Thermopyla, Salamis. -Lronidas, Aristides, Themistocles. Pherecydes, the historian.Gelon of Syracuse. Hicro succeeds Gelon, B. c. 478. Simonides gains the prize 'Avôpāv Χορῷ. Birth of Thucydides, B. c. 471. Socrates born. Mycenae destroyed by the Argives.-Death of Simonides, B. c. 467. Anaxagoras. Birth of Lysias. Herodotus at Olympia. End of the Messenian and Egyptian wars.-Empedocles and Zeno. Pericles. Bacchylides, the lyric poet.-Ar- Herodotus and Lysias go with the colonists to Thurium, B. c. 443. Comedy prohibited by a public The Samian war; in which Sopho- The prohibition of comedy repealed. Isocrates born, B.C. 436. Phrynichus, the comic poet, first Sea-fight between the Corinthians and Corcyræans. exhibits. B. C. Olympiad. The Drama. Contemporary Persons and Events. 434 LXXXVI. 3. Lysippus, the comic poet, is vic- Andocides, Meton, Aspasia. torious. 431 LXXXVII. 2. Euripidis Mndela, Þiλokтnts, Attempt of the Thebans on PlaΔίκτυς, θερισταί. tæa. Eupolidis Μαρικάς et Κόλακες. Truce for fifty years with Lace dæmon. Eupolidis Αὐτόλυκος et Αστρά- Treaty with the Argives. τευτοι. CHAPTER VII. ON THE REPRESENTATION OF GREEK PLAYS. Dass man auf das ganze Verhältniss der Orchestra zur Bühne keine vom heutigen Theater entnommenen Vorstellungen übertragen, und die alte Tragödie nicht MODERNISIREN dürfe, ist ja wohl eine der ersten Regeln, die man bei der Beurtheilung dieser Dinge zu beobachten hat.—MÜLLER. IF the Greek plays themselves differed essentially from those of our own times, they were even more dissimilar in respect to the mode and circumstances of their representation We have theatrical exhibitions of some kind every evening throughout the greater part of the year, and in capital cities many are going on at the same time in different theatres. In Greece the dramatic performances were carried on for a few days in the Spring; the theatre was large enough to contain the whole population, and every citizen was there, as a matter of course, from daybreak to sunset'. With us a successful play is repeated night after night, for months together; in Greece the most admired dramas were seldom repeated, and never in the same year. The theatre with us is merely a place of public entertainment; in Greece it. was the temple of the god, whose altar was the central point of the semicircle of seats or steps, from which some 30,000 of his worshippers 1. Esch. KαTά Kτησ.—p. 488. Bekker. καὶ ἅμα τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἡγεῖτο τοῖς πρέσβεσιν εἰς τὸ θέατρον. The torch-races in the last plays of a trilogus seem to shew that the exhibitions were not over till dark. 2. Plato. Sympos. p. 175. E. |
