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Aeschylus
• playwright, librettist, composer,
choreographer, producer, and chief
actor
• born 525/4 BCE, member of Athenian
nobility
• fought Persians under Darius at
Marathon, Salamis, and Platea
• author of about 70 plays
• first victory 484
• 13 wins (52 plays in 13 trilogies with
satyr plays)
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Aeschylus's Subjects
• like Phrynichus used historical
subjects, closely related to public
issues
• particularly etiological subjects
which explain origins of social,
political, religious customs
patriliny
foundation of a system of justice
under law
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Other Features
• early user of prologue
• added new features: female
characters, 2nd actor, trilogy?
• Made use of 3rd actor, added
first by Sophocles
• simple plots
little intrigue
little concealed identity
thus few recognition scenes
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Emphasizes theatrical effects
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processions
magnificent costumes
men-at-arms
chariots, cars
trumpets
gods, demons, ghosts
graves, altars
later plays: machines,
stage devices
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Agamemnon
• first play of Orestia, trilogy about
Orestes
• written, performed 458 BCE at Athens
• only surviving Greek trilogy
• tragedies of Libation Bearers,
Eumenidies followed
• day ended with Proteus, a satyr play
Menelaus consults the old man of
the sea
• focus is (initial) consequences of
Agamemnon's error
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Agamemnon a typical tragedy
• Plot of exceptional
suffering and calamity
• Characters ones-likeourselves
• Thought
nature of human nature
conditions of human life
consequences of
wrongdoing or sin
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Plot
• serious threat to life or
well-being of protagonist
• carried out
• usually death of tragic
protagonist
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Characters
• one like ourselves, basically good, but
prone to error
• own error contributes to his disaster
• internal conflict
• often a fatal tendency to pride
or one-sidedness--blind on other sides
• highly placed
fate bound up with that of polis
so consequences extend beyond protagonist
and/or family
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(Almost) Typical in form:
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Prologue
Parados
Episodes divided by choral odes
No Exodos
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Performance Circumstances
• festival situation of City
Dionysia
(others Lenea, Rural
Dionysias)
• state support
• also support of wealthy
patrons (choregoi)
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State support
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theatre
prizes
poets' honoraria
actors fees, costumes
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Choregos
• civic, religious duty and
privilege
• chorus fee, training,
costumes
• flute player
• extras, as for the
procession
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Production Process
• festival controlled by chief civil magistrate
• choregoi chosen by lot in July
• poet
cast actors (until 449)
trained chorus, including choreography
and singing
conducted rehearsals
played lead
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City Dionysia of 458 BCE
• March or early April
• procession of cult statue
from temple to Academy
• sacrifices, rituals
• two days of dithyrambs,
ending with processions
and revels
• five comedies
• three days of tragedies
with satyr plays
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Audience
• 15-17 thousand, mostly males, citizens in citizens’
meeting place, aware of civic responsibilty to evaluate
conduct of others
of population 155,000
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privileged had honored seats, with backs,
others merely stone benches
admission free
participants in a religious rite
spectators at an entertainment
citizens at a civic festival, excitable, voluble, volatile, and
knowledgeable
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Chorus
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predates actors
citizens, acting citizens
same entrance as citizens
primary locus orchestra, formerly agora, a
meeting place for citizens
• shared light
• shared in evaluation of officials and audience
• so actor/chorus/audience are in essence same,
with different and temporary practical tasks
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Actors and Acting
• amateurs, citizens, but
increasingly dominant
performance element
• highly trained, especially
vocally
emphasis enunciation, resonance,
flexibility
• doubling, even tripling
• males played all roles
• praised for naturalness, not to
be confused with naturalism
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Likely only 3 actors
• Clytemnestra
• Herald and Cassandra,
perhaps Aegisthus
• Agamemnon and
Watchman, perhaps
Aegisthus
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Style likely formal,
rather than realistic
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masks
huge space
doubling
speech, recitative, and song
actors admired for vocal beauty,
virtuosity; skillful handling of
poetry; appropriate gestures
skillful movement
• situations far from domestic,
present
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Prologue: monologue prologue
of watchman (protatic)
• antecedent events, particularly
since departure of
Agamemnon
• characterization of the king
• hints of secrets, tales stones
could tell, fear, decline of
royal house
• ends with beacon: end of war
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Parados
• Chorus of old men,
elders, sages, visionaries
• somber, dirge-like poetic
rhythm
• danced in same vein
• sets mood, ethical, social,
historical framework for
events
wrongs and vengeance
horrors of war
anger of gods
transcience of human
life
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Very brief transition
• Chorus addresses
Clytemnestra
• who doesn't answer
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First Ode
• antecedent events
• introduces thought
"bitterness in the blood"
"secret anger"
transcience of greatness
"wisdom comes alone
through suffering
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Episode 1
• Clytemnestra announces
fall of Troy
• characterizing
• fear of violations by
conquering army
• "Let there be no fresh
wrong done!"
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Ode 2
• prayer to Zeus, thanks for
victory
• awful conditions of war
• sin of Paris, "mortals who
trample down the delicacy
of things inviolate"
• sin of Helen, "daring
beyond all daring”
• extends thought
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Thought on Multiple Levels
• domestic level: Menelaus's
grief
• social level: "now in place of
the young men / urns and
ashes are carried home"
• political level: "slow anger
creeps below their grief"
• ethical level: curse on daring,
injustice, "the man fortunate
beyond all right"
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Episode 2
• actor speaks (sings?) to actor
• messenger, a soldier
context of Agamemnon's earlier
mistakes
fresh wrongs: "twice over the sons
of Priam have atoned their sin"
terrible voyage home
end to unhappiness
• Clytemnestra claims wifely
virtue
"May he find a wife within his
house as true as on the day he left
her."
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Ode 3
• Causes of evil and
wrongdoing: pride,
ruthlessness
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Episode 3
• halfway into play, title character
appears
• train of returning soldiers,
Cassandra
• chorus welcomes, but recalls cost of
war
• Agamemnon straightforward,
contrast Clytemnestra's appeal to
pride
• "treading down lovely things"
• request to treat Cassandra well
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Ode 4
• Chorus's fear
• excess, limitation, nets
and snares
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Episode 4
• Cassandra's silence drives
Clytemnestra to fury
• Cassandra's vision of sin
within the house
• Her own sin, word broken
with Apollo
• Agamemnon's death cries
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Ode 5
• Chorus hesitates to
respond
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Episode 5
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bodies disclosed
Clytemnestra threatens Chorus
Chorus recollects history of doomed house
Aegisthus justifies self, to control by power and
money
• Clytemnestra hopes that all will be well, house
brought into order
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The Citadel of Mycenae
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No Exodos,
but a brief forward link
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Thought
• Any highly placed person
must err
• Sin leads inevitably to
retribution
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None who undertakes a duty for
the god can do so without error
• antecedent: ancient blood
wrongs within family
• position, pride require return
of straying Helen
• sacrifice of Iphigenia
• decade of inattention to
marriage and family
• failure to take Clytemnestra
sufficiently into account
• conquering Troy overmuch
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Sin leads inevitably to
retribution
• Agamemnon's sins
already committed, his
character irrelevant
• fear dominant emotion
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Theatre Buildings
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evidence
important theatres
general features
Theatre of Dionysus at Athens
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Evidence
• few records of theatre buildings
• architectural remains
• theatres frequently remodeled and reconstructed
during and after the fifth century
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Important Theatres
• Theatre at Thorikos (oldest, 6th c.)
• Theatre of Dionysus in Athens most frequent
performance site (stone theatre late 5th-4th c.)
• Theatre of Epidauros (late 4th c.) especially wellpreserved
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General Characteristics
• sacred shrines
• located all over the Greek
world
including Greek colonies in
Asia Minor
• built in natural bowls
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three elements
• Orchestra (dancing place) circle?
• skene or scene house
• theatron (hearing place)
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Theatre at Epidauros
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Theatre of Dionysus in Athens
• first performances of tragedy in 534 BCE
• earliest, audience seated on hillside
• flat dancing place supported by retaining wall,
backfill
• perhaps altar South side, opposite audience
• small temple of Dionysus Eleuthereus
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Conjectural reconstruction
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Auditorium of mid-fifth
century
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wooden benches (early century)
separated from skene by paradoi
curves around orchestra
audience, chorus entered through
paradoi
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Stone auditorium (330 BCE)
• Divided into 13 blocks by
12 stairways
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Orchestra or dancing place
• perhaps rectangular in earliest theatre
• likely circular by time of Agamemnon
• 66' diameter
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Skene or scene building.
• earliest, hut or tent for changing
• no building required prior to 458 BCE, Orestia
• probably temporary wooden structure at one side of
orchestra
• different from festival to festival?
• set in stone after 430
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Temporary skene for Orestia
• possibly paraskenia
• unknown number of
doors, perhaps 3-5
• roof for watchman
• later stone theatre (about
330 B.C.) had paraskenia
and 5 doors.
• perhaps 2 stories,
permanent or temporary
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Acting place or "stage"
• possibly none other than the orchestra
• possibly broad steps in front of skene
• no evidence of raised stage prior to late 4th
century BCE
• no evidence of high raised stage prior to mid2nd century
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Scenery
• no attempt to conceal the skene
• no evidence of changing scenery
3 other plays produced following Agamemnon
• perhaps pinakes, but not periaktoi
• ekkyklema necessary for bodies
• mechane available, not needed here
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Properties
• Altar
always present?
needed to suggest tomb of
Agamemnon in Choephoroi
• chariot for Agamemnon,
Cassandra
• no attempt to use all the
furnishings of daily life.
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Costumes
• essential to identify
characters and their status
huge theatre, doubling
• chorus all alike
• long robe or short tunic,
with or without sleeves
• cloak short or long
• soft boots
• appropriate accessories:
armor, staffs, crowns,
sceptres
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Costume: Evidence
• late 5th c. evidence only
• Oinochoe from the Agora
• Pronomos and
Andromeda vases
• Texts
choruses differentiated by
ethnicity, occupation
Actors distinguished by
ethnicity, poverty in rags,
mourning
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Masks worn by all, actors and
chorus
• use in rituals
• text references
differentiation of coloring
by ethnicity
various hair colors
shorn hair for mourning
• covered entire head
appropriate hairstyle, beard,
ornaments
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Masks: Evidence
• experiments of Thespis
• little contemporary
evidence
• Fragment of about 470
no onkos, no gaping mouth,
eyes painted in
• Andromeda vase
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Lighting
• daylight
• torches indicate night, possible in Prologue
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Bibliography
• Allen, James T. Stage Antiquities of the Greeks and
Romans. New York: Cooper, 1963.
• Arnott, Peter D. Greek Scenic Conventions in the Fifth
Century, B.C. Oxford: Clarendon, 1962.
• Ashby, Clifford. Classical Greek Theatre: New Views of
an Old Subject. Iowa City: U Iowa P, 1999.
• Bieber, Margarete. History of the Greek and Roman
Theatre. 2 ed. Princeton UP: 1961.
• Butler, James H. Theatre and Drama of Greece and
Rome. San Francisco: Chandler, 1972.
• Flickinger, Roy C. Greek Theatre and Its Drama. 4 ed.
Chicago UP, 1936.
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Bibliography, continued
• Harsh, Philip Whaley. Handbook of Classical
Drama. Stanford UP, 1944.
• Pickard-Cambridge, Arthur W. Dramatic
Festivals of Athens. Oxford: Clarendon, 1953.
• ----------. Theatre of Dionysus in Athens.
Oxford: Clarendon, 1946.
• Winkler, John J. and Froma I. Zeitlin, eds.
Nothing to Do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama
in Its Social Context. Princeton: Princeton UP,
1990.
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Web Sites
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Web Sites
“Classics and Mediterranean Archaeology.”
http://rome.classics.lsa.umich.edu/welcome.html
“Didaskalia: Ancient Theatre Today.”
http://didaskalia.berkeley.edu/
“Dr. J/s Illustrated Mycenae.”
http://nimbus.temple.edu/%7Ejsiegel/sites/mycenae/
mycenae.htm
“Greek Art and Architecture.”
http://www.officenet.co.jp/~yoji/
Skenotheke: Images of the Ancient Stage.”
http://www.usask.ca/antharch/cnea/skenotheke.html
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