This book is a collection of papers following the conference The Architecture of the Ancient Greek Theatre, held in Athens in January 2012. Fundamental publications on the topic have not been issued for many years. Bringing together the leading experts on theatre architecture, this conference aimed at introducing new facts and important comprehensive studies on Greek theatres to the public. The published volume is, first of all, a presentation of new excavation results and new analyses of individual monuments. Many well-known theatres such as the one of Dionysos in Athens, and others at Dodone, Corinth, and Sikyon have been re-examined since their original publication, with stunning results. New research, presented in this volume, includes moreover less well known, or even newly found, ancient Greek theatres in Albania, Asia Minor, Cyprus, and Sicily. Further studies on the history of research, on regional theatrical developments, terminology, and function, as well as a perspective on Roman theatres built in Greek traditions make this volume a comprehensive volume of new research for expert scholars as well as for students and the interested public.
In this volume the leading experts on ancient Greek theatre architecture present new excavation results and new analyses of individual monuments. Many well-known theatres such as the one of Dionysos in Athens and others at for instance Messene, Sikyon, Chaironeia in Greece and Aphrodisias in Turkey have been re-examined since their original publication with stunning results. New research also includes less well-known or newly discovered ancient Greek theatres in Albania, Turkey, Cyprus and Sicily. Further studies on the history of research, regional theatrical developments, terminology and function, as well as a perspective on Roman theatres built in Greek traditions make this volume a comprehensive book of new research for specialist scholars as well as for students and the interested public. Fundamental publications on the topic have not been presented for many years, and this book aims to form a new foundation for the study of theatre architecture.--Page [4] of cover.
Using both textual and iconographic sources, this richly illustrated book examines the representations of the body in Greek Old and Middle Comedy, how it was staged, perceived, and imagined, particularly in Athens, Magna Graecia, and Sicily. The study also aims to refine knowledge of the various connections between Attic comedy and comic vases from South Italy and Sicily (the so-called 'phlyax vases').0After introducing comic texts and comedy-related vase-paintings in the regional contexts, The Comic Body in Ancient Greek Theatre and Art, 440-320 BCE considers the generic features of the comic body, characterized as it is by a specific ugliness and a constant motion. It also explores how costumes -masks, padding, phallus, clothing, accessories- and gestures contribute to the characters' visual identity in relation with speech : it analyzes the cultural, social, aesthetic, and theatrical conventions by which spectators decipher the body. This study thus leads to a re-examination of the modalities of comic mimesis, in particular when addressing sexual codes in cross-dressing scenes which reveal the artifice of the fictional body. It also sheds light on how comic poets make use of the scenic or imaginary representations of the bodies of those who are targets of political, social, or intellectual satire. There is a particular emphasis on body movements, where the book not only deals with body language and the dramatic function of comic gesture, but also with how words confer a kind of poetic and unreal motion to the body.
This book presents a range of topics, conveying the broad scope of Richard Tomlinson’s archaeological quests and echoing his own research methodologies; it is is a token of appreciation for a British professor of archaeology, who spread knowledge of the Greek civilization, manifesting the brilliant spirit of the versatile ancient Greek builders.
Age-old scholarly dogma holds that the death of serious theatre went hand-in-hand with the 'death' of the city-state and that the fourth century BC ushered in an era of theatrical mediocrity offering shallow entertainment to a depoliticised citizenry. The traditional view of fourth-century culture is encouraged and sustained by the absence of dramatic texts in anything more than fragments. Until recently, little attention was paid to an enormous array of non-literary evidence attesting, not only the sustained vibrancy of theatrical culture, but a huge expansion of theatre throughout (and even beyond) the Greek world. Epigraphic, historiographic, iconographic and archaeological evidence indicates that the fourth century BC was an age of exponential growth in theatre. It saw: the construction of permanent stone theatres across and beyond the Mediterranean world; the addition of theatrical events to existing festivals; the creation of entirely new contexts for drama; and vast investment, both public and private, in all areas of what was rapidly becoming a major 'industry'. This is the first book to explore all the evidence for fourth century ancient theatre: its architecture, drama, dissemination, staging, reception, politics, social impact, finance and memorialisation.
This volume examines whether dramatic fragments should be approached as parts of a greater whole or as self-contained entities. It comprises contributions by a broad spectrum of international scholars: by young researchers working on fragmentary drama as well as by well-known experts in this field. The volume explores another kind of fragmentation that seems already to have been embraced by the ancient dramatists: quotations extracted from their context and immersed in a new whole, in which they work both as cohesive unities and detachable entities. Sections of poetic works circulated in antiquity not only as parts of a whole, but also independently, i.e. as component fractions, rather like quotations on facebook today. Fragmentation can thus be seen operating on the level of dissociation, but also on the level of cohesion. The volume investigates interpretive possibilities, quotation contexts, production and reception stages of fragmentary texts, looking into the ways dramatic fragments can either increase the depth of fragmentation or strengthen the intensity of cohesion.
"This chapter provides an overview of the Muses in Greek mythology and argues that their multiplicity, their indefinite number, their lack of fixed personalities and their metapoetic status make them highly unusual members of the Olympian pantheon. As the embodiment of music and the means by which music is channelled to human beings they are essential to our understanding of the meaning of mousikē in Greek culture. Above all their origins in an oral society foregrounds the performative nature of music which has characterised it as an art form throughout the ages"--
This is the second volume of A Social and Economic History of the Theatre to 300 BC and focuses exclusively on theatre culture in Attica (Rural Dionysia) and the rest of the Greek world. It presents and discusses in detail all the documentary and material evidence for theatre culture and dramatic production from the first two centuries of theatre history, namely the period c.500 to c.300 BC. The traditional assumption is laid to rest that theatre was an exclusively or primarily Athenian institution, with the inclusion of all sources of information for theatrical performances in twenty-two deme sites and over one hundred and twenty independent Greek (and some non-Greek) cities. All texts are translated and made accessible to non-specialists and specialists alike. The volume will be a fundamental work of reference for all classicists and theatre historians interested in ancient theatre and its wider historical contexts.
Named for a goddess, epicenter of the first democracy, birthplace of tragic and comic theatre, locus of the major philosophical schools, artistically in the vanguard for centuries, ancient Athens looms large in contemporary study of the ancient world. This Companion is a comprehensive introduction the city, its topography and monuments, inhabitants and cultural institutions, religious rituals and politics. Chapters link the religious, cultural, and political institutions of Athens to the physical locales in which they took place. Discussion of the urban plan, with its streets, gates, walls, and public and private buildings, provides readers with a thorough understanding of how the city operated and what people saw, heard, smelled, and tasted as they flowed through it. Drawing on the latest scholarship, as well as excavation discoveries at the Agora, sanctuaries, and cemeteries, the Companion explores how the city was planned, how it functioned, and how it was transformed from a democratic polis into a Roman city.
