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The Context of Ancient Drama Eric Csapo and William ]. Slater Ann Arbor THE ll.NIVERSI'IT OF MICHIGAN PR.Ess Copyright © by the University of Michigan 1994 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by For Heather and Bob Jordan The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America e Printed on acid-free paper 2001 2000 1999 1998 5 4 3 2 A GIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Csapo, Eric. The context of ancient drama/ Eric Csapo and William J. Slater. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. - ) and index. ISBN 0-472-10545-0 (hardcover : acid-free). - ISBN 0-472-08275-2 (acid-free) 1. Classical drama-History and criticism-Theory, etc. 2. Theater-Greece-History-Sources. 3. Theater-Rome-History Sources. 4. Civilization, Ancient-Sources. I. Slater, William J. II. Title. PA3024.C75 1994 792'.0938-dc20 94-24681 CIP Preface This book has some of the qualities of an adjustable wrench, a standard all-purpose implement for the general handy(wo)man, but one that is useful to the specialist only when the right tool is out of reach. It is a series of selections from the evidence about ancient drama, translated and grouped under what we trust are suitable subtitles, and introduced by essays designed to make the the ancient sources accessible and intelligi ble. It grew (alas slowly) out of an urgent need. Both authors, working at neighboring institutions, found themselves teaching undergraduate courses on the "History of the Greek and Roman Theater," titles that implied a heavy concentration on the mechanisms that created drama, the festivals, audience, actors, theaters, political, religious, and social contexts. No adequate text or texts existed for these topics. Unlike many classicists who find themselves in a similar predicament, we did not resort to the common subterfuge of substituting a course in dramatic literature; but our refusal to capitulate may have been due less to idealism than to the fear that students in large translation classes do not have the same tolerance for the tedium of textual commentary that we demand of language specialists. The results have been more than satisfactory. Our students have taught us that there are few topics as rich and fascinating as the social and institutional history of ancient drama. Our primary reason for writing this book was to facilitate the creation of a new approach to teaching the ancient theater for colleagues who may be no less aware of the topic's enormous appeal but are less reckless with their time and energy. But since this book is the first of its kind, we have not attempted to imagine a single individual reader. We found it equally undesirable to prescribe its use with precise parameters. For the Greekless and Latinless undergraduate with little or no background in classical antiquity, it 1s designed to be accessible and challenging, but it is not entirely self- ,;'·~ !'-. viii Prefa ce Preface ix •• the documents listed contain obvious lies or highly questionable state contained and presupposes an instructor with independence, interest, and \••.• ments, but they appear simply because they were often cited in the imagination. It is less well suited to courses that require virtual redun • literature, or often misused, or because they are characteristic of the dancy between lecture and text. For more advanced students of classics, -. drama, or theater history, undergraduate or graduate, this book serves ancient testimony on a topic or they pose interesting and typical problems. Exhaustiveness was not possible: we would rather invite those who are a still more pressing need. Most classical graduates, even those specializing more conscious of their pocketbooks to admire our economy in treating in ancient drama, are woefully ignorant of the background to their texts, ·-· a topic of such scope. largely because of the inadequacy of traditional training methods; and \l _~_ · the same is true of graduates in theater and drama because of the Thanks are due to Dr. Ellen Bauerle, who, throughout the production of this book, has given us encouragement, understanding, and wise advice. inaccessibility of the primary evidence. We have also tried to envision the needs of our colleagues in literature and drama departments who are • ~isadvantaged because of language and discipline barriers. We even hope • that this book will be useful to most general professional classicists, or specialists in ancient drama, who do not have easy access to large •• libraries, or who are in need of a quick reference. No doubt many will • find that the book lacks focus and tries to serve too many needs at once, •• but we hope that nearly everyone with an interest in the ancient theater wiH find in it much that is useful, and will be enabled to pass over easily • that which is not specifically relevant to their task . • Others will say unkindly that this book has the qualities of an over • stuffed sofa-the lumpiness of too much here, not enough there. We should plead that the evidence itself has come to us in extraordinary -. lumps and holes, and smoothing it out for the use of others has not • always been easy, or successful, or desirable. Nevertheless, while we cannot promise total comfort, we do try at least to provide solid support . • We have therefore refrained from burdening readers with the many • interesting details of Euripides' domestic problems that may derive from • the comedy industry, while on the other hand we have made demands -. on their patience with long festival inscriptions. There are, and will _be, large holes, or, more often, disconnected scraps, in what was once a • coherent fabric. Thus some matters of stage design proved too insubstan • tially woven from modern or ancient speculation. Discussions of dramatic genres or purely literary topics were both too vast and easily accessible l elsewhere. For mime and pantomime, however, we made an exception, • since the principal evidence for these genres is documentary. Costume • received no continuous treatment, but is touched on at various places in the text. This is because the artifacts provide the only really reliable evidence, and this made comprehhensive treatment impracticable. The l criterion for the selection of passages on any given topic has also not • always been consistent. The inclusion of a particular source does not • necessarily mean that we assign it some kind of "truth-value." Some of I ' Contents Explanatory Note xiii Abbreviations xv I. Kinds of Evidence: Their Nature and Reliability 1 IA. The Texts 1 IAi. The Dissemination of Athenian Drama and the Survival of the Texts to· Hellenistic Times 1 IAii. Legacy of Ancient Scholarship 18 IB. Inscriptions 39 IC. Artifacts 53 ID. Theater Buildings 79 II. Origins of Greek Drama 89 ill. Organization 103 IDA. Classical Athens 103 IIIAi. Festivals 103 IIIAia. The Great Dionysia 103 IIIAib. The Lenaea, Rural Dionysia, and Anthesteria 121 IIIAii. Regulation 139 IIIAiia. The Choregic System 13 9 IIIAiib. Judges 157 IIIAiic. Freedom of Expression 165 IIIB. The Greek World from Hellenistic to Imperial Times 186 IIIC. The Roman World 207 IV. Actors and Audience 221 IVA. Actors and Acting 221 IVAi. Actors in the Classical Period 221 IVA ii. The Artists of Dionysus 239 IVAiii. Classical and Hellenistic Acting 256 c ..; ' ~ t -~ xii Contents '·•·~ ( IVAiv. Republican and Imperial Actors and Acting 275 IVB. The Audience 286 '··~ IVBi. The Athenian Audience in the ·~ Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C. 286 :· IVBii. Roman Audience and Society 306 ~ IVBiii. Emperors and Theater 318 •. ~ IVC. Music 331 Explanatory Note '·~ IVD. The Chorus 349 .. V. Mime and Pantomime 369 . ~.~ Appendices 391 \ Appendix A: Pollux, Onomasticon 4.99-154 393 \ ..~ Appendix B: Chronological Tables 403 Brackets Used in Translating Sources Bibliographical Notes 407 \~ Glossary/Index 425 [ ... ] A lacuna exists in the text that is being translated. ~ fndex of Personal Names and Places 437 A passage is omitted from the text translated. Source Index 443 (factio) The original word that is being translated is italicized ·~ Plates 453 and attached to the translation. ~ (this is not true) The words in parentheses represent an editorial com ment or explanation inserted by the translator. •·~ <word> The translators have supplied a word not in the origi . ·•···~ nal to make the sense clearer, e.g., <Augustus> for '·~ "him." • Dates • All dates are A.D. if not otherwise specified. - ··~ Greek Names ••• All Greek names sufficiently well known to merit separate entries in the . ~ Oxford Classical Dictionary are spelled as they appear in that work ~ (normally Latinized). Other names and all Greek words appear in stan dard transliteration . •• •• Referencing ' f : The text is not necessarily designed for the linear reader. There is a ~ minimal amount of redundancy to allow easy flipping back and forth. ·t One could, for example, read the sources first and then the chapter f introduction, or read both at once, constantly referring from one to the ·( ·t xiv Explanatory Note other. For this reason we have given essential data (name of author, date of composition) with each numbered source, even when the same author and date appear earlier or even immediately before. To keep catalog numbers to a minimum, we have numbered consecutively throughout entire sections, not through individual chapters. Section numbers (I, II, ill, IV, V) are added only when the cross-reference is to a passage in a different section. When a cross-reference is to a chapter, rather than to Abbreviations a specific source in the chapter, then section subdivisions (A, B, C, or i, ii, iii) are included in the reference. BGU Aegyptische Urkunden aus den staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Griechische Urkunden BCH Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum CMG Corpus Medicorum Graecorum C.Ord.Ptol. Corpus des Ordonnances des Ptolemees CR Classical Review FD Fouilles de Delphes FGrH Fragmente der griechischen Historiker FIRA Fontes Iuris Romani Anteiustiniani GVI Griechische Versinschriften ID Inscriptions de Delos JG Inscriptiones Graecae IGRR Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas pertinentes IGUR Inscriptiones Graecae Urbis Romae ILS Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae ]RS Journal of Roman Studies MAMA Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiquae OGIS Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones Selectae OMS L. Robert, Opera Minora Selecta I-VII ORF Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta PCG Poetae Comici Graeci PHibeh Hibeh Papyri POxy Oxyrhynchus Papyri SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum SIG Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum TAM Tituli Asiae Minoris TrGF Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta ZPE Zeitschrift for Papyrologie und Epigraphik I. Kinds of Evidence: Their Nature and Reliability IA: The Texts IAi. The Dissemination of Athenian Drama and the Survival of the Texts to Hellenistic Times The earliest manuscripts of the classical dramatists date from the 10th or 11th c. In many places they have obvious omissions; in some places obvious gibberish. The age of a manuscript is a factor of limited impor tance: better readings can very often be found in much later manuscripts stemming from an independent tradition; papyrus finds may bring us 800-1200 years closer to the original text of a play but rarely contain readings not found in the manuscript tradition of preserved plays. This allows us to feel reasonably confident that our modern critical editions are close to the texts that were in circulation in the 3rd c. B.C. But how close are we to the original texts of the 5th c. B.C.? It is generally supposed that the texts sustained more damage in the first century of their existence than in the following twenty-three altogether. The transmitted text of Aeschylus inspires so little confidence that at least 10 percent has been condemned by one editor or another, while the number of proposed emendations far exceeds the number of words. How did the texts suffer so much damage so soon after their conception and at a time when the fame of the tragedians and interest in their works was highest? Paradoxically, the popularity of the tragedians in the 5th and 4th c. B.C. both ensured the survival of their works at this critical period and led to the massive corruption of their texts. The Greek book trade did not exist when Aeschylus produced his plays (499-458 B.C.), was in its infancy during most of Euripides' dramatic career (from 455 B.C.}, and seems not to have become a profitable business until just a few years before his death (407/6 B.C.). Though we find the dead Euripides of Aristophanes' Frogs (943) claiming to have nursed the ailing art form he inherited from Aeschylus with an "infusion drawn from the blather 2 The Context of Ancient Drama The Texts 3 of books," it is not till the last decade of the 5th c. B.C. that we hear of that Greek plays were written and produced for a single performance, books being widely circulated (10, 11). By the end of the century, books but the statement is misleading. The City Dionysia and the Lenaea were travel far and wide: in 400 B.C. Xenophon saw the Thracian Black Sea the most important dramatic competitions. Originally, archaic cult prob coast littered with debris from wrecked cargo ships including "couches, ably required new compositions for presentation to the god; even the boxes, written books" (Anabasis 7.5.14); Plato mentions Anaxagoras' Hellenistic hymn of the phallophoroi insists on an offering of "virgin treatise selling for, at most, a drachma at the book stalls in the Athenian song" (II 9). But in addition to the reentry of "revised" plays at the marketplace (Apology 26d-e). From this it appears that, by the turn of Dionysia and Lenaea (1-3), we hear, by the early 5th c. B.C., of the the century, books were relatively expensive but easily acquired, and they reperformance of plays at the smaller festivals ··o f the Rural Dionysia soon came to be collected by cultured Athenians (cf. 10-12). (16; IIIAib), and by the end of the century there is evidence for the The earliest drama whose survival is attributable to a purely literary reperformance of comedy at the main festivals (18, 19). Sometime after transmission is in fact a comedy (2). There is conclusive evidence to show the death of Aeschylus, the Athenians voted to allow his plays to be that our text of Aristophanes' Clouds is not the text of the play performed reproduced at the major festivals (17). From 386 B.C. onward, "old at the Dionysia of 423 B.C. but a revised version. The sources claim that tragedies" were regularly reproduced at the City Dionysia, and by 339 the revision was undertaken for the purpose of a second production (cf. B.C. the same was true of "old comedies" (22). ·1, 3), which never materialized. Two other comedies of the late 5th and We have less information about performances outside of Attica during early 4th c. B.C. seem to owe their survival entirely to book circulation the 5th c. B.C. The earliest were those of Aeschylus in Sicily in 471-469 (4). From the mid-4th c. B.C. the revision of dramas for circulation appears and 458-456 B.C. (23). Euripides' Andromache is said to have been first to have been taken for granted (5). Nevertheless book circulation cannot produced outside of Athens (24). Later he went to Magnesia and then, fully account for the survival of 5th-c. drama, particularly drama pro along with Agathon, took up residence at the court of the Macedonian duced before the last two decades of the 5th c. B.C. Despite general literacy, king Archelaus at Pella (25-27). By the last decade of the 5th c. B.C. the books had a relatively low appeal to most ancients. Reading was a costly sources imply that Athenian tragedy was having an impact on common and difficult art. Ancient papyrus books were cumbersome continuous people outside of Attica (27, 28, see also on 2). About the same time, . rolls, up to seven meters long, without word separation or punctuation, we begin to hear anecdotes about tragic and comic actors touring the with the lines of verse all strung together like prose, with speakers often Greek world (29-31). unidentified, with changes of speaker sometimes unmarked, and without The anecdotes about the survivors of the Battle of Syracuse are likely stage directions. Such technical difficulties conspired to make the average to be greatly exaggerated even if true, but they provide a nice illustration ancient considerably less bookish than Euripides. Most ancients, even of how dramatic culture might be disseminated even without a perfor scholars, preferred to cite from memory rather than hunt a passage down mance tradition (9). Even if one takes these tales at face value it is not in a text. No compulsion was felt for verbatim accuracy: Aristotle owned easy to determine whether they indicate a prevalence or dearth of tragic the largest library in Athens (15A) but made errors in 80 percent of his performance in Sicily: the former is suggested by the popularity of citations from Homer. r Euripides, the latter by the lengths to which the Sicilians went to hear Most Greeks of the 5th and 4th c. B.C. became acquainted with drama his verses. Possibly an active performance tradition was interrupted by through oral tradition and performance. Choral lyrics and monodies often the war with Athens; this in turn would suggest the absence of native became popular songs (9) and common entertainments at drinking parties tragic actors in Sicily or Italy at the time. Satyrus' version of the tale (6 ). The custom of singing songs and reciting iambic speeches from does suggest that no books were available to satisfy the longing for tragedy at drinking parties, well known from the later period, seems Euripides' verse (9). Plutarch, however, speaks specifically of Euripides' already to have come into fashion by the late 5th c. B.C. (7, 8). Memorable songs, and, although about eleven dramatic papyri with musical notation phrases, mostly in succinct, proverbial form (gnomat) embellished conver have been found, it is doubtful whether books were ever an adequate sation, and schoolboys learned to cite tragic speeches from memory. Of medium for music (IVC). In any case, archaeological finds confirm the the performance tradition there is little direct evidence. It is often said main point of these anecdotes: South Italian and Sicilian imports and 4 The Context of Ancient Drama I I The Texts 5 local imitations of Attic terra-cotta figurines and vase paintings do attest with than the mixed oral and written tradition that was circulating at a keen interest in Attic drama from about 420 B.C., and particularly for the time. The official Athenian texts are said to be ancestors of our Euripides (128, 129). Greeks from Italy and Sicily soon became major manuscripts: Galen describes how Ptolemy stole them for the Museum exponents of Attic theater: among them we may note the tragic actor in Alexandria (15B), where Hellenistic scholars busied themselves with Aristodemos of Metapontum, whose first Lenaean victories can be dated the task of producing authoritative versions that became the standard ea. 370 B.C.; Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse and part-time tragic poet editions of the plays in later antiquity (see IAii). (8A), who had a Lenaean victory in 367 B.C.; and Alexis of Thurii, one of the most important poets of Middle Comedy, whose first Lenaean Sources victories came in the 350s B.C. Many of the most prominent dramatists in the first half of the 4th c. B.C. came to Athens from the periphery of Written and Oral Texts the Greek world. The oral tradition made a significant contribution to the survival of l. Hypothesis to Euripides, Hippolytus. The second Hippolytus was our playtexts. In most cases, indeed, the oral and book tradition are performed in 428 B.C . . inextricably mixed. Actors appear to have played a major role in both. This is the second Hippolytus, also called Garlanded Hippolytus. Though poets apparently revised their plays in the 5th c. B.C., we are It is manifestly the one written later. That which was distasteful explicitly told that the rewriting was aimed at reperformance, not circula and deserved condemnation is corrected in this drama. tion in book form (1-3). Not until the 4th c. B.C. do we have evidence 2A. Aristophanes, Clouds 522-25. Clouds was performed at the Di for a regular practice of book publication following production (5), or, onysia in 423 B.C., but the text was later revised by the author sometime exceptionally, without production (4). Even then a popular play was not between 420-417 B.C. as the following passages show, and it is this revised likely to avoid contamination. In an age that knew no copyright, the version that survives today. The date of the revision is established by the poet had little control over the text of his play. Booksellers felt no references to Eupolis' Marikas, performed at the Lenaea in 421 B.C. (cf. obligation to use authorized versions of plays, when any one of the people involved in the production could have sold them working copies Clouds 553), and the ostracism of Hyperbolus in 416 B.C. (cf. Clouds 550-58); Aristophanes implies that the work could have been presented or memorized texts. Even if an author released his text immediately, elsewhere, had he not decided to favor the "clever" Athenian audience. actors traveled faster than books. There is no reason to think that a We should not assume that first performance of a play was necessarily bookseller in Syracuse would copy only the best Athenian edition. The book tradition may never have been independent of the oral tradition, the privilege of the Athenian audience. and it was subject to the same hazards. The scholia allege a great many I considered this to be most clever of all my comedies and so thought actors' interpolations in our surviving texts (13), and their assertions are it proper that you should be the first to experience this work upon sometimes confirmed by the appearance of transposed lines or alternate which I labored harder than on any other. But then I lost out to versions of whole sections of plays. When important speeches seem to tedious clowns, though I did not deserve such treatment. ramble on or drift clumsily, suspicion normally, perhaps reasonably, falls 2B. Second Hypothesis to Aristophanes, Clouds. upon the actors' hamming up the poet's text to magnify their roles and The first Clouds was produced at the City Dionysia during the archon expand the crowd-pleasers. ship of Isarchos (424/3 B.C.), when Cratinus won with Winefiask, Around 330 B.C. the Athenian politician Lycurgus attempted to curb Ameipsias <came second> with Konnos. So, Aristophanes, tossed the degeneration of the texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides by out unreasonably, thought it necessary to produce the second Clouds passing a law requiring the preparation of an official text to which actors and chastise the audience. But his luck was even worse with this would be forced to adhere when performing "old tragedy" at Attic and he did not thereafter produce the revised version. The second festivals (14). In composing the official text, there is no reason to believe Clouds dates to the archonship of Ameinias (i.e., 423/2 B.C., which that the Athenian public secretaries had anything more reliable to work is wrong; the revision was probably never produced).

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