Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/298

 272 ON THE REPRESENTATION OF compartments, from which it would appear that the center and four western compartments (namely those to the left of the spectator) were assigned to the men, while the four eastern compartments were reserved for the female spectators ^. The conduct of the audi- ence was much the same as that of the spectators at our own theatres, and they seem to have had little scruple in expressing their approbation or disapprobation, as well of the poet^ as of the actors^. Their mode of doing this was sometimes very violent, and even in the time of Machon it was customary to pelt a bad performer with stones^. The Athenian performers were much esteemed all over Greece; they took great pains about their bodily exercises^, and dieted themselves in order to keep their voices clear and strong^. Their memory must have been cultivated with assiduous care, for they never had the assistance of a prompter, like the performers on the modern stage '^. We believe that the protagonist at all events was generally paid by the state; in the country exhibitions, however, two actors would occasionally pay the wages of their rpirayco' vco-Trj<i^. The salary was often very high^, and Polus, who gene- rally acted with Tlepolemus in the plays of Sophocles^", sometimes earned a talent by two days' performances". The histrionic pro- fession was not thought to involve any degradation. The actors were of necessity free Athenian citizens, and by the nature of the case had received a good education. The actor was the represen- tative of the dramatist, and often the dramatist himself. Sopho- cles, who sometimes performed in his own plays, was a person of ^ This is inferred from the female names on the eastern KepKides; see Gottling, ilber die Inschriften im Theater zu Syrahus, Rhein. Mus. 1834, pp. 103 sqq. 2 Athenseus, xill. p. 583 F, •^ Demosth. De Corona (p. 345 and 346, Bekker). Comp. Milton's imitation of the passage. {Prose Works, p. 80, in the Apology for Smectymnuus.) ^ Athen. vi. p. 245. ^ Cicero, Orai. c, IV. ^ Plato, Legg. 11. 7 Hermann {Opusc. v. 304) says: *'In theatro UTro/SoXei^s dictus est, qui histrioni verba subjiciebat, quem nos Gallico vocabulo souffleur appellamus. Sic Plutarchus in PrcEC. ger. resp. I'j, p. 813 e: fiLixetadaL tovs viroKpirds, irddos iJ.kv idcov Kai tjOos /cat d^icofia T(^ dyQui wpocrT id ^vt as, rod 5^ vwo^oXeus dKovouras, Kal /xr] irapeK^abovras roi/s pvd/uLovs Kal rd fi^rpa ttjs dLdofJiivrjs i^ovaias vwo rCov KparovuTiov. But, as Bernhardy remarks (Griech. Litterat. ii. p. 648), we have here only a reference to the cpojvdaKos, who kept C. Gracchus within bounds by the tone of his instrument (Plut. Tib. Gracchus, c. 2; Aul. Gellius, iV. ^. i. 11). 8 Demosth. de Corona, p. 345, Bekker. ^ See Bockh, Public Econ. Book i. c. xxi. p. 120, Engl. Tr. ^0 Comp. Aul. Gell. vii. 5, with Schol. Ar. Nub. 1269. 11 Plutarch, Rhet. Vita;.