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286 286 On the Attic Dionysia. ^schines speaks of the comedies performed there during the rural Dionysia (c. Timarch. p. 158 Trpwrjv ev tol^ kut aypov^ AiovvdLOL^ KcojuLcoowv ovT(x)v €v KoWvTw) aud Demosthenes of the tragedies in which ^Eschines himself played a doleful part on the same stage (De cor. p. 288). Tragic performances at Salamisalso are alluded to in a recently discovered inscription^: and a passage in Isa^us (De Cironis Hered. p. 206) seems to justify the inference, that there were similar exhibitions at Phlyae. For among other instances of affection shown by Ciron to his grandchildren, the speaker mentions : eU Aio- vvaia eh aypov (which as we are afterwards informed was ^Xvrjcri) rjyev ctei r}iui.as^ Kal fxcT eKeivov eOeoopov^xev KaOyj/mevoi Trap avrov. Icaria too, the birthplace of Thespis, and the cradle of the Attic drama, can scarcely have been destitute of such amusements. But all these, as is proved with regard to Piraeus and Salamis by existing monuments, were spectacles furnished at the expense, not of the state, but of the several districts in which they were exhibited. The theatre at Piraeus belonged exclusively to that community. Now a festival cele- brated in the city could never have been transferred to a dis- trict without it ; and even if this were supposed possible, and that the Lensea when removed from Athens to Piraeus still retained the name derived from the Lenaeon, at least they could not have been described as dyo^v evrl Arjvauo. The conjecture that the rural Dionysia lasted three days, of which the last went by the name of Ar^vma, can only be admitted when it becomes necessary. But the most decisive argument against this hypothesis is supplied by a law cited in the oration c. Mid. p. 517. which begins : Evrjyopo^ etTrev, orav r] ito}xttyi rj rev Alovvctco €v Yieipme'L kul ol Kco/u(p^ot kol ol TpaycoSoi^ Kal ri evri Ar]vai(p TTO^irr] Kal ol TpaycvSol Kal o KcojUicpSoiy Kal to7<$ ev aCFTGl AlOVVaiOL^ 7] TTO^TTrj Kal ol TTal^C^ Kal 6 KWiUO^ Kal o K(i)^wool Kal ol TpaycpSoLj Kai QapyrjXicov Trj TrofXTrfj Kal no dywiu. From this passage it appears that the state took a part in the Dionysia of Piraeus by a solemn procession, and celebrated those of which Lenaeon was the scene by another. ^ A Salaminian decree, partly published in Koehler Doerpt. Beitraege, 1814. I. p. 43, has the words : Kal dvenrelv tov (TT^<pavov tovtov Aiovvaicou rvov kv SaXa- IjJvi n-paywdou^ (sic) brav Trpcorov yevijrai.