Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (1.1882-1883)

128

THE THEATRE OF DIONYSUS.

the travellers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are hope-
lessly in the dark even as to its site. Stuart, for instance, writes of
the Odeum of Regilla under the name of the "Theatre of Bacchus,"
while he mistakes the true site of the theatre for that of the Odeum
of Pericles.* Richard Chandler was the first to recognize the true
site ; and Leake, by calling attention to the now well-known coin of
the Payne-Knight collection in the British Museum, removed all
doubt on the subject. This coin, although valueless in its details, at
least proves conclusively that the theatre lay at the eastern end of
the south side of the Acropolis, since otherwise the eastern front of
the Parthenon could not have been represented on it.f

Excavations were first made upon this spot by Athenian archae-
ologists shortly before i860, but these led to no other result than the
uncovering of the steps which are hewn in the rock near the former
site of the choragic monument of Thrasyllus. Early in the year
1862, the German architect Strack came to Athens ; and, after some
delay in obtaining permission from the owners of the soil, excavations
were begun under his supervision on the seventeenth of March. On
the twenty-second of March, step 17 of jcep/as 1 (left) j was uncov-
ered ; and on the third of April, the double throne bearing the
inscriptions xrjpvKos and crTparrj-yov was also laid bare. Soon after,
the discovery of the row of marble chairs which enclose the orches-
tra, and of the orchestra itself, made it clear that important remains
were waiting to be uncovered. On the third of June, Strack left
Athens ; and, after this time, all the excavations were under the direc-
tion of the Archaeological Society of Athens. With some interrup-
tions, the work, so well begun, was continued until 1S65, when the
theatre was left substantially in its present condition. That part of
the western retaining wall which is near the Acropolis, however, was
not uncovered until the excavations of 1877 laid bare the contiguous
Asclepieion.

The Athenian archaeologists Rhousopoulos and Koumanoudes have
given reports of the excavations made in 1862, the former in the

* Antiquities of Athens, II. p. 23.

f This coin is figured in Dvcr's Ancient Athens, and in Smith's Diet, ofGeog.,

I. p. 2SS.

% By reference to the plan, the numbering of the KepKiSes in the ko"l\ov will be
made clear. See also the first note on p. 149 (below).