DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4593#0170
THE SHRINES OF ATTICA 149
orchestra to the top of the proskcnion. We cannot
suppose that wooden steps were used there. Why
have a proskenion with columns, and pictures or
statues between them, if they were to be hidden by
stairs!
The arguments for a stage adduced from Grasco-
Roman vase paintings, in which comic or tragic
scenes are staged, are of little force, because they are
representations of a later age and not of the Greek
theatre of ^Eschylus or Sophocles. In the vast num-
ber of vases found in Greece itself, none have a
stage upon them. In the Italian vases appealed to,
there is no chorus; they are not descriptive of the
Greek theatre.
That the Greeks did not have a stage may be
inferred from the fact that they had no name for it.
The word logeion is first used by Plutarch. In an
inscription two or three centuries older, in which the
word appeared, it was found to have been an inter-
polation or restoration of a later time.1
There is little left in support of the stage theory
but the statement of Vitruvius. Living four hun-
dred and fifty years or more after the Attic drama
was introduced, he had seen the Greek theatre, and
had concluded that the proscenium was a stage. He
was fairly accurate in describing its height, but he
1 A few Greek phrases which might indicate a stage are easily
explained. The phrase M <XKt)vT\<; does not necessarily mean "upon
the stage ; " eV!, with the genitive, is also used to mean " at or near,"
as in the phrase eVl -KOTa/xov, that is, at or near the river; just as we
say Stratford-on-Avon, Boulogne-sur-Mer. We have the same form
in the Greek expression M Tpaire&i', " by the tables." In the same
way the words avaSSaivo: and Karafiaivw are used figuratively, not
always with reference to height or depth, or literal ascent or descent.
orchestra to the top of the proskcnion. We cannot
suppose that wooden steps were used there. Why
have a proskenion with columns, and pictures or
statues between them, if they were to be hidden by
stairs!
The arguments for a stage adduced from Grasco-
Roman vase paintings, in which comic or tragic
scenes are staged, are of little force, because they are
representations of a later age and not of the Greek
theatre of ^Eschylus or Sophocles. In the vast num-
ber of vases found in Greece itself, none have a
stage upon them. In the Italian vases appealed to,
there is no chorus; they are not descriptive of the
Greek theatre.
That the Greeks did not have a stage may be
inferred from the fact that they had no name for it.
The word logeion is first used by Plutarch. In an
inscription two or three centuries older, in which the
word appeared, it was found to have been an inter-
polation or restoration of a later time.1
There is little left in support of the stage theory
but the statement of Vitruvius. Living four hun-
dred and fifty years or more after the Attic drama
was introduced, he had seen the Greek theatre, and
had concluded that the proscenium was a stage. He
was fairly accurate in describing its height, but he
1 A few Greek phrases which might indicate a stage are easily
explained. The phrase M <XKt)vT\<; does not necessarily mean "upon
the stage ; " eV!, with the genitive, is also used to mean " at or near,"
as in the phrase eVl -KOTa/xov, that is, at or near the river; just as we
say Stratford-on-Avon, Boulogne-sur-Mer. We have the same form
in the Greek expression M Tpaire&i', " by the tables." In the same
way the words avaSSaivo: and Karafiaivw are used figuratively, not
always with reference to height or depth, or literal ascent or descent.