Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/253

 G]{EEK PLAYS IN GENERAL. 231 the most natural supposition, and if the scene represented a moun- tain, as in the Prometheus, a "vvatch-tower, as in the Siqyj^^ices, or a pahice, as in the Agamemnon, on the top of which an actor had to appear, it is obvious that the pluteum would ftirnish him with the necessary footing; and there can be no doubt that there were approaches to it by doors in the scene, as, in fact, we see in the theatre at Aspendus. It is also evident that the pluteum must have furnished a basis for certain machines, which were worked above the stage. For example, the OeoXoyelov^, which was apparently a platform surrounded by clouds, and contrived for the introduction of divine personages, was of course moved from the side of the scene along the pluteum. The whole of the action in the Peace of Aristophanes from v. 178, when Trygceus is raised on his monster beetle to the second story of the scene, by means of a machine (v. 174), to V. 728, when he returns to the stage, — having lost his beetle, — by means of the staircase behind the scene, must have taken place in sight of the spectators on the upper balcony of the pluteum. Every one of the five doors in the scene had its appropriate des- tination. The centre door (i), or valvce regice of Yitruvius, was the regular entrance of the protagonist, and represented, according to the scenery hung before it, a palace, a cavern, or other abode of the chief actor for the time being ; the door to the spectators' right of this {h) was the abode of the deuter agonist, and the door to the spectators' left (/) was appropriated to the tritagonist, Pollux says, perhaps referring to a particular play, the Bacchce of Euripides, that the riglit door indicated the strangers' apartment {^evcav), and the left a prison (elpKrij). Yitruvius terms both of the doors near the centre hosjntalia. In Comedy Pollux calls the adjacent space to the centre icXicnov, ^' the out-buildings," with reference of course to some particular Comedy ; and the scenery represented wide en- trances called Kkicnahe^ dvpai, adapted for the ingress of cattle and wagons. Towards either side of the scene were two other doors, which Yitruvius calls itinera and aditus, and these, with the nrepl- aKTOL, or triangular prisms moving on pivots, which were fixed beside or in them (m, m), indicated to the spectators whether the actors entering by these doors were to be supposed as coming from ^ Pollux, IV. § 130: airo 5^ deoKoyeiov 6vtos virep Tr]v <jKrjvriv ev v^et eiricpaivovTaL deoi, ws 6 Zei)? koI ol irepl avrbv ev '^vxocrTaala.