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#0466
294
MYTHOLOGY AND MONUMENTS
DIV. C
in that Epidaurus theatre that the real conditions of an ancient
fifth century representation can most clearly and vividly be
realised.
When exactly the theatre fell into disuse it is impossible to
say. The worship of Dionysos was, perhaps more than any
other Pagan cult, an offence to Christianity. To Clement of
Alexandria the chorus of Dionysos was but a dance of devils. In
his great Protrepticus he cries aloud—“ Come, oh madman, not
leaning on thy thyrsus, not crowned with ivy. Throw away the
fawn-skin, come to thy senses. This is the mountain beloved of
FIG. 33.—VIEW OF THEATRE OF EPIDAURUS.
God, not the subject of tragedies like Cithaeron, but consecrated
to dramas of the truth, a mount of sobriety shaded with purity.
And there revel on it, not the Maenads, the sisters of Semele,
the thunder-struck, but the daughters of God, the fair lambs who
celebrate the holy rites of the Word, raising a sober choral
chant.”
Little wonder, then, that in early Christian and mediaeval days
the theatre was subject to all manner of pillage and desecration,
and that the site, gradually overgrown and over-built, fell into
complete oblivion. When learning revived, the first explorers
missed the spot, obvious as it seems, altogether, and mistook for it
the better-preserved Odeion of Herodes Atticus. Leake, partly by
MYTHOLOGY AND MONUMENTS
DIV. C
in that Epidaurus theatre that the real conditions of an ancient
fifth century representation can most clearly and vividly be
realised.
When exactly the theatre fell into disuse it is impossible to
say. The worship of Dionysos was, perhaps more than any
other Pagan cult, an offence to Christianity. To Clement of
Alexandria the chorus of Dionysos was but a dance of devils. In
his great Protrepticus he cries aloud—“ Come, oh madman, not
leaning on thy thyrsus, not crowned with ivy. Throw away the
fawn-skin, come to thy senses. This is the mountain beloved of
FIG. 33.—VIEW OF THEATRE OF EPIDAURUS.
God, not the subject of tragedies like Cithaeron, but consecrated
to dramas of the truth, a mount of sobriety shaded with purity.
And there revel on it, not the Maenads, the sisters of Semele,
the thunder-struck, but the daughters of God, the fair lambs who
celebrate the holy rites of the Word, raising a sober choral
chant.”
Little wonder, then, that in early Christian and mediaeval days
the theatre was subject to all manner of pillage and desecration,
and that the site, gradually overgrown and over-built, fell into
complete oblivion. When learning revived, the first explorers
missed the spot, obvious as it seems, altogether, and mistook for it
the better-preserved Odeion of Herodes Atticus. Leake, partly by