Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/313

291 LITEUATUR.E OF ANCIENT GREECE. 291 sport of satyrs; and the introduction of satyrs into this species of poetry is ascribed to Arion, who is said to have invented the tragic dithyramb. The name of tragedy, or goat's song, was even by the ancients derived from the resemblance of the singers, in their character of satyrs, to goats. Yet the slight resemblance in form between satyrs and goats could hardly have given a name to this kind of poetry ; it is far more probable that this species of dithyramb was originally performed at the burnt sacrifice of a goat ; the connexion of which with the subject of the earliest tragedy can only be explained by means of mythological researches foreign to the present subject.* Thus far had tragedy advanced among the Dorians, who therefore considered themselves the inventors of it. All its further development belono-s to the Athenians ; while among the Dorians it seems to have been long preserved in its original lyric form. Doubtless tragic dithy- rambs of the same kind as those in Sicyon and Corinth continued for a long time to be sung in Athens; probably at the temple of Bacchus, called Lenaeum, and the Leneean festival, with which all the genuine traditions respecting the origin of tragedy were connected. Moreover, the Lenrean festival was solemnized exactly at the time when, in other parts of Greece, the sorrows of Dionysus were bewailed. Hence in later times, when the dramatic spectacles were celebrated at the three Dionysiac festivals of the year, tragedy preceded comedy at the Leneea, and followed immediately after the festival procession; while both at the greater and lesser Dionysia, comedy, which came after a great carousal, was first, and was followed by tragedy. f At these festivals, before the innovations of Thespis, when the chorus had assembled round the altar of Dionysus, an individual from the midst of the chorus is said to have answered the other members of the chorus from the sacrificial table (eXeoc) near the altar; that is to say, he probably imparted to them in song the subjects which excited and guided the feelings ex- pressed by the chorus in its chants. of the invention of comedy at the vintage, the faces smeared with lees of wine, the waggon with which Thespis went round Attica, and so forth : since all these arise from a contusion between the origin of comedy and tragedy. Comedy really ori- ginated at the rural Dionysia. or the vintage festival (see ch. XXVII.). Aristophanes calls the comic poets of his own time lee-singers {rgoyuhai), but he never gives this name to the tragic poets and actors. The waggon suits not the dithyramb, which was sung by a standing chorus, but a procession, which occurred in the earliest form of comedy ; moreover, in many festivals, there was a custom of throwing out jests and scurril ma abuse from a waggon (cy.uy.pa.Ta. 1% upa^m). It is only by completely avoiding this error (which rests on a very natural confusion) that it is possible to reconcile the earliest history of the drama with the best testimonies, especially that of Aristotle. . f According to the very important statements concerning the parts ot these ies- tivals, which are in the documents cited in the speech of Demosthenes against Midias. Of the Lenaea it is said, h lx) Anvaitu vofvrh kx) ol roaynlo) xai olx.up.uioi ; of the greater Dionysia, rr>~; iv xo-th Aiovuo-loi; h Top.; >xi »* KupM xx) ol r^ayuloi ; of the hsscr Dionysia in the Piraeus, h *oy.*h ™ Aiorvo-* i» Wlipxtu xxi 01 KUfiuioi xx) ol rpxyuooi. v 2
 * We here reject the common account (adopted, among other writers, by Horace)