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The constitutions of most states cost time and effort only from a minority of citizens, a political class. The complete democracy that Pericles and his predecessors had installed demanded the full-scale participation of every member of society. Even the meanest and stupidest citizen might find himself, by the haphazard workings of the lot, at the head of government. He had no choice but to pay attention.
The energy that this mass involvement in the public sphere released showed itself not just through an aggressive imperialism, but also in the life of the city. The arts and culture thrived as never before.
15
The Kindly Ones
It is night, a little before sunrise. A watchman stands on the roof of the palace at Argos in the Peloponnese, bored and tired. He prays: “Gods! Release me from this long and weary guard duty. Gods! do it.”
He has spent a year, night after night, scrutinizing the heavens—what he calls (for he has a way with words) the “nocturnal conference of stars.” He is waiting for a sign, for something that could be mistaken for a new star, but would in fact be a beacon flaring from a distant hilltop.
The war at Troy is in its tenth year and it has been agreed that if and when the city falls to the Greeks a chain of beacons will be lit. They will island-hop across the Aegean Sea and almost instantly bring the good news to Queen Clytemnestra, wife of the expedition’s leader, Agamemnon.
Then, suddenly, he sees a flame shooting up on the horizon. Victory has come. The queen is woken to see the beacon. She rejoices, or does she?
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So opens The Oresteia, one of the greatest and earliest dramas in the history of Western civilization. Written by Aeschylus, it was a trilogy that told the bloodstained saga of the ruling family of Argos. Its first performance took place in 458 at the annual festival devoted to the god Dionysus, the Great Dionysia. It is the only complete trilogy to survive.
The origins of the festival are obscure, but the story appears to open at Eleutherae, a small, well-fortified town on the debatable border between Attica and Boeotia. Its people were always being bullied by the Thebans, who throughout their history worked tirelessly to unify Boeotia under their rule.
Eventually in the middle of the sixth century they applied, in the end successfully, to join Attica and become Athenian citizens. Their tutelary deity was Dionysus, the patron of wine and intoxication. As part of the assimilation of Eleutherae into the Athenian state, the god, in the shape of an ancient wooden statue, was transported to Athens. He was carried in procession for the twenty-eight-mile journey and was installed in a tiny, specially built temple on the southern slope of the Acropolis.
In expiation for an initial reluctance to absorb Eleutherae, an annual festival was founded called the Great Dionysia (as already reported, it may have been initiated or enlarged by the tyrant Pisistratus). The original procession was partially restaged every year in March. The statue was escorted from the Academy, the sacred grove of olive trees dedicated to Athena and athletics ground, not far from the city walls. Young men dressed up as satyrs. These were the mythical male followers of Dionysus; partly animal with horse’s tails or goat’s feet, they were exclusively interested in drinking and having unrestrained sex. Wearing goatskins, they danced alongside the cart carrying the statue. Wooden or metal phalluses were carried on sticks. Sacrificial animals were killed, roasted, and eaten. Wine flowed. The night passed in revelry and dancing to the accompaniment of harps and flutes.
The next day, Dionysus, in his incarnation as a statue, was carried into the theater so that he could watch the proceedings. These included choral performances. The pretend-satyrs danced around the altar singing what was called their “goat song” (from tragos, or goat, and oide, or song, tragoidia, whence in due course tragedy). Over time, the leader of the dancers, who also composed the song, spoke or sang to his choir, which in turn sang back to him. He took on the identity of some personage associated with the events being celebrated and wore an appropriate costume.
As explained earlier, the introduction of dialogue was attributed to Thespis. These proto-dramas were meant to feature Dionysus, but over time the myths of other gods and heroes were performed. On rare occasions contemporary events were chosen as a theme. The general impression in these early years was of a staged oratorio.
This was how tragedy was invented. As the form developed and became more subtle and sophisticated, Greek thinkers tried to define its essence. According to Aristotle,
tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action of high importance, complete and of some amplitude…acted not narrated; by means of pity and fear effecting the purgation of these emotions. [It shows] the kind of man who neither is distinguished for excellence and virtue, come to grief not on account of baseness and vice, but on account of some error; a man of great reputation and prosperity….There must be no change from misfortune to good fortune, but only the opposite.
By about 500 two actors worked together with the chorus, each playing a number of different roles; later in the ensuing century a third actor was added to the company. A chorus of twelve or fifteen men would sing and dance and stayed onstage throughout the action. Three authors each presented three tragedies and a satyr play. The tragedies were usually trilogies connected in subject matter and were performed one after another. They were followed by the satyr play, in which Silenus, chief of satyrs, superintended an uproarious burlesque or farce. Five comedies were also presented during the festival. These were topical and heavily satirical. Leading politicians and public figures like the philosopher Socrates had to put up with crude but very funny caricatures of themselves and their opinions. In the hands of a literary genius such as Aristophanes comedies were also imaginative, almost surreal fantasies. Dialogue made the most of bodily functions and was unhesitatingly obscene.
Actors lasted most of the day. There were no intermissions and the patience of audiences must have been tested.
Performers and chorus members, who were all male, wore masks, which had slightly opened mouths and suggested the personality of the character in the play. Masks were made from strips of glued linen and molded on the actor’s face, and were then painted. Women’s masks were usually white. For tragedy, costumes resembled those of everyday life, a tunic and a cloak; but for comedy the tunic covered, or revealed, potbellies, huge buttocks, and enormous phalluses.
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The Great Dionysia was a five-day festival and tragedies were presented on three of them. Men and boys also sang choral works. The productions were competitive and ten judges (or crites, hence our critics) awarded prizes: to reduce the risk of corruption and to let the god have a say the votes of only five judges, chosen at random, were counted. Performances were enormously popular and tourists flocked into the city (shipping started up again in March after the inactive winter months when sailing was too dangerous).
During the fifth century, the heyday of Athenian power and prestige, plays were performed only once. Every Great Dionysia was a sequence of premieres. If you didn’t catch it you missed it, although texts were available for the literary-minded.
A winter festival in honor of Dionysus was staged every January with prizes for comedy and after 432 for tragedy. This was the Lenaea or Country Dionysia; it catered only to the local Athenian public.