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The Siting of Greek Theatres

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Clifford Ashby
Clifford Ashby
Affiliation:
Professor Emeritus of Theatre Arts, Texas Tech University, Lubbock.
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Extract

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the orientation of buildings in ancient Greece received a great deal of scholarly attention; since that time, it has fallen from favour. In 1939, William Bell Dinsmoor made an ‘attempt to illustrate a method of obtaining more accurate information concerning the dates of Greek temples and certain details of religious practice through the application of an outmoded theory, that of “orientation”’. When this complex study, replete with trigonometric calculations of seasonal star positions met with little favour, orientation became a dead issue for several decades, only reviving in 1962 with the publication of Vincent Scully's The Earth, The Temple, and the Gods (New Haven: Yale University Press).

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1991 , pp. 181 - 201
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1991

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References

Notes

1. Dinsmoor, William Bell, ‘Archaeology and Astronomy’, (Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 80, 1939), p. 95.Google Scholar

2. Scully, , p. 193.Google Scholar The theatre at Megalopolis has several unusual features, but its size is not extraordinary—although early excavators thought it was. All citations are from the second revised edition (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1979).

3. Ibid., p. ix.

4. pp. 1–2. Scully also finds analogues with Stonehenge. pp. 22–4.

5. von Gerkan, Armin und Müller-Weiner, Wolfgang, Das Theater von Epidauros (Stuttgart, W. Kohlhammer, 1961), p. 5.Google Scholar

6. Scully, , pp. 192–4.Google Scholar

7. Bean, George E., Aegean Turkey: an Archaeological Guide, 2nd impression (corrected) (London, Ernest Benn Limited, 1967), pp. 143–4.Google Scholar

8. Scully, confronted by this viewless theatre, concludes that ‘the town as a whole is shaped like a theater … [and] a mighty panorama opens out before it. …’ p. 194.

9. p. 192.

10. The cult theatres at Delos and Messene both have large regular theatres nearby to serve dramatic purposes. The theatre of Apollo Eretimio no longer exists, but it seems to have had a large orchestra and very limited seating. The theatre of the Kabirion has an orchestra almost filled by a large altar, and its seats are scaled to fit the juveniles who were participants of this secretive cult, making it unsuitable for drama in the usual sense. Epidauros and Oropos could also be classified as cult theatres since they are attached to healing shrines; they are included here because there are reasonably regular in shape and there are no other theatres in the vicinity.

11. Errors are always possible. Von Gerkan and Müller-Weiner give bearings down to decimal fractions in their diagram, but a missubtraction has transformed the theatre at Eretria from the correct 186° to 174° (see Figure 1). Daria de Bernardi Ferrero's excellent four volume Teatri Classici in Asia Minore. (Roma, , ‘l'Erma’ di Bretschneider, 1966–1970)Google Scholar from which many of these bearings were taken, shows the theatre of Myra to be 168° on one ground plan (Tav. XL) and 192° on another (Tav. XLI). This probably results from the reversal of a photographic negative.

12. Fiechter, E., Das Theater von Oiniadai und Neupleuron, in Antike greichische Theaterbauten Vol. 2 (Stuttgart, n.p. 1931), Pl. 8.Google Scholar

13. Vitruvius, , The Ten Books on Architecture trans. Morgan, Morris Hicky (New York, Dover Publications, 1960. Orig. pub. Harvard University Press, 1914), p. 137.Google Scholar

14. Many modern excavation reports contain such phrases as, ‘The cavea opens toward the south in direct violation of Vitruvius' injunction’. Carleton L. Brownson, ‘The Theatre at Eretria’, Reprints from The American Journal of Archaeology and The Nineteenth Century (n.p. 1891), p. 36.Google Scholar

15. Woodbury, William N., Grandstand and Stadium Design (New York, American Institute of Steel Construction, Inc. 1947), p. 7.Google Scholar

16. A 1” thickness of limestone has a conductivity of 12.50, while soft wood (fir, yellow pine, etc.) has a conductivity of 0.80. (For comparison, water has a conductivity of 5.50.) This is measured in Btuh per sq ft per °F temperature difference. See Egan, M. David, Concepts in Thermal Comfort. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1975), pp. 50–3.Google Scholar

17. No firm date for the City Dionysia has ever been established. This may have been left flexible to allow for inclement weather or rainouts. With a dirt-floored performance area and a theatron serving as a giant funnel, spring showers must have been capable of causing lengthy postponements.

18. John R. Porter very kindly sat in the Theatre of Dionysos at dawn on 27 & 29 March, 1985. These are some of his unedited remarks from a letter of 29 March, 1985.

My own impressions: When the sun was out it did get a bit uncomfortable when seated in the western bank of seats — not terribly so, but enough that one needed to shield one's eyes or look away on occasion (although the ancients may have had tougher eyes than I do). It was not like staring into the hot afternoon sun in the summer, however. I got the impression that the viewing was more difficult higher up, but it was hard to tell (and I can't say what effect the eastern bank of seats would have had when it was built up to its complete height). The sun caused no difficulty at all when I was seated in the eastern bank of seats and very little or no difficulty when I sat near the central axis of the theater.

On a more general note, if this spring in Athens is at all representative of a normal spring in antiquity, the ancients were being rather optimistic in counting on a run of nice days this early in the year. Even when it wasn't raining it was often quite overcast, while this morning [29 March] the sun never shone unimpeded for more than 10 minutes or so at any one time. Morning clouds sprang up and shielded it on and off to varying degrees all the time I was there.

19. The plays of the Leneia, presented in Athens during late January, present an interesting problem. Was the theatron (still undiscovered) turned to the south to catch the faint warmth of the sun — while placing the source of light, risen to a maximum height of 32° on 21 January, squarely in the eyes of the spectators?

20. Priene and other southward-facing theatres using the Hellenistic thyroma stage pose a further problem; given this back-angle lighting, could anything be seen within these roofed and shaded cubicle settings?

21. Pickard-Cambridge, Arthur, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1953) p. 289, n. 2.Google Scholar

22. Nagler, Alois, A Source Book in Theatrical History (New York, Dover Publications, Inc.), p. 115.Google Scholar

23. For healing shrines deluged with a continual stream of cure-seeking pilgrims (places such as the Aesklepion at Epidauros and the Amphiarion at Oropos), there may have been a need to provide some continuing entertainment, although it may not have been in the form of drama. There is no epigraphic evidence that plays were presented in either of these locations.

24. Poetics, 1448a, 35–40.Google Scholar

25. Pickard-Cambridge, , p. 292.Google Scholar

26. Panhellenic games were sometimes held during periods when the participating states were at war with each other, safe passage through hostile territories being granted for the participants.

27. Demosthenes, , On the Peace, trans. Vince, J. H. (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1954), Vol. 1, p. 109.Google Scholar

28. Trireme Trust USA, Newsletter No. 3. 10, 1989.Google Scholar