Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/246

 226 ON THE REPRESENTATION OF duced line nh in the points w and x. The length of the scene shall be equal to the line ivx. From this it appears that the orchestra in a Greek theatre was more than a semicircle, the furthest point being one radius and five- sevenths from the front of the stage, and a whole diameter from the front of the scene. The breadth of the stage is therefore f- of the radius. These proportions, though diiFering in special cases, correspond in the main to those of the existing theatres, and may be assumed as the basis of the following description, and of the plan (Plate 2) by which it is illustrated^. In building a theatre, the Greeks always availed themselves of the slope of a hill, which enabled them to give the necessary ele- vation to the back-rows of seats, without those enormous substruc- tions which we find in the Roman theatres. If the hill-side was rocky, semicircles of steps, rising "tier above tier, were hewn out of the living material. If the ground was soft, a semicircular excava- tion of certain dimensions was made in the slope of the hill, and afterwards lined with rows of stone benches. Even when the for- mer plan was practicable, the steps were frequently faced with copings of marble. This was the case with the theatre of Bacchus at Athens, which stood on the south-eastern side of the rocky Acro- polis. This semicircular pit, surrounded by seats on all sides but one, and in part filled by them, was called the koVKov or cavea (a a a), and was assigned to the audience. At the top it was en- closed by a lofty portico and balustraded terrace (c). Concentric with this circular arc, and at the foot of the lowest range of seats, was the boundary line of the orchestra, 6p')(r]aTpa, or *' dancing- place" (b), which was given up to the chorus. If we complete the circle of the orchestra (compare fig. B.), and draw a tangent to it at the point most removed from the audience, this line will give the position of the scene, <TK7]vr], or "covered building^" (d d), which presented to the view of the spectators a lofty fa9ade of hewn stone, susceptible of such modifications as the different "^ This plan, with the exception of the stage, is derived from that which was published by Mr. T. L. Donaldson in the supplemental volume to Stuart's Antiquities of Athens, 1830, p. 33. It has also appeared in The Library of Entertaining Know- ledge, "Pompeii," Vol, I. p. 2t^i, where the wood-cut preserves the engraver's error of OPKHSTPA for OPXHSTPA, by way of identification; for the author of the plan is not mentioned. 2 " Scene properly means a tent or hut, and such was doubtless erected of wood by the earliest beginners of dramatic, performances, to mark the dwelling of the principal person represented by the actoi-." Miiller, Hid. Lit. Gr. i. p. 301.