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

TETRARCHES.

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THEATRUM.

building-. The advantages of this plan were
obvious : the stones and missiles thrown upon
the shields rolled off them like water from a
roof; besides which, other soldiers frequently
advanced upon them to attack the enemy up-
on the walls. The Romans were accustomed
to form this kind of testudo, as an exercise,
in the games of the circus.

TETRABCHES or TETEABCHA Oerpap-
This word was originally used, according
to its etymological meaning, to signify the go-
vernor of the fourth part of a country (rerpap.
\ia or TerpaSapx^a-). We have an example
in the ancient division of Thessaly into four
tetrarchics, which was revived by Philip.
Each of the three Gallic tribes which settled
in Galatia was divided into four tetrarchics,
each ruled by a tetrarch. Some of the tribes
of Syria were ruled by tetrarchs, and several
of the princes of the house of Herod ruled in
Palestine with this title. In the later period
of the republic and under the empire, the
Romans seem to have used the title (as also
those of ethnarch and phylarch) to de-
signate those tributary princes who were
not of sufficient importance to be called
kings.

TETTARAKON'TA, IIOI (ol Terrapa-
kovto), the Forty, were certain officers chosen
by lot, who made regular circuits through the
demi of Attica, whence they are called SiKaarai
<are S>jp.ovs, to decide all cases of aixt'a and to.
nepi twv (ttatuv, and also all other private
causes, where the matter in dispute was not
above the value of ten drachmae. Their
number was originally thirty, but was in-
creased to forty after the expulsion of the
thirty tyrants, and the restoration of the de-
mocracy by Thrasybulus, in consequence, it
is said, of the hatred of the Athenians to the
number of thirty.

THARGELIA (0apy7jAia), a festival cele-
brated at Athens on the 6th and 7 th of Thar-
gelion, in honour of Apollo and Artemis.
The real festival, or the Thargelia in a nar-
rower sense of the word, appears to have
taken place on the 7th ; and on the pre-
ceding day, the city of Athens or rather its
inhabitants were purified. The manner in
which this purification was effected is very
extraordinary, and is certainly a remnant of
very ancient rites, for two persons were put
to death on that day, and the one died on
behalf of the men and the other on behalf of
the women of Athens. The name by which
these victims were designated was pharmaci
i^apjiaKoi). It appears probable, however,
that this sacrifice did not take place annually,
but only in case of a heavy calamity having
befallen the city, such as the plague, a fa-
mine, &o. The victims appear to have been

| criminals sentenced to death. The second
| day of the thargelia was solemnized with a
procession and an agon, which consisted of a
cyclic chorus, performed bynien at the expense
of a choragus. The prize of the victor in
this agon was a tripod, which he had to de-
dicate in the temple of Apollo which had
been built by Pisistratus. On this day it
was customary for persons who were adopted
into a family to be solemnly registered, and
received into the genos and the phratria of
the adoptive parents. This solemnity was
the same as that of registering one's own
children at the Apaturia.

THEATRUM (Bearpov), a theatre. The
Athenians before the time of Aeschylus had
only a wooden scaffolding on which their
dramas were performed. Such a wooden
theatre was only erected for the time of the
Dionysiac festivals, and was afterwards pulled
down. The first drama that Aeschylus brought
upon the stage was performed upon such a
wooden scaffold, and it is recorded as a sin-
gular and ominous coincidence that on that
occasion (500 b. c.) the scaffolding broke
down. To prevent the recurrence of such an
accident, the building of a stone theatre was
forthwith commenced on the south-eastern
descent of the Acropolis, in the Lenaea;
for it should be observed, that throughout
Greece theatres were always built upon emi-
nences, or on the sloping side of a hill.
The new Athenian theatre was built on a
very large scale, and appears to have been
constructed with great skill in regard to
its acoustic and perspective arrangements.
Subsequently theatres were erected in all
parts of Greece and Asia Minor, although
Athens was the centre of the Greek drama,
and the only place which produced great
masterworks in this department of literature.
All the theatres, however, which were con-
structed in Greece were probably built after
the model of that of Athens, and, with slight
deviations and modifications, they all re-
sembled one another in the main points, as
is seen in the numerous ruins of theatres in
various parts of Greece, Asia Minor, and
Sicily. The Attic theatre w~as, like all the
Greek theatres, placed in such a manner that
the place for the spectators formed the uppe:
or north-western, and the stage with all thai
belonged to it the south-eastern part, and
between these two parts lay the orchestra.
The annexed plan has been made from the
remains of Greek theatres still extant, and
from a careful examination of the passages
in ancient writers which describe the whole
or parts of a theatre.—1. The place for the
spectators was in a narrower sense of the
word called theatrum. The seats for the