Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/244

 224 ON THE REPEESENTATION OF the gallery formed by the series of balconies ; also eight windows corresponding to those of the lower story, the place of the ninth being occupied by one of the doors. The third story has no doors or windows, and instead of a practicable gallery, it has a series of ornamental pediments, triangular or semicircular, standing over the projections below and similarly supported. That in the centre, which is much the largest, is adorned with a female figure sur- rounded by ramifications of foliage. There are traces in the third story both of the supports of the roof, and of the orifices, in which stage machinery rested. The two wings of the theatre are divided by a party wall in continuation of the proscenium, and the outer half of each, i.e. that which is bounded by the front wall of the theatre, constitutes in each case a staircase to the upper stories of the building. We now proceed to show how exactly this well-preserved the- atre corresponds in all essential features to the general descriptions which have come down to us. A formal description of an ancient theatre necessarily rests on the geometrical rules of Vitruvius. The Eoman theatre was ar- ranged, he tells us according to the following scheme: describe a Fig. A. circle {abcdefghihhn) with a radius corresponding to the intended size of the orchestra, and in this inscribe four equilateral triangles, aeiy hfky cgl, dhm^ the angles of which shall touch the circumference 1 Vitruvius, V. 6, 7.