DOI chapter:
Division C: The road immediately east and south of the Acropolis, from the street of Tripods to the shrine of Demeter Chloe
DOI chapter:Section XII
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61302#0434
202
MYTHOLOGY AND MONUMENTS
DIV. C
of Aristophanes. For certain suits the dikasts assembled there.
The chorus says-
“ Then we manage all our business in a waspish sort of way,
Swarming in the courts of justice, gathering in from day to day
Many where the Eleven write, as many where the archon calls,
Many, too, on the Odeion, many to the city walls.”
On which the scholiast comments : 23— “ It (z>., the Odeion) is
a place in the form of a theatre, in which they are accustomed
to recite the compositions before the recitation in the theatre.
He (/.<?., Aristophanes) says this to show you will find dikasts here,
and there, and everywhere in Attica.”
It is perfectly natural that there should be, as an appendage to
the open theatre, some roofed-in building where business such as
rehearsals, requiring the privacy of four walls, could go on.
Further, an open-air structure would not be suitable for musical
performances of the more delicate sort. As the theatre itself was
used after a time in preference to the Pnyx for popular assemblies,
it is not at all surprising that the dikasts were allowed on
occasion to meet in the Odeion.
As to the burning down of the Periclean Odeion, Pausanias seems
to have made a mistake. Appian24 distinctly states that it was
Aristionwho burnt the Odeion in order to prevent Sullafrom utilising
it in his attempt to scale and seize the citadel. It was, as Pausanias
quite correctly states, restored, and, it is known from Vitruvius,25 at
the expense of Ariobarzanes III. (circ. 51 B.C.), by the architects
Caius and Marcus Stallius and Menalippus. That it was restored
after the early pattern is clear from the description of Pausanias.
It remains to fix the site. Pausanias leaves us in the vague.
He only says it was “near the sanctuary and the theatre of'
Dionysos ; ” and as he is coming from the east, and has already
described the temples, it might from this be supposed that the
Odeion lay west of them. Happily Vitruvius explicitly states that
the Odeion stood near as you went out of the left side of the theatre
(“Athenis exeuntibus e theatre sinistra parte Odeum”). From
the much-disputed passage in the speech on the mysteries by
Andokides 26 it is further clear that the Odeion stood higher than
the orchestra of the theatre. When Diokleides was passing by
moonlight near the Propylaea of Dionysos he saw “a number of
men going down from the Odeion to the orchestra.” As the
old orchestra of the days of Andokides, which Dr. Dorpfeld has
discovered (p. 285), lies very little, if anything, below the present
MYTHOLOGY AND MONUMENTS
DIV. C
of Aristophanes. For certain suits the dikasts assembled there.
The chorus says-
“ Then we manage all our business in a waspish sort of way,
Swarming in the courts of justice, gathering in from day to day
Many where the Eleven write, as many where the archon calls,
Many, too, on the Odeion, many to the city walls.”
On which the scholiast comments : 23— “ It (z>., the Odeion) is
a place in the form of a theatre, in which they are accustomed
to recite the compositions before the recitation in the theatre.
He (/.<?., Aristophanes) says this to show you will find dikasts here,
and there, and everywhere in Attica.”
It is perfectly natural that there should be, as an appendage to
the open theatre, some roofed-in building where business such as
rehearsals, requiring the privacy of four walls, could go on.
Further, an open-air structure would not be suitable for musical
performances of the more delicate sort. As the theatre itself was
used after a time in preference to the Pnyx for popular assemblies,
it is not at all surprising that the dikasts were allowed on
occasion to meet in the Odeion.
As to the burning down of the Periclean Odeion, Pausanias seems
to have made a mistake. Appian24 distinctly states that it was
Aristionwho burnt the Odeion in order to prevent Sullafrom utilising
it in his attempt to scale and seize the citadel. It was, as Pausanias
quite correctly states, restored, and, it is known from Vitruvius,25 at
the expense of Ariobarzanes III. (circ. 51 B.C.), by the architects
Caius and Marcus Stallius and Menalippus. That it was restored
after the early pattern is clear from the description of Pausanias.
It remains to fix the site. Pausanias leaves us in the vague.
He only says it was “near the sanctuary and the theatre of'
Dionysos ; ” and as he is coming from the east, and has already
described the temples, it might from this be supposed that the
Odeion lay west of them. Happily Vitruvius explicitly states that
the Odeion stood near as you went out of the left side of the theatre
(“Athenis exeuntibus e theatre sinistra parte Odeum”). From
the much-disputed passage in the speech on the mysteries by
Andokides 26 it is further clear that the Odeion stood higher than
the orchestra of the theatre. When Diokleides was passing by
moonlight near the Propylaea of Dionysos he saw “a number of
men going down from the Odeion to the orchestra.” As the
old orchestra of the days of Andokides, which Dr. Dorpfeld has
discovered (p. 285), lies very little, if anything, below the present