Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/264

 242 ON THE REPRESENTATION OF pebbles, which were rolled over sheets of copper laid out in the vTTocTKrjvia. Again, the appearance of lightning was produced by means of a periactos or triangular prism of mirrors placed in the OedXo^elov. This was called the Kepavvoo-KOTreiov. It may be in- ferred too that either the orchestra or the stage was occasionally supposed to represent water. Thus in the Frogs^ Bacchus rows either on or in front of the oyelov to the melodious croakings of the chorus which swims around his boat. From the enormous size of the theatre at Athens, which is said to have contained 30,000 spectators it became necessary to employ the principles of acoustics to a considerable extent. All round the koTKov were placed bell-shaped vessels of bronze, called ^%eta, placed in an inverted position, and resting on pedestals, which received and distributed the vibrations of sound. The influence of the situation and peculiar construction of the Greek theatre upon the imagination of the dramatists has been fully shown by an accomplished scholar who visited Athens some years since 2. Our conceptions of the manner of representation also depend upon the twofold division of the Attic drama. We must recol- lect the military origin of the chorus^, its employment in the worship of Bacchus^, the successive adoption of the lyre and the flute as accompaniments^, the nature of the cyclic chorus^, and the improvements of Stesichorus'^, in order to understand fully the peculiar and otherwise unaccountable evolutions of the dramatic chorus. We must remember also that the actor was originally a rhapsode who succeeded the Exarchus of the dithyramb^, that he was the representative of the poet^, who was the original Exarchus, that he acted in a huge theatre at a great distance from the spec- tators, and that he often had to sustain more than one part in the same piece ; all this we must recollect, if we would not confound the functions of Polus with those of Macready. The first remark with regard to the chorus will explain to us ^ Plato, Sympos. 175 E. See, however, Wordsworth's ^^Aens and Attica, pp. g'i sqq. 2 See Wordsworth's Athens and Attica, pp. 94 foil. ^ Above, pp. 27 foil. ^ Above, p. 35. 5 Above, p. 34. '^ Above, p. 36. '' Above, p. 37, note (5). s Above, p. 60, and elsewhere. •' Above, p. 59.