The Greek theater and its dramaFlickinger, Roy C. (Roy Caston)
History
The Greek theater and its drama
Flickinger, Roy C. (Roy Caston)
Drama -- Technique; Greek drama -- History and criticism; Theater -- Greece -- History -- To 500
where the same editor and translator again comments as follows: “These
Bacchic cries (_Evoi, Evae_) do not merely celebrate the success of
Praxagora’s revolution, they also prognosticate the poet’s own success
over his theatrical rivals in the Bacchic contest.” In tragedy we
naturally could not expect anything so frank and undisguised as the first
three passages just cited, but for the last two an adequate parallel
is found in the tag which Euripides employed at the conclusion of his
_Iphigenia among the Taurians_, _Orestes_, and _Phoenician Maids_:
Hail, reverèd Victory:
Rest upon my life; and me
Crown, and crown eternally.
[Way’s translation],
which the ancient scholiast and modern editors rightly interpret as a
prayer for victory in the contest.
But if this were the extent of the influence which the fact of there
being a contest exercised upon Greek drama, the matter might quickly be
dismissed. Actually, however, the system involved deeper consequences.
It is unnecessary here to rehearse the cumbersome process by which the
judges were appointed and rendered their decision upon dramatic events
(see p. 272, below). While designed to prevent bribery or intimidation,
it had two other effects as well. One was that, since we have no reason
to believe that the choice of judges was restricted in any way or that
they were not selected from the entire free population, the judges
would therefore represent the average intelligence and taste, and a
poet who cared for victory had to accommodate himself to this situation
and could not make his appeal merely to the superior attainments of the
favored, intellectual class. Secondly, like most officials at Athens, the
judges were liable to be called to account for their conduct. In fact
on the second day after the conclusion of the City Dionysia a special
popular assembly was held in the theater for the express purpose of
airing complaints concerning the management of the festival; and if the
judges were thought to have been recreant to their duties or guilty of
favoritism, action could be taken against them at that time while the
popular anger was still hot and by the votes of the very persons whose
wishes had been balked. The total effect of these arrangements was to
render the judges extremely sensitive to the public’s expression of
opinion, which was manifested by whistling, catcalls, applause, knocking
the heels against the seats, etc. Especially in the dithyrambic contests,
where tribal rivalry entered in, feeling sometimes ran very high and
personal encounters were not infrequent. To quell such riotous disorders
it became necessary to appoint certain officials to maintain order, like
sergeants-at-arms. In view of these conditions, it is not surprising
that Plato[304] complains that the choice of victor had practically been
intrusted to a general show of hands and that the necessity of pleasing
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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