Theatrical Festivals in Ancient Athens

One of our biggest and earliest sources for ancient Greek myth is the collection of tragic plays that survive from 5th century BCE Athens. The theatre was an important civic, religious, and political space for the ancient Athenians. Many of the plays from this period explored and processed modern events using mythological themes, such as those included in epic poetry (the Iliad or the Odyssey). Some of the most famous surviving Greek plays include Sophocles’ Antigone and Euripides’ Medea.

These performances in 5th century BCE Athens took place during two major, multi-day religious festivals in honour of the god Dionysus. The first festival, called the Lenaia, took place in the ancient Greek month of Gemelion, which corresponds roughly to January. This was a smaller scale, local festival that involved ritual processions, sacrifices, and theatrical performances. Wealthy citizens, called choregoi (literally, ‘leaders of the chorus’), were responsible for funding playwrights and dramatic choruses, who would spend the year preparing original material for the festival. In the first half of the 5th century BCE, five comic playwrights competed. Then in the later half of the century, a competition in tragic plays was added as well. The three most famous tragic dramatists from the 5th century were Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. All playwrights competed against one other in order to win prizes within their category.

The second, much larger, international festival, was the Great Dionysia, which was held during the month of Elephebolion, roughly corresponding to our March-April. Five days of the festival were set aside for performances: three days for tragic plays, and two days for dithyrambic competition and comic plays. The tragic playwrights, along with their actors and choruses, would put on a tragic trilogy (three plays on a connected theme) plus one satyr play. Satyr plays were farcical plays involving satyrs (half man/ half goat creatures) as characters, usually on a similar or complementary theme to the preceding tragic trilogy. The only full tragic trilogy that survives from 5th century Athens is Aeschylus’ Oresteia, however, its satyr play is missing.

Plays were originally performed by a single actor and a chorus. Actors were able to perform as multiple characters by wearing masks, which audiences understood to represent different mythological figures. Nonetheless, over time, tragedians added a second actor, and then a third.

The chorus of Greek drama emerged from ritual traditions of song and dance. In tragedy, the chorus was made up of about twelve to fifteen young men. The chorus represented a larger group that could comment on the action throughout the plays, and also provide context on the play’s mythological background. The tragic choruses of many surviving plays are composed of the elderly, who could offer a traditional perspective or lament the loss of their youth and good fortune.

The Theatre of Dionysus

The theatrical performances at the Lenaia and the Great Dionysia took place in the Theatre of Dionysus, on the southern slope of the Athenian Acropolis. The stone benches of the amphitheatre were built right into the slope of the hill, rising on steep terraces above the semicircular orchestra where the chorus performed. Behind the orchestra was the stage where the actors performed. At its peek capacity in the 4th century BCE, the Theatre of Dionysus would have held 17,000 audience members. The theatre was continually in use through the first few centuries CE, and the remains of it can still be seen in Athens today.

Many other large, open-air theatres throughout the Mediterranean were built off of the model of the Theatre of Dionysus. Many of the largest and most well preserved theatre structures come from the Roman Imperial period. Additionally, the most popular tragic plays from 5th century Athens were re-performed for many centuries throughout Greece and then Rome.

Aristotle on the Theatre

The Poetics

In the 4th century BCE, the philosopher and natural scientist, Aristotle, attempted a systematic treatment of poetry in his work, the Poetics. Most of the surviving portions of the work concerns the writing of tragic plays. Aristotle both analyzes the art form and offers his own prescriptive advice for what themes, styles, and techniques make for the most compelling tragic dramas. For example, Aristotle believed that the plot of a tragedy should follow a specific formal structure, as alluded to in the selection below. This structure included a “reversal” (a sudden change in the plot), a “recognition” (a change in the characters from ignorance to knowledge), and “suffering” (some destructive and painful action, directly resulting from the reversal and recognition).

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