Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (5.1886-1890)

DISCOVERIES IN THE ATTIC DEME OF IKARIA,

1888.

THE CHOREGIA IN ATHENS AND AT IKARIA*

It is hoped that the following inscriptions will throw new light on
the choregiaof Attic rural denies, a subject upon which we have very
little accurate information. In order to call to mind the various ques-
tions which must be proposed in examining the choregia in a country
deme, it will be useful to make a summary survey of the various stages
through which the choregic management passed in Athens.1

It is usually stated, that for all the great festivals, such as the
Greater Diouysia, the Thargelia, and the Panathenaia, each tribe, by
the medium of its eVt/xeA^Ta/, appointed one of its wealthier members
to act as its representative choregos. The duties of a chorcgos were to
supply and suitably ecpuip a chorus at his own expense and to provide
for its instruction by appointing a ■)^opoSiSda-Ka\o<;, whose title was
commouly shortened to StSacr/caXo?, who should have charge of the
training of the chorus. This trainer was originally the poet himself,
and for this reason Aristophanes (Acharnians, 628), referring to him-
self, uses the word StSacr«a\o? in precisely this sense. The time of the
festival was the occasion for judging the comparative merits of the
choruses and for awarding a prize to the choregos who presented the
besl-trained chorus. The prize was not the same for all festivals, but,
for the Great Dionysia and the Thargelia, consisted of a bronze tripod
which the victor was expected to dedicate in a conspicuous position,
fretmently building for it an elaborate structure such as the monu-
ment of Lysikrates.

In the course of this paper, it is proposed to submit some of the

* Professor Tarbel], the Annual Director of the School, has been kind enough to
look over this article, and I am indebted to him for several suggestions.

1 See article Chorajia in the standard Dictionaries of Antiquities; Boeckh, Die
Slaatsha.ushaltu.7Hj der Athencr,&> p. 539 ff.; Mlxler, Lchrbuch der ijrkchischen B'uhnen-
alterlhumer, p. 330 ff.; and, especially for the distinction between the various classes
of inscriptions, KoEin.Er., MiUhcilumjen d. d. urchtiol. Institutes, 1378; Reisch, De
musicts Graecorum eertaminibus ; Bkixck, Inscriptions Graeeae ad choreyiampertinentes.

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