Barrows, Samuel J.: The isles and shrines of Greece (Boston, 1898)

146 THE ISLES AND SHRINES OF GREECE

fall from a stage twelve feet high into the orchestra
might turn comedy into tragedy.

It is admitted by advocates of the stage theory
that there is occasional necessity for the mingling of
the actors and the chorus, and that there may have
been wooden steps from the orchestra to the stage.
Wooden steps are assumed, because in no Greek
theatre has a vestige of a stone staircase been found.
But the shallowness of the supposed stage would be
even more of an obstacle if the chorus were sup-
posed to be on it. With that addition the stage
would have been overcrowded. There could have
been no gathering around the actor. It is not easy
to see how a chorus of twenty-four persons could
have executed a dance movement upon the stage,
as required in the " Lysistrata." Haigh admits that
" there must have been some difficulty about the
appearance of the chorus upon the stage. Their
presence must have been felt to be an anomaly."
This bewilderment of one of the chief advocates of
the stage theory is not surprising. It is not, how-
ever, the presence of the chorus which is the anom-
aly, but the supposed stage. Remove the stage,
and the difficulty at once disappears.

On the other hand, if one assumes a stage twelve
feet high, the anomalies multiply rapidly. In the
" CEdipus at Colonus," when Creon is attempting to
carry off Antigone, he is held back by the chorus.
If Creon and Antigone had been on a stage twelve
feet high, the chorus would have needed gigantic arms
to reach them. According to the conventional the-
ory, we must suppose that the chorus rushed breath-
lessly upstairs, and that the violent action took place