The Attic theatre : $b a description of the stage and theatre of the Athenians, and of the dramatic performances at AthensHaigh, A. E. (Arthur Elam)
History
The Attic theatre : $b a description of the stage and theatre of the Athenians, and of the dramatic performances at Athens
Haigh, A. E. (Arthur Elam)
Athens (Greece) -- Intellectual life; Greek drama -- History and criticism; Theater -- Greece -- Athens -- History -- To 500
I pass on to the attempt to identify the ἐν Λίμναις with Dörpfeld’s
precinct on the evidence of pseudo-Demosthenes. The passage gives the
oath taken by the γεραραί or attendants at the ceremony on the 12th of
Anthesterion. They swear that they celebrate (or will celebrate, though
I cannot find any authority for the reading γεραρῶ) the Theoinia and
Iobaccheia in the customary manner and at the customary times. Therefore,
Miss Harrison seems to wish us to argue, the Iobaccheia took place like
the ceremony on the 12th of Anthesterion in the ἐν Λίμναις, and the
Iobacchic inscription discovered in Dörpfeld’s precinct proves this
precinct to be the place of the Iobaccheia, and therefore to be the ἐν
Λίμναις. This is simply a case of _non sequitur_. Suppose a ceremony of
the English Church which required of its attendants a solemn declaration,
‘I am (or, I will be) a regular communicant,’ it could not be inferred
that the Communion Service was part of the ceremony, or took place at the
same spot. Even, therefore, if a Baccheion has been found, guaranteed
by the inscription (and of this there is no doubt), there is nothing to
prove either that it, or any older building beneath it, is the temple
ἐν Λίμναις, or that the third-century inscription on the pillar by
the altar is the representative of the far older στήλη by the altar ἐν
Λίμναις mentioned by the pseudo-Demosthenes. Prof. Ernest Gardner also
points out (l.c., p. 113) that the Iobaccheia mentioned in the oath
cannot be the same as the rites of the Iobacchi of the inscription, for
‘the one is a state ceremony, the other a private one; and, moreover,
the Iobaccheia are not among the festivals which the Iobacchi celebrate,
and of which we have a complete list’ (see Roberts and Gardner, Greek
Epigraphy, ii. pp. 236 ff.). The fact that the lower building contains
a wine-press and places for an altar and stelae does not prove that it
was the ἐν Λίμναις: it proves at most that it was an old Βακχεῖον, like
the one above it. There is no proof at all of the crucial point—that the
Iobaccheia were celebrated only, or celebrated at all, in the temple ἐν
Λίμναις: Dörpfeld’s precinct is probably only one of the many Βακχεῖα
which (as Prof. E. Gardner, l.c., notes) must have existed in Athens,
and the practice of setting up stelae was too general to allow of any
argument being drawn from the one found. On the whole, the statement
‘I celebrate (or, will celebrate) the Iobaccheia at the proper times’
suggests that the reference is to some time _not_ the present, and
that the Iobaccheia are quite distinct from the ceremony of the 12th
of Anthesterion. The nature of the enclosure surrounding Dörpfeld’s
precinct also admits of many explanations besides the one Miss Harrison
offers. Perhaps if it _was_ the ἐν Λίμναις, only open once a year and
kept strictly secret, it would be carefully enclosed, and would have
only a small door, and would contain no votive offerings; but to argue
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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