Ancient Theater

This paper will contribute to our understanding of a number of ancient monuments, Roman theatres and amphitheatres, in the complex context of reusing cultural and environmental resources in Italy. This also involves an interpretation of the Syracuse Charter for the conservation, use and manage¬ment of ancient theatrical buildings.
Through the study of selected examples, we have attempted to identify analytical, methodological and operational instruments that can enhance these monuments and find new tourism-cum-cultural mechanisms. The paper goes on to list restoration and conservation actions that have become urgent due to the neglect and deterioration that often characterises such monuments or, on the contrary, the over-use caused by open-air performances, the fitting of stand equipment and the holding of stage productions that are thrown together and incompatible with this historic heritage. Ancient buildings and archaeological remains require planned actions and constant maintenance.
These structures must be included in the urban landscape through the creation of urban archaeo¬logical parks, and their original uses should be recovered with the use of ‘light’ renovations and the application of compatible and reversible scenery and partial and temporary mobile roofing systems, designed and fitted by experts.
What is therefore required is a limited use of these complex ancient structures that involves respect, strict monitoring and the setting of audience quotas at performances, with the insertion of temporary, easily reversible fittings that can protect these sites as well as allow access to them.
Il contributo intende contribuire alla conoscenza di alcune strutture antiche per lo spettacolo nell’ambito del complesso quadro dell’utilizzazione delle risorse culturali e ambientali di un territorio, anche attraverso una rilettura della Carta di Siracusa per la conservazione, la fruizione e la gestione delle architetture teatrali antiche (2004). S’intende, quindi, attraverso lo studio di alcuni casi esemplificativi – gli Anfiteatri di Albano, di Lucus Feroniae, di Monteleone Sabino, il Teatro di Privernum, di Ostia Antica oltre ad alcuni esempi tunisini – individuare strumenti analitici, metodologici e operativi per il recupero e la valorizzazione di tali complessi monumentali e individuare nuove dinamiche turistiche-culturali. Gli spazi all’aperto che più si prestano a una proficua riutilizzazione, con forte richiamo turistico, sono proprio le strutture per le rappresentazioni antiche, greche e romane. Oltre un migliaio sono gli edifici presenti in tutto il baci¬no del Mediterraneo e numerosi anche sul territorio della Penisola italiana. Si tratta di attivare azione di restauro e conservazione, sempre più necessarie vista l’incuria e il degrado che spesso caratterizzano tali grande strutture o, al contrario, il sovra-utilizzo determinato dagli spettacoli all’aperto, con allestimenti e grandi produzioni sceniche spesso improvvisati e non compatibili con i manufatti storici. Tali antichi edifici, quali reperti archeologici, richiedono interventi di programmate e costanti manutenzioni, spesso di reinserimento nel tessuto urbano delle città d’antico impianto o di valorizzazione paesaggistica, la creazione di parchi archeologici urbani, oltre che di riacquisizione della funzione originaria attraverso operazioni ‘delicate’ e l’inserimento di strutture sceniche compatibili, reversibili, di sistemi mobili per coperture parziali e temporanee, progettati e messi in atto da tecnici e operai specializzati. Un uso, pertanto, limitato di tali complesse strutture che possono essere rese fruibili con rispetto, attraverso rigidi controlli e spettacoli contingentati, l’inserimento di opere temporanee, facilmente rimovibili, in grado di proteggere i luoghi e consentire, contestualmente, la visita dei siti in cui sono inseriti. Uno dei parametri fondamentali per la valorizzazione è quello della fruizione, legata a una capienza sostenibile e ad adeguati limiti per la diffusione acustica, in modo tale da non produrre danni sia alla struttura sia ai luoghi. Tali apparati per lo spettacolo devono essere parzialmente o talmente rimovibili, realizzati con materiali compatibili e di facile manutenzione. I criteri da rispettare dovrebbero essere: adeguatezza tecnologica, minima invasività, controllo delle strutture da parte di tecnici e promotori di eventi, imprenditori e direttori artistici. Appare, inoltre, importante agire con cautela anche nell’organizzazione delle tematiche di rappresentazione, favorendo spettacoli congrui e adeguati (testi dell’antichità e del teatro, danza, musica, cinema). Il tema dell’utilizzo solleva, inoltre, la questione dell’accessibilità, per cui si richiede qualità architettonica e fruizione agevolata per progetti di praticabilità, seppur ‘temporanei’, caratterizzati da strutture reversibili e minime, messe in opera in occasione delle stagioni teatrali. Si tratta di strutture antiche che richiedono un approccio progettuale consapevole e multidisciplinare tra architetti e archeologi, oltre che con il supporto di tecnici specializzati, direttori artistici e responsabili delle istituzioni. Figure professionali capaci di attivare operazioni congrue, finalizzate alla fruibilità di tali organismi attraverso interventi meditati e rispettosi. Progetto di ri-uso e valorizzazione che viene, inevitabilmente, a delinearsi attraverso limiti e potenzialità, riconoscimento dei ‘valori’ e punti di debolezza; si tratta di azioni rivolte sia alla conservazione della struttura sia alla fruizione del sito, comprese tra operazioni di tutela e valorizzazione caratterizzate da un unico obiettivo: combattere l’abbandono e l’inevitabile deterioramento materico.

This is a comparison of Agathon’s role in Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae and Plato’s Symposium. Firstly, I examine the Platonic version, and the unique, idiosyncratic part Plato gives Agathon to play, as a host to all, and a hostage to Socrates. Secondly, I discuss his interaction with Inlaw, the ordinary Athenian, in Aristophanes’ play. Such parallel reading allows us not only to refine our outlook on the dramatic construction both of the “talking party” and of the comic performance, but also to capture how really poikilos, for better or worse, that urban love could be. Finally, I analyze the significance of this juxtaposition, as an intertext. Plato, I argue, produces a proper palinode of Agathon, as an erotikos and a mimetic poet. By taking seriously the face-to-face between Agathon and Agathon, two dissonant and yet compatible variations on one man, our picture of Athenian erotic culture emerges sharper, and in greater detail. 
Key words:
Eros, sensuality, praise, blame, softness, manliness, effeminacy, body, language.

Upholding Classical Greek drama as the benchmark for ancient theater, scholars have historically disregarded the notion of a native Egyptian dramatic tradition, due to the religious and ritualistic nature of the limited evidence available. Yet Greek tragedy began as a featured competition of the Great Dionysia, the most important festival of the god Dionysus in Athens. Traced to the sixth century BCE, the festival’s religious roots and the dramatic rituals surrounding it reflect those found in Egypt more than one thousand years earlier, in celebration of the Osirian Khoiak Festival at Abydos. The known Egyptian dramatic texts—those texts which exhibit classic Western features of dramatic literature such as dialogue and stage directions—all, in some way, honor Osiris. We can infer from this that the ancient Egyptian concept of dramatic performance was strongly associated with his cult, just as the Greeks associated theater with Dionysiac worship. Herodotus first observed the link between these two gods in the mid-fifth century BCE—a connection the Ptolemies promoted heavily during their reign, essentially presenting Dionysus and Osiris as Greek and Egyptian counterparts of the same deity. This paper examines the Osirian mysteries and related dramas celebrated during the Khoiak Festival, and illustrates their significance in the development of an ancient Egyptian dramatic tradition that pre-dates the advent of theater in ancient Greece.

This paper explores the convergence of musical and architectural theory in Vitruvius’ De Architectura. Section 1 describes Vitruvius’ architectural lexicon, borrowed from Aristoxenus (I.2), and explores his description of the laws of harmony, modeled on Elementa Harmonica (V.4). Section 2 explores how Vitruvius proposes using music theory in practical architectural design, including construction of columns using architectural orders analogous to Aristoxenian genera (I.2.6; IV.1); acoustical designs for theatres (V.5); and the development of machines, including siege engines ‘tuned’ like musical instruments (X.12) and water-organs [hydrauli] constructed to execute all the different varieties of tuning (X.8). Section 3 reflects on Vitruvius’ use of analogies with a musical instrument, the sambuca, to explain his understanding of cosmic harmony and architectural form, and his possible sources (VI.1). Finally, Section 4 discusses Vitruvius’ ideas about the importance of a liberal arts education that includes study of music theory. The best architects, Vitruvius explains, can discover in music the secrets to forms they both encounter in nature and create themselves.

The aim of this work is to search a method that let us analyze a classical theatre text by the point of view of the voice and the sound.
This is an hard purpose for texts that we know only in written form and that do not provide in an evident way any kind of indications about the performance as modern stage directions do, but it is not impossible because the literary text gives to us a lot of indications. In fact the theatrical text was written in an age that doesn’t provide lots of technical supports, and so the most important vehicle of the imagination was the word, and as a result the voice.
I have chosen to explore this aspect in a particular text, the Euripide’s Bacchae, that is a tragedy with a very important sound component and in which we can see also a close link with the aspect of the music. In fact the tragedy, for its topic, for the ritual that is described in it, for the presence of a main character as the god Dionysus that has asiatic origins, assumes the presence in the performance of a particular kind of music that should be composed according to the phrygian mode. The doctrine of ethos in fact connects this sound to conditions of madness often due to mental alterations caused by a god, as we see in the tragedy, and this kind of madness is often related to the feminine world (that is another aspect we are going to analyze).
The modern studies about theatre and philosophy show us a new attention on the voice (and consequently on the word), that now can be considered as a sound action, and helps us to recreate a virtual performance that is as close as possible to the original.

This book is part of the Greece and Rome: Texts and Contexts series (eds. J. Morwood and E. Dugdale). Greek Theatre in Context offers a valuable guide to Greek theatre. It allows readers to learn about Greek theatre through direct engagement with the ancient evidence. It presents a broad selection of key ancient sources, both visual and literary, about all aspects of performance – including actors, masks, stage props and choral dancing – as well as scenes from the plays themselves that offer insights into their staging, plots, and reception. The dramatic brilliance of playwrights such as Sophocles, Aristophanes and Menander is brought to the fore by helpful commentary that provides a framework for the interpretation of Greek drama, fleshes out its cultural contexts, and invites students to consider a range of provocative questions.

The relief fragment in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Inv. 12059 of unknown provenance comes from the left corner slab of the tympanon of a small pediment and carries a relief depicting a leftwards reclining Papposilenus, who can be identified by the close-fitting woolen garment. The relief together with the projecting ledge on which the Silenus lies is carved from one block. The relief fragment Inv. 4760 in the Acropolis Museum, which shows  the figure of a Papposilenus reclining to the right wearing an identical woolen garment, can  be attributed to the right corner of the same pediment on the grounds of measurements, technical features and style. Papposilenus supports himself with his right arm on a wineskin, whose neck he squeezes in such a way that the wine can pour into the drinking horn. Both relief fragments come from the pediment of a small building, very probably a temple-shaped choregic monument. The naiskos, which can be dated to the 2nd half of the 4th century BC on account  of the relief style, stood (very probably) on the Street of the Tripods east of the entrance to the sanctuary of Dionysos.

Das Relieffragment im Athener Archäologischen Nationalmuseum Inv. 12059 unbekannter Herkunft stammt von der linken Eckplatte des Tympanons eines kleinen Giebels und trägt die Reliefdarstellung eines nach links gelagerten Papposilens, der durch das eng anliegen- de  wollene  Trikot  identifiziert  werden  kann.  Das  Relief  ist  zusammen  mit  der  vortretenden  Standleiste, auf dem der Silen liegt, aus demselben Block gearbeitet. Das Relieffragment Inv. 4760 im Akropolis-Museum, das die Figur eines nach rechts gelagerten Papposilens mit  einem identischen Wolltrikot zeigt, ist auf der Grundlage der Maße, der technischen Merkmale und des Stils der gegenüberliegenden rechten Ecke desselben Giebels zuzuweisen. Mit dem rechten Arm stützt der Papposilen sich auf einen Weinschlauch, dessen Hals er auf eine Weise zusammendrückt, dass sich der Wein in das Trinkhorn ergießen kann. Die beiden Relieffragmente stammen vom Giebel eines kleinen Gebäudes, sehr wahrscheinlich eines tempelförmigen choregischen Monuments. Der Naiskos, der aufgrund des Reliefstils in die 2. Hälfte des 4. Jhs. v. Chr. datiert werden kann, stand (sehr wahrscheinlich) an der Tripodenstraße östlich vom Eingang zum Dionysosheiligtum.

This paper presents a hitherto unnoticed publication by architect Thomas Donaldson, who in 1830 published his design of the restored plan of the theater of Dodona. It appeared in the fourth supplementary volume of the second edition of the “Antiquities of Athens” and, in his comments, Donaldson identifies for the first time the site with Dodona, based on the geographical position and the inconsistency of the sizes of the theater and the city. His discovery was not widely acknowledged and Christopher Wordsworth is still being recognized as the first identifier of Dodona.

Con la sua fantasia inesauribile, Aristofane è senza dubbio uno dei veri inventori del teatro europeo. Ma proprio la fantasia esplosiva di Aristofane ha impedito per molto tempo alla critica di considerare la sua produzione alla stregua di quella di autori ritenuti più seri e drammaturgicamente inquadrati. Questo studio si propone di offrire una nuova prospettiva sulla tecnica teatrale di Aristofane, a partire da un’indagine della gestione dello spazio scenico nelle sue commedie: non tanto una ricostruzione della messa in scena, ma un’interpretazione in chiave semiotica della creazione, diegetica e mimetica, dello spazio in cui si muove l’azione teatrale. Tramite una prospettiva aperta e comparata, il libro offre una nuova lettura di tutte le commedie superstiti, e una riconsiderazione complessiva e radicale del teatro di Aristofane: un teatro fondato interamente sullo scontro fra identità e poteri contrapposti, innescato dalla miccia formidabile dell’eroismo comico, capace di stravolgere, inventare e dominare.

Comic characters come on stage, and wonder how they can make the audience laugh. They expose each other, and themselves, to mockery. To make others laugh is not an accident for them; it is the purpose of their being there. Tragic characters, on the contrary, cannot take laughter. These individuals are of high status, high-minded, highly serious. Mockery can only offend, hurt, or infuriate these women and men, who suffer and expect, in response to their sufferings, deference or pity. There is no place for laughter in a tragedy. And yet, the terror of laughter -- the fear of being ridiculed, when one is in pain -- is a recurring theme in Sophocles’ Philoctetes and Ajax, in Euripides’ Medea and Bacchae. Fear of laughter acts as a compelling cause of murder or suicide.
In the first section of this paper, I discuss the threatening prospect of being laughed at, for tragic characters. I argue that this anxiety conveys the awareness that an audience of enemies might react to pain, not with respect or sympathy, but with malicious, cruel pleasure. This awareness offers a meta-theatrical hint. Since one might laugh at Medea’s humiliation or Ajax’ rage, a tragedy is, admittedly, a potential comedy. By making of this possibility a frightening thought, however, tragic plays reframe themselves as tragic. The characters allude to a comic reception, recoil at the horror of it, and decide to commit an irreversible act of violence.  Back to tragedy!
In the second section of the paper, I reopen the debate on Aristotle’s distinction of tragedy and comedy. From the standpoint of the tragic figures who tremble to be treated as laughing stock, I argue that Aristotle has perfectly understood the relevant opposition of the two genres. It is the polarity of pain and pleasure that organises Aristotle’s theory of theatricality -- and of the passions. A proper understanding of catharsis corroborates this. It is, of course, possible to blur the line (as Aristophanes does all the time, by making tragic characters and tragic poets, into comic figures), but the line is there. The poets test, and re-confirm, its constraints on stage; the philosopher corroborates its value.

Трагедии Эсхила «Семеро против Фив», Еврипида «Финикиянки» и Софок­ла «Антигона» сопоставлены с точки зрения представлений о роли и миссии образования в условиях войны и мира. В изображении драматургов-­классиков Фивы являются городом, где снаружи происходит военное, а внутри – интел­лектуальное противостояние. Умные и благородные оказываются с глупыми и заблуждающимися то по одну, то по разные стороны баррикад как в прямом, так и в переносном смысле. Эсхил, Еврипид и Софокл связывают происходящее с городом с его происхождением, в том числе, чтобы иметь возможность на­вести педагогические мосты между прошлым, настоящим и будущим. Каждая трагедия представляет собой отличный от других сюжет, где в той или иной мере присутствует архаичная схема из семи пар противоположных по каче­ствам воинов, стоящих в семи воротах. Трагедии отличаются тем, что герои выбирают разные линии защиты города, оказавшегося под угрозой разрушения из­за противостояния сыновей. Деяния Этеокла и Полиника одними героями оцениваются как наказание для города за его тягостное прошлое, а другими – как наставление во имя лучшего будущего. Представители разных поколений и социальных слоев с педагогическим умыслом обращаются к мифу об основа­нии города, мечтая о том, как хорошо было бы не допустить такого бедствен­ного положения. Фивы в представлении драматургов­классиков то являются

The archives of DEAM considering the protection of Thessaly’s antiquities in the late 19th century, highlights the whole political, social and economic situation of the last two decades of the 19th century, starting from its deliberation from the Turcs in 1881.
The amount of the mail correspondence covers the period of Char. Trikoupis’s governance, namely the years between 1886 and 1889; i.e. the years during which Pan. Kavvadias was General Ephor of Antiquities, while fewer are the documents dating from 1890 to 1900.
Greek archaeologists visited and worked in Thessaly in collaboration with professors of the Secondary Education, who carried out the Ephor tasks voluntarily. Both of them laid the basis of the archaeological research, the protection and investigation of the antiquities in Thessaly, in an atmosphere of political reconstruction, bankruptcy and war.
Monuments such as the ancient theatre of Larissa were identified, funerary monuments like the vaulted Mycenaean tomb at Dimini and the Geometric vaulted tombs at Marmariani were excavated, autopsies were carried out, collection and storage of antiquities and the study and publication of archaeological material began.
The presence and activity of foreign archaeological schools, such as the French and the German, the protection of antiquities from the police, the political and military authorities, the destruction of antiquities when affected private financial interests, requests for private excavations and the antiquities are subjects concerning the Archaeological Service continuously until today.

Lo studio si propone di analizzare le scene di supplica in Euripide, e di riflettere sulla rappresentazione del rituale in tragedia. Condotto secondo il metodo della antropologia storica del mondo antico, il lavoro prende l'avvio dalla considerazione dell'importanza, per comprendere il fenomeno del dramma antico, di analizzare la tragedia come fatto sociale totale, in stretto rapporto con le forme di pensiero religioso dei Greci del quinto secolo. Il lavoro si concentra, quindi, sulla rappresentazione della supplica, rituale che e presente in un cospicuo numero di scene tragiche e che si inserisce allo stesso tempo nell'esperienza degli Ateniesi del quinto secolo per quel che riguarda la vita religiosa, le relazioni sociali dei cittadini, la dimensione che possiamo definire pregiuridica e, in generale, molte delle attivita della πόλις. A partire dal testo delle tragedie euripidee, e dal tentativo di ricostruzione della messa in scena di alcuni passi, lo studio riflette s...

Η ύπαρξη θεάτρου στα Άβδηρα είναι γνωστή από φιλολογικές πηγές και επιγραφικές μαρτυρίες. Οι αρχαιολογικές έρευνες έφεραν στο φως τμήμα του κοίλου και της ορχήστρας, τα οποία έχουν υποστεί εκτεταμένη καταστροφή από αρχαίες και σύγχρονες παρεμβάσεις.
Στην ανακοίνωση εξετάζεται η σχέση των αρχαίων Αβδηριτών με το θέατρο στο πλαίσιο της λατρείας του Διονύσου, συζητείται η σχέση των σύγχρονων Αβδηριτών με το αρχαίο θέατρο και παρουσιάζεται η δραστηριότητα της Εφορείας Αρχαιοτήτων αναφορικά με την αρχαιολογική τεκμηρίωση, την προστασία του, τη διάσωσή του, την προβολή του και την απόδοσή του στο κοινό στον βαθμό που αυτό είναι δυνατόν.