OU Ka(.LTf'TWV y6vv; 113 tmatOpLOtC; 271 64 Those who put the pagos on the stage-platform at the back of the orchestra are faced with the difficulty that anyone speaking from the orchestra to anyone on the pagos has to have his back more or less to the audience; this is a major difficulty when the Chorus is taking part in a dialogue as in Supplices. N. C. L. HAMMOND 423 TTESapdoLC). The Chorus of Oceanids move on to it (283) and are on it with Prometheus at the end (1059 T07TWV ... €K Tuwoe, and 1067 p.eTa ToiJoe). The rock itself is "rough" (747 CTVc/>I.OV) and is described as "this jagged ground" (283 OKPLOECCTJ X8ovl, Tfjoe); one side is steep enough to be called Hthis jagged gully" (1016 oKptSa cp&payya ... T~VSE), and it is high enough for Io to talk of throwing herself down from it (747). All this amounts to an accurate description of an outcrop of rough, jagged limestone.65 In Persae the pagos is a "mound" (ox(Joc), within which Darius lies in his grave, and it has a "high top." Such a mound was familiar to the Athenians in the plain of Marathon, and there were analogies in Asia, for instance at Gordium where the Phrygian kings lay buried. Atossa goes up the mound (684). It is evident that to the eye of the spectator the Ghost of Darius comes up from within the mound and emerges at its highest point. For the Chorus pray to the gods to "send up his soul from below into the light" (630, cf 645), and to Darius himself to "come to the high top of the mound" (659 £1.8' €7T' UKpOV KopvfLfJov ox8ov). Their prayers are indeed answered; for as the Ghost appears, he says HI have come from below" (697 KaTw(Jev ~.\(Jov); so too when his task is done he says "I shall depart into the darkness of the earth below" (839 €yw 0' u7TeLp.L yfjc tJ7TO 'oc/>ov KaTw); and no doubt down he goes. With these words in the text the playwright did not intend his Ghost to come on and go ofr through the orchestra. It is evident that the top of the pagos was made to look like the top of a tumulus and there was space within the top for the Ghost to rise into view and sink out of view.66 2. The pagos in relation to the orchestra and the parodoi. When the Chorus of Oceanids approach, Prometheus catches the scent (PV 115; cf. Eur. Hipp. 1391) and hears the whirring of wings, but 65 Not. however, appropriate to a stage-building. Arnott, Conventions 97, suggests that "the rock in such scenes was not realistically represented but only symbolised by an up­ right post to which the actor was bound"; but one cannot suppose that 10 climbed up this post when she talked of throwing herself down from the TTtTpa (748). Arnott connects his suggestion with a painting on a kylix from Caere which shows the punishment of Atlas and Prometheus (the painting is shown in E. A. Lane, Greek Pottery2 [London 1963] pUla); but the painting is not connected with any play, the ware is Laconian, and a purely mythological subject is represented in "a Simple-minded, literal manner," as Lane says (p.36). 08 Webster, Monuments 3, would have the oxfJoc appear on an eccyclema, which was wheeled out onto a stage platform only one metre deep (see n.54 above); a very large eccyclema would have been required. See Broadhead, Persae xliii ff (who seems to favour a mound on a stage-platform) for a discussion of various views. 424 DRAMATIC PRODUCTION TO THE DEATH OF AESCHYLUS he cannot see anything. It is they who address him first. Thus it is clear that they have come up from behind Prometheus. Now if Prometheus had been placed at the back of the orchestra, he would have seen both parodoi, and the Chorus could not then have used the parodoi. Therefore in approaching from behind him the Oceanids would have had to come by air (on the mechane); but this is not accept­ able for a Chorus, whether of twelve or fifteen persons.67 The Chorus then did enter by a parodos, and this parodos lay behind the rock on which Prometheus was so clamped that he faced the audience and the forward part of the orchestra. Thus the relationship of parodos, pagos and orchestra has to be as I have shown it on Figure 2. The Oceanids come up the parodos into the orchestra in two or three winged cars,68 which are said to have competed with one another (128 7Tpodf1a ... 80aic Ct/Ll)J..aLc), and the leader in the first car calms the fears of Pro­ metheus by calling to him as she comes along the side of "this rock" (129) into the forward part of the orchestra. There she and her com­ panions are recognised at sight by Prometheus (136£). The leader of the Chorus converses from her car in the orchestra with Prometheus on the pagos until he invites them to dismount and hear with sympathy the account of his future sufferings. They realise that he wants them to come closer to him; so they set foot on the level orchestra and say they will approach "this jagged ground" (283). They have already moved onto the pagos, leaving the orchestra free, when Oceanus enters in his four-wheeler or mobile quadruped (397); in the same way in Supplices the Chorus vacated the orchestra and moved onto the pagos so that the King and his troops could enter. Like the Oceanids, Oceanus has come by the eastern parodos (for his daughters had obtained permission from him before they came, 130), and his carriage takes him into the forward part of the orchestra. Con­ versation ensues between Oceanus in his car and Prometheus on the pagos until Oceanus departs as he had come by the eastern parodos. 417 As Arnott, Conventions 76, points out. His further deduction, that "the chorus must enter above Prometheus, as he asks them to step down to earth (274) and they agree (281ff)," does not seem to me to follow; for all the Chorus have to do is step down from their car or cars to the ground. Arnott assumes a theologeion and a crane capable of lifting a winged chariot and fifteen bodies onto the theologeion, while Prometheus is tied to a pillar on the stage-platform below; later the Chorus climb down 'off-stage'. 68 We associate cars and ghosts and explosions with pantomime until we see a Wagnerian opera or Tales of Hoffman; then we realise that they are quite compatible with seriousness. I find less difficulty than Arnott does (Conventions 77). N. G. L. HAMMOND 425 The Chorus then move forward into the orchestra, and between two stasima they converse with Prometheus. The opening words of 10 when she enters at 561 may give us a clue to the position of Prometheus. "What land (is this)? What people? By what name am I to address him I see there shackled to the rock and battered by the storm? What is your offence that you are being destroyed ?" Entering by a parodos, 10 sees the Chorus first, then Pro­ metheus high on the rock, and then when he looks at her she ad­ dresses him in the vocative. It seems that she, like the Oceanids, having come by the eastern parodos enters the orchestra from behind Prometheus and then going forward sees him from the side before he turns his head to see her. This entry should be compared with that of Hermes at 944. Then Prometheus sees Hermes from three lines off, recognises him and describes him, and Hermes addresses Prometheus immediately in the vocative. It is clear that Hermes has entered by the western parodos, down which Prometheus can see because Pro­ metheus is on the eastern side of the orchestra and facing into it. In this play, then, the eastern parodos leads to the caves of Ocean and the farthest lands, and the western parodos leads to Olympus and the Olympian gods. In Persae the mound containing the grave of Darius cannot be in the centre of the orchestra. Being large and high, it would have impeded the movements of Atossa's state-carriage and her retinue. In addition there is a practical objection which arises from the limitation that only two actors took speaking parts. The actor who exits as the Messenger at 514 has to reappear as the Ghost of Darius at 681; since he exits by a parodos he could only get back to a mound in the centre of the or­ chestra by walking across the orchestra, which would hardly accord with the words of the Chorus or the Ghost himself. On the other hand, if the mound was on the pagos, as I suppose, the stall or skene could be placed between the pagos and the eastern parodos, so that the actor could pass from the parodos into the skene and from there go unseen into the mound.69 3. The existence of a stall or skene. The stall or skene was by its very nature movable. It need not have been put in the same place for each trilogy or tetralogy. While the 69 For suggestions about the position of the tomb see Broadhead, Persae xliii f, and Arnott. Conventions 58f. 426 DRAMATIC PRODUCTION TO THE DEATH OF AESCHYLUS back of the skene was used as a changing room, the front or display area could serve as a feature visible to the audience. A council house or bouleuterion was a feature of Phrynichus' Phoenissae, produced in 476 B.C., and Aeschylus' Persae and Eumenides, and in these plays there are references to the Chorus having seats or sitting down or standing up. Phoenissae opened with a Eunuch laying covers on seats for the Imperial Counsellors (Hypothesis to Persae); in Persae the Imperial Counsellors withdrew to sit in this ancient covered place and take counsel (Persae 140f aAA' aYE, IIIpccu, 'TOO' EVE~0f.LEVOt c'Tlyoc apxa'iov, ov 7ilAac), and the Chorus are "near the tomb" (686 €yyvc €CTWTeC Tacf>ov). Thus she is in advance of them75 and is probably standing on the slope of the pagos. The Ghost is above them all, being on the top of the mound. During the conversation which the Ghost has first with the Chorus, then with Atossa and finally with the Chorus, it is to be assumed that Atossa is visually separate from the Chorus, and it is therefore likely that she stays on the slope of the pagos, being slightly above the Chorus and lower than the Ghost. The lyrical exchanges between Xerxes and the Chorus were obviously in the orchestra. Prometheus Vinctus starts with Kratos and Bia in the orchestra and Hephaestus nailing Prometheus to the rock, and the conversation is between Kratos in the orchestra and Hephaestus on the pagos. Pro­ metheus, high on the rock, dominates the scene throughout the play, as the Ghost does during the central part of Persae. He talks to persons who are in the orchestra: the Chorus of Oceanids, then Oceanus while 7Ii This point is noted by Broadhead, Persae 173. N. G. L. HAMMOND 429 the Chorus are clustered round the pagos, and then the Chorus be­ tween their stasima (436-525). In contrast to the static Prometheus, 10 is very active, repeatedly stung by the gad-fly. At some point between 593 and 747 she goes up onto the pagos and leaves it, because she wishes at 748 that she had thrown herself down from it. I suggest that she went up while the Chorus and Prometheus were speaking to one another (631-39) and came down while they were speaking again to one another (687-99). Thus her long speech in iambics (640-86) was delivered while she was on the pagos, and it was of course addressed not to Prometheus but to the Chorus (635f and 640). Prometheus too speaks primarily to the Chorus in the orchestra in 700-41, and 10 was by then back in the orchestra. From 742 to 886 they are in the orchestra, and the long speeches are made by Prometheus on the pagos. After the exit of 10 the conversation between the Chorus and Prometheus continues, but it is interrupted by the entry of Hermes from the western parodos. Hermes holds the centre of the orchestra, while the Chorus shrink back to the eastern side of the orchestra and are clus­ tered round and on the pagos at the end of the play. Thus the uses to which the pagos is put in Septem, Persae and Pro­ metheus Vinctus are much the same as in Supplices. It is the centre of visual interest. It is the scene of some action in all the plays, some­ times throughout and sometimes for a part only. Many speeches are delivered from the pagos, which may in this sense be called a logeion, but there are no dialogues between two persons on the pagos. There is open access between the orchestra and the pagos. In all the plays except Persae, the Chorus move at some time onto the pagos. There is thus no rigid division for the Chorus between the orchestra and the pagos, such as developed in the later 'Periclean' theatre between the orchestra and the raised platform-stage. In the four plays which we have considered there is no indication whatsoever in the text that any temple-from, palace-front or 'stage­ building with a practicable door' was visible to the players. This is significant enough in itself, when we remember the indications of 7TcXYOC or 7Thpa and TcXcpOC or TVf.1-{30C. Even more significant perhaps is what happens in Persae when a palace is mentioned. "Here I come," Atossa says at line 159, "having left (my) gold-spangled palace." If a palace-front had been there at the back of the orchestra, she would merely have stepped out of the door. But no, she has come by carriage (607f). She departs by carriage, and she asks the Chorus to escort 430 DRAMATIC PRODUCTION TO THE DEATH OF AESCHYLUS Xerxes and his attendants to the palace (not just show him the door at the back of the orchestra). In fact the palace is out of sight of the players, and it is presumed to be at some distance from the scene of action.76 Those who postulate the existence of such a stage-building for these four plays seem to me not only to lack support from within the plays but even to go against the indications of the plays.77 III. V ase-Paintings in Relation to the Earliest Plays The contemporary paintings which refer to plays of our period and also give an indication of the setting are rare indeed. I mention here all the examples of which I am aware. Few though they are, they are of incomparable importance. 1. A painting which Beazley dated to "between 480 and 450, and in all probability between 470 and 460 or 450" is of interest in relation to Persae.78 Fragments only survive. One of them, showing a flute-player in Greek dress, indicates that a tragedy is being represented. Beazley deduced from the fragments that there was a pyre of logs, laid alter­ nately end on and lengthways, with small flames coming from the ends; rising from behind the pyre there was a man in oriental costume who held two sceptres or staves with his forearms upright; and four men in oriental costume, shown as less large than the first man, who were shrinking away in astonishment and terror. The man rising from behind the pyre is obviously a king. The four men belong to a 76 As Arnott, Conventions 57, emphasizes. 77 It is extraordinary how persistent this postulate is. See, for instance, the brief sum· maries in Broadhead, Persae xliii ff, and Garvie, Supplices 160ff: "The tomb of Darius stands in front of the royal palace" (Ridgeway); "the Persians . .. and the Seven against Thebes . .. require at most a very simple building with a single door" (Pickard-Cambridge); "Wila­ mowitz and others contend that in the case of the Persae the background was a royal palace." Broadhead believes in three Acts "before a council chamber (its front may well have formed the background of the stage), before the tomb of Darius (supposed location and pOSition on the stage uncertain), and possibly still before the council chamber ... (it may have been before the palace)." It was somewhat different with Supplices, when it was thought to be much the earliest play extant. Then most critics thought it was performed "without a background building but with a raised section, or mound of earth or wood, at a tangent to (or less probably in the middle of) the orchestra." But as soon as the play was dated ca. 463 B.C., it had to fall into line: as Garvie remarks, "the view has recently been revived that a skene did exist from early times, both a raised stage and a background building. Arnott argues that the KOlvo{3wp.{a was to be found in this raised stage." 78 ]. D. Beazley, "Hydria Fragments from Corinth," Hesperia 24 (1955) 305-19 with p1.85; Webster, Monuments AV 13; Beazley, ARVz 571, 74; Beazley, Paralipomena 390,74 (Lenin­ grad Painter). N. G. L. HAMMOND 431 chorus, and one at least is on a lower level than the others. There is little doubt that they are all Persians. The interpretation of the pyre is uncertain. One view is that a cre­ mation is being represented and the king is escaping from it. In that case the king had been placed as a corpse on the pyre, the logs had just been lit, and miraculously the king arises resurrected into life. There are two objections to this: there is no corresponding legend of a resurrection in tragedy, and the king is not rising from a prone or propped-up position or from a royal throne. The alternative view is that the ghost of a king is rising from his grave inside a mound (in answer to an invocation) and that the flames (of incense?) coming from the log-ends are part of a ritual for raising the dead. There are several points in favour of this view. Ghosts rising are appropriate to tragedy of the time; the king is rising upright, as if by levitation, from below and behind the pyre; and there is no need to suppose a con­ flagration of an actual pyre of logs on the spot. Moreover, Beazley noted in one fragment a low KPYJ7TLC or foundation layer which on many vases "is usually surmounted by a tumulus of half-oval form," and I have noticed in some of these79 that small flames, like those issuing from the log-ends, are shown issuing from round holes in the KPYJ7TLC (e.g. in noA below). I take it then that we are to infer from the KPYJ7TtC the existence of a mound against which a pyre of logs is set, the burning perhaps of incense, and the ghost of a king rising from his grave within the mound, behind the pyre of logs. The members of the chorus standing on different levels, some on the mound and others in the orchestra, have been carrying out the invocation. The brief descrip­ tion which Webster gives, 'Oriental king rising from behind pyre', might be augmented to read 'Oriental king rising from burial­ mound behind pyre' .80 Whether this painting represented a scene in the production of Phrynichus' Phoenissae or Aeschylus' Persae or some other play on the same theme, it is surprisingly similar to the scene which has been evoked from our study of the appearance of the Ghost of Darius on the top of the mound and the shrinking back of the Counsellors in astonishment and awe. It shows that we are right to take the stage 79 See n.85 infra for examples. 80 The Ghost of Achilles appeared in a similar manner above his tomb in Sophocles' Polyxena, as Longinus 15.7 says: ' AX,,uEWC 7TporpaLVofLEvoV 'J7Tf:p 'TOU 'Tarpou. Webster, Monu­ ments 3, says that "the pyre on the ekkyklema was the method of showing Dareios' tomb"; see also his AGT 499f. 432 DRAMATIC PRODUCTION TO THE DEATH OF AESCHYLUS directions of Aeschylus literally and to believe that when the Chorus say "come to the high top of the mound," there was in fact a mound and the Ghost of Darius did in fact come to the top of it. Further in points of detail in the painting the king wears the tiara, and one of the orientals wears the type of slipper which the Chorus in Persae expect Darius to be wearing when he appears (660f). 2. A painting of 480-70 B.C. on an Attic askos shows Ha hero rising above his tomb." This indicates that our interpretation of the last painting is appropriate to the period. Webster included it in his otv .•. 'Totvoe). The conversations are still mainly between a person or the Chorus in the orchestra and a person in the speaking-area by the palace, and between speakers within the orchestra, but at the end of the play we have a new phenomenon when Aegisthus and Clytemnestra both speak from in front of the palace 90 and the Chorus speak from the orchestra. In Choephoroe, while Orestes and Pylades have entered the orchestra by the traditional way, that is, by the parodos, the new entry is used by the Chorus, who walk with the measured tread of mourning into the orchestra from the palace (22 laA'T6C €K oc5p.wv, cf. 45). Orestes and Pylades are standing by "this mounded tumulus" (4 'Tvp.fJov 0' €7T' ()X()cp 'Tcpoe); they hide at once and within earshot (20-21). The Chorus then dance and sing in the orchestra. Orestes and Pylades are not hiding by an altar or by any supposed tumulus in the centre of the orchestra, because the Chorus would see them during their dancing.91 It follows that the pair are hiding off the orchestra. Electra and the 81 I imagine that she comes in just before 83; departs, having made no reply to the ques­ tions of the Chorus, at 103; and re-enters between 257 ("the bulwark of the Apian land" being the Chorus) and 258. When she is on, the Chorus address her. Her comings and goings were concerned with making sacrifice (87-102, 262, 594). Opinions differ in this matter. Denniston-Page, Agam. 75f, keep Clytemnestra on throughout the choral ode from line 83. It seems to me that the description of Calchas' prophecies and Iphigeneia's death is more effective if Clytemnestra is not on stage. 80 I take it that Aegisthus goes up to the corpse of Agamenmon and points at it (1581, 1583, 1590, 1603, 1608, 1611). 81 A. Sidgwick, for instance, in his edition suggested that the tomb was probably the thymele in the centre of the orchestra; the impOSSibility of hiding by it from a circulating chorus is apparent from Bieber, History fig.865. N. C. L. HAMMOND 437 Chorus then turn to the mound and invoke Agamemnon Uust as Atossa and the Chorus invoked Darius in Persae). There Electra sees the lock of hair and the lines of footprints, which she follows step by step, comparing her own footprints with them (210), right up to Orestes, who has to jump up willy-nilly (212), for she is upon him. The meeting is not only immediate; it is within sight of the audience. Where then does it take place? The answer is, I think, at that side of the pagos which the spectators see.92 Orestes hid behind the mound and Electra came upon him there. Thus the mound of Agamemnon is where the mound of Darius was in Persae. It is this mound which is the visual centre for the first half of the play. In the invocation scene the children on the mound 93 and the Chorus behind them are seen by the spectators mainly from the side, as Atossa and the Chorus were seen in the corresponding scene in Persae. Orestes is still on or by the mound when he interprets the night­ mare of Clytemnestra. Next, he reveals his plan for getting inside the palace. It is now the palace which becomes the centre of attention. The spectators' minds are directed first to the forecourt gate (€PK€LOVC m5'\ac), where a doorkeeper is to be expected, and to Orestes crossing the threshold of that gate on the way to the throneroom (571). Presumably the Chorus had already come out by that gate, and Elec­ tra now goes in by it (554 and 579). Sure enough, when Orestes and Pyla des come and knock at the forecourt door (653 e";pa EpK€{a, resum­ ing 561 and 571), there is a doorkeeper. When the door is opened, Orestes is kept standing outside; he wants someone to be sum­ moned from within (663), and Clytemnestra herself comes out. It seems that the main door in the palace fac;ade was described both as the forecourt gate (viewed, as it were, from the forecourt) and as the palace gate (viewed, as it were, from within the palace). It had two leaves, as the plural 7T";'\at was used at 561. In addition to this door, used by Clytemnestra at 668 and 718 and by Aegisthus at 854, there appear to have been two doors, one on either side, one leading to the 99 Those who think that the altar on the stage represents the tomb of Agamemnon (e.g. Arnott, Conventions 59) have to face the following difficulties: as the Chorus enter from the palace (€K 8&p.wv, 22) and are immediately by the altar, there is no time for Orestes to re­ flect aloud as he does at lines 10 to 21; there is no possibility of his hiding successfully by the altar which the Chorus are passing as they come out of the palace door; there is no other convenient hiding place near by; and when the invocation scene starts at 306, the Chorus will be facing the tomb and have their backs more or less to the audience until it ends. 93 They are together, as lines 334-37 and 501 suggest. 438 DRAMATIC PRODUCTION TO THE DEATH OF AESCHYLUS men's quarters to which Orestes and his companions were sent at 712 and the other leading to the women's quarters from which Clytem­ nestra came out at 885 (the door had two leaves and was barred on the inside, 877f).94 The open space in front of the main door was evidently the fore­ court, the 7Tp68vpa ofline 966. Behind it and above the main door there was the part of the flat roof on which the sentry had lain at the beginning of Agamemnon. Clytemnestra was in the forecourt when Orestes emerged from the main door at Choephoroe 892. When Orestes and Pylades had driven her inside to die, the main door was shut. Then the Chorus sang that the curb was lifted from the house and that, with the cleansing of pollution, "Time will enter the forecourt of the palace." In fact this was not yet to be; for when the door opened two corpses were brought out into the forecourt, and over them stood Orestes, already beginning to go mad. Eumenides presents unique problems, to which one's answers can only be tentative. The palace fa\=ade serves now as a temple fa\=ade. At the start the Priestess offers sacrifice, perhaps at the altar in the centre of the orchestra, and then she walks towards the door in the temple fa\=ade, saying that she intends to take her seat in the inner holy of holies (29, cf 39). She passes within and disappears from sight. She then comes out again in terror (34-35) and describes what we have U Some think there was only one door (e.g. Webster. Production 10). It is of course true that one door may give access to apartment-doors within the palace (i.e. apartment-doors unseen by the spectators and non-existent in fact), but that is not in point in this play. At 877 the Servant, having come out of the main door. behind which Aegisthus lies dead. and into the forecourt where we see him. asks for the door of the women's quarters (yvvcu­ K€lovc 1TVACXC) to be unbarred. This cannot be the very door out of which he has come-open and not barred as we have seen-but it must be another actual door. visible to us. For it now is opened (otherwise why the fuss about getting it unbarred ?). and out comes Clytem­ nestra, all unaware of what is lying behind the main door. Orestes then comes out ofthe main door (892). He says he will kill her by the side of Aegisthus, and so he does when he drives her in at the main door. Given, then. that there were two doors, it seems natural to suppose that the door of the women's quarters was balanced by the door of the men's quarters; thus at 712 Orestes and Pylades were led into the door of the men's quarters, and Clytemnestra went in by the main door to inform "the lord of the palace" (716). If the fa"ade of the palace was some 18 metres long. as I have suggested, three doorways would be appropriate to such a fa"ade in real life; and in drama several entries are useful. In 1616 the Drury Lane cockpit was converted into a playhouse; from the start three doors were made providing entries to the stage. See ProcCambPhilSoc 192 (1966) 7f for a discussion by K. J. Dover of the doorways on the stage; in the case of Choephoroe he assumes the existence of ·wings'. but I think this is a case of reading back the conditions of the later theatre into the time of Aeschylus. N. G. L. HAMMOND 439 not seen: Orestes seated at the omphalos-stone and in front of him a group of Furies asleep on seats. She then departs, leaving the matter to the care of Apollo.95 At that moment the theatre is empty. The next line in our text is spoken by Apollo to Orestes, and he draws his attention to the Furies bound by the spell of sleep. We see now not only what had been in­ visible-Orestes and the Furies-but also Apollo and Hermes; more­ over, the Furies are, as before, fast asleep. It seems best to assume that while the theatre was empty the omphalos-stone and the seats were brought out into the forecourt, Orestes and the Furies came out and took up the positions which had been described by the Priestess, and then Apollo and Hermes joined them. Thus the tableau is fully set when Apollo speaks at line 64 the striking words, HI shall not indeed betray," which resume Orestes' words at Choephoroe 269, HHe shall not indeed betray." He then tells Orestes to go to Athens and clasp the ancient statue of Athena. After line 93 Orestes and Hermes depart down a parodos, and Apollo (one assumes) departs, going through the door into the temple. The Furies sleep on, motionless; then the Ghost of Clytemnestra rises up, erect over the recumbent Furies, and speaks her words. She breaks the spell of sleep, rouses the Furies and sinks down behind them.96 While the Furies in our sight are getting up and moving around and beginning their song. other Furies are emerging from the door of the temple, the last driven out by Apollo himself, who says at 179, "Out, I command you, of this house at once!" During their altercation Apollo refers again to his house, i.e. 95 Many, perhaps most, of the audience would have been to Delphi. Aeschylus involves them from the start. "If there are any persons from the Greeks, let them come up in turn by lot, as is the custom" (31-32). The illusion is at once created that we are there waiting our turn, so that when she comes out and tells us what she has seen inside it is entirely natural. This is very different from what we call dramatic conventions, whereby in a quite unnatural manner a peasant or an Iocasta talks to the audience at the start, characters soliloquise or make asides, and gods are delivered by crane and corpses by eccyclema. 96 The actor playing the Ghost probably came in together with the Furies, Orestes, Apollo and Hermes, managing to be unseen and then lying behind a Fury or behind the omphalos-stone until the time came to rise up. He could get off by the main door during the general confusion of the Furies streaming out and moving about. It is however possible that there was a trapdoor in the wooden platform, as in the Elizabethan theatre, through which a Ghost could come up from beneath; for the Aeschylean temporary stage-building did not have stone foundation-walls (as far as we can surmise), and there was a two metre drop at the back. Such a device is included by Poll. 4.127 and 132, "one being on the skene." It is important not to read the conditions of the Periclean theatre from ca. 420 B.C. back into the period between ca. 460 and 420 B.C. and so exclude the pOSSibility of a trapdoor. 440 DRAMATIC PRODUCTION TO THE DEATH OF AESCHYLUS the temple (185, 195 and 205, with the deictic pronoun). In the end the Furies depart by the parodos which Orestes and Hermes had taken, and Apollo departs through the door which leads into the inside of the temple. After line 234 the theatre is again empty. In the next line of our text Orestes speaks, addressing Athena. He has entered from a parodos and he is going forward to embrace the statue of the goddess at her house (236 1]KW, and 242 7Tp6c€Lf.LL oWf.La Ka~ {3plrac T6 c6v, B€a). It is apparent that the omphalos-stone has been replaced by the statue of Athena; this must have been done while the theatre was empty. Next the Chorus enter by the same parodos, following the trail (245), and weave their spells over their victim. At 397 Athena enters by a parodos (her method of conveyance is uncer­ tain) ;97 she sees Orestes clasping her statue in front of the temple fa<;ade and the Furies in the orchestra. After a preliminary hearing Athena decides to establish a court of jurors (483f) and says she will return with them already sworn in. She departs by a parodos. Up to this point the temple fa~ade, serving as the temple of Apollo at Delphi and then as that of Athena at Athens, has been the centre of our attention. But after Athena's departure and the ode by the Chorus our attention is firmly directed to the return of Athena and the Athenian jurors. The setting up of the court is a solemn occasion. Athena presides, the city-crier commands silence with a blast of his trumpet, and a crowd of onlookers is held back. Meanwhile "this court-house is fill­ ing up" (570 7TI\TJpOVf.L'vov yap TOiJO€ {3ovl\€VTTJp{ov).98 Where is it? 117 Lines 403-05 supply alternative methods of entry. I regard the entry by chariot as more appropriate to the production of 458 B.C.; see Arnott, Conventions 74f. If so, the chariot leaves at line 489; and it may have been the need to get it off which prompted Aeschylus to make Athena go and fetch the citizens rather than send for them. 88 The 'Bouleuterion' here and at 684, where it is defined in local terms, is the place where the Council or the Court of Law sits. Verrall, Eumenides, keeps the reading of the MSS 7TATJPOvflivov, while Thomson, Oresteia, emends to KATJpovfllvov. In any case that the Bouleu­ terion is a physical object is clear from Athena's instructions to the jurors at 708 and her deSCription at 684f. I imagine that the court was as simple a structure as the stegos in Persae, that is a stall with some seats. In the early part of the play it might have been thought of as a waiting place for consultants of the oracle at Delphi, as suggested at line 31. The alternative view is that the Temple of Athena and the Court of the Areopagus were both on the skene at the back of the orchestra; if so, a change of scenery would have been neces­ sary for the transition, and this would have required an emptying of the theatre at 565 before the entry of Athena; see Verrall, Eumenides 183-86, on the problem. The scholiast to 489 says that Athena went off but Orestes and the Chorus stayed on at 49Off; Verrall has a different view. N. G. L. HAMMOND 441 Clearly not along the temple fac;ade, because everyone addressing the court will then have their backs to the spectators; moreover, as we shall see later, the court-house is associated not with a temple but with a pagos. The best place for it is either where we put the court­ house or counal-house in Persae. that is on the eastern side of the orchestra against the pagos, or on the pagos itself. During the period of silence after 573 Apollo enters and Orestes, leaving the statue of Athena, joins Apoll099 in the forward half of the orchestra. There too the Furies stand when they begin the prosecution. Athena presides, perhaps in a central position between the contestants. We see the jurors side-face and the others full-face. The Bouleuterion and not the temple is now commanding our attention; for the speakers address themselves to the jurors (613, 614, 643,674). At the end of the hearing Athena talks about "this Bouleu­ terion" (684 and 704), and the jurors rise from their seats in the Bouleuterion to cast their votes. Athena's speech is very explicit. "This court of justice will be for ever ... and reverence and fear will prevent my citizens from wrongdoing on this rock; for this is the rock of Ares where the Amazons pitched their tents when they came cam­ paigning in anger with Theseus and built this new citadel then with towers, and sacrificed to Ares, when the rock is named after him the "ApELDC 7T8lygaL'TO and stop at ovop.a~€'TaL. Then we translate: "Whenever one of the choreutai has to speak instead of (there being) a fourth actor, it is called a parachoregema."115 As the words €v cp8fj are senseless in relation to the preceding words, and as Pollux keeps moving from the tragic chorus to the comic chorus in these chapters, I suspect that we should conjecture €v 8e KWlu.p8lCf (cf. 4.128 fin.), and suppose that the follow­ ing words referred to a use of a fourth speaker in comedy (which we know did occur in Old Comedy116) and are a couple of lines out of place. It is likely that the same scholiast added the words aXPL 'TWV Evp.€vl8wv Alcxv'\ov, attempting to define 'TO 1Ta'\aL6v-a term which makes better sense without going down to the end of Aeschylus' career. The last sentence probably belongs to the scholiast; for it is out of keeping with the dry, staccato definitions of the adjacent chapters. I should thus suggest the athetisation of the words after ~cav, and regard the attribution of a chorus of fifty to Eumenides as a worthless expression of opinion by the scholiast.117 VI. Summary of General Conclusions When performances were held in the villages of Attica, the chorus used a circular orchestra (perhaps an earthen threshing-floor). An altar (8vp.l'\7J) was set in the centre and the 'circular dances' were conducted 113 See Pickard-Cambridge, op.cit. (supra n.9) 135f. 114 For additions to the text of Pollux see the edition by E. Bethe (1967) I.xvii; there are examples of scholia at 3.129 and 146. III See n.107 supra and K. Rees, "The Meaning of Parachoregema," CP 2 (1907) 387ff. 116 Pickard-Cambridge, op.cit. (supra n.9) 149£. 117 The passage is discussed ibid. 137 and 234 n.6. N. C. L. HAMMOND 447 round it. A sacrificial butcher's table (€A~oc) was placed on the edge of the orchestra, and a soloist could stand upon it. When performances were instituted in the Agora, a circular orchestra was sited probably on the west side of the square. The spectators sat on stands (LKpta) erected in the space between the orchestra and the Panathenaic Way. From their point of view a building known to us as the 'Primitive Bouleuterion' was to the left of the orchestra; an altar was set up in the centre, and a market-stall or skene was placed on the right of the orchestra. Entries into either side of the orchestra carne from behind and alongside the Primitive Bouleuterion and the skene; they were called parodoi. The Chorus of fifty choreutae danced and sang in the orchestra, which was entirely open at the front and at the back, and the spectators on the stands had an excellent view of the patterns of movement. The soloist singer, the one speaking actor and the mute actors who took part in performances positioned themselves on the front step of the Primitive Bouleuterion and/or on a trestle-platform on the front of the skene; they were thus close to the audience, and they addressed themselves to persons in the orchestra from one side and/or the other. The whole setting was designed primarily for a choric performance. When the festival was moved to the precinct of Dionysus on the side of the Acropolis hill, a circular orchestra was made by putting soil on a roughly level area of rock; but there was a steep drop on its south side, and here a supporting wall of masonry over two metres high was built close to the rock. The surface of the slope of the hill­ side above the orchestra was evened up with soil; the slope was such that no stands were needed, and the spectators sat on benches, still called tKpta. From their point of view there was a considerable out­ crop of rough limestone rock on the left of the orchestra, indeed im­ pinging upon it. This outcrop or pagos offered an elevated position close to the audience; it was used by a soloist singer, a speaking actor or actors and mute actors, and it could be made up to represent a mounded tomb or an acropolis hill. The stall or skene, being movable, could be placed on either side of the orchestra, and its forward part could be used as a property, e.g. to represent a primitive Bouleuterion. If it was placed behind the pagos, it could be made invisible. Parodoi were constructed leading into the orchestra from either side, the eastern parodos being south of the pagos. The considerable drop at the back of the orchestra made it possible for an actor to pass unseen from 448 DRAMATIC PRODUCTION TO THE DEATH OF AESCHYLUS the outer end of one parodos to the outer end of the other parodos. Again the whole setting was designed primarily for a choric perform­ ance. It was retained for some decades; we can infer this from the fact that the outer face of the piece of orchestra supporting wall which Dorpfeld found was so weathered that the original ground level was visible to him. When we consider the extant plays of Aeschylus which precede the Oresteia, we see that there was free movement between orchestra and pagos, and that the relatively simple setting we have described meets the stage directions incorporated in the texts and the stage require­ ments as far as we can envisage them. The nature of the theatre maintained the primary importance of the Chorus, and it tended to restrict the use of dialogue, which was conducted not between two or three persons on the pagos but rather between one person on the pagos and a person or persons in the orchestra. There was little oppor­ tunity for painting or decoration, because the forward part of the skene, when it was used, faced into the orchestra, and it was only one side (probably open) of the stall that was fully visible to the spectators. Audibility was not difficult to achieve; for speakers and singers on the pagos or in the front half of the orchestra were relatively close to the audience. A radical change in the nature of the theatre was made between the production of Supplices, probably in 463 B.C., and that of the Oresteia, in 458 B.C.us Aeschylus was then at the peak of his career. He had won his first victory in 484 B.C., but the plays which were to become famous and so survive were written between 472 and 458 B.C. The time was ripe for him to introduce new ideas. We do not know whether Aeschylus tried them out first in provincial performances or put forward only theoretical arguments, but he it was who persuaded the people to reconstruct the theatre and accept new conditions for the competitive festiva1.119 In the words of the Vita Aeschyli Hhe 118 As I understand the setting of PV, the play was written for the pre-Oresteia theatre, that is for production in a year before 458 B.C. It was written after 479 B.C. if PV 367ff was inspired by the eruption ofMt Aetna in that year, or after 474 B.C. if PV 367ffwas inspired by Pindar, Pyth. 1.15-28. A play written within these terminal dates--479/4 B.C. to 459 B.C.­ which was then preserved as one of the plays in a Prometheia by Aeschylus is not likely to have been written by anyone other than Aeschylus. 119 The choregus and Aeschylus may have provided a stage on the first occasion at their own cost. In Plato, Leg. 817c, it is apparent that a touring company brought its own gear, including a platform; in the late XVI century in Spain actors owned their stage, set it up N. G. L. HAMMOND 449 organised the skene," that is (in the later meaning of the skene), the stage or acting-area. A segment of the supporting wall at the back of the orchestra was removed and a rectangular foundation was built there, upon which it was easy to place a temporary wooden structure, representing a palace or temple fac;ade or something similar. The forecourt or rectangular area immediately in front of the fac;ade was probably raised above the orchestra by some two or three continuous shallow steps (as on a temple front). There were no advanced side-stages or paraskenia, so that the parodoi remained where they had been hither­ to. Speakers standing in the forecourt had a slight elevation above the orchestra but less than they had had on the pagos, and they were in addition some thirteen metres farther away from the audience than they had been on the pagos. Audibility was therefore more of a prob­ lem.120 In order to aid voice-production Aeschylus constructed the forecourt of wood so that it was in effect a wooden platform, which together with the wooden fac;ade had acoustic value. On the visual side he introduced changes in costume and colouring which had the effect of making actors appear taller and clearer. Now that the whole acting-area in front of the fac;ade faced the audience, it was possible to arrange more ambitious tableaux, develop more vigorous and realistic action, and paint an effective backcloth on the palace or temple fac;ade. Dialogue was now natural between two or three actors in the acting-area, e.g. between Clytemnestra, Orestes and Pylades. In the palace fac;ade in Choephoroe Aeschylus used three doors. Entry through them could be made by an actor and by the Chorus. At the same time Aeschylus retained many aspects of the earlier theatre: the full orchestra, the ceremonial entries through the parodos, e.g. of a king in a chariot, the appearance of gods among men, the frenzied Cassandra in the orchestra, and the great crowd scenes. and dismantled it themselves. But the extensive reconstruction of the Dionysiac theatre which is suggested here could only have been made by a decision of the demos, perhaps in the revolutionary zeal of 462 B.C. 120 We are apt to underestimate the problem, because we know the excellent acoustics of the stone-lined, steep-sided and symmetrical theatre at Epidaurus, especially when it is empty. But the theatre on the Acropolis slope with no stone seating, a vast crowd and a much less regular shape was a different matter. Arnott, Conventions 6, points out the differ­ ence: "Other older theatres [than that at Epidaurus] are not so well designed. In some of the earliest acoustics, though adequate, are far from perfect. This is certainly true of the Theatre of Dionysus." 450 DRAMATIC PRODUCTION TO THE DEATH OF AESCHYLUS For these purposes he used the pagos and the adjacent bouleuterion in Eumenides, and he kept the old freedom of access from orchestra to acting-area. It is the combination of the old and the new which has given to the setting and scenic effect of the Oresteia an unparalleled richness. In Aristotelian terms it was Aeschylus who brought the Attic theatre to its "natural form." No innovations of consequence were attributed after his death to his successors. Then some refinements and some gadgets did appear. In the so-called Periclean theatre the acting-area was enlarged and brought forward; the parodoi too were brought forward, the pagos or outcrop was levelled (then, if not earlier) so that there was room for the advanced eastern parodos, and the permanent foundations of breccia for the skene were built. The eccyclema, the mechane and the theologeion were now in full use. The in­ creasing specialisation in the acting-area and its dialogue tended to separate the orchestra from the skene and bring about a situation deplored by Aristotle, in which the Chorus no longer "joined in the action. "121 UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL July, 1972 121 Poet. 1456a26. Where only one parodos was needed in a play, it would have been pos­ sible to make a semblance of the rock at V, where it had been in Aeschylus' time; for in­ stance, in Sophocles' Philoctetes only one parodos is needed, and the two-mouthed cave could be in an artifidal rock set up on the side of the orchestra at the exic of the eastern parodos.