sea had been an innovation of Themistocles, which the Thirty reversed, but that it was the original mode of construction unaltered until the time of the Thirty, there would be this strong objection to the supposition, namely, that the bema was in that case turned away from the Agora, and its other buildings; and that the transient authority of an unpopular usurpation had effected an important and permanent change on one of the most ancient of the public constructions. Upon the whole, therefore, there is some reason to believe that Plutarch in this instance, as in some others, has been tempted to repeat a story, which, although current at Athens, had no foundation in truth'.

Theatre.

The Dionysiac theatre, or theatre of Bacchus, is Dionysiac another point of Athenian topography upon which there can be no doubt, and its position is of such consequence, that a mistake in regard to it led Stuart to several erroneous conclusions on the topography of the city. He supposed that the theatre, the ruins of which are seen under the south-western corner of the Acropolis, was the Dionysiac theatre, and that the building, of which the form only, together with some vestiges of one of the wings, are traced near the south-eastern angle, was the Odeium of Pericles; in which opinion, one is surprised he should have imagined that a building, so entirely of the construction of Roman times as the former, could have been the theatre where the works of Eschylus and his followers in the drama were first represented, and equally so that he should have conceived that

1

For some further remarks on the Pnyx, see Appendix XI.

so large an edifice as the latter could ever have been covered by a pointed wooden roof, such as that of the tent-shaped building of Pericles'.

We might indeed apply the situation of the Dionysiac theatre, as described by two writers of the first and second centuries of our æra, to either of those ruins, but there is other evidence which it would be impossible to reconcile with the theatre at the south-western angle of the Acropolis: and accordingly that theatre is now generally admitted to have been neither the Dionysiac theatre nor the Odeium of Pericles, but the Odeium of Herodes, the Dionysiac theatre having been that of which vestiges are seen near the south-eastern angle3. Like many

1

See Pausan. Attic. 20, 3, and page 138, note 3.

3 Αθηναῖοι δὲ ἐν τῷ θεάτρῳ θεῶνται τὴν καλὴν ταύτην θέαν ὑπ' αὐτὴν τὴν ἀκρόπολιν, οὗ τὸν Διόνυσον ἐπὶ τὴν ὄρχηστραν διατιθέασιν. Dion. Chrysostom. Or. Rhod. p. 347, Morell. The Oéa, to which the orator alludes, are the exhibitions of the theatre. He then contrasts its situation with that of a Corinthian place of spectacle, "inconveniently placed in the bed of a torrent on the outside of the city, in a place unfit even for the sepulture of freemen." A small amphitheatre still exists at Corinth, on the outside of the ancient walls (a position usually occupied by sepulchres), and near the left bank of the torrent which separates the Acrocorinthus from the heights to the eastward. Philostratus (de v. Apollon. Tyan. 4, 22) seems to mark the vicinity of the Dionysiac theatre at Athens to the Acropolis still more strongly by the words inì r åкроóλε: in fact, as the middle of it has been excavated out of the rock, it may be called a part of the Acropolis.

' Chandler was the first who gave his opinion that these remains belonged to the theatre of Bacchus. Barthélemy followed him in the Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis, where, speaking of the choragic monuments found in the vicinity of this theatre, he justly remarks, "Il convenait que les trophées fussent élevées auprès du champ de bataille." Jeune Anach. II. 12. But some later

other theatres in Greece, the middle of it was excavated on the side of the hill, and its extremities were supported by solid piers of masonry.

The strongest proof that these remains belong to the theatre of Bacchus is to be found in the choragic monuments still existing in that part of the site of Athens. Upon some of these are seen vestiges of the tripods well known to have been the usual prizes of the leaders of the victorious chori', in the contests of music and poetry decided in the Dionysiac theatre', and to have been often dedicated in the sacred inclosure of Bacchus, of which the theatre was a part.

authors have still adhered to the opinion of Stuart. See Deux Mémoires, par Visconti, London, Murray, 1816, p. 122, 127; Memoirs on Turkey, edited by Walpole, p. 546.

1 Plutarch. Arist. 1. Themist. 5. Nic. 3. Lys. defens. largit. p. 698, Reiske. J. Poll. 3, 30. Athen. 2, 2 (6). Plutarch has preserved the inscriptions of the choragic dedications of Aristeides and Themistocles, expressed exactly in the same form as many others which have been found at Athens. Boeckh, C. Ins. Gr. Nos. 211, 212, and from 215 to 227 incl.

2 Τῶν δὲ ἀγώνων, οἱ μὲν γυμνικοὶ, οἵδε καλούμενοι σκηνικοί, ὀνομασθεῖεν ἂν Διονυσιακοί τε καὶ μουσικοί, &c. Χωρία δὲ τῶν μὲν στάδιον, τῶν δὲ θέατρον. J. Poll. 3, 30.

. . . . νίκης ἀναθήματα χορηγικοὺς τρίποδας ἐν Διονύσου KATEλITEV. Plutarch. Arist. 1.

. . . ὁ τοῖς χορηγικοῖς τρίποσιν ὑποκείμενος ἐν Διονύσου νέως· ἐνίκησε γὰρ πολλάκις χορήγησας. Plutarch. Nic. 3. Whence it appears that Nicias built a temple to support his tripods.

. . . καὶ τὸ νικητήριον ἐν Διονύσου τρίπους, Athen. 2, 2 (6). iv Atovúσov seems to have been the common expression for in the sacred inclosure of Bacchus. Thus also Thucydides says, τὸ ἐν Λιμναῖς Διονύσου, and ἡ ἐν Διονύσου ἐκκλησία. The theatre in like manner was called τὸ ἐν Διονύσου θέατρον, or the Dionysiac theatre. See above, p. 137, n. 3.

Andocides also, according to the biographer of the ten rhetoricians, νικήσας ἀνέθηκε τρίποδα ἐφ' ὑψηλοῦ ἀντικρὺς τοῦ πωρινού

We not only find the cavern at the summit of the theatre in the rocks of the Acropolis, described by Pausanias'; but we observe also its choragic inscription, and the embellishments of architecture, by which the cavern was converted by Thrasyllus, a victorious choregus, into a small temple, like those erected by Nicias and Lysicrates 2. The only point wherein the description of Pausanias appears deficient is, that it mentions a tripod above the cavern, without taking any notice of the statue of Bacchus, formerly seated upon the entablature of the small temple, and now in the British Museum. It is to be observed, however, that there are holes in the lap of that statue which indicate the position of a tripod, and that the custom of supporting tripods by statues was not uncommon. The statue was placed between two other choragic monuments, and just below two columns, formed with triangular capitals, for the support of tripods.

At no great distance from the same spot, to the

Σελίνου, where ἐφ' ὑψηλοῦ seems to allude to the rocks above the theatre, where many vestiges of these monuments are seen. The πωρινὸς Σέλινος may perhaps have been a πωρινὸς Σειρήν, erected on the monument of a dramatic poet, possibly Sophocles himself, whose tomb was surmounted with a Siren. May not Pausanias (in Attic. 21, 1) have alluded to this monument of Sophocles, without naming it, in his story of the dream of Lysander, and his remarks on the Seiren as the symbol of a favourite of the Muses? As connected with this question, see Vit. X. Rhet. in Isocrat. and the Greek life of Sophocles.

1

· Ἐν δὲ τῇ κορυφῇ τοῦ θεάτρου σπήλαιόν ἐστιν ἐν ταῖς πέτραις vñò Tỳν åкpóñodir. Pausan. Attic. 21, 5.

"For the monuments of Thrasyllus and Lysicrates, see Stuart's Antiq. of Athens, I. 4.

3

Pausan. Attic. 18, 8. Lacon. 18, 5.

Messen. 14, 2.

eastward, is the beautiful little temple built by Lysicrates, in honour of the victory of his chorus, with a roof, rising to a triangular apex, for the support of his prize tripod. It appears to have been one of those temples which are mentioned by Pausanias as standing in the street or district called Tripodes, between the Prytaneium and the sacred inclosure of Bacchus. When the connexion, therefore, between the choragic monuments and the Dionysiac theatre are considered on the one hand, and on the other the extreme difficulty of supposing that the quarter in which stands the monument of Lysicrates could have had any connexion with the theatre at the south-western end of the Acropolis, it can hardly be maintained that the latter was the theatre of Bacchus, or any longer questioned that the site of the Dionysiac theatre is indicated by the hollow, and a few other remains, which are observable at the south-eastern end of the Acropolis.

We have a strong confirmation of the identity of these remains in an ancient coin of Athens'. This curious medal represents the great Athenian theatre viewed from below. Its proscenium and cavea are distinctly seen its gradation of seats, interrupted by one diazoma, or lateral corridor of communication; and even the cunei, or separations, formed by the radiating steps which led upwards from the orchestra. Above the theatre rises the wall of the Acropolis, anciently called Notium; over the centre of which is seen the Parthenon, and to the left of it the Propylæa. The magnificent

1

Belonging to the Payne Knight collection in the British Museum. See Plate I, fig. 2.