Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/71

 THE TRAGIC DIALOGUE. — THESPIS. 53 in tone and rhythm to form a musical entertainment, we may presume that the recitation of their pieces, even if they were monologues, must have been a near approach to theatric decla- mation. Fortunately we are not without some evidence for this view of the case. We learn from Clearchus that " Simonides, the Zacynthian, recited {eppa-yjr^SeL) some of the poems of Archilochus, sitting on an arm-chair in the theatres;" and this is stated still more distinctly in a quotation from Lysanias which immediately follows: he tells us that '' Mnasion, the rhapsode, in the public exhibitions acted some of the iambics of Simonides " (eV Tai^: hel^ecTL TMV Xl/jlcovlSov Ttva<^ la/i/Scov viroKpiveadaL^). Solon, too, who lived many years after these two poets, and Avas also a gnomic poet and a writer of iambics, on one occasion committed to memory some of his own elegiacs, and recited them from the herald's bema^. It is exceedingly probable, though we have no evidence of the fact, that the gnomes of Theognis were also recited. The rhapsodes having many opportunities of practising their art, and being on many occasions welcome and expected guests, their calling became a trade, and probably, like that of the Persian story-tellers, a very profitable one. Consequently their numbers increased, till on great occasions many of them were sure to be present, and different parts were assigned to them, wdiich they recited alternately and with great emulation : by this means the audience were sometimes gratified by the recitation of a whole poem at a single feast In the case of an epic poem, like the Iliad, this was at once a near approach to the theatrical dialogue ; for if one rhapsode recited the speech of Achilles in the first book of that poem, and another that of Agamemnon, we may be sure they did their parts with all the action of stage-players. 1 Athen. XIV. p. 620 c. 2 This word is very often used of the rhapsode. For example, we have in Arist. Eket. III. I, § 3 : Kal yap ets tt}v rpayiKTju /cai pa^pwhiav 6pk TraprjXdeu {i] viroKpiaLs)' vireKplvovTO yap avrol ras Tpaycpdias oi TroLTjral to irpQTOv. See Wolf, Prolegom. p. cxvi ; Heyne, Excursus, ill. 2. It is also a,pplied to the recitation of the Ionic prose of Herodotus, which may be considered as a still more modern form of the Epos. Athen. Xiv. p. 629 d: 'Ictcrwf 5' ev rplTi^) irepl twu 'AXe^dvdpov iepQv eV 'AXe^- avdpeig. (pTjai ev rtp /xeydXcp dedrpcp vvoKpivaadai 'Hyrjcriau rbv /cw/xwSov rd 'H/9o5otou. 3 Plutarch, Solon, VIII. 82. 5ovs TravadrjvaioLS e^ VTroXrjxf/ews e0e^^s avra hiCivai aiawep vvv (ti ovtoi TroLOVCFiv. Com- pare Diog. Laert. i. 57, and Suidas v. viro^oX-q.
 * Plato, Ilippai'ch. p. 228: 'lir-Kapxv, 6s. ...rd '0/j.rjpou ^7rr]...7]udyKa(X€ tovs pap({}-