Dionysus at Eleutherae or of Demeter at Eleusis was sure to become the focus of a great body of legend, which must have lived orally, whether poets had given shape to it or not. And in one of the latest efforts of the great period, the Oedipus Coloneus of Sophocles, the aged poet lingers with all the fondness of a priest for his peculiar shrine over the details of a local ritual and mythology to which he was perhaps the first to give poetic form.

(2) The Voyage of the Argonauts.

There is no mention of an early "Argonautica," yet it seems unlikely that the expedition should have remained so long uncelebrated in epic verse. The legends connected with it have at all events given rise to a large and important group of tragic subjects. Here, as before, Sophocles is the chief borrower. The principal fables which may be grouped under the present heading are—

Pleuronians (Phrynichus).

This class of subjects was more frequent with later poets.

3. MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS.

There remain a few subjects taken from uncertain sources, and slightly, if at all, connected with the great interests hitherto considered. Such

are

1 Probably connected with the Arcadian Artemis.

2 The worship of the Muses was associated with that of Dionysus.

CHAPTER V

CONDITIONS OF REPRESENTATION 1

EVERY Athenian drama was originally composed for competitive performance before the whole body of the Athenian citizens assembled, in broad daylight, at the spring, festival of Dionysus. The place was at the south-east corner of the Acropolis, near the temple of Dionysus. The gathering had all the appearance of an ekklesia,2 or public assembly, except that women and boys were present, and also that on either side of the archons and the strategi in the front seats were ranged a goodly company of priests, who marked the religious character of the solemnity-the priest of Dionysus Eleuthereus being seated in the centre.

3

The whole people drawn together under a

1 Books to consult: Haigh's Attic Theatre; Smith's Dict. o Ant., third edition, art. "Theatrum"; A. Müller's Bühnenalterthümer (German).

2 See Aristotle's Ath. Const. It is doubtful if new plays were ever performed elsewhere-e.g. at Salamis, vid. ibid.

3 Plat. Gorg. 502 D; Laws, ii. 658.

religious and also a civic sanction; business suspended for several days; all minds together bent upon a keen enjoyment which came only once a year;-how different from the modern night-performances before a casual audience of a few hundreds, whom chance or inclination brings to one of many "houses" to look by gas-light at a piece which has been acted nightly by the same actors for great part of a year!

In an area holding many thousands, however closely packed in concentric circles, it is obvious that a drama, to be seen and heard and followed, must have the greatest simplicity and clearness. Complicated situations, number and variety of characters, incidents diverting attention from the main business, underplots and unexplained transitions, are excluded by the conditions of the spectacle. Thus outward causes conspired with the native bent of Attic genius in imposing on the poet and the actors alike the necessity for directness and unity of effect. And hence, while for spectacular and choral business not the Chorus only but large numbers of supernumeraries were often employed, giving a grand impression of massiveness and collective strength, the purely dramatic dialogue was distributed amongst a very few three actors at most, with rare exceptions, being at any one time present in the scene. This

1 Aristotle's Poet. 1455 a: ô Èπetiμâto Kapkivw.