Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

CHORUS.

85

CHRONOLOGIA.

blind the best musical or theatrical entertain-
ment received as a prize a tripod, which he
had the expense of consecrating, and some-
times he had also to build the monument on
which it was placed. There was a whole
street at Athens formed by the line of these
tripod-temples, and called " The Street of the
Tripods."

CHORUS (x°P°s) probably signified origin-
ally a company of dancers dancing in a ring.
In later times, a chorie performance always
implies the singing or musical recitation of a
poetical composition, accompanied by appro-
priate dancing and gesticulation, or at least
by a measured march. In all the Dorian
states, especially among the Spartans, choral
performances were cultivated with great assi-
duity. Various causes contributed to this, as,
for example, their universal employment in
the worship of Apollo, the fact that they were
not confined to the men, but that women
also took part in them, and that many of the
dances had a gymnastic character given them,
and were employed as a mode of training to
martial exercises. [Saltatio.] Hence Doric
lyric poetry became almost exclusively choral,
which was not the case with the other great
school of Greek lyric poetry, the Aeolian ; so
that the Doric dialect came to be looked upon
as the appropriate dialect for choral compo-
sitions, and Doric forms were retained by the
Athenians even in the choral compositions
which were interwoven with their dramas.
The instrument commonly used in connection
with the Doric choral poetry was the cithara.
A great impetus was given to choral poetry
by its application to the dithyramb. This an-
cient Bacchanalian performance seems to have
been a hymn sung by one or more of an irre-
gular band of revellers, to the music of the
flute. Arion, a contemporary of Periander,
was the first who gave a regular choral form
to the dithyramb. This chorus, which ordi-
narily consisted of fifty men or youths, danced
in a ring round the altar of Dionysus. Hence
such choruses were termed cyclic {kvk\loi
xopoi). With the introduction of a regular
choral character, Arion also substituted the
cithara for the flute. It was from the dithy-
ramb that the Attic tragedy was developed.
For details see Tragoedia. From the time
of Sophocles onwards the regular number of
the chorus in a tragedy was 15 ; but it is
impossible to arrive at any definite conclusion
with regard to the number of the chorus in
the early dramas of Aeschylus. The fact
that the number of the dithyranibic chorus
was 50, and that the mythological number
of the Oceanides and Danaides was the same,
tempts one to suppose that the chorus in the
Prometheus and the Supplices consisted of

50. Most writers, however, agree in think-
ing that such a number was too large to have
been employed. The later chorus of 15 was
arranged in a quadrangular form (reTpd-
ywi'os). It entered the theatre by the passage
to the right of the spectators. [Theatrum.]
Its entrance was termed 7rdpooos ; its leaving
the stage in the course of the play neTdorao-is ;
its re-entrance eVcn-dpoSos; its exit dipofio?.
As it entered in three lines, with the specta-
tors on its left, the stage on its right, the
middle chorcutes of the left row (rptros dpicr-
repov) was the Coryphaeus or Hegemon, who
in early times at least was not unfrcquently
the choregus himself. Of course the posi-
tions first taken up by the choreutae were
only retained till they commenced their evo-
lutions. To guide them in these, lines were
marked upon the boards with which the
orchestra was floored. The flute as well as
the cithara was used as an accompaniment to
the choric songs. The dance of the tragic
chorus was called e/a/ueAeia.—The ordinary
number of the chorus in a comedy was 24.
Like the tragic chorus it was arranged in a
quadrangular form, and entered the orchestra
from opposite sides, according as it was sup-
posed to come from the city or from the
country. It consisted sometimes half of male
and half of female choreutae. The dance of
the comic chorus was the icdpoaf. In the
Satyric drama the chorus consisted of Satyrs :
its number is quite uncertain. Its dance was
called ituuvvk. "When a poet intended to
bring forward a play, he had to apply for a
chorus (x°P*0V aiTeu/) to the archons, to the
king archon if the play was to be brought
forward at the Lenaea, to the archon epony-
mus if at the great Dionysia. If the play
were thought to deserve it, he received a
chorus (xopo" Xafi^dvew»), the expenses of
which were borne by a choregus. [Chore-
gus.] The poet then either trained (ScSdcj/ceii')
the chorus himself, or entrusted that business
to a professed chorus trainer (xopoSc.6dcricaAos),
who usually had an assistant (u7ro6ti$dcrKaAos).
For training the chorus in its evolutions there
was also an opx'no'ToSt.cSdcrKaAo?.

CHOUS, or CIIOEUS (x<w or X0™?), was
equal to the Roman congius, and contained six
fcorai, or sextarii (nearly six pints Englishl.
It seems that there was also a smaller mea-
sure of the same name, containing two sex-
tarii (nearly two pints English).

CIIPiONOLOGIA (xpovoAoyta), chronology.
The Greeks reckoned their years generally
according to their magistrates, in the early
times according to the years of the reign of
their kings, and afterwards according to their
annual magistrates. At Athens the year was
called by the name of one of the nine archons,