Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/77

 THE TRAGIC DIALOGUE.— THESPIS. 59 goddess. The first inference which we shall draw from a combina- tion of these particulars is, that the ceremony attending the retui-n of Pisistratus was to all intents and purposes a dramatic represen- tation ^ of the same kind with that part of the Eumenides of JEschylus, in which the same goddess Athena is introduced for the purpose of recommending to the Athenians the maintenance of the Areopagus^. Before we make any further use of the facts which we have alluded to, it will be as well to give some account of the celebrated contemporary of Pisistratus to whom the invention of Greek Tragedy has been generally ascribed. Thespis was born at Icarius^, a Diacrian deme^, at the beginning of the sixth centmy B. c.^ His birth-place derived its name, according to the tradition, from the father of Erigone^; it had always been a seat of the reli- gion of Bacchus, and the origin of the Athenian Tragedy and Comedy has been confidently referred to the drunken festivals of the place "^t indeed it is not improbable that the name itself may point to the old mimetic exliibitions which were common there ^. Thespis is stated to have introduced an actor for the sake of resting the Dionysian chorus^. This actor was generally, perhaps always, himself^''. He invented a disguise for the face by means of a pigment, prepared from the herb purslain, and afterwards con- structed a linen mask, in order, probably, that he might be able to sustain more than one character ^ He is also said to have intro- duced some important alterations into the dances of the chorus, and 1 Solon (according to Plutarch, c. xxx.) applied the term viroKplveadaL to another of the artifices of Pisistratus, Diogen. Laert. Solon, I. saj-s : Qecxiriv eKuAvaev (6 SoXwi/) rpayuidias dyeiv re Kal diddcTKetu cos ducocpeXij ttjv xpevdoXoyiap. 6t' ovv HeialaTpaTos eavTov KaTerpua-ef, iKeWeu p.kv ^(prj ravra <pvvai. 2 This seems to be nearly the view taken of this pageant by Dr. Thirl wall, Hist, of Greece, Vol. ii. p. 6o. Mr. Keightley is inclined to conjecture frum the meaning of the woman's name (Phya — size) that the whole is a myth. 3 Suidas, QiaiTLS, 'iKapiov TroXews 'Attiktjs. ^ Bentley fixes the time of Thespis' first exhibition at 536 B.C. 6 Steph. Byz. T/capta; Hygin. Fab. 130; Ov. Met. vi. 125. ^ Athen. II. p. 40: ciTro fxedrjs Kal i] ttjs KUfxo}dias Kal tt]s rpayusbias evpeais iu 'I/Ca/3ty TTJS 'A.TTiK7JS €Vp^dr). ^ See Welcker, Nachtrag, p. 222. ^ "Tcrrepov 5e Qeawis eva VTroKptTrjv i^evpev inrep toO diavairaieadai rbv x^P^^' I^^og. Laert. Plat. lxvi. 1° Plutarch, 80I. XXIX: 6 ZoXwi/ ededaaro rbv Qiainv avrbv viroKpLvo/xevou Cicirep Wos ■^v TOLs rraXaioTs. See also Aiist. Hhet. ill. i, and Li v. vii. 2. ^1 Welcker, Nachirarj, p. 271 ; Thirlwall's History of Greece, Vol. ll. p. 126.
 * Leake on the Demi of Attica, p. 194.