Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/252

 230 ON THE REPRESENTATION OF portico of the theatre by passing under the seats of the spectators {hhr). This may have been used when there was no regular parodus of the chorus (of which more presently), and when the choreutse made their exit in an unusual manner, as in the last scene of the Eumenides. The regular entrances of the chorus were by the TTapohoL [til, tn), and along the Bp6/iio<i or iter {fe, te). The scene itself was a facade of masonry consisting regularly of two stories (whence it is called Sta-reyLa^), divided by pi pluteum or continuous balcony, either made throughout of a platform of stone, or consisting of a series of projections with balustrades, which might be made continuous by laying a flooring of planks from one to the other. If there was a third story, it was called the ejpiscenus; but this was not essential. The scene was adorned by columns, and Vitruvius gives their regular dimensions ; namely, those in the lower story, with their pedestals and capitals, were one-fourth of the diameter of the orchestra; over these the epi- styles and entablatures were one-fifth of the columns below ; in the second story we have the 'plutewn with its entablature or balcony lialf the height of the pulpitum or stage, which Vitruvius designates as "the lower balcony 2," and above the pluteum we have the columns of the second story less by one-fourth than those of the lower story, the epistylium with the entablature being as before one-fifth of the columns below. If there is an episcenos, its ^9?z^- teum is half the pluteum below it, and its columns less by one- fourth than the columns of the second story, the epistylium and entablature bearing the same proportion, namely, one-fifth, to the corresponding columns. These measurements of course varied with the tastes of difi^rent epochs, and the size of the theatre in the particular case. The distinctive and indispensable features of the scene were the pluteum or balcony, and the five doors by which the actors made their different entrances on the stage. On these particulars it will be necessary to make some remarks. It seems more than probable that in the most flourishing period of the Greek drama, the mere front of the scene was never used to indicate by itself the place of the action, but that this was always depicted on a painted curtain or some similar representation. That these pictures were suspended from the pluteum seems to be 1 Vitruv, V, 7 : pliitemn insuper cum unda et corona inferioris plutei dimidia parte. See Sclionborn, p. 82 ; and below, part II. 2 Pollux, IV. § 130.