Drama
（
δρᾶμα).
1. Athenian
In Athens the production of plays was a State affair, not a private undertaking. It formed
a great part of the religious festival of the Dionysia, in which the drama took its rise (see
Dionysia); and it was only at the Greater
Dionysia that pieces could be performed during the author's lifetime. The performances lasted
three days and took the form of musical contests, the competitors being three tragic poets,
with their tetralogies, and five comic poets, with one piece each. The authority who
superintended the whole was the archon, to whom the poets had to bring their plays for
reading and apply for a chorus. If the pieces were accepted and the chorus granted, the
citizens who were liable for the
choregia undertook at their own cost
to practise and furnish for them one chorus each. (See
Liturgia.) The poets whose plays were accepted received a reward from the State. The
State also supplied the regular number of actors, and made provision for the maintenance of
order during the performances. At the end of the performance a certain number of persons
(usually five) were chosen by lot from a committee (
ἀγωνοθέται) nominated by the Senate to award the prizes, and bound by solemn
oath to give their judgment on the plays, the
choregi, and the actors.
The poet who won the first prize was presented with a crown in the presence of the assembled
multitude—the highest distinction that could be conferred on a dramatic author at
Athens. The victorious
choregus also received a crown, with the
permission to dedicate a votive offering to Dionysus. This was generally a tripod, which was
set up either in the theatre or in the temple of the deity or in the Street of Tripods, so
named from this custom, an inscription being put on it recording the event, as in that of
Panofka,
Musée Blacas, pl. I. (British Museum):
Ακαμαντὶς ἐνίκα φυλή:
Γλαύκων
καλός. The actors in the successful play received prizes of money, besides the
usual
honoraria.
From the time of Sophocles the actors in a play were three in number. They had to represent
all the parts, those of women included. This involved changing their costume several times
during the performance. The three actors were distinguished as
protagonistes, deuteragonistes, and
tritagonistes, according to
the importance of their parts. If the piece required a fourth actor, which was seldom the
case, the
choregus had to provide one. The
choregus had also to see to the position and equipment of the mute actors.
In earlier times it is possible that the persons engaged in the representation did not make
a business of their art, but performed gratuitously, as the poets down to the time of
Sophocles appeared upon the stage. But the dramatic art gradually became a profession
requiring careful preparation, and winning general respect for its members as artists. The
chief requirements for the profession were distinctness and correctness of pronunciation,
especially in declamatory passages, and an unusual power of memory, as there was no prompter
in a Greek theatre. An actor had also to be thoroughly trained in singing, melodramatic
action, dancing, and play of gesture. The latter was especially necessary, as the use of
masks precluded any facial expression. The actors were according to strict rule assigned to
the poets by lot; yet a poet generally had his special protagonist, on whose peculiar gifts
he kept his eye in writing the dramatic pieces.
The Athenian tragedies began to be known all over the Hellenic world as early as the time
of Aeschylus. The first city outside of Attica that had a theatre was Syracuse, where
Aeschylus brought out some of his own plays. Scenic contests soon began to form part of the
religious festivals in various Greek cities, and were celebrated in honour of other deities
besides Dionysus. It was a habit of Alexander the Great to celebrate almost every
considerable event with dramatic exhibitions, and after him this became the regular custom. A
considerable increase in the number of actors was one consequence of the new demand. The
actors called themselves artists of Dionysus, and in the larger cities they formed permanent
societies (
σύνοδοι) with special privileges, including
exemption from military service and security in person and property. These companies had a
regular organization, presided over by a priest of their patron-god Dionysus, annually
elected from among their members. A treasurer and officers completed the staff. At the time
of the festivals the societies sent out their members in groups of three actors, with a
manager and a flute-player, to the different cities. This business was especially lively in
Ionia and on the Euxine, the societies of Teos being the most distinguished. The same
arrangement was adopted in Italy, and continued to exist under the Roman Empire.
The universal employment of masks was a remarkable peculiarity of costume. (See
Persona.) It naturally excluded all play of feature,
but the masks corresponded to the general types of character, as well as to the special types
indicated by the requirements of the play. Certain conventionalities
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Masking-room of a Greek Theatre.
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were observed in the colour of the hair. Goddesses and young persons had
light hair; gods and persons of riper age, dark brown; aged persons, white; and the deities
of the lower world, black. The height of the masks and top-knots varied with the age of the
actors and the parts they took. Lucian ridicules the “chest-paddings and
stomach-paddings” of the tragic actors (
De Salt. 27). Their stature
was considerably heightened in tragedies by the high boot (see
Cothurnus), and the defects in proportion corrected by padding and the
use of a kind of gloves. The conventionalities of costume, probably as fixed by
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1. Mask of Perseus with Cap of Darkness. 2. Pompeian Mask.
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Aeschylus, maintained themselves as long as Greek tragedies were performed at all.
Men and women of high rank wore on the stage a variegated or richly embroidered long-sleeved
χιτών, reaching to the feet, and fastened with a girdle as
high as the breast. The upper garment, whether
ἱμάτιον or
χλαμύς, was long and splendid, and often embroidered with
gold. Kings and queens had a purple train and a white
ἱμάτιον with a purple border; soothsayers, a netted upper garment reaching to
the feet. Persons in misfortune, especially fugitives, appeared in soiled garments of gray,
green, or blue; black was the symbol of mourning.
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Comedy Scene. (Painting from Pompeii.)
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Soothsayers always wore a woollen garment of network; shepherds, a short leathern
tunic; while each of the gods had some distinguishing mark, as the bow for Apollo, the
caduceus for Hermes, the aegis for Athené. So with the well-known heroes: Heracles
bore a club; Perseus, the cap of darkness. Kings wore a crown, and carried a sceptre.
Warriors appeared in complete armour. Old men bore a staff with a curved handle, introduced
by Sophocles. Messengers who brought good news were crowned with olive or laurel. Myrtle
crowns denoted festivity. Foreigners wore some one special badge, as a Persian turban for
Darius (
Aesch. Pers. 661). From the time of
Euripides, heroes in misfortune (e. g. Telephus and Philoctetes) were sometimes dressed in
rags.
In the Satyric Drama the costumes of the heroic characters resembled in all essentials what
they wore in the tragedies, although, to suit the greater liveliness of the action, the
χιτών was shorter and the boot lower. In the Old Comedy the
costumes were taken as nearly as possible from actual life, but in the Middle and New Comedy
they were conventional. The men wore a white coat; youths, a purple one; slaves, a motley,
with mantle to match; cooks, an unbleached double mantle; peasants, a fur or shaggy coat,
with wallet and staff; panders, a coloured coat and motley overgarment. Old women appeared in
sky-blue or dark yellow; priestesses and maidens, in white; courtesans, in motley colours,
and so on. Red hair marked a roguish slave; beards were not given to youths or old men. The
eyebrows were strongly marked and highly characteristic. When drawn up, they denoted pride or
impudence. A touchy old man had one eyebrow drawn up and one down. The members of the chorus
were masked and dressed in a costume corresponding to the part assigned them by the poet. (On
their dress in the Satyric Drama, see
Satyric
Drama.) The chorus of the comedy caricatured the ordinary dress of the tragic chorus. Sometimes they represented animals, as in the
Frogs
and
Birds of Aristophanes. In the
Frogs they wore tight dresses
of frog-colour, and masks with a mouth wide open; in the
Birds, large beaks,
bunches of feathers, combs, and so on, to imitate particular birds.
2. Roman
Dramatic performances in Rome, as in Greece, formed a part of the usual public festivals,
whether exceptional or ordinary, and were set on foot by the aediles and praetors. (See
Ludi.) A private individual, however, if he were giving a
festival or celebrating a funeral, would have theatrical representations on his own account.
The giver of the festival hired a troupe of players (
grex), the director
of which (
dominus gregis) bought a play from a poet at his own risk. If
the piece was a failure the manager received no compensation. But after its performance the
piece became his property, to be used at future representations for his own profit. In the
time of Cicero, when it was fashionable to revive the works of older masters, the selection
of suitable pieces was generally left to the director. The Romans did not, like the Greeks,
limit the number of actors to three, but varied it according to the requirements of the play.
Women's parts were originally played by men, as in Greece. Women first appeared in mimes, and
not till very late times in comedies. The actors were usually freedmen or slaves, whom their
masters sent out to be educated, and then hired them out to the directors of the theatres.
The profession was technically branded with
infamia, nor was its legal
position ever essentially altered. The social standing of actors was, however, improved
through the influence of Greek education; and gifted artists like the comedian Roscius, and
Aesopus, the tragedian, in Cicero's time, enjoyed the friendship of the best men in Rome. The
instance of these two men may show what profits could be made by a good actor. Roscius
received, for every day that he played, $175, and made an annual income of some $21,000.
Aesopus, in spite of his great extravagance, left $852,500 at his death. Besides the regular
honoraria, actors, if thought to deserve it, received other and
voluntary presents from the giver of the performance. These often took the form of finely
wrought crowns of silver or gold work. Masks were not worn until Roscius made their use
general. Before his time actors had recourse to false hair of different colours and paint for
the face. Young men wore black wigs; slaves, red ones; old men, white ones. The costume in
general was modelled on that of actual life, Greek or Roman, but parasites were
conventionally represented in black or gray (Pollux, iv. 148). As early as the later years of
the Republic, a great increase took place in the splendour of the costumes and the general
magnificence of the performance. In tragedy, particularly, a new effect was attained by
massing the actors in great numbers on the stage.
Bibliography.—For the historical development of the
drama, see
Chorus;
Comoedia;
Mimus;
Satira;
Thespis;
Tragoedia. For the theatre and
the setting of plays, see
Theatrum. For the
actors, see
Histrio. For theatrical costumes, see
Chlamys;
Himation;
Persona;
Tunica. For the great dramatic writers of Greece, see
Aeschylus;
Aristophanes;
Cratinus;
Eupolis;
EuRipides;
Sophocles. For the great Roman
writers, see
Ennius; Livius (Andronicus);
Plautus;
Seneca; Terentius. Valuable works on the subject of
the ancient drama are the following: Witzschell,
The Athenian Stage
(Eng. tr. London, 1850); Walford,
Handbook of the Greek Drama
(London, 1856); Donaldson,
The Theatre of the Greeks (8th ed.
London, 1875); Bergk,
Griech. Literaturgeschichte, vol. iii.
(Berlin, 1884); Bernhardy,
Grundriss d. griech. Litteratur, vol.
ii. pt. ii.
(Halle, 1880); Schneider,
Das Attische
Theaterwesen (Weimar, 1835); Klein,
Geschichte des Dramas,
vols. i.-iii.
(Leipzig, 1866); Haigh,
The Attic Theatre
(Oxford, 1889).
