Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/230

 212 ON THE REPRESENTATION OF was the festival of the vintage, which is still in some places post- poned to December ^ II. The festival of the wine-press (ra Ar]vaLa) was held in Gamelion, which corresponded to the Ionian month Lengeon, and to part of January and February. It was, like the rural Dionysia, a vintage festival, but differed from them in being confined to a particular spot in the city of Athens, called the Leneeon, where the first wine-press {Xrjvo^;) was erected. III. The " Anthesteria " {ra ''AvOea-nqpia, ra ev Atfival^) were held on the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth days of the month Anthesterion. This was not a vintage festival, like the former two. The new wine was drawn from the cask on the first day of the feast [IlLOolyta), and tasted on the second day (Xoe?) : the third day was called XvrpoL, on account of the ban- queting which went on then 2. At the Choes each of the citizens had a separate cup, a custom which arose, according to the tradition, from the presence of Orestes at the feast, before he had been duly purified^; it has been thought, however, to refer to a difference of castes among the worshippers at the time of the adoption of the Dionysian rites in the city. The " Anthesteria" are called by Thucydides the more ancient festival of Bacchus ^. IV. The great Dionysia" {ra ev aaret, tcl Kar daru, ra dcTTiKa) were celebrated between the eighth and eighteenth of Elaphebolion^. This festival is always to be understood when the Dionysia are mentioned without any qualifying epithet. At the first, second, and fourth of these festivals, it is known that theatrical exhibitions took place. The exhibitions at the country Dionysia were generally of old pieces'^; indeed, there is no instance of a play being acted on those occasions for the first time, at least after the Greek Drama had arrived at perfection. 1 Philol. Mus. II. p. 296. 2 See the end of the Acliarnians, and Aul. Gell. viii. 24. 3 See Miiller's Eumeniden, § 50. '^ See above, p. 55. ^ ll. 15. ^ ^schin. irepl irapairpea^. p. 36: /xerd ra Aiouvaia iu da-ret Kal ttjv iu Atovvaov iKKXrjcrtav Trpoypa.f/a.L bvo eKKXrjaias, rrjv jxkv rfj oy^Sri ewl deKa, ttjv 8^ rfj evdrrj iwl d^Ku : and Kara Kttjct. p. 63 : eiidvs fiera to. Aiopvaia rd, iv aarei, rrj 67567? /cat ifdrrj iirl SiKa. ^ Thus Demosthenes twits ^schines with his wretched performances in some of the characters of Sophocles and Euripides at the deme Cotyttus. De Corona, p. 288, Comp. ^schin. c. Timarch. p. 158. There appear to have been dramatic exhibitions at Phlyse, in the time of Isaeus : Kal ov fibuov els rd Toiavra irapeKaXovfieda, dXXd koI ei's AiovoaLa ets 07^61' yyeu del ijfxds, Kal fxer' eKeivov re edeupovfxev Kadi)ixevoi. -wap avrbv, &c. — Isaeus, de Ciron. Hcered. Vol. l. p. 114, Orator. Attic. Oxford.