The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE: Presence and Representation 9780198844532, 0198844530

Table of contents :
Title Pages
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Abbreviations
Introduction
The Material Circumstances
The Chorus in New Tragedy
The Chorus in Old Tragedy
The Chorus in Comedy
An Interlude: Absence and the Aristotelian Embolima
Chorus and Festival
The Chorus and Society
Conclusions
Bibliography
Index of Passages
General Index

Citation preview

OXFORD CLASSICAL MONOGRAPHS Published under the supervision of a Committee of the Faculty of Classics in the University of Oxford

The aim of the Oxford Classical Monographs series (which replaces the Oxford Classical and Philosophical Monographs) is to publish books based on the best theses on Greek and Latin literature, ancient history, and ancient philosophy examined by the Faculty Board of Classics.

The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE Presence and Representation

LUCY C. M. M. JACKSON

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3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Lucy C. M. M. Jackson 2020 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2020 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2019947028 ISBN 978–0–19–884453–2 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198844532.001.0001 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Acknowledgements This book began as an Oxford DPhil dissertation and found its final form during a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at King’s College London. I am so grateful for the space and resources awarded to me by the Leverhulme Trust, by King’s College London, and by a panoply of colleagues—especially at Corpus Christi College and the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama—based at the University of Oxford. It has been a privilege to be part of the research life of both cities. An offshoot of the research that forms the basis of Chapter 7 appeared in the volume Emotion and Persuasion in Classical Antiquity, edited by Ed Sanders and Matthew Johncock and published by Steiner Verlag, and I also want to thank them for the encouragement I received at the conference on which the volume was based, and for their inviting me to be part of that publication. Coming to the end of this process, this thinking up, writing, re-writing, re-shaping, editing, re-writing-again process that has stretched from the autumn of 2010 to the summer of 2019, I am left with very little to say about this book’s subject, its genesis, my hopes for the conversations it might prompt, or its deficiencies (the ones I am aware of at any rate). Rather, I have a whole lot to say (well, at least an appropriate amount for an Acknowledgements page) about the people I’ve met and conversed with along the way, all of whom have been joyously generous with their time and attention and to whom I owe a great and happy debt. My thesis supervisor, Felix Budelmann, has been a constant steadying hand, a sounding-board and critic of the most useful sort throughout the whole enterprise. He allowed this work to be utterly my own, whilst still supporting me every step of the way, a magnificent feat that I am still only just beginning fully to appreciate. Edith Hall was an effulgent and exacting external examiner, and her continued support has been the single most important factor in allowing me to complete this project. Her example of how scholarship can and must connect with the world around us is one that I shall be chasing for years to come. The precise and discriminating eye of Scott Scullion has improved the text of this book immeasurably. His boldness in challenging dogma was an inspiration, too, from the very beginning

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of my graduate work. Oliver Taplin, who steered my choral focus towards the fourth century (and whose lectures on Greek tragedy I still remember with a kind of quiet elation), has cheered and encouraged me on, especially in these latter years. Eric Csapo has been exceptionally generous in sharing unpublished and forthcoming material, and taking the time to respond to some wilder choral theories during my visit to the University of Sydney in 2013, and later in London and Vancouver. Peter Wilson, one of the kindest scholars I’ve been fortunate to meet and talk to, read and commented on the material in chapter one. It was with his encouragement that I managed to get the final text of this book over the finish-line, and I want to thank him especially for his support. What I owe to both of these scholars will be blindingly obvious in all that follows. Readers and interlocutors in Exeter, Oxford, Pisa, Princeton, New York, Sydney, and London shaped and sharpened my ideas and, at the same time, afforded all the friendship, humour, and grace one so keenly needs during wobblier times: Rosa Andújar, Claire Catenaccio, Jaś Elsner, Marco Fantuzzi, Patrick Finglass, Almut Fries, Andrew Ford, Johanna Hanink, Adrian Kelly, Fiona Macintosh, Toph Marshall, Sebastian Matzner, Justine McConnell, Sara Monoson, Glenn Most, Victoria Moul, Sebastiana Nervegna, Tim Rood, Richard Seaford, Matt Shipton, Helen Slaney, Henry Stead, Lucy VanEssen-Fishman, Tim Whitmarsh, Matthew Wright, Flo Yoon. Thank you, all. To friends fortunate enough to have escaped my requests for proofreading, and to my brilliant family (here, and there), you’ve made all the difference in buoying me up and reminding me of a bigger, wider, world—but I’ll tell you that in person. Rory, who keeps me fierce, who read the whole of this book and really didn’t need to, and who won the game of book dedications pretty much from day one, thank you, and I love you. Writing this book has taken place over such a rich, sad, and wonderful nine years, and connected with so many parts of my life, that a dedication to one single entity doesn’t seem quite right. And so my last thanks are to all the sunchoreutai, the people, places, and ideas with whom I’ve danced along the way.

List of Figures 1.1. Fragments of a base of a choregic monument, from two sides, Athens Agora Museum S 1025 + S 1586 + S 2586. 6.1. Relief found near the theatre of Dionysus in Athens, dated to 375 350, Athens, National Museum 1750 VS. 6.2. Imagined reconstruction of a choregic monument commemorating a comic victory.

41 196

6.3. Fragment of choregic pinax in ‘pentelic’ marble. Agora S 2098.

197 198

6.4. Choregic dedication, dated to c.350 25, Athens National Museum 2400.

199

Abbreviations, Citations, and Transliteration Names of ancient authors and titles of their works are abbreviated as in the Oxford Classical Dictionary. Other abbreviated titles are as follows. CGFPR DK FGrH KA MMC MO MTS PMG TrGF Wehrli

Austin, C. (1973), Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta in Papyris Reperta. Berlin and New York. Diels, H., and Kranz, W. (1951 2), Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 3. vols. Berlin. Jacoby, F., et al. (eds) (1923 ) Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Berlin and Leiden. Kassel, R., and Austin, C. (eds) (1983 ), Poetae Comici Graeci. Berlin and New York. Webster, T. B. L. (1978), Monuments Illustrating Old and Middle Comedy, 3rd edn, rev. J. Green, BICS Supp. 39, London. Millis, B. W., and Olson, S. D. (2012), Inscriptional Records for the Dramatic Festivals in Athens. Leiden. Webster, T. B. L. (1967), Monuments Illustrating Tragedy and Satyr Play, 2nd edn, BICS Supp. 20, London. Page, D. L. (1962), Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford. Snell, B., et al. (eds) (1971 ), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Göttingen. Wehrli, F. (1967 9), Die Schule des Aristoteles: Texte und Kommentar. 10. vols. Basel.

Citations are from the Oxford Classical Text where possible, from TrGF for tragic fragments and K-A for comic. For names of people, places, and literary works, I have used the more familiar Latinate spellings—Aeschylus not Aischylos, Telephus not Telephos. An exception are the names of the Attic demes. Words that exist in English are not italicized (‘chorus’ and ‘coryphaeus’, ‘parodos’ and ‘parabasis’). For other Greek words, I have transliterated and placed these in italics (choregos, didaskalos, demos, etc.) I construe the chorus as both a singular and plural entity, and so my verb usage in relation to the chorus also shifts between the two, depending on whether I mean the chorus as a single element in a play’s make-up or feature of drama, or a group of people. All dates are BCE unless otherwise stated. All translations are my own except where noted.

Introduction In the fourth century , theatre was a vital and growing industry across the Greek-speaking world.1 Dramatic performances, usually as part of a festival celebration, were being added to the line up of events in more and more places far from the epicentre of Athens.2 New engineering techniques were being adopted in the building of stone theatres, permanent and lasting homes for all kinds of performance including drama.3 Extensive and elaborate institutional and financial provisions were in place to support dramatic performances in Athens and in the demes of Attica, and similar or modified institutions for the funding of theatrical productions were being deployed in Sicily, Boeotia, and Macedonia.4 The celebrity of actors and aulos-players (auletes) saw them commanding outrageously large fees for performances, and allowed them to travel the length and breadth of the ancient Mediterranean and beyond.5 Statues of dramatic poets were set up in theatres.6 By the time of Alexander’s campaigns as far as the Indus valley in the mid 320s, the performance of drama had come to signify a shared language across multiple geographies and cultures, such was its popularity and proliferation.7 1 Recent important studies affirming drama’s vitality in the fourth century are Easterling 1993 and 1997, Taplin 2009, Csapo 2010a: 38 82 and 83 7, Csapo, Götte, Green, and Wilson 2014, Hanink 2014a: 191 220, Lamari 2015: 181 5. 2 Easterling 1994: 73 80, Dearden 1999, Revermann 2000: 451 67, Taplin 1999: 33 57 and 2007a: 5 15, Allan 2001: 67 86, Wilson 2007c: 351 77, Bosher 2006 and 2012, Braund and Hall 2014a, Vahtikari 2014, Csapo and Wilson 2015, Stewart 2017. 3 Csapo 2007, Götte 2014, Moretti 2014, Papastamati von Moock 2014. 4 Wilson 2000, 2007c and 2007e, 2010. 5 Easterling and Hall 2002, Csapo 2004, Duncan 2005, Hall 2006, Csapo 2004: 53 76 and 2010a, Junker 2010: 131 48, Power 2010, Slater 2010. 6 Plut. Mor.841f and IG II2 2320.20 2 (M O) with Hanink 2014a: 90 9 and 183 8. 7 Hall 2007: 285 6.

The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE: Presence and Representation. Lucy C. M. M. Jackson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Lucy C. M. M. Jackson. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198844532.001.0001

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Introduction

Yet, amid the recent scholarly appreciation of the fourth century’s vigorous theatre industry, no study has focused on one particular element in Attic drama, its defining element, in fact—the chorus. This is all the more notable in light of the many studies of contiguous choral genres or time-periods in the past two decades. 2013 saw the publication of two volumes dedicated to the chorus of drama in the fifth century.8 Peter Wilson’s comprehensive survey and continued examination of the institution of the choregia (a quasi-voluntary secular office that facilitated the funding and organization of many of the city’s choruses—dramatic and non-dramatic) has illuminated the historical presence and political role of those choruses that were produced within the choregic system.9 The dithyramb, the paean, the pyrrhic, and the theoric chorus, too, have all had recent analysis.10 Also relevant is the renewed and recent appreciation for fourthcentury lyric poetry.11 One of the most influential theorizers about the chorus, Plato, and his Laws, have also been the subject of no fewer than three volumes published since 2010.12 And yet, despite all this related research, the activity and immediate reception of the fourthcentury dramatic chorus remains entirely unexamined. There are some real challenges to performing such a study. The evidence for the text, music, and movement that the chorus performed is mostly in fragments, and some of these can only tentatively be attributed to the chorus (or the fourth century) in the first place. Although there is some evidence for choral performers becoming increasingly professional throughout the fourth century, there are only a very few that are named or that we know anything about.13 8 Billings, Budelmann, and Macintosh 2013, Gagné and Hopman 2013. We can also add Calame 2017 to the list of volumes focusing on fifth century dramatic choruses. 9 Wilson 2000. See also Wilson 2007a: 351 77, 2007b: 125 32 and 2011a: 19 44. While the tragic chorus is sometimes discussed specifically (e.g. 2000: 4 6, 77 80 cf. also 194 7), it is the circular chorus and its workings that are most thoroughly illuminated in Wilson’s work. 10 Dithyramb Sutton 1989, Ieranò 1997, Kowalzig and Wilson 2013. Paean Rutherford 2001. Pyrrhic Ceccarelli 1998 and 2004: 91 117. Theoria (including choruses) Rutherford 2013. 11 Neumann Hartman 2004, Vamvouri Ruffy 2004, Schröder 2006, Kolde 2003 and 2010, Power 2010, Ford 2011, and LeVen 2014. 12 Peponi 2013a, Prauscello 2014, Folch 2015. 13 For professional choral performers in the third century and later, see Slater 1993, Wilson 2000: 289 90, 292 3, and Le Guen 2001:108 14. The naming of choral performers is rare, and debate surrounds what these names might actually be able

Introduction

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The venues for and times when the choruses of drama would have performed can be identified, but the qualities of those performances, and the impact of the choral component of the drama in particular, have left little trace in our extant sources. All kinds of performance have an impact that is ephemeral and contingent on the various vantage points, both literal and in terms of the previous experience, of individual audience members. The chorus in drama, for whom song and movement were so crucial, suffers acutely in this. Those of us who have been lucky enough to have witnessed powerful choral groups performing on stage in our own time have only our own experiences as a guide to what might have been possible in Attic drama. There is one fourth-century testimonium that may also have discouraged scholars from facing these not inconsiderable challenges. A famous passage in Aristotle’s Poetics seems to indicate a definite change in choral practice, at least as far as tragedy is concerned, beginning in the final decades of the fifth century. καὶ τὸν χορὸν δὲ ἕνα δεῖ ὑπολαμβάνειν τῶν ὑποκριτῶν, καὶ μόριον εἶναι τοῦ ὅλου καὶ συναγωνίζεσθαι μὴ ὥσπερ Εὐριπίδῃ ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ Σοφοκλεῖ. τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς τὰ ᾀδόμενα οὐδὲν μᾶλλον τοῦ μύθου ἢ ἄλλης τραγῳδίας ἐστίν διὸ ἐμβόλιμα ᾄδουσιν πρώτου ἄρξαντος Ἀγάθωνος τοῦ τοιούτου. καίτοι τί διαφέρει ἢ ἐμβόλιμα ᾄδειν ἢ εἰ ῥῆσιν ἐξ ἄλλου εἰς ἄλλο ἁρμόττοι ἢ ἐπεισόδιον ὅλον; 1456a25 32 The chorus should be treated as one of the actors; it should be a part of the whole and should participate [sc. ‘in the action’], not as in Euripides but as in Sophocles. With the other poets, the songs are no more integral to the plot than to another tragedy hence the practice, started by Agathon, of singing interlude odes. Yet what is the difference between singing interlude odes and transferring a speech or whole episode from one work to another? (Trans. Halliwell 1995)

These few lines have provided the foundation for the idea that the choruses of Aristotle’s day were of a lesser quality than those of the earlier fifth century.14 And yet, so much is unclear in this oft-cited to tell us, see IG I3 969, the ‘Pronomos’ Vase (c.400, Naples NM 81673) with discussion in Osborne 2010, and an Attic red figure bell krater depicting (?) a circular chorus (Copenhagen 13817, see Wilson 2000: 76 fig. 4). 14 Mastronarde (2010: 88) provides a carefully worded gloss of what it is usually thought this passage means: ‘In some fourth century tragedies the choral parts had apparently become mere interludes dividing the “acts” (eventually the canonical “five

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Introduction

passage, from the meaning of specific words (e.g. συναγωνίζεσθαι, ‘have a share in the contest’/ ‘help win the contest’), phrases (e.g. μόριον εἶναι τοῦ ὅλου, ‘part of the whole’), to who, precisely, οἱ λοιποί are (usually translated, as here, as ‘the other poets’), and what ἐμβόλιμα might be.15 Despite the fact that it is the genre of tragedy that is being specifically discussed, this passage forms the foundation for the idea that the chorus not just of tragedy but also of comedy entered into a decline at the end of the fifth century.16 A paucity of source material in our written record for what the chorus said and sang is made even more conspicuous by a scribal habit, found in our earliest papyri and continued on in some manuscript traditions. When a chorus is approaching the stage or is due to perform an ode, or when one section of the drama seems to be coming to a close, instead of a choral ode we often find the words χοροῦ or χοροῦ μέλος—‘song of the chorus’.17 The tendency among scholars has been to read these words not as indicating something about scribes’ practices (as with, for example, the practice in these early manuscripts of using letters rather than the names of characters, or a paragraphos—a mark that looks like a dash—to indicate a change of speaker), but rather as an indicator of the quality of the choral text; that the odes were ‘perceived as being dispensable by those preserving the plays on papyrus’.18 On some quite slight grounds, then, the inference has widely been made from the insertion of χοροῦ that the quality of the choral song and dance in these dramas was manifestly poor, and it is similarly assumed that if the quality of the choral song had been good (say, as good as every single one of the choral odes of Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, and fifth-century Aristophanes), then they would have been preserved for us in textual form. The testimony from Aristotle, and the scribal habit of writing χοροῦ in place of the text of a choral ode, are two data points worth

acts”) in which the named characters performed their scenes without any interaction with a chorus, and such unrelated songs or embolima (as Aristotle termed them) had, so far as we know, no relation in content to the actors’ scenes.’ 15 See detailed discussions in Else 1957, Halliwell 1986 and 1987, and Scattolin 2011. 16 For a recent example of how easily scholars cite Aristotle, inappositely, to support claims made about the comic chorus, see Hunter 2017: 213 18. 17 Pöhlmann 1977: 69 70. 18 The communis opinio as articulated by Marshall 2002: 4. We find a similar reading in Capps (1895: 320) ‘probably an indication of the loss of the original odes of an intermezzic character’.

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confronting, and they will be discussed in full in Chapter 5 of this book. However, various other circumstances have shaped how these two phenomena have been interpreted, and at the same time, may have served as subtle (or not so subtle) deterrents to any further scholarly curiosity about the fourth-century dramatic chorus. The notion that there is next to no evidence for the development of the fourth-century dramatic chorus is not helped by an imbalance in the kinds of source material that have been preserved. The belief in a fifth-century Athenian ‘Golden Age’, an idea that was, as Johanna Hanink has recently demonstrated,19 consciously created and curated by Athens in the latter part of the fourth century, seems to have led directly to the preservation of thirty-one (more or less) complete tragedies, one satyr play, and nine complete comedies, all first performed during that fifth-century ‘Golden Age’.20 It seems that if the Rhesus had not been attributed to Euripides, we would have no complete plays from the fourth century at all.21 The preservation (or not) of text that can tell us about what the dramatic chorus sang and spoke is, then, thoroughly tied up with a much larger question of periodization. The historical ‘Classical’ period may run from c.500 to 323, but the phenomenon of Attic drama is still mostly spoken of as ending its hey-day in 401 with Sophocles’ (posthumously performed) Oedipus at Colonus.22 This is slightly disconcerting when the majority of our evidence for the organization and immediate reception of Attic drama comes, in fact, from fourth-century sources.23 Drama that was performed in the mid fourth century is not uncommonly labelled ‘Hellenistic’.24

‘ . . . it was the Athenians themselves who, especially in the latter part of the fourth century, began constructing the pedestal upon which their drama still stands in the modern imagination’, Hanink 2014a: 6. 20 Aristophanes’ Women at the Assembly and Wealth are nearly complete, but some of their choral odes have been excised, see below p. 142 for signs of excision in Wealth. 21 On the almost certain fourth century date for the Rhesus, see p. 53 n. 7 below. 22 See Wright 2016: 117 20 for a discussion of this problematic periodization of tragedy. 23 E.g. looking through The Context of Ancient Drama section 3Ai (Festival Organization), only nine out of the sixty three testimonia from the Classical period come from before 400. For an excellent demonstration of how fourth century evi dence has been applied to fifth century historical practice, and the distortions that can come of doing so, see Bosher 2009. 24 Sifakis 1963 and 1967, Xanthakis Karamanos 1993, Kotlińska Toma 2015. 19

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Introduction

A notion that the artists in the fourth century were, in general, not what they once were (morally and technically) has had a long and variegated life.25 The alleged political and economic exhaustion of Athens after the city’s defeat at Arginusae in 406 and its capitulation to Spartan hegemony, the innovations in musico-poetic technology and practice, the shifting tastes of the audiences and the increase in the number of those audiences, experimentation with dramaturgical convention—all of these have encouraged some scholars to dismiss whole swathes of poetic production in the fourth century, including the dramatic chorus. Diachronic development has been an important framework for structuring how we talk about all sorts of classical cultural phenomena, encouraged perhaps by the Aristotelian penchant for similar kinds of biologically-informed narratives of growth, acme, and decline, and drama has been no exception. But in recent years, scholars have sought to demonstrate that the political upheavals in Athens around the end of the fifth century, while significant, were not the epoch-ending events that some (including Aristophanes, as well as later authors) presented them as.26 We are now in a position to proclaim more strongly the aspects of continuity within the historical Classical period. Despite the slim evidence for its quality and activity, some very definite and unequivocal ideas about the fourth-century dramatic chorus continue to underpin scholarly conceptions of Attic drama and its development. Rooted explicitly or implicitly in the passage of Aristotle quoted above, there is a clear sense that ‘decline’ continues, in general, to be a good one-size-fits-all term for the way the dramatic chorus developed, whether it be with regard to the activity of the chorus, the number of performers, the interaction with actors and plot, melic quality, or thematic importance.27 This has been most ‘I’m in need of a skilful poet./ Some of them are no more, and those that are alive are degenerates’, δέομαι ποιητοῦ δεξιοῦ./ οἱ μὲν γὰρ οὐκέτ’ εἰσίν, οἱ δ’ ὄντες κακοί, Ar. Ran. 71 2. ‘Nach dreihundert Jahren . . . steigt die Muse . . . vom Wagen und geht fortan zu Fuß. Die Prosa tritt ihren Siegeszug an’, Seidensticker 1995: 175. See also Croiset 1929: 390 403, Rose 1934: 71 2, Hadas 1950: 108 9, Lesky 1971: 630 40, Beye 1975: 175, Dihle 1994: 223 8. 26 ‘This melodrama of the poet, the city, and the genre, all sitting together on the stoop of the fourth century blubbering over lost glory, has had surprising appeal’ Csapo 2000: 124, see also Hall 2007: 264 88 and LeVen 2014: 81 3 on the debate around lyric poetry’s ‘decline’ beginning in the sixth century. 27 ‘Zurücktreten’ (Flashar 1967: 154), ‘reduzierte’ (Nesselrath 1990: 52), ‘quantita tivamente e qualitativamente ristretta’ (Perusino 1986: 64). There are a growing 25

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clearly asserted for the comic chorus: ‘It is well known that in the fourth century the comic chorus went through a period of decline, which ended with its standardisation into a group of drunk youths, who invariably appeared in all plays of New Comedy.’28 There has been significantly less discussion about the fourth-century tragic chorus, although its development is usually still traced along similar lines as that of comedy.29 The satyr play is rarely included in such discussions, as even less is known about this genre of performance, although we do know it continued to have a place in the festival line up.30 At the outset, we should confront how unhelpful a term like ‘decline’ is. It does both too much and not enough work. It encourages a monolithic view of an area where the only thing that we can be certain of is that there was a variety of practice (just as is true for the choral techniques of our extant fifth-century playwrights). The term is, also, extraordinarily imprecise, admitting all manner of qualitative (and some quantitative) definitions that can vary from scholar to scholar without any scrutiny. In some older scholarly works we see the suggestion that choral odes in the fourth century consisted of purely musical performances31 or a dance without singing or words32 or even that there was a total absence of a choral component in drama33—all of which fail to account for the certain and positive evidence for song and dance being regarded as essential components of drama and its chorus in the fourth century.34 More recently, number of scholars sceptical of such decline e.g. Wilson 2000: 241 2, 265, and 267, LeVen 2014: 59, and Wright 2016: 200. 28 Sifakis 1971: 416. See also Maidment 1935: 8 ‘a growing incongruity between chorus and actors’; Arnott 1972: 65 ‘a dim shadow . . . who have no function what ever in the plot’; Perusino 1986: 71 ‘una progressive esautorazione del coro’; Ireland 2010: 352 ‘no more than the provider of interludes’. 29 Capps 1895: 288 (giving ‘the prevailing view’), Flickinger 1918: 148 9, Csapo and Slater 1995: 349, Scattolin 2010: 176, Storey 2011: xxxi ii, Taplin 2012: 241, Hunter 2017: 228 9. 30 IG II2 2320 Col. II.18 19, 32 3 with M O: 61. Shaw 2014: 141 2 and Cohn 2015: 568 9. 31 No doubt projecting Roman theatre practice back onto the fourth century, see Haigh 1889: 261. See Maidment 1935: 11 nn. 2 and 4 for older bibliography stating this view. 32 Holzinger 1940: 125, Beare 1955: 51, Russo 1994: 232 3 (contra Laws 654b3 7) and Gelzer 1993: 95. 33 Ussher 1969: 29 30 and Ireland 2010: 352. Flashar 1967: 155 n. 5 prefers to profess ignorance. 34 E.g. e.g. Aristotle Poetics 1456a27 9 τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς τὰ ᾀδόμενα οὐδὲν μᾶλλον τοῦ μύθου ἢ ἄλλης τραγῳδίας ἐστίν and Ar.Plut. 760 1 ἀλλ’ εἶ’, ἁπαξάπαντες ἐξ ἑνὸς

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decline has been quantified by identifying a reduction in the percentage of choral lines in tragedy and comedy, but for both these genres the numbers presented do not tell the whole story and are open for debate.35 The suggestion that fourth-century odes were not written by the poet himself is another favoured feature of the decline narrative,36 but one, it should be noted early (and often), with absolutely no evidence to support it.37 Decline has also been located in the perceived decrease in interaction between actors and chorus in both tragedy and comedy,38 or in the suggestion that the content of the chorus’ odes was irrelevant to the plot (implicit when odes are labelled ‘intermezzic’). This last judgement is particularly fraught as the charge of irrelevance has been and must always be made on highly subjective grounds. As shown by the rehabilitation of Euripides’ later choral odes, once also deemed ‘irrelevant’, irrelevance is itself a term that relies on one’s view of drama and how it works.39 More often than not, it is the reputation of the poet, or the tastes of the time and individual preference of the reader that has shaped these judgements of irrelevance. By contrast, we can fully appreciate a choral song like Sophocles’ ‘Ode to Man’ in the Antigone, which makes no direct reference to

λόγου/ ὀρχεῖσθε καὶ σκιρτᾶτε καὶ χορεύετε, or 1209 δεῖ γὰρ κατόπιν τούτοις ᾄδοντας ἕπεσθαι. 35 Csapo and Slater 1995: 349 in their statistical account of declining choral presence in the fifth century note the exceptions to this suggested trend Bacchae has 27 per cent choral lines and Oedipus at Colonus has 22 per cent. If we add the Iphigenia at Aulis (21.7 per cent) which, incidentally, had choral lines actually added to the script at some point for a performance, and the Rhesus which has 28.5 per cent, it is Euripides’ Orestes with 10.5 per cent choral lines that looks like the exception. Csapo 1999 2000: 399 426 gives a more detailed analysis including percentages of choral and actor’s song, but the import of such statistics remains open for discussion. For comedy, any guesses at what percentage of The Assemblywomen and Wealth were choral must rest on guesswork regarding the length of the odes that have not been transmitted with the rest of the text. 36 Flickinger 1912: 33 4, Webster 1953: 59 n. 1, Sifakis 1963: 31, Arnott 1972: 65, Handley 1985: 400, Sutton 1990: 92, Rothwell 1992: 219, Zimmerman 1998: 187, Sidwell 2001: 78 84, Slater 2002: 316n.30. 37 N.B. Aristotle Poetics 1456a27 32 contains no clear indication about who is responsible for writing the sung parts (τὰ ᾀδόμενα). See pp. 150 62 for a full discussion of this passage. 38 E.g. in comedy: Flickinger 1918: 148 9, Kranz 1933: 262, Ferrari 1948: 177 87, Sifakis 1967: 113, Dover 1972: 194 5, Rothwell 1992: 209, Zimmerman 1998: 173 89. In tragedy: Xanthakis Karamanos 1980: 8 and Mastronarde 2010: 88 152. 39 Mastronarde 2010: 126 45. See also Swift 2009.

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the plot, nor moves the action forward in any way, yet is undoubtedly a valuable and formative part of the play. Finally, decline might be applied to the supposed incapability of fourth-century poets to compose ‘good’ lyric poetry for the chorus to sing, despite the variety of lyric metres found in those fragments of choral text that we do have, and a culture of sophisticated and highly competitive lyric composition running strong throughout the fourth century.40 The imprecision that is encouraged by continuing to use the word ‘decline’ is but one reason why a focused study of the dramatic chorus in fourth-century Attic drama is worthwhile. There is a clear tension between the traditional interpretation of Aristotle Poetics 1456a25–32 and the general picture of choral vigour that is indicated even in the relatively limited evidence we do have. Fragments of fourth-century tragedy show that choruses not only had a part in the drama, but that they could also have varied fictional identities (Cyprians, slave women, Minyans, bacchants, Trojans or ‘chosen men’ of Aetolia in tragedy, Scythians, women, young men, hunters, companions of Odysseus, cities, Furies, and builders in comedy) and dialogue with characters.41 The continued performance of satyr play at the Dionysia too would hardly have been possible without its chorus in all its integrated and active glory. The revived productions of tragedy, instituted at the Dionysia in 386, would have included choruses, and the choral parts in some of the revived fifth-century plays even seem to have been enlarged.42 In light of the number of choral performers that will have taken part in even a single year’s choral calendar (the Deme Dionysia, the Lenaea, the City Dionysia, the Thargelia, and the Panathenaea for certain), the idea that dramatic choral performances could not be supported in terms of teaching, talent, or manpower is likewise far-fetched. In fact, Lycurgus in the 330s was responsible for increasing the number of annual choral performances as part of what seems to have been a cogent program of re-invigorating a post-Chaeronea Athens, demonstrating the continuity of valued choral performance in general in Athens after

40 LeVen 2014 (focusing on the earlier part of the fourth century) and Ford 2011 on Aristotle’s ‘Hymn to Hermias’. 41 On choral identities see pp. 69 70 below. 42 See pp. 95 102 on additions made to the Iphigenia at Aulis in reperformance (cf. Kovacs 2003: 77 103) including an enlargement of the choral parts and the addition of a second chorus at lines 590 7.

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Introduction

the fifth century.43 The potential for high-quality choral lyric, too, is evidenced in the lyric compositions that have recently been re-appraised in modern scholarship, including one poem by Aristotle himself.44 This tension between the usual interpretation of Aristotle (and χοροῦ) and our other evidence has not been addressed in any substantial way and this book seeks to do just that. However, there is more to be done than simply providing an alternative narrative of dramatic choral development. As is currently being demonstrated in various recent studies of fragmentary material, looking beyond the canonical plays and/or authors allows us to gain a much richer understanding of how diverse the genres of tragedy, comedy, and satyr play really were in the Classical period.45 What is common to many of these studies is the way they note a ‘co-existence’ of different forms and techniques at any and every point in the Classical period.46 On the basis of currently available evidence, it is simply not possible to make firm general suggestions concerning how the dramatic chorus changed over the course of eighty years or so between 401 and the late 320s. Rather, the foregrounding (and validation) of the choral speech and song we do have will provide a means of enriching our understanding of dramatic choral practice more generally. The rambunctious character of the chorus in the Rhesus need not be an indication of a particular tendency in fourth-century dramatic technique, but another example of the kinds of things an audience might appreciate, or a poet might look to his chorus for when writing his plays. By looking at the fourth-century chorus, our knowledge of what the dramatic chorus is and does is challenged and enhanced. The relevance of this study to our understanding of fifth-century drama in particular can be stated a little more strongly. The traditional acceptance of choral decline in the fourth century begs an 43 Plut. Mor.842a. See Humphreys 2004: 77 110 for further details of Lycurgan measures at this time. 44 Ford 2011, LeVen 2014. 45 E.g. Harvey and Wilkins 2000, and more recently see Chronopoulos and Orth 2015 and Wright 2016. 46 Zimmerman 2015: 14 notes ‘die Koexistenz verschiedener komischer Spielfor men schon im 5 Jahrhundert, die man nach der communis opinio erst später ansetzte, sowie das Vorhandensein von Charakteristika, die man als auf eine frühere Phase beschränkt ansah, in späteren Phasen der Gattungsgeschichte.’ See also Henderson 2015: 146 58 on variety in fifth century comedy and Konstantakos 2015: 159 98 on the prudence of abandoning the term ‘Middle’ comedy.

Introduction

11

important question. If all that has been said, particularly recently, of the potential of the dramatic chorus to act as a mediating force, a powerful means of shaping myth and cultural identity, as a balance in a pivotal dyad between individual and collective, etc. is to be taken seriously, how is it the case that this defining element in Attic drama apparently faded to inconsequence so swiftly in the fourth century? How intrinsic is the choral contribution (according to how we read the dramas, at any rate) if this was the case? There is more at stake in an elucidation of the fourth-century dramatic chorus than just filling in a long-neglected chapter in the history of theatre; to confront the alleged swift decline of the dramatic chorus is to confront our own current models for evaluating Attic drama and its choruses. The recent studies of the development of theatre and the material circumstances of its industry have noted its professionalization and proliferation across the ancient Mediterranean.47 The question of how the chorus fits into these newly noted developments in theatre practice is a fascinating one and provides yet another spur for the writing of this book. How far did choral performers follow the actors and auletes in becoming professional and occupying the majority of their time with choral song and dance? In terms of the spread of drama throughout the ancient Mediterranean, how would choral performers be found and cast for these ‘touring’ productions? When and how did the choral performers learn their parts? The same kind of provocation occurs when thinking about the chorus within the growing habit of reviving past productions. Were the same performers used when multiple revivals occurred within a short space of time? Was the same choreography and music performed or was this a chance for a producer to put their own stamp on an ‘old’ drama? The pressure on practical arrangements that come with a ‘cast’ of eighteen or nineteen (larger in the case of comedy) as opposed to a group of three or four compels us to ask further questions about the profession of theatre and its personnel during this era. There is a tendency to focus on individuals when writing history. The anecdote of the actor, the antics of a wealthy and prominent choregos, the witticisms of an acclaimed aulete—all of these kinds of history are readily available to read about and interpret. It is in this 47 See nn. 2 and 6 above on internationalization and professionalization, respectively.

12

Introduction

tendency, too, that we might, perhaps, understand how easy it is for us to miss the massed choral performers that were the unique feature of Attic drama. It is for this reason that my focus in discussion will adhere with a dogged determination to the chorus itself and those in it, with the hope of highlighting the role of choral performers within our picture of the popularity, professionalization, and spread of Attic drama across the Hellenic world in the fourth century. * This book gathers in one place, for the first time, all relevant sources that speak to the presence and activity of the chorus in Attic drama in the fourth century. The relevant evidence is not at all straightforward to interpret (one further reason, perhaps, why such an assemblage has not been undertaken so far) but there is a considerable collection in need of careful contextualization and reading. Many scholars approach this evidence with the testimony of Aristotle, noted above, firmly in mind. It is hoped my fairly unapologetic stance of remaining open to continuity, rather than decline, will be understood not as wilful naïveté, but as a sound methodological challenge to the status quo. The case underpinning the narrative of decline of the dramatic chorus is cumulative, and the challenges made to various aspects of that narrative will, likewise, have their greatest force when taken together. Such is the diffuse nature of the evidence; much must remain provisional. We begin in Chapter 1 with an account of when and where the dramatic choruses of the fourth century danced, and as much as we can gather about the material circumstances of these choral performers. In Chapters 2, 3, and 4, we turn our attention to the major and minor examples of choral song and dance in fourth-century drama, including the choral text I argue was added for fourth-century revivals of fifth-century plays.48 Having considered the positive evidence for what the chorus said and did, and where and how frequently they said and did it, we can then turn in Chapter 5 to the more familiar passage of Aristotle and the habit of χοροῦ, pieces of evidence that have traditionally been read as indicating a decline in dramatic choral activity. In this chapter, I show how they might be re-read in light of the positive evidence already analysed in Chapters 1 to 4. 48 For my choice of the term ‘revival’ as opposed to ‘reperformance’ see p.17 n.7 below.

Introduction

13

In the final two chapters, we broaden the scope of discussion to include non-dramatic choruses. This is partly for practical reasons as the vast majority of references to choruses in fourth-century literature do not specify a particular genre of choral performance. Under the twin headings of ‘Chorus and Festival’ and ‘The Chorus and Society’ we can examine how the idea of the chorus was rendered (and manipulated) in the writing and thought of fourth-century authors and artists. In doing so we can identify something about the ancient reception of the chorus more generally (within which we might expect the dramatic chorus to form a dynamic part). We can also identify what associations we have been encouraged to make with all choruses, some of which are not appropriate to a specific discussion of the dramatic chorus. This double aim in the final two chapters will, it is hoped, contribute to the precision and clarity with which we view the chorus of drama and choral culture more generally.

1 The Material Circumstances In this first chapter we will survey what evidence there is (with particular but not exclusive focus on the immediate, contemporary evidence) for the historical activity of dramatic choruses in the fourth century. We already know a good deal about the institutional framework for choral performance and the activities of the choregoi, the wealthy individuals who undertook the financing of all competitive choruses in Athens, thanks to the superlative study of the institution of the choregia by Peter Wilson.1 When narrowing our focus to the activity of the choral performers themselves, as opposed to the wealthy and often high-profile men who funded them and, even more precisely, the performers in dramatic as opposed to circular choruses, the evidence becomes significantly more scattered and slight. Looking to both the circular and dramatic chorus for information on choral culture, as well as drawing on diverse geographical locations, has allowed meaningful and significant strides forward in our appreciation of choral performance in Attica and the ancient Mediterranean.2 The conflation of chorus and choregos, too, is something that is especially encouraged in fourth-century prose writers and can provide a powerful frame of reference in our conception of the idea of choral sponsorship and its political weight. But in going along too readily with such a conflation there is a danger of losing sight of the choral performers and the practicalities of performance that are just as important as the idealized image of choral ‘service’. In the wake of Wilson’s thorough exposition of the institution of choregia, we are

1

Wilson 2000 and especially pp. 50 103. E.g. Calame 1977, Nagy 1990, Henrichs 1994/5, Gould and Goldhill 1996: 217 56, Wilson 2000, and Kowalzig 2007. 2

The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE: Presence and Representation. Lucy C. M. M. Jackson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Lucy C. M. M. Jackson. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198844532.001.0001

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now in a stronger position to pare down the evidence and apply a greater specificity of focus when talking about dramatic choral culture. In doing so our understanding of the place of all kinds of choral performance in Athens and the wider Greek-speaking world can gain greater definition and clarity. First, I give an initial account of where and when dramatic performances took place in the fourth century, answering the question of when and how frequently dramatic choruses performed, and simultaneously highlighting the sheer volume of dramatic choral performances taking place every year during the fourth century. I then pose two further, general questions of ‘who’ and ‘how’ as a means of structuring a fairly diffuse set of literary, iconographic, and epigraphic testimonia. After this examination and a discussion of some ramifications, it will be possible to propose some conclusions about how we might construe this ‘historical’ presence of the fourth-century dramatic chorus, and why it matters for our understanding of ancient Greek drama more generally.

1.1. WHEN AND WHERE DID THE CHORUSES OF DRAMA DANCE? The further we move from Athens, the less confident we can be in precise numbers of dramatic productions. In line with this trend, I have opted to move outwards from Athens in setting out what we know of when and how frequently dramatic choruses performed.

1.1.1. City Festivals The City Dionysia took place in late March (in the middle of the Attic month Elaphebolion) and consisted of over six days of processions, sacrifices, feasts, and at least four days of drama. In the fourth century, this festival would continue to be the place where one could see the greatest number of dramatic choruses at any one time. Three separate groups of fifteen men3 would take on the various 3 Sansone (2016: 233 54) has raised a question mark over the traditional figure of fifteen for the chorus after Aeschylus. There is a practical likelihood that there was

The Material Circumstances

17

choral identities in the tragic tetralogies/trilogies and, very occasionally, pairs of plays.4 From at least as early as 340, the satyr play could be a stand-alone production, quite possibly presented first in the festival line up, which could also require a further chorus of fifteen performers.5 Five groups of twenty-four men would compete in the comic chorus competitions.6 In the year 386 a precedent was set for mounting revivals of an ‘old’ (palaion) tragedy as part of the festival programme, possibly adding a further set of fifteen performers to those in the festival’s choruses; and from 339 (or 311) the possible revival of an ‘old’ comedy, adding a further twenty-four.7 ‘Secondary’ choruses are well known from our extant and fragmentary fifth-century plays, and it is likely this continued to be a dramatic technique for fourthcentury playwrights too, adding the possibility for further choruses in performance.8 The Lenaea took place two months earlier in mid-Gamelion (late January). Far less is known about this festival, but we do know that the only formal contests were dramatic ones. The straitened circumstances of Athens during the Peloponnesian War in the last quarter of the fifth century seem to have necessitated fewer productions—only two pairs of tragedies and three comedies.9 Our evidence for the some flexibility in precisely how many choral performers took part in tragedy, especially when one takes into consideration the overlap of status between chorus man, coryphaeus, and actor, and evidence for such variation is clear in our sources. However, S.’s reading of IG I3 969 (2016: 244 5) is unconvincing. Even though actors and choral performers share some skills, equal or unmarked commemoration of the ‘acting corps’ (as opposed to actors and chorus) has no place in Attica’s epigraphic habit. His attempt to read the fifteen figures on the votive relief from Sphettos (Fig.6.3 Athens, Agora S 2098, Agelidis 2009 pl.10a, see Csapo 2010b: 86 8) as commemor ating a circular choral victory is, likewise, strained. The presence of πέντε και[. . . on IG I3 254.16 17 also strongly suggests that the number fifteen is explicitly given in this deme decree for the number of choral performers in tragedy. 4 5 IG II2 2320 Col. II.22 30 M O. IG II2 2320 Col. II.18 19, 32 3 M O. 6 Σ.Ar. Av.297 and Csapo and Wilson forthcoming on the Choregic Relief with Comic Stick Wielders, and Agelidis 2009 no. 94 pl. 9a d. 7 Tragedy: IG II2 2318.201 3 fr.d, M O: 16 17. See also Wilson 2000: 319 n. 83. Comedy: IG II2 2318.316 18 frr.g+h, M O: 21 4. On the alleged revival of competi tive comic performances at the Chutroi festival, see Plut. Mor.841f. I have chosen to use ‘revival’ to describe these performances as a more precise term than ‘reperfor mance’; ‘reperformance’, as recognized most recently in Hunter and Uhlig 2017, can exist in a multitude of media and occasions. Here I use ‘revival’ to denote new productions using the basic components (the ‘text’) of a play already performed. 8 See below pp. 99 100 on the secondary chorus that seems to have been added for a revival of Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis. 9 IG II2 2319 Col. III.5 8, 12 15 M O.

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fourth century, however, shows a higher number of ‘slots’ for plays at this festival—three pairs of tragedies and, by the third century, five comedies.10 At the two main dramatic festivals, then, there would have been a minimum of sixteen different choral groups (some performing in multiple identities), and by the 330s more like nineteen groups of choral performers performing every year.

1.1.2. Deme Dionysia The various so-called ‘Rural’ or Deme Dionysia took place throughout the month of Posideion (mid-December to mid-January). The spreading out of the festivals seems to have allowed those who were avid theatre-goers, like Plato’s philotheamones (‘theatre-lovers’), to ‘run to every Dionysia and not to miss one of the city festivals or those in the demes’.11 Plato’s Socrates may be happy to equate deme festivals and those in other cities, but we should note that the evidence for the deme Dionysia suggests that they had their own character and variety in terms of the programme of competitive performances. Our understanding of these smaller festivals (which, like the Lenaea, seem to have featured mostly dramatic contests)12 has fundamentally altered in the past few decades, following a renewed focus on inscriptions found in the demes and fresh archaeological excavations uncovering new stone theatres (often with earlier phases identifiable). Together with a reassessment of the literary testimonia regarding the theatre scene in the demes, a picture has emerged of a well-financed and growing industry of drama at these smaller Dionysia festivals, particularly active in the fourth century.13 Even if one adheres to the most conservative reading of the evidence, the number of dramas—both new plays and revivals of already-performed plays— regularly being performed in the demes is considerable and compels 10 Tragedy: in 364/3 there were three tragic pairs (SEG XXVI 203 [= Hesperia 40 (1971) 302 5, no.8], Col. II.7 16 M O). Comedy: Five comedies are part of the festival line up in the year 284 (IG II2 2319 Col I.3 M O). 11 οἵ τε γὰρ φιλοθεάμονες . . . ὥσπερ δὲ ἀπομεμισθωκότες τὰ ὦτα ἐπακοῦσαι πάντων χορῶν περιθέουσι τοῖς Διονυσίοις οὔτε τῶν κατὰ πόλεις οὔτε τῶν κατὰ κώμας ἀπολειπόμενοι. Pl. Resp.475d5 8. The inclusion of ‘cities’ indicates travel beyond Attica, too, as noted by Henrichs 1990: 272 n. 8 and Taplin 1999: 39. 12 For the few indications of circular choruses being produced at deme Dionysia see Wilson 2000: 305 7. 13 See Wilson 2010.

The Material Circumstances

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us to adjust our conception of how much drama (and dramatic choral performance) was available, when, and to whom. I leave for a little later any further discussion of the impact that the dramatic culture of the deme Dionysia must have had on choral competency (in audiences and performers). The deme Dionysia are considered below in order of proximity to the centre of Athens (and in fact the first deme Dionysia to consider would have taken place inside the city of Athens itself) moving outwards in a (roughly) clockwise spiral. The acrimonious relationship between the orator Demosthenes and actor-turned-politician Aeschines provides a rare literary reference to the performance of tragedy at the Dionysia of the deme of Kollytos, part of the Aigeian tribe and located within the city walls. Demosthenes in his speech On the Crown taunts Aeschines about his past performances, mentioning the role of Oenomaeus in which, according to Demosthenes, Aeschines had (allegedly) ‘chewed the scenery’ (κακῶς ἐπέτριψας), and specifying for the benefit of his audience where this performance had taken place: Kollytos.14 From what we know of Aeschines’ acting career, this performance (in what could quite possibly have been a protagonist’s role) would have taken place between 380 and 370. A more casual reference is made in Aeschines’ own Against Timarchus to the famous actor Parmenon performing in a comedy in Kollytos in 346.15 Both tragedy and comedy, then, are attested at this deme Dionysia by the mid fourth century (with the involvement of the chorus explicitly attested). It is noteworthy that the most likely location for this Dionysia was the theatre of Dionysus in Athens itself and, as such, could have attracted a similar demographic to the ‘City’ festivals. We know from Plato that a walk from Athens to its important port and the deme of Peiraieus was easily undertaken from the city.16 Here, the Dionysia seems to have been particularly well supported financially and is said by the second-century CE author Aelian to have been the venue for productions of Euripides.17 Although the source for this is late, there is corroborating evidence for drama at the Peiraieus Dionysia from a fragmentary relief (c.400) that features tragic choral performers holding masks in the company of a reclining Dionysus.18 The deme of Euonymon was about the same distance walk from the 14 16 18

15 Dem. 18.180. Cf. also 242. Aeschin. In Tim.157. 17 Pl. Resp.327A. Ael. VH 2.13.41 5. The so called ‘Piraeus Relief ’, Athens NM 1500 (Fig. 1.7 Csapo 2010a: 15).

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Acropolis but to the south. This deme seems to have been equipped for a Dionysia that attracted considerable numbers from as early as the fifth century. A theatre building, discovered in 1973, that could hold up to 3000 spectators, together with statues of Dionysus found on each parodos and a fragmentary inscription from the fourth century, together suggest the possibility of a Dionysiac contest in this deme.19 Further inland to the east, and close to an important pass through the Hymettan mountains, are two further possible locations for drama at a deme Dionysia.20 An inscription from the mid fourth century celebrating the victory of Demosthenes, son of Demaenetus, from Paiania ‘in the tragedies’ points to a Dionysia in this large deme.21 Nearby in Sphettos, a deme decree detailing provisions for the theatre in relation to a Dionysiac festival also suggests a possible venue in the area for dramatic performances. A dedicatory relief, found in the same deme, depicting a garlanded tragic chorus with crowns, also strongly implies that choruses competed (hence their celebratory headgear) at this festival.22 This detail (and indeed all inscriptions that commemorate victory specifically) indicate that competition would have been the likely context for dramatic performances in the demes, meaning a minimum of two choruses per genre produced at each festival. Towards the western coast, at a further distance but an easier walk downhill of around 18 km from the city, there are signs of three deme Dionysia featuring tragedy and comedy. In Aixone, a deme decree discovered in 1941 and dated either to 340/39 or to 313/2 details that crowns of gold worth 100 drachmas should be awarded to successful choregoi in the comic competitions in their deme.23 An inscription celebrating multiple victories, found near the deme of Halai Aixonides and dated to the early fourth century, attests both tragic and comic competitions won by local demesmen.24 Older than both

19

20 Lohmann 1993: 287 9. Takeuchi and Wilson 2014: 43. IG II2 3097. 22 SEG 36 187. Takeuchi and Wilson 2014: 40 69 note how the decree, only published in 1986, together with this relief, indicates they had a skene building, a full chorus of fifteen, and choregic funding. 23 SEG 36 186 (cf. IG II2 1202). 24 IG II2 3091, dated to the early fourth century but recording victories that must have taken place in the fifth century. Csapo 2010a: 92 highlights that only two tragedies were presented by Timotheus Alcmeon and (A)lphesibo[ia] and, since tragic pairs were not characteristic of the City Dionysia, this monument must, 21

The Material Circumstances

21

of these, however, was the Dionysia at Anagyrous. A remarkable, fifth-century monument found in this deme (modern Vari) gives not only the choregos and poet of the victorious tragic tetralogy, but also the names of fourteen demesmen, named as the tragoidoi. The fact that all the names of performers listed are without patronymic is a strong indication that all were from the deme where this monument was located (Anagyrous), and served as the chorus.25 To the north and west of Athens, Eleusis, an important location for the Dionysiac ceremonies associated with the first days of the City Dionysia, was host to its own deme Dionysia from the fifth century onwards. Here an inscription celebrating victories in comedy and tragedy gives us an indication not only of the types of dramatic performance that took place at this festival, but also its financing and quality.26 Further east, the large deme of Acharnai would have been well placed geographically and financially to hold its own Dionysia. An inscription, again celebrating victory, records pairs of Acharnians who have undertaken the choregia (it seems) for both tragic and, unusually for the deme Dionysia, circular choral competitions.27 The deme of Ikarion, to the north and east of Athens, could boast an illustrious reputation for tragic performance at its deme Dionysia, and not just for being the alleged birthplace of drama.28 A marvellously informative deme decree, ‘lost’ in Athens’ National Museum therefore, refer to victories won in the deme Halai Aixonides. However, tragic pairs did feature at the Lenaea (and indeed, the Telepheia of Sophocles here might refer to a pair of plays also with the same theme, rather than a trilogy or tetralogy). See also Luppe 1969: 148, Luppe 1973: 211 12, and Wilson 2000: 248 9. Note also the City Dionysia of 340 which seems to have featured pairs of tragic plays, rather than trilogies, see p. 17 n.4 above. 25 IG I3 969, a choregic dedication recently dated (see Millis 2015: 231 2) to roughly the last decade of the fifth century and featuring Euripides. Scholars now agree that it would be extremely unlikely that a City Dionysia/Lenaea dramatic chorus would be made up of men all from the same deme. 26 IG I3 970, dated to 425 06 and featuring both Aristophanes and Sophocles. The presence of two choregoi for the comic competition (synchoregia may well have existed in deme Dionysia, but not at either the Lenaea or City Dionysia) is a strong indicator this inscription refers to a deme Dionysia, see Csapo 2010a: 90 1. 27 IG II2 3092 + SEG 45.250. This inscription is particularly intriguing, since it was found not in the deme of Acharnai but near the Acropolis where urban victories were commemorated (see Wilson 2000: 306 7). As with the synchoregia apparent in the Eleusis victory inscription, the fact that pairs of Acharnians are taking on the choregia is a very strong indication that the productions were for the deme, rather than City, Dionysia. 28 According to the ‘Parian Marble’ FGrH 239.54 5.

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until 1999, dated to c.440 provides us with details of the festival financing and organization as well as giving a clear indication that fifteen choral performers should be selected for each tragedy.29 Further north on the eastern coast, we have some indication that a Dionysia took place in the deme of Rhamnous in the form of an inscription commemorating victory in the comedies30 and a deme decree dated to the fourth century declaring honours to be awarded during the tragedies at the Dionysia.31 Also on the coast but directly east of Athens, the deme of Halai Araphenides clearly held a Dionysia although the inscription does not specify what genre of chorus was funded at that particular festival.32 The general tendency in deme Dionysia to feature drama rather than circular choruses might encourage us to posit a venue for dramatic choral performance here. The same is true for two demes in the south-west of the Attic peninsula: in Myrrhinous a deme decree confirms that a Dionysia festival (for which we even have dates—17th and 18th of Posideon) took place from the fifth century onwards33 and nearby Aigilia also seems to have held its own Dionysia,34 yet for both of these there is not definite evidence beyond likelihood that drama featured. And yet, further still and on the far coast in the south, Thorikos is a deme that certainly held a deme Dionysia with both tragedies and comedies, from the fifth century onwards.35 Considering the certain and probable venues for drama (and therefore dramatic choruses) throughout Attica, we see just how important it is to foreground the deme Dionysia in any picture of the performance of Attic drama. Dedicated theatre-goers could feast their ears and eyes on a rich array of dramas and dramatic choruses at

29 IG I3 254. See Wilson 2015: 120, n.90 for the likely meaning of tragoidoi in the inscription as choral performers, rather than actors. Further definite evidence for drama in this deme: IG II2 1178, IG II2 3095, IG II2 3098 (all mid fourth century), and SEG 22.117 (c.330). 30 31 IG II2 3108 (4th?) and IG II2 3109 (early third century). SEG 48 129. 32 SEG 46 153. 33 IG II2 1183. See also Wilson 2011b: 79 89. The decree has in the past been assigned (almost certainly incorrectly) to the deme of Hagnous, see Takeuchi and Wilson 2014: 44 n. 20. 34 IG II2 3096, a victory monument featuring three choregoi, and therefore likely to refer to a deme Dionysia. No genre is specified of choral performance. 35 IG I3 258 bis with SEG 56, 200. For an earlier decree regarding choregia, probably also for drama, see SEG 34 107 with Wilson 2007e: 125 32 and 2013: 159 64. SEG 40 128 (deme decree) is further evidence for drama in this deme in the fourth century.

The Material Circumstances

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three distinct periods during the year. While a total of sixteen (perhaps eighteen or nineteen in some years) dramatic choruses would perform in the city of Athens at the City Dionysia and the Lenaea, almost double that number of choruses performed for Attic audiences during the month of Posideion, even if one maintains an extremely conservative estimate of dramatic activity.36 The access to and frequency of dramatic choral performances, as well as the number of performers that were engaged in these kinds of performance, is much, much greater than has been usually estimated.

1.1.3. Beyond Attica As we pull back from Attica to a wider view of the ancient Mediterranean, Black Sea, and Near East, the picture of where and when the choruses of drama danced becomes more impressionistic: dates for the evidence can often only be approximate, and details of what kind of dramatic performance, how frequently they occurred, and from what date, are not always forthcoming. The sheer ground to be covered, too, in such an investigation is immense. While it is well accepted now that Attic drama ‘travelled’ in the fifth century, the full extent of the spread of this genre of performance, and just how much was being performed and produced across the ancient Mediterranean, in the fourth century especially, is only just beginning to come into focus.37 The same is true regarding other genres of drama besides the (more familiar) Attic form. The evidence for the presence and performance of Attic drama outside of Attica is rich and diffuse: literary sources both contemporary and late; honorific, organizational, and financial decrees inscribed on stone; stone theatres and City Dionysia: three or four or five tragic/satyric choruses and five or six comic choruses (total between eight and eleven). Lenaea: three tragic and five comic choruses (total eight). Deme Dionysia: Kollytos two tragic; Peiraieus two tragic; Paiana two tragic; Aixone two comic; Halai Aixonides two tragic and two comic; Anagyrous two tragic; Eleusis two tragic and two comic; Archarnai two tragic; Ikarion two tragic; Rhamnous two tragic and two comic; and Thorikos two tragic and two comic (total thirty choruses, ten comic). In the light of these figures, and the temporal proximity of all these deme Dionysia, touring is likely (and suggested by both Plato and Demosthenes). 37 For discussions of Sicilian drama see Bosher 2006, for musico poetic competi tions in Boeotia see Manieri 2009, and for elsewhere across the Greek speaking world (e.g. Megarian drama), see Csapo and Wilson forthcoming. 36

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statuary; the extraordinarily detailed depictions informed by Attic drama on pottery (particularly, although not exclusively, the redfigure vases of Sicily and Southern Italy); commemorative stone reliefs, and small theatre-related figurines.38 Bringing together such a range of evidence has already demonstrated how paltry the estimations of Attic drama’s reach have been up until now. As regards the number of possible venues for dramatic choral performance, including the well-known locations for performance and revivals of plays in Macedonia and Sicily, we must reckon now with a bare minimum of seventeen known locations for Attic drama being performed outside of Attica by c.350, stretching from Gela in Sicily to Heraclea Pontica in the east, from Pella in Macedonia, to Cyrene on the coast of modern day Libya.39 By the end of the century we can also include places like the island of Leucas in the Ionian, the Cycladic islands of Andros and Tenos, Priene in Asia Minor, and Olbia on the north coast of the Black Sea. The number of venues for dramatic performance by 300 would have, at least, doubled.40 Where there are fully staged performances of drama, so too are there dramatic choruses.41 One need not rely solely on reasonable assumption for this statement. In an inscription relating to the performance of tragedy in Cyrene, specific instructions are given concerning the exarchoi of three tragic choruses.42 Across the water in Sicily, a remarkable lead tablet also gives information regarding the system for financing choruses (possibly tragic in this case) in a festival contest.43 In Tarentum on Italy’s southern coast we find a grave stele with a relief that features a tragic chorusman in female costume, strongly suggesting not just the occurrence of choral performance here, but

Csapo and Wilson 2015 is the first collection of the evidence. Ceos, Corinth, Cos, Cyrene, Gela, Heracleia Pontica, Lemnos, Marathon, Megara, Pella, Pherae, Rhodes, Samos, Sicyon, Syracuse, and Tarentum based on a very conservative reading of the evidence presented by Csapo and Wilson 2015. For the strong possibility of a theatrical tradition in Euboea stretching back to the fifth century, see Wilson 2000: 283 4. 40 ‘At present we see that the number of venues for dramatic performance doubles every half century from ca. 450’, Csapo and Wilson 2015: 381. 41 Nervegna 2007 (esp p. 41) has demonstrated how the practice of ‘excerpting’ did not arise in formal performance contexts until the mid third century. 42 SEG 43 1186. See Dobias Lalou 1993 and Ceccarelli Milanezi 2007. 43 Wilson 2007c. 38 39

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its value to the performers themselves.44 On the mainland of Greece, Megara’s comic choruses not only danced, but seem to have had a reputation for particularly luxurious costumes.45 Such details, precious in their rarity to be sure, strongly suggest a common choral presence in drama performed across the ancient Mediterranean, and beyond. Perhaps forty-five choruses for dramatic performances were formed on a yearly basis by the middle of the fourth century. Any attempt to enumerate exactly how many choral performers would be ‘required’ for all these plays would stretch the evidence too far, not least because of the likelihood a chorusman might perform in more than one play within a single year. It is nevertheless a significant contextual factor that the opportunities to see and to perform in a chorus of drama were plentiful and far more plentiful than has been previously acknowledged.

1.2. CHORAL PERFORMERS The question of who took part in the dramatic chorus is not easy to answer but can be approached from a number of different angles. The first of these is to gain a sense of who was responsible for recruiting or selecting the performers. As one kind of prominent, visible, putative if not actual, ‘leader’ of the chorus, the choregos, might be thought the most obvious candidate for such a task. Adjacent in time and genre to the focus of this book but nevertheless interesting is a fifth-century speech that provides some support for this. Antiphon’s On the Choreut is a defence speech, delivered c.419/18, for a man who has been charged with the murder of a boy. The speaker was, at the time, the choregos in charge of one of the boys’ choruses for the Thargelia festival. The boy was given some kind of medicinal drink whilst in training, a drink that seems, in fact, to have been poison. To absolve himself from the charge of negligence at least, the speaker must walk a fine rhetorical line: on the one hand he must give good reasons for being distracted (he was tied up with nuisance suits and charges from 44

Taranto 6166. Green 2012a, who dates the Tarentum relief to around 400, and a funerary hydria from Vari (Athens NM 4498), depicting a very similar kind of figure, to around 380 70. 45 Arist. Eth. Nic IV 2 1123 a19 24.

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the very prosecutors he now faces), and absent at the time of poisoning; on the other he must demonstrate that he was taking his choregic duties seriously, being personally involved (as much as possible) in preparing and looking after his chorus. Against this rhetorical backdrop, the speaker gives a relatively detailed account of how the performers for a boys’ circular chorus were recruited (11) and cared for, and in doing so gives the impression that it was, indeed, usual for the choregos to find and choose his young choral performers—‘Then I selected the chorus as best as I could . . . ’ (ἔπειτα τὸν χορὸν συνέλεξα ὡς ἐδυνάμην ἄριστα . . . ). If the choregos was, then, the person usually responsible for selecting and securing choral performers, the composition of those choruses might have been based primarily on personal connections, with performers selected from ‘a not dissimilar social and economic background’.46 This may be true for circular choruses, particularly boys’ choruses, where large numbers of performers from the same tribe as the choregos were needed. But for dramatic choruses, where the restrictions of tribe, age, and even civic status were of less or little importance, choregoi must have relied on those who had a broader sense of choral talent throughout Attica. For the deme Dionysia festivals, it is the chief magistrate, the demarch, who seems to have been responsible for selecting chorusmen for drama, or at least, for the first attempt at such a selection. In a mid-fifth-century inscription from the deme of Ikarion, we see the duties of the demarch alluded to in a fragmentary decree (IG I3 254). Peter Wilson’s close study of this hugely important document has rendered a plausible picture of the process, where the demarch (after settling the matter of who will undertake the choregia) took responsibility for identifying all those demesmen who would be eligible for choral service. They would be summoned and if choral service were impossible for whatever reason they would be able to swear to their inability to take on this duty. Wilson has suggested that the term προτοχόροι, which appears twice in this inscription, could refer to the first tranche of eligible demesmen secured by the demarch in this way for choral duty.47 The fact that the demarch in each deme would have also been responsible for registering every eighteen-year old into the deme lends credence to his being best placed to identify and summon all those in the deme that might take part.

46

Wilson 2000:75, cf. Rhodes 2003: 109.

47

Wilson 2015: 124 6.

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Whether in the demes, or in the city festivals, although in a position to select formally their choral performers, it is unlikely that either the choregos or the demarch would usually have the necessary familiarity with the choral performers with the requisite talent and ability to meet the demands of dramatic choral performance. Later sources often picture the poets themselves as working with and training their choruses48 and this may well have been the case for some fifth-century festivals. However, as we move from the fifth century into the fourth, the more general trend of specialization seems to have supported the emergence of the specialist trainer, referred to as the chorodidaskalos.49 A character in Aristophanes Assemblywomen (c.391) refers to Callimachus the chorodidaskalos;50 the fourth-century historian and orator (and Demosthenes’ nephew) Demochares in an anecdote about the orator Aeschines mentions ‘Sannion the chorodidaskalos’—the same Sannion who is referred to by Demosthenes as ὁ τοὺς τραγικοὺς χοροὺς διδάσκων (‘the teacher of tragic choruses’ 21.58).51 The role of chorodidaskalos would not exclude being also, for example, a poet. In a speech of Aeschines (c.346/5) we hear of one chorodidaskalos, Cleaenetus, buying a house from the comic poet Nausicrates,52 and it could be that this same Cleaenetus is the ὁ τραγικός referred to by the comic poet Alexis.53 This class of specialists also begin to be referred to as a group: Plato’s Athenian in the Laws refers in an off-hand manner to the kinds of language used and material taught by chorodidaskaloi,54 whilst Aristotle seamlessly incorporates the typical activity of the chorodidaskalos into a metaphor about judging and ensuring proportion.55 This designation was to take on more specific meaning once the Artists of Dionysus began to form their guilds from around the 330s onwards, but even in the later Hellenistic inscriptions, the chorodidaskaloi of dramatic choruses specifically (as opposed to the kykliodidaskaloi for circular choruses) continue to play an important role in theatre culture.56

48

Ath. 21d 22a of Aeschylus inventing dance steps and teaching them directly to his chorus cf. Chamaeleon fr.41 (Wehrli). 49 50 Only Sannion (2212) is listed by Stephanis 1988. Ar. Eccl.809. 51 52 Demochares FGrH 75 F 6a. Aeschin. In Tim. 98.8. 53 54 55 TrGF I 84 T1. Pl. Leg.655a8, 812e11. Arist. Pol.1284b11. 56 The Artists of Dionysus are first referred to in our extant sources by Arist. Rh.1405a23. See Slater 2010: 252 n. 14 on terminology.

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Although there is no explicit mention of these chorodidaskaloi taking on the task of selecting choral performers, the fact that they could be particularly knowledgeable of the range of performers available makes them well-placed experts whom choregoi, demarchs, poets or auletes might consult or even employ for the purpose. The shrewd use of experts is, in fact, included in Xenophon’s imagined exchange between Socrates and Nicomachides in the Memorabilia, where they discuss the suitability of a recently elected general, Antisthenes. Socrates recognizes that even though Antisthenes may know nothing about the training of choruses, he knows enough to find those who are highly skilled in that field, thus proving himself an excellent choregos—‘though Antisthenes has no experience of singing or of training choruses (χορῶν διδασκαλίας), he was able to find those who do excel in these things’.57 The presence of a specialism in choral training, together with the practical requirements of casting highlyskilled performers, potentially from across Attica, make for a suggestive combination. A different passage from Xenophon’s Memorabilia may also allude to recognized ‘centres’ for choral training—‘No one attempts to direct cithara-players or choral performers or dancers if they don’t know anything about it . . . No, all leaders in their field are able to say where they learned their craft (ὁπόθεν ἔμαθον ταῦτα ἐφ’ οἷς ἐφεστᾶσι)’.58 Athens would be one such centre for choral excellence, but the suggestion that there may be others is both intriguing and also not unlikely. There is one clear example where neither choregos nor demarch can have been responsible for selecting a dramatic chorus. In 386 an ‘old’ drama was produced at the City Dionysia for the first time and the individuals responsible for funding that performance are identified in the inscription recording the performance as tragoidoi.59 We cannot know for certain how these actor/producers went about selecting the choral performers for the revival, but it is tempting to imagine that by 386 there were already networks of choral experts who knew about and liked working with certain specialist dramatic choral performers. The fact that an aulete, Telephanes, was able to step into the role of chorodidaskalos for Demosthenes when his original chorus trainer was ‘corrupted’ by an enemy (Dem. 21. 17), 57

58 Xen. Mem. 3.4.4. Xen. Mem. 3.5.21. IG II2 2318.201 3. Hanink (2015: 285) suggests ‘either tragic actors or theater industry personnel more generally’. 59

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suggests that auletes would also be knowledgeable in choral matters and perhaps a further resource in searching for and casting dramatic chorusmen.60 A second avenue for thinking about how the chorus was selected is to examine what we know of the identity of the choral performers themselves. It is frequently stated that to be a member of the dramatic chorus, one had to be an Athenian citizen; indeed the citizen status of choral performers in drama has acted as a key tenet for reading the dramatic chorus more generally.61 The evidence for this assertion is not inconsiderable but is in need of some qualification.62 In Against Meidias (composed c.347/6), Demosthenes notes how the Athenians wished that no foreigner (xenos) take part in the contest—βουλόμενοι [sc. the Athenians] μηδέν’ ἀγωνίζεσθαι ξένον’ (21.56). In Ps.-Andocides’ Against Alcibiades (early 4th century), we find a similar citation of an apparent law (nomos) concerning chorusmen that anyone who wishes to might ‘lead out’ a foreigner who is taking part in the competition—κελεύοντος δὲ τοῦ νόμου τῶν χορευτῶν ἐξάγειν ὃν ἄν τις βούληται ξένον ἀγωνιζόμενον ([Andoc] Against Alcibiades 20). Sensational and exaggerated (as well as written nearly five hundred years after the fourth century), but arresting nevertheless is the story reported in Plutarch of the Athenian statesman Demades, so eager to vaunt his wealth that he presented a hundred foreign chorusmen in defiance of the law (again, nomos) and simultaneously had the fine of 1000 drachmas for each brought in after them.63 A law of some kind seems almost certain. However, we should note that all the above references to such a law pertain to circular choruses at the City Dionysia: Demosthenes was acting as choregos for a boys’ chorus, as was Alcibiades. The fact that Demades is presenting one hundred choral performers would also strongly suggest two circular choruses. Only two facts might link this law to any dramatic chorus, one weak, one strong. The first is the general inclusiveness of the wording—ἀγωνίζεσθαι—‘to compete in a contest’, ‘ὁ νόμος τῶν 60

Wilson 2002: 59 61. This goes back to Vernant and Videl Naquet (see 1988: 24 5) and has been restated in Gagné and Hopman 2013: 26 ‘The chorus is not only a group of performers, but also, crucially, a group of Athenian citizens.’ 62 MacDowell 1989: 72 7. 63 νόμου γὰρ ὄντος Ἀθήνησι τότε μὴ χορεύειν ξένον ἢ χιλίας ἀποτίνειν τὸν χορηγόν, ἅπαντας εἰσαγαγὼν ξένους τοὺς χορεύοντας ἑκατὸν ὄντας ἅμα καὶ τὴν ζημίαν ἀνὰ χιλίας ὑπὲρ ἑκάστου εἰσήνεγκεν εἰς τὸ θέατρον. Plut. Phoc. 30.3. 61

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χορευτῶν’ the law concerning chorusmen or ‘ὁ νόμος μὴ χορεύειν’—the law not to dance in a chorus. Dramatic choruses could, in theory, be included in these, particularly at the City Dionysia. Some might find it unlikely that a rule might be made for one kind of competition (the circular) and not the other (the dramatic), but this would be to downplay the important differences between circular and dramatic choruses, differences that will be discussed further below. The second fact that links this law specifically to dramatic choruses is that Sannion, who is specifically said to be the trainer of the tragic choruses— (ὁ τοὺς τραγικοὺς χοροὺς διδάσκων, Dem. 21.58–9)—is threatened with removal, it is suggested, under this law. Whether the law pertained to all chorusmen or no, a law may have been introduced in response to the professionalization of drama across the ancient Mediterranean. The availability of over a hundred specialists in circular choral performance, at least, is suggested by Plutarch’s anecdote about Demades. If such numbers of specialists were available earlier in the century, too, competitive choregoi and their poets could well have been tempted to employ these ‘ringers’ to ensure their own victory.64 This is especially likely when extraordinary cash prizes were on offer, as was the case for the circular choruses at the Peiraieus Dionysia (Plut. Mor.842a). However, the intent and efficacy is somewhat complicated by the seemingly frequent transgressions of this law. In Demosthenes’ account of the law and the two example situations he provides, it is very clear that the process of apagoge, of leading a ‘foreign’ choral performer out of the theatre during a performance, would only be taken on by a rival choregos. It would seem that the law for the ‘civic purity’ of the chorus was a de facto method of disruption to be used by choregoi against each other.65 And, as Wilson has noted, such an apagoge would be a para-dramatic act—‘a contestation of civic identity and personal power before a massed theatrical audience’ (2000: 81). It is likely that the law spoke more strongly to the ideology of the festival rather than any practicalities of maintaining the ‘civic purity’ of the choruses.66 While it makes sense that participation in circular choruses would be limited to those of citizen status (the basis for the organization of 64

This is suggested by Wilson 2000: 340 n. 131. Notes by MacDowell 1989: 74 5. 66 Wilson acknowledges this ‘tension between legislative injunction and actual practice’ 2000: 81. 65

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these larger circular choruses was, after all, Attica’s ten tribes)—at Athens, at any rate—for drama and its choruses the requirement for citizenship could well have been less intrinsic for the selection process. The exception to this would be the comic choruses of the last thirty years of the fourth century. The Aristotelian Athenian Constitution notes that in former times the eponymous archon would secure five choregoi for the comic choruses, but that now the tribes supply them (νῦν δὲ τούτους αἱ φυλαὶ φέρουσιν Ath. Pol.56.3). With the tribal organization of these comic choruses it is more likely that the civic identity of these chorusmen was brought into line with that of the (still-tribal) circular choruses.67 The City Dionysia aside, the deme inscription from Ikarion discussed above seems to indicate that demesmen, and therefore citizens, would be the demarch’s first choice for their dramatic choruses (in the fifth century, at least). But there are also indications that selecting and securing choral performers from among the demesmen was only part of the process of recruitment for these dramatic performances. First, the decree seems to state that choregoi could be selected both from the demesmen and those living in Ikarion.68 The formulation ‘those living in . . . ’ (οἱ οἰκοῦντες) can refer both to Athenian citizens resident in demes other than their own, but also to metics.69 The inclusion of those who were not demesmen proper at the level of the choregia indicates that other non-demesmen could potentially participate in other ways, including dancing in the chorus. Second, as Wilson himself notes, the demesmen available for choral service would be placed under a significant, perhaps unreasonable, annual pressure to participate in the deme Dionysia if demesman status was required.70 Such a pressure, one that was considerably increased in the fourth century as the number of dramatic performances increased, would be unnecessary if there were others who were residents and available for this kind of training and performance. We do have evidence that a dramatic chorus of men drawn all from the same deme was possible. A stone base for a choregic monument, See Hanink 2014a: 159 90 on Athens’ ‘heightened attention to its theatrical past during this period [sc.330s]’ and its ‘delicate relationship with its comic past (and the era of liberal free speech that it represented)’ (2014a:9). 68 IG I3 254.3 [․․5․․]ι τ͂ον δεμοτ͂ον καὶ τ͂ον Ἰκα[ριοῖ οἰκόντ] j [ον . . . ]. 69 Whitehead 1986: 76 7. Blok 2010: 86 says ‘probably metics’. 70 Wilson 2015: 121. Cf. the Anagyrous monument (IG I3 969) where all the tragoidoi do seem to have been of that deme. 67

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found near the Attic deme of Anagyrous, lists the names of fourteen tragoidoi, all without a patronymic or deme association, suggesting that they were all of the same deme, that is, Anagyrous. We have no way of knowing how representative, or extraordinary, such a constitution for a dramatic chorus is. The wisest course seems to be to remain open to both, and entertain the notion that demesmen would have had first refusal, but the members of the dramatic choruses, in the end, could be drawn from those from other demes, or perhaps even non-citizen metics. One reason to push a little harder on the accepted dogma that chorusmen of drama had to have citizen status is the fact we know of at least two important festivals that were positively inclusive of noncitizens in the financing of choruses, and so perhaps also, the supplying of performers for the dramatic choruses.71 While the aim of the City Dionysia throughout the fifth and fourth centuries remained one of projecting a strong idea of Athenian identity, the Lenaea seems to have been a little more relaxed. This is famously gestured to in Aristophanes’ Acharnians when Dicaeopolis addresses the audience: ‘we’re by ourselves, and it’s the Lenaean contest, and there are no foreigners here yet . . . ’ (Ar.Ach.504–5). But the (alleged) absence of foreigners need not mean that audience, actors, or poets regarded their Lenaean context as homogeneous. Incidental though it may be, in Plato’s Symposium, Socrates airily refers to an audience of Greeks, rather than Athenians, for Agathon’s triumphant first victory at the Lenaea of 416(175e). And while the sailing conditions would not allow for many overseas visitors, there were plenty of non-citizens resident in and around Athens, and active in the Lenaea’s performances. As Dicaeopolis in that same speech in Acharnians goes on to say—‘This time we are alone, ready-hulled; for I reckon the metics as the civic bran’ (507–8). Metics, then, were a recognized and beneficial group at the festival.72 Beyond their mere presence, a scholion indicates that, contrasting with the practice at the City Dionysia, the choregoi for the Lenaea could be metics: “it was not permitted for a foreigner to dance in the city choruses . . . but it was in the Lenaea, since even resident foreigners (metics) acted as choregoi’ (Σ.Ar.Plut.954). The scholiast’s assertion is backed up by an inscription on a herm base, found close to the 71 72

On non citizens in the theatre more generally, see Roselli 2011: 118 57. Wijma 2014: 66 75.

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Archon Basileus’ stoa in Athens. Sosicrates is honoured as the choregos for comedy during Onesippos’ year as Archon Basileus. In place of a patronymic, he has his occupation: ‘bronze-merchant’.73 Noting the casual way in which the scholiast links the foreigner dancing in the chorus and the foreigner acting as choregos, Wilson identifies this as ‘an example of the recurrent close association, in practical and ideological terms, between khoros and khoregos’.74 It is significant, at any rate, that no example of a citizen choregos for a Lenaean festival exists in our current evidence, but many other metic choregoi do. The fact that non-Athenians could be involved at all levels of production also means that choruses at this festival may have not only been born elsewhere, but could have been trained there before travelling to Athens for their performance. This seems to have been the case for the tragedy The Ransom of Hector, written by Dionysius the tyrant of Syracuse, which won first prize at the Lenaea of 367. In a (no doubt) embroidered account of his death, Diodorus Siculus the historian (15.73–4) writes of how one of Dionysius’ chorusmen sped back from Athens in order to deliver the news of his victory before anyone else. It is conceivable that this chorusman could be an Attic resident, eager for a tyrant’s rewards, but it is perhaps slightly more likely that this was a Sicilian choral performer who knows the temperament of his ruler and is returning speedily home in order to give the news. The account must, of course, be treated carefully, but the implication of a chorus of non-Athenians, trained elsewhere, performing at one of Athens’ city festivals, is an intriguing, if unusual, possibility.75 The atypical deme Dionysia at Peiraieus is another example of a dramatic festival where metic involvement was not only allowed, but relied upon, to the extent that it has been dubbed by some as a ‘metic Dionysia’.76 This festival does seem to be exceptional in that the organization was shared by the deme and by the Athenian central government.77 As such, it ‘represents an interesting midpoint between urban and strictly deme-based practice’.78 Our evidence 73

Onesippos’ herm. Athens, Inscr.Agora I 7168 = SEG 32 239. 75 Wilson 2000: 29. Dearden 1999: 233. 76 Csapo and Wilson 2015: 327. 77 Arist. [Ath. Pol.] 54.7 8 reports that the demarch responsible for the Dionysia and, specifically, for appointing the choregoi for that festival was chosen by ten officials. 78 Wilson 2000: 267. 74

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suggests this was a particularly opulent festival, even more so after some apparent changes made to the programme by Lycurgus (a further instance of central organization impinging on a ‘deme’ festival) some time during the 330s, when the port thrived on postChaeronea trade.79 It is interesting to note that a number of demes inside or close to the city walls that had high metic populations, not just Peiraieus but also Kollytos and Eleusis, had their own deme Dionysia.80 There is a distinct possibility that metics could be involved, including in the dramatic choruses, in these Dionysia too. For the theatre-goer based inside or near Athens, then, there were as many dramatic choruses that could feature citizen and non-citizen performers as the nominally ‘pure’ choruses of the City Dionysia. So far, we have approached the question of who was selected to be a member of the dramatic chorus by identifying who you would have to be known to (choregos, demarch, or chorodidaskaloi), and what your civic status could be. A third approach is to think about who would be available to take part in the dramatic choruses and, in particular, would be available for the significant period of time required to train and rehearse for a production. Precisely when training began for the chorusmen of drama would have depended on the timing of different dramatic festivals, which did, after all, stretch from mid-December with the earliest deme Dionysia, to late March and the City Dionysia. I leave discussion of the specifics for each festival for the moment, but there is something significant to note in the way the different choral festivals, both dramatic and non-dramatic, are spread out across the Attic calendar. While the circular choral contests at the City Dionysia, Thargelia, and the Little/Large Panathenaea (in total featuring c.2500 choral performers), took place after a sustained period of time where agricultural labour was relatively light, the festivals that featured dramatic choruses all took place much earlier in the year, directly following the most intensive of Attica’s two harvests. From mid-Pyanopsion until the beginning of Posideion (late October to late December), vines and fruit trees would have to be trenched, manured, and pruned, new 79 Ps Plutarch reports that the politician decreed that three circular choruses be added to the performances, and that (unusually for circular choral contests) a monetary prize be established for all competing choruses Plut. Mor.842a, with Csapo and Wilson 2014: 422. See Rothwell 1992: 212 for the wealth of Peiraieus in the 330s. 80 Whitehead 1986: 83 4.

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trees planted, cereals and legumes sown, and every other year there would be a major harvest of one of Attica’s most valuable products, the olive. These would have to be picked and pressed, and the olive trees also periodically trenched, manured, and pruned.81 This labour was all-consuming, as is clear from the minimal number of meetings attested for the ekklesia and boule in Maimakterion.82 There is only one known Attic festival that took place in this month; residents clearly had other matters to attend to. The agricultural labour of the winter harvest will have affected some more than others, but it is clear that the requirements of this month placed a significant pressure on all who lived in the region, young, old, citizen or metic. What does this mean for how we construe who was available for rehearsal for the dramatic choruses as opposed to the circular choruses? The relatively clear period before the three festivals where circular choruses dominated would allow for greater numbers to be available—and far greater numbers of performers would take part in these, it is true. The Panathenaea festival marked the end of Attica’s summer harvest and so rehearsal for this choral festival must have been conducted much earlier and then choral performances ‘refreshed’ just prior to the festival itself, if there were performers who were involved in the harvest. It would also mean that greater restrictions, such as civic status, could be reasonably maintained in selecting those choral performers. For dramatic choruses, the number of performers required in a single ‘season’ of performances is obviously far smaller, but it is still not an inconsiderable number, even keeping to conservative estimates. The pressure placed on the population during the prime time of dramatic choral rehearsal is a valuable and as yet unrecognized factor in thinking about what kind of performer was available to perform in Attica’s dramatic choruses. The majority of dramatic choral performers must have been free from the requirements of agricultural labour and its management.83

81

Foxhall 1995, and Foxhall 2007: 78 80 on the olive harvest in particular. Mikalson has noted that this ‘is certainly not an accident of preservation, because Maimakterion is the only month not designated for sacrifices on the sacred calendar of the deme Erkhia’, Mikalson 1975: 86. 83 The requirements of military service would have had a negligible impact on choral performances, and we never hear of manpower being strained in order to cater for the region’s choruses. There seems to have been a process for gaining exemption from military service if participating in choral performances, certainly in the city, perhaps also in the demes, see MacDowell 1989: 72 3. 82

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This conclusion would seem to correspond with the suggestion that dramatic choral performers were predominantly drawn from elite families.84 It is this section of the Athenian adult male population that would have had the leisure and relevant supplementary education in music, poetry, and gymnastics to be desirable candidates for competitive performance. As well as having the leisure and education for dramatic choral performance, elite residents of Attica would have had the opportunities for gaining choral experience in the highprofile circular contests of the City Dionysia, Thargelia, and Little/ Large Panathenaea, from a young age. We know that young choral performers could take part in multiple choruses over the years, or even during the course of a single year85 and such repeat performances must have instilled confidence in these performers.86 If we believe that circular choral performance in Attica a) was dominated by citizen elites and b) provided an essential basic and intermediate training for anyone who wished to take part in a dramatic chorus, then the elite status of dramatic chorusmen would seem to be assured. However, such a logic fails to include the evident involvement of noncitizens (whether elite or no) in Attica’s choruses, both circular and dramatic. Those who had not had access to the circular choral training of the tribal contests must still have had access to or the ability to gain the skills required for choral performance. The assumption that circular choral training was a sine qua non for all choral performers is not necessarily a reasonable one. It also seems likely that choral performers were given some kind of payment during their training. In the fifth century this practice prompted some disapproval from one of our most conservative authors, the so-called ‘Old Oligarch’. This author bemoans the fact that the people deem it right that they be paid for participating in the city’s choruses and the city’s triremes, ‘so that they become wealthy and the wealthy poorer’.87 The author makes a swift comparison to

84 Wilson 2000: 128 30. Pritchard 2003 argues for elite participation in the circular choruses. Cf. Ar. Ran.727 33. Cf. also Revermann 2006b: 109 11. 85 Dem. 39.23. 86 Wilson (2000: 77) also notes that experience in the melic rich symposia would give some individuals further helpful experience. 87 ἐν ταῖς χορηγίαις αὖ καὶ γυμνασιαρχίαις καὶ τριηραρχίαις γιγνώσκουσιν ὅτι χορηγοῦσι μὲν οἱ πλούσιοι, χορηγεῖται δὲ ὁ δῆμος . . . ἀξιοῖ γοῦν ἀργύριον λαμβάνειν ὁ δῆμος καὶ ἄιδων καὶ τρέχων καὶ ὀρχούμενος καὶ πλέων ἐν ταῖς ναυσίν, ἵνα αὐτός τε ἔχηι καὶ οἱ πλούσιοι πενέστεροι γίγωνται. Xen. [Ath. Pol.] 1.13. Pritchard 2004: 215 seeks to

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the payment of jurors, even though there is a fundamental difference between the two: jurors were paid for their participation by the state; choruses were paid by the choregos. The introduction of pay also is hinted at by Aristotle in the Poetics, where he notes that before the archon instituted a choregia (χορὸν ἔδωκεν) for comedy, and hence a means for paying for all aspects of the chorus’ training and costume, the chorus was made up of volunteers (ἐθελονταί).88 If a choral performer was indeed paid during training, then there would have been the opportunity for those skilled in dramatic choral performance to make a living, or half a living, performing in multiple dramatic choruses throughout a ‘season’ of festivals which, as we have already seen, extended from the middle of December to late March. The same performers could, Aristotle indicates, be cast in either tragedy (and, presumably satyr play) or comedy, a fact that increases the likelihood of specialist performers taking part in multiple productions in a single year.89 With specialization and professionalization in the theatre industry more generally came suspicion and opprobrium.90 It is not insignificant, then, that we find choral performers also being spoken of in similarly negative tones in the fourth century. At the very end of Demosthenes’ speech Against Meidias (the subject of a more substantial discussion in Chapter 6), the orator reels off a list of undesirable persons, under the guise of anticipating any attempt on his opponent’s part to denigrate the people who have gathered to charge Meidias. Now, I expect he [Meidias] will not hesitate to accuse the demos and the Assembly, but will even now make the same accusations he dared to utter when the probole took place: namely, that the men at that Assem bly were those who malingered when they should have marched out and were deserters of the forts, and that those who passed the vote of

dismiss the testimony of the ‘Old Oligarch’, but does so by explaining away the ἀργύριον as meaning the costs of maintenance, citing Antiphon’s speech On the Choreut. This fails to distinguish between maintenance of boys, who we might reasonably not expect to be in charge of their own finances, and adult performers. Cf. Wilson 2000: 126 8 who also notes an alleged comment from Pratinas (early 5th century) that describes auletes and chorusmen as receiving pay (μισθοφόροι), Ath. 14.617b c. 88 καὶ γὰρ χορὸν κωμωιδῶν ὀψέ ποτε ὁ ἄρχων ἔδωκεν, ἀλλ’ ἐθελονταὶ ἦσαν. Arist. Poet.1449b2. The ‘willing’ can only refer to members of the chorus. It cannot refer to the choregoi as they were already, and remained, nominally, ‘volunteers’. 89 90 Arist. Pol.1276b4. LeVen 2014: 83 6.

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condemnation against him were chorusmen (χορευταὶ), foreigners, and men of that ilk.91 Against Meidias (21) 193 4

The implication, whether Meidias really said it or would have said it or not, is that being known as a choral performer was the same as being known for similarly uncivic behaviour.92 Even if it is an insult that is cunningly attributed to Demosthenes’ enemy, the possibility for chorusmen to be talked about in the same breath as deserters and foreigners must have had some traction in Athens.93 Towards the end of the century, Theophrastus was to relate a quip made at the expense of Cleonymus ‘the chorusman and flatterer’ (χορευτὴς ἅμα καὶ κόλαξ); ‘You shall not dance here, nor listen to us’ (οὐ χορεύσεις ἐνθάδε οὐδ’ ἁμῶν ἀκούσει) said one Myrtis, the individual whom Cleonymus had attempted to sit next to, as he dragged the performer from a council meeting in front of many people (fr. 83). Without context we cannot know if such treatment of Cleonymus was warranted or not, but the passing description of him as a ‘chorusman’ not only further strengthens the idea that a specialist performer was a well-recognized phenomenon by the end of the century, but that choral performers suffered from the same kind of taunts launched at actors and auletes.

1.3. TRAINING AND PREPARATION As well as being the most high-profile competitive choral festival, the City Dionysia would have been the most demanding, particularly for tragic choruses. These three groups of fifteen men would perform for around five hours, during which they would, unlike the actors, be constantly on stage from their parodos until the final exodus. They would have taken on three (or four, while the satyr play continued to be part of the tragic tetralogy) different identities. The considerable 91 Οἶμαι τοίνυν αὐτὸν οὐδὲ τοῦ δήμου κατηγορεῖν ὀκνήσειν οὐδὲ τῆς ἐκκλησίας, ἀλλ’ ἅπερ τότ’ ἐτόλμα λέγειν ὅτ’ ἦν ἡ προβολή, ταῦτα καὶ νῦν ἐρεῖν, ὡς ὅσοι δέον ἐξιέναι κατέμενον καὶ ὅσοι τὰ φρούρι’ ἦσαν ἔρημα λελοιπότες, ἐξεκλησίασαν, καὶ χορευταὶ καὶ ξένοι καὶ τοιοῦτοί τινες ἦσαν οἳ κατεχειροτόνησαν αὐτοῦ. 92 On the possible laws that allowed choral performers exemption from military service, see MacDowell 1989: 65 77. For a qualification of the force of the law see Christ 2004: 33 43. 93 See MacDowell 1990: 403 4 nn.193 204 and Wilson (2000: 340 n. 125).

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time and effort it would take for even specialist performers to learn their songs and movement, and rehearse as a group, seems to have been recognized by the city’s officials. After a formal proclamation regarding property holdings, the very first duty of the eponymous archon would be to appoint three choregoi for tragedy and five for comedy for the City Dionysia.94 While it would be possible for poets and chorodidaskaloi to already have at least a partial choral cast in mind when writing a set of plays, the securing of their choregos—and that process could be delayed until early autumn95—would be the first opportunity for securing performers and a rehearsal space or spaces. If any chorusmen were required to help with the winter harvest, rehearsal may not have begun until early January. The months of Gamelion and Anthesterion (roughly mid-January to early March) would, then, have been filled with intensive training. For the Lenaea, the Archon Basileus was responsible for the organization of the festival (Arist. [Ath. Pol.] 57.1), the formal competition of drama and, it is assumed, the appointment of the choregoi. We cannot be certain, but it seems reasonable to suggest this Archon would also have begun his selection of choregoi early in his tenure of office, as was the case for his fellow Archon in charge of the City Dionysia.96 If this was the case, then the period of time for rehearsal would have been significantly less than for the City Dionysia, but also placed under greater pressure by the necessary distraction of the winter harvest only two months before the Lenaea festival itself. The tragic choruses, at least, would have only had to rehearse for half as much stage time at the Lenaea (in the fourth century it seems three pairs of tragedies were staged, rather than three tragedies and a satyr play), but the same amount of material would need to be rehearsed for the comic choruses. Again, if any choral performers were required to participate in the harvest, it is possible that rehearsal period could have been split into two, with initial rehearsals taking place (choregoi permitting) in the late summer, and an intensive second rehearsal period in the last weeks of Posideion and the first two of Gamelion. However, if these choral performers were predominantly non land-owning metics or land-owning but leisured rich citizens the pressures of the harvest are less likely to have been a problem. 94 96

Cf. Arist. [Ath. Pol.] 56.3. See Wilson 2000: 27 31.

95

Wilson 2000: 57 8.

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The organization of the deme Dionysia would usually fall to the demes themselves, and the demarch there would appoint choregoi, with the exception of the Peiraieus Dionysia.97 Our only evidence for when preparations for the festival might have begun comes from an inscription to be dated after 340 from the deme of Myrrhinous that states, amid other prescriptions regarding the spending of public money, that ‘on the nineteenth of the month of Posideion they are to conduct business concerning the Dionysia’ (τῃ δὲ ἐνάτει ἐπὶ δέκα τοῦ Ποσιδεῶ ν[ος] μην[ὸς χρηματίζ]- [ε]ιν πε[ρὶ Διο]νυσίων).98 This is likely to have provided a forum for discussing events of the Dionysia just celebrated but it is conceivable, perhaps, that initial arrangements for choregoi might be raised here, giving the deme a full year to organize the festival and the choregoi, poets, and chorodidaskaloi the chance to plan choral selection and training well in advance of the busy month preceding Posideion.99 Whatever the civic status or level of specialist knowledge of these chorusmen, our evidence suggests that, whenever rehearsals did begin, they were physically demanding.100 Cleinias in Plato’s Laws expresses surprise that men over thirty or forty might regularly dance in choruses for Dionysus although such ‘elders’ feel longing for a time when they were able to.101 The depictions of dramatic choruses in action certainly suggest energetic movement in performance. Fragments from the base of a choregic monument found in Athens (dated by style to c.350–40) show a comic chorus with their legs cocked high (as if in the first stage of performing the can-can, but side-on) perhaps engaged in their entrance to or exit from the stage (Fig. 1.1.).102 97

98 Arist. [Ath. Pol.] 54.8. IG II2 1183.36 7. Wilson 2011b: 83 interprets this meeting as analogous to that conducted after the City Dionysia. In light of other evidence for the different methods of organization in deme Dionysia, I remain cautious about relying too heavily on conclusions based on corresponding practice in the organization of City and Deme Dionysia. 100 Xen. Hier.9.11. 101 Pl. Leg.665b2 6. For the elders’ continuing enjoyment and nostalgia for taking part in choruses, see 657d1 6. 102 Athens, Agora S1025 + S1586; SEG 28 213, MMC AS 3, Agelidis 2009 no. 94, pl.9a d. See Fig 6.2 (p. 197) below for suggested reconstruction of this rectangular base. Cf. also the ‘Benaki’ Chous (c. 380 60) Athens, Benaki Museum 30895 with Csapo 2010b, 98 9 fig. 11.7, and a fragment of a choregic marble pinax, Fig. 6.3 (p. 198) below, Athens, Agora S 2098, MMC AS 4, which depict a similar movement but the legs are not raised quite as high as this (virtuoso?) chorus. See also the cocked leg plus arm movement of ‘Nikoleos’ the choral performer on the Pronomos vase (Naples NM 81673). 99

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(b)

(c)

Fig. 1.1. Fragments of a base of a choregic monument, from two sides, Athens Agora Museum S 1025 + S 1586 + S 2586. Reproduced by kind permission of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

The chorusmen depicted on an Apulian bell-krater (attributed to the Tarporley painter) also seem to be either limbering up for or stretching out after a vigorous turn on stage as satyrs.103 The theatre-influenced depiction of frantic maenads on an Apulian phiale (c.350) provides a further example of the kinds of movement the chorus could have been training for during their rehearsal.104 The physical effects of participating in choruses also point to the strenuous nature of their training. Plato, once again, describes the weight loss of choruses when they train (οἱ περὶ νίκης χοροὶ ἀγωνιζόμενοι πεφωνασκηκότες ἰσχνοί, Laws 665e6–7). As well as physical fitness, a chorus would have to spend considerable time and effort on achieving unison in movement, at least for some parts of their performance. Unison in physical movement also needed to be matched by unison and harmony in their speech and song; Aristotle notes how the chorodidaskalos pays attention to

103 104

Nicholson Museum 47.5. British Museum F133, with Taplin 2007a: 156 8.

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ensuring this unity in sound in his Politics.105 Demosthenes also speaks of ‘fitting the chorus together’ (συγκροτεῖν τὸν χορόν, 21.17.5). The qualities of unity and harmony, intrinsic to the idealized picture of the chorus, are not easily achieved in practice, as anyone with experience in dance or physical theatre will know. Timeconsuming ‘drilling’ of their speech, song, and dance will have been essential. And while training for circular, pyrrhic, and dramatic choruses would all have required this kind of drilling, the choruses of drama would have had to contend with much longer performance times, greater complexity of material to perform, as well as negotiating the masks and costume that were confined to dramatic choral performance.106 However sophisticated, the design of the masks would have limited peripheral vision, once again necessitating enough repeated rehearsal of movement to ensure no collisions and disasters during the performance. Costume could, of course, vary from the familiar every day chiton to the kinds of elaborate female dresses depicted on the Apulian phiale mentioned above and also on a number of stone reliefs. The particularities of each costume (folds of a long skirt, wigs, or possibly wings for a chorus of furies,107 etc.) would need careful negotiation during dancing and concerted rehearsal time to work out any practical adjustments. Just how the chorus ‘acted’ in fourth-century drama is impossible to know. We have the references made in fifth-century texts to choral movement which can give us some indications.108 Trends in solo acting caused a good deal more comment and, frequently, outrage.109 As much as for the fifth century, however, the fourth-century chorus required its performers to be able to deliver lines, possibly solo, as well as for its leader (or leaders) to interact substantially with other actors. In the next chapter I will discuss at some length the at least occasional 105

1284b12 13 cf. also Clearchus fr.15 (=Athenaeus 15.697f), Hecataeus (reported in Aelian NA.11) fr.12. 106 The writer of Arist. [Pr.] 19.22.45 notes that it was considered easier to keep time in a large group than in a smaller one. For later sources stating something similar see Wilson 2000: 339 n. 114. 107 See, e.g. the striking calyx krater (c.350), painted in the so called Gnathia style, depicting the white haired furies of Aeschylus’ Eumenides, St Petersburg State Hermitage Museum St.349 (with Taplin 2007a: 64 5), or the winged furies depicted on an Apulian bell krater (c.400s) Berlin, Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin VI 4565. 108 For recent discussions and theorization of this topic see Gianvittorio 2017. 109 Csapo 2010a: 117 35.

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opportunities for multiple choral performers to perform these solo lines, but now is as good a time as any to address the question of who the coryphaeus is. The existence of a coryphaeus figure is by no means certain. Aristotle is the first to use the word κορυφαῖος in the context of choral performance.110 In general the term ἡγεμών is preferred in choral contexts and there was some overlap in meaning with that of the chorodidaskalos, as in Demosthenes’ speech Against Meidias (21.60).111 Wilson notes, ‘Even the habit of assigning the lines of spoken dialogue to an individual leader rather than the whole group rests on no more than an assumption about the collective’s need for a “spokesperson”.’112 Toph Marshall, an academic with extensive experience in theatre production, however, has stressed the practicality in having an individual primarily responsible for speaking the lines of choral dialogue.113 With our acute, modern, sense of the difference between taking part in the ‘chorus-line’ and being an actor, my sense is that the difference in skill-set between coryphaeus and other choral performers has been exaggerated unduly. The best evidence for the acting requirements of the fourth-century dramatic chorus comes from the texts of the choruses themselves and so I leave further comment on this aspect of their performance for the following chapters. A not unrelated observation, however, can be made from the way that choruses of all kinds are described by fourth-century authors. While I do not assume vast difference in skill between coryphaeus and choral performer, it is almost certain that the different levels of talent, skill, and experience (and perhaps also favouritism on the part of the choral trainer) would have allowed hierarchies to emerge amongst the choral performers whilst in the training room. There are explicit references to such hierarchies in our extant texts. Aristotle casually mentions two figures supplementary to that of ‘chorus leader’—the parastates and the tritostates.114 That there were good and bad ‘places’ in the chorus is also alluded to in Plato’s Euthydemus when Socrates asks his interlocutor, ‘Where will 110 See Arist. Metaph.1018b26 29, Pol.1276b40 1277a12, Poet.1461b29 32. The first uses of the word κορυφαῖος in Herodotus connote a chief or leader in a general sense (3.82.12,159.5, 6.23.24, 6.98.11), similarly in Aristophanes’ Wealth (953). Xenophon uses it in a discussion about nets where κορυφαῖος means ‘the top’ (On Hunting 10.2). The word appears once in the entire extant corpus of Plato, in the Theaetetus (173c) where too it can be straightforwardly translated as ‘leader’. 111 112 Slater 1997: 97 106. Wilson 2000: 353 n. 92. 113 114 Marshall 2004: 34. Arist. Metaph. 1018b26 9.

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we place wisdom within the chorus? Among the good things? What do you think?’ (τὴν δὲ σοφίαν ποῦ χοροῦ τάξομεν; ἐν τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς, ἢ πῶς λέγεις; 279c1–2). Indeed, this was to become such a convenient vehicle for communicating the ideas of hierarchy and worth, it was taken up by much later thinkers and writers in the Imperial period.115 The fact that choral performers might be ranked in this way means we should hold a more granular conception of the chorus alongside the idealized, homogeneous, anonymous chorus. The evidence for hierarchy, and the consequent potential for jockeying for position within a chorus, compels us to recognize the individuals that made up the choral body, and the potential for each to be a performer in his own right. * The fact that new evidence will certainly continue to be uncovered for theatre practice beyond Attica makes extra-Attic dramatic choruses appealing for a future, dedicated study. For the moment, however, I wish to address one particular issue, around which a scholarly consensus is emerging. It is now commonplace to suppose that, when drama travelled, the choruses for any given performance would be provided by ‘locals’.116 One piece of evidence for this assertion comes from a literary source. In book seven of Plato’s Laws, once a new city and its organization has been described by the interlocutors, the Athenian imagines what should be said to any tragic poets who want to visit (φοιτᾶν) this new city bringing (φέρειν καὶ ἄγειν) their poetry. After giving these uppity artists a thinly-veiled dressing down for their presumption, the Athenian says that if their proposed poetry measures up to that created by the rulers of the city, then they will ‘grant a chorus’ to these travelling players. The use of the formulaic phrase ‘to grant a chorus’ (χορὸν διδόναι) by Plato in the Laws (817a–d), has been read by some as referring to an apparently common practice of a town providing travelling poets and actors with a ‘local’ chorus for their productions.117 Needless to say, the time and effort that went into preparing a choral performance of any kind,

115

Aelius Aristides (On behalf of the Four III 154). Dearden 1999: 226 7; Taplin 1999: 38; more strongly in favour in 2012: 240. Allan 2001: 71, Csapo and Wilson 2015: 367 8 on local choruses in Scepsis (Asia minor); Slater 1993 (on the basis of technitae inscriptions) and also Slater 2010. 117 Wilson 2000: 289, Braund and Hall 2014a: 379. 116

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sketched above, does not seem to be factored into this reading of the ‘local’ chorus. And while most would recognize Plato’s Laws as a text full of its own idiosyncrasies, as indeed it is, it has been suggested that ‘the image of drama produced in this way [travelling actors, local choruses] may have been a familiar one’.118 Some further support for the practice of providing choruses locally comes from evidence for circular and theoric contests. The Deliades on Delos are known to have danced and performed on behalf of visiting delegations (although we do not know how much notice these performers were given).119 Late fourth-century inscriptions from Scepsis in Asia Minor seem to indicate that drama performed there had its chorus made up of local performers.120 However, the theory that Attic drama always had its choruses provided by local communities has transmuted into a first principle, providing some with the apparent means of interpreting other pieces of evidence. This is clearly the case in Richard Green’s close analysis of a stone relief found at Tarentum in south Italy. This fragment of a funerary relief, dated by Green to the first half of the fourth century, depicts a figure in female costume holding in one hand something that is likely to be a mask.121 This figure is very similar to another relief, found in Attica, where the performer, again in female dress, holds a mask that has been identified as that of a female dramatic choral performer.122 The similarity to this Attic chorusman, and to several other known reliefs, has confirmed that this Tarentum relief shows a choral performer and, from the stick-like object held in the performer’s other hand, perhaps a performance as a maenad. On the basis of the local chorus theory, the Tarentum relief has been interpreted as commemorating ‘a prominent act of community service’. The evidence for locally-recruited and trained choral performers for drama is hardly secure, but it is fast becoming accepted and a reasonable-seeming basis for further arguments. Alternative scenarios (and I suggest some of these below) have not been forthcoming. Although I remain sceptical, and aside from the data just mentioned, 118

119 Wilson 2000: 289. Bruneau 1970:35 8, 68 9, 107, 201, 341, 524, 562. Csapo and Wilson 2015: 367 8. Cf. the third century inscriptions discussed by Wilson 2000: 289 90 re. Cos where, unusually, the dramatic contests seems to have been organized tribally. See above p. 31 on the organization of comedy in Athens shifting towards this model in the 330s. 121 Taranto 6166, Taranto, Arsenale, 3.i.1914, see Green 2012a. 122 Athens NM 4498; see Götte 2014: 91 2, fig. 2.12 and pl. 2.3. 120

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there are two reasons I can see for the appeal of the local chorus theory. First is the fact that it was not just drama that was ‘exported’ by Athens, but also the possible ways of funding and organizing the performances themselves. This is clearest in the way the institution of choregia can be traced in action across the ancient Mediterranean throughout the fourth century, and beyond.123 The civic status of choral performers has, as already noted, been a mainstay of the way Athens’ dramatic festivals have been conceived by scholars, both practically and ideologically. The impetus to see that same requirement for ‘civic purity’ in the exported system for organizing drama and its choruses is obvious. Underlying the commitment to the civic quality of choruses of drama is the traditional notion, supported by some, but not all, of the dramatic identities of our fifth-century dramatic choruses, that they are ‘of the place’, that they are ἐγχώριοι. As we have seen above, however, outside of the City Dionysia, the notion of a dramatic chorus always embodying ‘civic purity’ is in need of serious qualification. A second reason for the appeal of ‘local’ choruses is the impracticality of large groups of performers travelling long distances. Travel was dangerous, certainly, but there is plenty of evidence for choruses, of greater numbers than fifteen or twenty-four, that could and did regularly travel around the ancient Mediterranean.124 There are, of course, some familiar examples of travelling choruses in extant fifth-century tragedy (Euripides’ Phoenician Women and Bacchae), but more practical than these are the many theoric choruses that would have travelled over land and sea at multiple points throughout the year.125 Even if these are to be regarded as one-off occasions, it is likely the skills for organizing a journey of many tens of performers across land and sea were in ready supply.126 There is a further literary source that has been mostly neglected with reference to the question of travelling or local choruses. Seeming

123

Wilson 2000: 279 302 and Wilson 2007c. Not always in complete safety, it must be admitted: see e.g. Hdt. 6.27 and Paus. 5.25.2 5. 125 Later sources also confirm that large groups of performers travelled for per formance, including choral specialists, see Slater 2010 esp. pp. 251 3. 126 Dated to 290 and therefore falling outside this studies scope is the inscription (IG XII 9, 207 and p. 176, IG XII Supplement p. 178, SEG 34.896, with Ghiron Bistagne 1976: 180 2 and Csapo and Slater 1995: 196 200) detailing the festival organization amongst four cities on the island of Euboea (Chalcis, Karystos, Eretria, and Oreos), where travelling choruses would be practical as well as possible. 124

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to directly contradict the passage of Plato’s Laws mentioned above is a passage from the Republic that refers to choral performers that did travel, and travelled together with actors and other theatre personnel. Once again, the interlocutors are engaged in describing an ideal city. Having listed all the professions necessary to populate and run a healthy city—craftsmen, farmers, and doctors—Socrates and Glaucon note that people often want things that are not necessary but rather are luxurious. Socrates goes on to list other professions that will therefore be included in this new, luxurious, city: Οὐκοῦν μείζονά τε αὖ τὴν πόλιν δεῖ ποιεῖν ἐκείνη γὰρ ἡ ὑγιεινὴ οὐκέτι ἱκανή, ἀλλ’ ἤδη ὄγκου ἐμπληστέα καὶ πλήθους, ἃ οὐκέτι τοῦ ἀναγκαίου ἕνεκά ἐστιν ἐν ταῖς πόλεσιν, οἷον οἵ τε θηρευταὶ πάντες οἵ τε μιμηταί, πολλοὶ μὲν οἱ περὶ τὰ σχήματά τε καὶ χρώματα, πολλοὶ δὲ οἱ περὶ μουσικήν, ποιηταί τε καὶ τούτων ὑπηρέται, ῥαψῳδοί, ὑποκριταί, χορευταί, ἐργολάβοι, σκευῶν τε παντοδαπῶν δημιουργοί, τῶν τε ἄλλων καὶ τῶν περὶ τὸν γυναικεῖον κόσμον. Then isn’t it necessary to enlarge the city again? For that healthy city is no longer satisfactory, but it must be filled, bloated with crowds of things which go beyond what is necessary in cities, such as the entire class of hunters and the imitators, many of them concerned with figures and colours and many with music the poets and their assistants, rhapsodes, actors, chorusmen, contractors and the makers of all kinds of props, especially those that have to do with women’s costume. Republic 373b c

Aside from the significance of referring to ‘chorusmen’ as just another class of theatre specialists, here Plato is able to rely on his audience’s unproblematic acceptance of the fact that choral performers would have to come from outside the city rather than be provided from amongst the citizens themselves. Here too, then, we can argue that the image of drama produced in this way (travelling actors, travelling choruses) may have been a familiar one to Greeks in the mid fourth century. In an important and thought-provoking article, Christopher Dearden noted a circularity that was already identifiable in how the history of the dramatic chorus was told in conjunction with the story of drama’s internationalization: ‘The decline in the importance of the chorus in the fourth century may well have eased the difficulties that a visiting troupe faced; indeed, the argument has been reversed to suggest that it was the internationalisation of the drama market that was the

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catalyst for the decline of the chorus.’127 Did internationalization kill the connected chorus, or did its own (spontaneous?) death free Attic drama to travel far and wide? Both sides rely on an already-present assumption that choral odes were dispensable in the fourth century, a starting point that is emphatically rejected throughout this book. There are hints here of the coercive power of the narrative of decline both lending appeal to the local choruses theory, and demanding extra caution on our part. In reality, a variety of scenarios would have been possible, depending on resources and inclination at each venue and in each cast of a production or productions. If funds were available to hire choral specialists, there were specialist performers available. If time were available, those who had some choral experience might be trained by a chorodidaskalos sent ahead of the actors, who held the music and words in his head or with a textual aide-memoire, just as seems to have been the practice in the fifth-century for lyric poets and their performances. This picture of variety is surely the truest, and the best possible on the basis of our current evidence. * In this chapter we have seen what might be constructed about the historical reality of being a performer in a chorus of drama in the fourth century. In doing so, an overarching aim has been to re-inscribe the presence and reality of the choral performer into already existing accounts of historical and material circumstances of dramatic performances. The silence of the choral performer in our fourth-century records is one of a number of kinds of choral silence that have, this book argues, influenced the way its history has traditionally been told. The evidence gathered here, slim though it may be, attests to the positive activity and physical impact of the chorus in fourth-century drama. In marshalling what is available to illuminate the experience of choral performance some new questions and directions for future work have come into focus. One of these concerns the way we think about the choral performer as a citizen and, in particular, an elite citizen. While the support that comes with a comfortable upbringing would have undoubtedly facilitated the acquisition of skills required for choral performance, this cannot account for every choral performer

127

Dearden 1999: 233.

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at every venue for dramatic performances. Opportunities were there for non-citizens and non-elites to become specialists in choral performance. Non-citizens could be included in the dramatic choruses at the Lenaea and Peiraieus Dionysia and probably at other deme Dionysia, too. The payment and subsistence awarded to choral performers means that alongside elite citizens and wealthy metics, those with talent (and a family that allowed them to be more or less absent during the winter harvest) could also take their place in the chorus. If we are to generalize about who the choral performers were, talent and connections to those responsible for choral ‘casting’ would have been of far greater importance than civic or financial status. It is a different matter for the circular chorus, where less specialized skill was required, a longer rehearsal period was afforded, and citizen status was expected—at the City Dionysia, at any rate. From a larger perspective, this demonstrates how distinguishing between circular and dramatic choral practice, even though it diminishes the pertinent evidence available, renders important shifts in our conceptions of choruses. We should also note that although there would not have been half as many opportunities to perform in dramatic choruses, the re-evaluation of a chorusman’s status is just as applicable for the fifth-century as it is for the fourth-century chorus. A reappraisal of how we read the chorus in fifth-century tragedy if it is not assumed to be a group of citizens, seems to be in order. Another avenue for further thought relates to the usual designation of choral performers in drama as ‘amateurs’. There is an undeniable appeal to the idea that ordinary citizens would take their place in their local theatres to perform a civic and religious duty of some kind. The rhetoric of Athenian democracy in which ‘he who wants to’ (ὁ βουλόμενος) is frequently invoked, supports this ideal; anyone could and did take part at every level of the city’s activities.128 However, the opportunities and support for choral performers to become specialists, particularly during the fourth century, is evident in the analysis of both epigraphic and literary evidence above. The theatre industry in the fourth century is often spoken about, particularly with reference to actors, auletes, and other kinds of performer such as the citharode. The chorus should have a space within this frame of reference too. 128 Dem.4.35 explicitly mentions ‘experts and laymen’ who are involved in organiz ing the Dionysia festival ἄν τε δεινοὶ λάχωσιν ἄν τ’ ἰδιῶται οἱ τούτων ἑκατέρων ἐπιμελούμενοι.

2 The Chorus in New Tragedy When facing the challenge of how to write about the chorus of drama, when little or no trace of what they sang and spoke survives, other contextual evidence quickly becomes an influential frame and source of seeming authority for passing judgement. The more general sense amongst scholars of a literary decline after the end of the fifth century provided one such frame, for the tragic chorus but also for fourthcentury tragedy more generally. Following a detailed study of the fragments of fourth-century tragedy by Georgia Xanthakis-Karamanos,1 the way in which scholars engaged with fourth-century tragic material began to change. This change in attitudes was championed by Patricia Easterling in a book chapter published in 1993 where she adduced the neglected historical and biographical context for fourth-century tragedies—the number of productions being mounted, the evident industry surrounding theatrical performance that was gathering pace, the fame and accolades of the fourth century’s dramatists—demonstrating without a shadow of a doubt the continuity, as well as the development, of theatre practice from fifth into the fourth century.2 This new frame of contextual evidence justified (demanded, even) ‘a more favourable rhetorical colouring: for sensationalism, triviality, affectation and so on we ought perhaps to read elegance, sophistication, refinement, clarity, naturalism, polish, professionalism—a new kind of cosmopolitan sensibility deeply influenced by, and interacting with, the classical repertoire’ (1993: 568). Further contextual information continues to be added to this convincing reappraisal of dramatic literary production in the later classical

1

Xanthakis Karamanos 1980.

2

Easterling 1993.

The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE: Presence and Representation. Lucy C. M. M. Jackson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Lucy C. M. M. Jackson. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198844532.001.0001

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period. For example, the expense and care taken to incorporate an honorific statue of the fourth-century playwright Astydamas into the new stone theatre of Dionysus in Athens has only recently been fully explicated.3 Other scholars have continued in this vein, bringing out the innovation and continuity of practice visible in the fragments of these plays.4 Most recently, Matthew Wright’s discussion of the ‘neglected authors’ of tragedy marks a watershed in our understanding of how Attic tragedy remained diverse in content and form (more diverse than a focus on the complete extant tragedies would allow) and innovative at least as far as the Hellenistic era.5 The reassessment of fourth-century tragedy provides a helpful model for a fresh approach to the fourth-century tragic chorus. With an awareness of the manifest presence of specialist choral trainers and performers, together with opportunities to perform and produce plays at multiple locations across the Mediterranean throughout the Attic year, it is possible and preferable to read the exiguous traces of choral speech and song as affirming a more general trend in tragic performance towards sophistication and experimentation. The challenges of searching for the fourth-century tragic chorus are leavened somewhat by the fact that, now, near certitude has been reached amongst scholars that the Rhesus (a play formerly attributed to Euripides) is in fact a tragedy created by a fourth-century dramatist for a fourth-century audience.6 As such, this play provides a complete, if singular, example of a fourth-century tragic chorus at work. We begin with a detailed analysis of that play’s chorus and capabilities before turning to the more fragmentary material. The aim of this chapter is to add to our positive evidence for the quality and activity of the tragic chorus, as well as adding further support to valuing tragedy outside of the canon. The Rhesus in particular shows what opportunities there were for specialist choral performers to demonstrate their range and skill. There is much more to be done in this area, certainly in the analysis of possible choral fragments. What I hope is to do here is point to the ways in which the traces we do Papastamati von Mook 2014: 24 33. On Astydamas ‘the younger’ as a megastar of fourth century theatre, see Wright 2016: xv xvi and 101 5. 4 See Le Guen 1995, 2001, and 2014, Easterling and Hall 2002, Hall 2007, Taplin 2009 and 2014, Hanink 2014b, Kotlińska Toma 2015. 5 Wright 2016. 6 The three most recent commentators Liapis 2012, Fries 2014, and Fantuzzi forthcoming are unanimous. 3

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have suggest a varied, valued, and professionalizing dramatic choral body in the fourth century.

2.1. THE RHESUS The Rhesus, attributed to Euripides, is, as recognized by the play’s three most recent commentators, our sole example of a complete fourth-century tragedy and a precious example of a complete tragedy not written by Aeschylus, Euripides, or Sophocles.7 The question of the play’s authenticity and date has long been either a central focus or an influential frame for how the work has been interpreted.8 The evaluation of the chorus’ role in the drama, too, has usually been subject to debate around the date and authenticity, and any element of choral dramaturgy in the play not attested in the extant corpus of fifth-century tragedy has often been taken as a sign of choral deterioration in drama or the dramaturgical ineptitude of the unknown author.9 As far as the unusual elements of choral dramaturgy go, these can be re-framed as potential developments in tragic choral technique, although, such is our narrow selection of authors for fifthcentury tragedy, it is perfectly possible that these unusual choral moments were more common than we think. An advantage of bringing these innovations to the fore is that we can develop our 7 Liapis 2009: 71 88 argues for a fourth century Macedonian context (although now see Fries 2014: 18 21 for a refutation of that theory). Fries 2014: 10 places the play in the first quarter/third of the fourth century. Fantuzzi 2016: 1 27 makes a very plausible case for a terminus post quem of 336. 8 Scaliger (1600) was the first to raise the question. Ritchie 1964 remains a wonderfully useful, humane, and scholarly treatment of the play, and Fraenkel’s 1965 review an excellent companion piece. Burlando 1997: 105 27 gives an excellent account of the status quaestionis before the recent (and welcome) rush of commentary and criticism. For the play’s interaction with tragedy and comedy see Macurdy 1943: 408 16, Webster 1954: 306, Björck 1957: 7 17, Ebener 1966: 22 3, Burnett 1985: 13 51, Albini 1993: 82 3, Kuch 1993: 548 50, Thum 2005: 207 31, and Liapis 2014: 275 94. For the Rhesus in iconography, see Giuliani 1996: 71 86, Taplin 2007a: 160 5. For the setting and stagecraft of the play see Pöhlmann 1989: 52 5, Battezzato 2000, Walton 2000: 137 47, Poe 2004: 21 33, and Perris 2012: 151 64. An additional strand of discourse connected to the Rhesus, mostly independent of the authenticity debate, concerns the play’s engagement with aspects of orphic and mystic cult: see Plichon 2001: 11 21, Markantonatos 2004: 15 48, and Liapis 2007: 381 411. 9 Burnett 1985: 36 45, Feickert 2005: 12, Liapis 2009: 80.

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understanding of the possible capabilities of tragic choruses in the fourth century. The character of the chorus has a large role to play in creating the unusual tone in Rhesus, a play that is, in my opinion, no less tragic for its comic moments. As for my attitude towards the author, I remain guided by Easterling’s proposed rhetoric of seeing refinement and daring innovation where others might see plagiarism and incompetence. It is clear that the author was thoroughly immersed in the language of Aeschylus and Euripides,10 and perhaps he was, indeed, an actor.11 I will be discussing three aspects of choral technique that are found in the Rhesus and indicate some divergences from our existing (fifthcentury) models of choral dramaturgy: the individualized speech of the chorus, the strikingly independent character displayed by the chorus, and the way that separated strophic pairs are used within the structure of the play. What these three broader observations show is that the choral body in this play has a remarkably different consistency to the choruses of extant fifth-century tragedy, and displays an unusual flexibility in it its dramaturgy. Whilst still retaining its archetypal characteristics of unity, this group of soldiers also, at times, displays the more ‘realistic’ behaviour of a group of individuals.12

2.1.1. Individual and Choral Speech One of the most extraordinary characteristics of the Rhesus chorus is that, as far as we can tell, it delivered certain sections of choral speech deploying multiple individual actors rather than its collective voice. The significance of this plurality of voice has not been noted or discussed to any significant degree in scholarship until now. Editors have assigned the lines to any number of speakers that they see fit, with very little discussion as to the implications of this for the choral

10

See the statistical models proposed by Manousakis and Stamatatos 2017. See, e.g., Liapis 2014: 292 3. The theory that the author was an actor is innocuous enough; in the modern era we can point to many actor/dramatists in the UK alone William Shakespeare, Susanna Centlivre, Noël Coward, John Osborne, Harold Pinter, Bryony Lavery, Alan Bennett, April De Angelis, Bola Agbaje all of whom began as actors or continue(d) to act whilst writing for the stage. If our Rhesus author was indeed an actor dramatist, he is in good company. 12 On the move towards ‘realism’ in the fifth and fourth centuries, see Csapo 2010a: 117 39. 11

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soundscape.13 The absolute unity of the choral group, channelled through the figure of the chorus-leader for spoken lines, is a mainstay of the way in which the Greek dramatic chorus is interpreted.14 While their unified anonymity may not be utterly shattered if two or three individuals speak individual lines in the course of a play, there is a greater effect in having an audible, manifest differentiation between choral performers than has been recognized by scholars.15 Due weight must be given to the different kind of group that exists when there is this kind of disparity. We begin with the most certain of these instances of individualized speech. The fourth stasimon (692–727) follows on from the re-entry of the chorus (the epiparodos) at 675, an exciting and breathless passage where Odysseus is almost caught, but manages to get away. The energy of the chorus of soldiers on duty is maintained in a strophic pair of iambic-dochmiacs. Strophe and antistrophe are both followed by passages of iambics and bacchiacs (704–9 and 722–7), the first of which appears to require three separate voices. ἆρ’ ἔστ’ Ὀδυσσέως τοὔργον ἢ τίνος τόδε; εἰ τοῖς πάροιθε χρὴ τεκμαίρεσθαι τί μήν; δοκεῖς γάρ; τί μὴν οὔ; θρασὺς γοῦν ἐς ἡμᾶς. τίν’ ἀλκὴν τίν’ αἰνεῖς; Ὀδυσσῆ. μὴ κλωπὸς αἴνει φωτὸς αἱμύλον δόρυ.

705

Is this Odysseus’ doing, or someone else? If past exploits are anything to go by, surely it must be? Do you think so? Surely it’s got to be? He was audacious in the face of our attack, that’s true. Whose prowess are you praising? Odysseus’ Don’t you praise the duplicitous spear of that thief.

Murray (1913) assigns many of the chorus’ speeches to ‘various voices’. Liapis 2012: 222 7 and 254 sees the opportunity for between four and fifteen chorusmen speaking individual lines. Fries 2014: 327 favours the use of semi choruses, but notes that ‘utterances by up to four individual choreutae cannot be ruled out’. 14 For my scepticism around the universal presence of a coryphaeus figure in tragedy, see above p. 43. 15 Wyles (2011: 9) notes the differentiation in costume of choral performers depicted in an early fifth century vase (the famous ‘Basel’ dancers, Basel Antikenmuseum BS 415). Our current model of choral uniformity, encouraged by certain stone reliefs depicting identical cookie cutter chorusmen (e.g. the choregic relief with comic stick wielders, Agelidis 2009, no. 94 pl. 9a d, see Fig. 1.1 with imagined reconstruction Fig. 6.2), is in need of qualification, especially from a performance point of view. 13

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We cannot be certain if lines 704–5 were delivered by the same actor or two different actors—both scenarios are possible. However, the question introduced in line 708—‘Whose prowess are you praising?’— seems to indicate a new speaker entering into the conversation; the answer ‘Odysseus’’ surely precludes the questioner from having taken part in the previous few lines, since, had they been present, they would already know who was being talked about. Three individual speakers are clearly needed here. It seems likely that at least the corresponding passage 722–7 might employ a similar technique.16 We do know of at least one play, a satyr play, that had a chorus split into three groups during an epiparodos, Sophocles’ Trackers.17 But unlike the chorus of Trackers, and indeed all other instances of divided choral speech in extant tragedy, the divisions in the Rhesus do not occur in a parodos or exodus; all other examples of speech performed by semi-choruses occur during such entrances and/or exits.18 In addition, these other divided groups within a chorus tend to represent opposing ‘types’, points of view, or locations on stage (e.g. East/West), something that is absent from the Rhesus passages.19 A partial parallel can be found in a famous passage of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, which seems to suggest that individual choral performers performing lines would be possible if not conventional. In that play, after the king’s death cries are heard from within the house and the chorus discuss their possible courses of action (1346–71). The individualization of the chorus in these lines has been persuasively

16 Page 1937: 94 9 demonstrates the rarity of irregularly corresponding speaker division within strophic pairs in fifth century tragedy. As it happens, one of the exceptions to his rule is found elsewhere in the Rhesus (538 41 = 557 61). However, the fact that we see in 704 9/721 7 speaker division that corresponds exactly strongly suggests that in performance three corresponding speakers would be given these lines to deliver. 17 TrGF IV 314.100 23. One line is even split into four, v. 205. A number of other satyr plays also seem to have deployed a chorus divided into different groups Aeschylus’ Net haulers (Diktuoulkoi) TrGF III 47a.821 32 and Sacred Delegates (Theoroi) 78a. 18 A case might be made for the fourth stasimon of the Rhesus, by virtue of its proximity to the epiparodos (675 82), being understood as ‘epiparodic’, hence an appropriate space for split choral speech. 19 A. Sept.1066 78 (a probably interpolated ending), S. Aj. 866 78, Tr.863 70, E. Alc.77 111, Supp.598 633, HF.815 821, Tr.153 189, Ion.184 218. Division of choral speech in parodos, epiparodos and exodus: Seven Against Thebes, Ajax, Alcestis, Trojan Women, Ion. Division into ‘types’, points of view or location: Suppli ant Women, Alcestis, Ajax, Orestes, Ion. See Lammers 1931: 145 7.

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interpreted as a significant departure from expected choral delivery, and the fact that there are exactly the right number of lines so as to give each chorusman a pair to deliver (with the imagined chorus leader performing the first and last pair) strongly suggests individual, rather than collective, delivery.20 While recognizing the precedent for individual choral speech, seen in the Agamemnon, it is important, too, to recognize a significant difference between that passage and the Rhesus passage. Since each member of the chorus in the Agamemnon has their own pair of lines, the profile of each choral performer remains equal.21 The appearance of three or more voices from within a chorus of fifteen, as seems to be the case in the Rhesus, has a different effect and perhaps points towards a different kind of choral body. Strengthening the case for a different kind of choral soundscape in this fourth-century tragedy, one can adduce the unique instances of antilabe also found at 540, 706, 708, 724, and 726.22 This technique is, of course, frequently used in tragedy at times of high emotion or for swift exposition between characters, and often between a named character and the chorus. It is only in the Rhesus, however, that we find antilabe being used amongst chorus members themselves and, in some instances, in circumstances that do not constitute high tension. The fact that the choral interlocutors are, again, not representing opposing points of view, but expressing themselves more as individuals in conversation, is a significant departure from our known paradigms of choral performance. τίς ἐκηρύχθη πρώτην φυλακήν; Μυγδόνος υἱόν φασι Κόροιβον. τίς γὰρ ἐπ’ αὐτῶι; Κίλικας Παίων στρατὸς ἤγειρεν, Μυσοὶ δ’ ἡμᾶς. οὔκουν Λυκίους πέμπτην φυλακὴν βάντας ἐγείρειν καιρὸς κλήρου κατὰ μοῖραν;

540

Who was summoned to be the first watch? They say it was Mygdon, son of Coroebus. And who after him? The Paeonian squadron

20

Taplin 1977a: 223 4. Likewise, the comic chorus of Kallias’ ‘Alphabetic tragedy’ each get a letter of the alphabet and Aristophanes’ Birds are all individually named, see Wilson 1977: 278 83. 22 See Takebe 1968: 38 54 and Bonaria 1991: 173 88. 21

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The Chorus in New Tragedy woke the Cilicians, and the Mysians woke us. Then shouldn’t we go and wake the fifth watch, the Lycians, according to the rota organized by lot?

540

Here the chorus are discussing the orders of the watch in anapaests. This discussion is placed between a strophic pair that conjures the quiet of night. Images of the setting Pleiades, the Eagle flying through the sky, the shining moon and the approaching dawn (528–36) are swiftly put to one side for the list of companies on watch that night, quoted above. This rather routine exchange is then swept away by a sound—the cry of the nightingale (546–50)—and we are elevated once more to the world of myth and transported to the idyll of Ida and its sheep-pasturing herdsmen. Just as it seems the chorus will drift off into sleep (554–5) the practicalities of keeping watch break in on the reverie and, as one would expect of a company on night watch, the soldiers question each other to keep awake (556–64)—a thoroughly pragmatic move.23 The presence of intra-choral antilabe at line 540, interestingly not re-iterated in the corresponding passage of anapaests, is strange in light of the traditional uses of antilabe in tragedy. The intrusion of a second speaker from the chorus in answer to the question, ‘And who after him?’ (540) is, perhaps, deliberately unexpected, as would be the absence of a corresponding antilabic line in 559. Similarly, when we look to the other instances of choral antilabe in tragedy, the tone of this Rhesus passage is remarkable. Compare the lines the chorus share with Philoctetes in Sophocles’ play of that name, where the lamed hero is quickly changing his mind and threatening to kill himself (1173–85), or the chorus’ exchange with Teucer shortly after finding the body of Ajax (981–5) in Ajax. In the Rhesus, the chorus are discussing the order of the watch, the actions of Odysseus, and the anger of Hector that they will have to face. Although there is a certain amount of tension throughout the play as the soldiers wait for the next day, the mood here is in no way comparable to the extremes of emotion found in many other instances of antilabe. Indeed, in the Rhesus itself, the frenetic re-entrance of the chorus chasing Odysseus (683–9) provides an example of a more

23 Macurdy 1943: 409, too, sees this alternation as ‘suited to the confusion and tumult accompanying the changing of the guard’.

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conventional use of this technique. The line break at 540, taken together with the content of the surrounding anapaests and the likely single voices saying the lines, seems to represent the possibility for a somewhat conversational form of choral communication, closer to ordinary speech and further away from the more familiar tragic intonation. The aural fragmentation of choral unity is highlighted in a different way earlier in the play, when a figure emerges from their number and goes on to become a named and important character. After suggesting an initial and rash plan to attack the Greek camp immediately, Hector is persuaded by Aeneas to send a spy to find out what the situation is across the lines. He calls to those within hearing (οἳ πάρεισιν ἐν λόγῳ, 149) for a volunteer to undertake the mission. The call is answered by Dolon (154), and he goes on to discuss with Hector what the reward will be for completing the mission (158–94). How this moment would be staged is unclear. The implausibility of the actor playing Dolon emerging from the skene which represents the tent of Hector throughout the play, and the impossibility of the actor making a swift enough entrance via one of the eisodoi, means it is most likely that Dolon arrived on stage with the chorus and has remained undistinguished among their number for more than 150 lines.24 This construal of the stagecraft here is supported by the dramatic potential of having an individual emerge, unexpectedly, from the chorus. We might point to a parallel instance from a fourth-century comedy. In Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen, at a point when most of the chorus have entered, a woman comes forward from the stragglers who, it becomes evident, is not a choral performer but an actor, playing the role of ‘second woman’ (41–56). There too, then, we see how there was dramatic potential in incorporating an actor within the chorus and having them emerge from the number. The potential for an individual within a choral group to break away from the collective might compel the audience to question the integrity (in the sense of

24 Discussions of staging: Ritchie 1964: 113 15, Burlando 1997: 55 6, Poe 2004: 26, Perris 2012: 157 8. Liapis 2012: 106 7 points to the comparable long silences in tragedy. Perris 2012: 158 points out that it would be extremely odd for Dolon to enter in a hurry and not make any comment or explanation about his haste. Fries 2014: 174 5 puts forward the case for an entrance via an eisodos.

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wholeness) of the choral body. While we see choruses ‘individualized’ elsewhere,25 a single or limited number of individuals coming out of the choral body to prominence seems to be a much stronger break with the unity that is usually taken for granted in conceptions of the tragic chorus. I suggest that the fragmenting of the choral voice into individualized speech, as seen above, has a similar effect in challenging our ideas about the inherent collectivity of the chorus. This fragmentation can and should be framed in light of the increased opportunities for specialist choral performers who were able to take in their stride the increased demands for performing as actors as much as chorusmen. Even if all fifteen chorusmen were not specialists of this ilk, there is a pleasing resonance between the indications already seen in chapter one for some chorusmen being recognized as more skilled than others (e.g. Aristotle’s use of the terms parastates and tritostates in passing), and the opportunities for some but not all choral performers to speak and act in the chorus of the Rhesus. There are some that might view this as a kind of disintegration of the chorus, but it is important to emphasize that as well as the more innovative passages of choral utterance, there would still be a substantial amount of speech and action in unison in the parodos, the first two stasima and the lyric parts of the third and fourth odes. Choral speech and action has not been utterly fragmented nor has its collective vocal timbre been abandoned. Rather, the potential for the chorus in the Rhesus to be flexible and behave at times as a traditional chorus and at others more like a group of individuals, is conspicuous in this play.

2.1.2. Choral Independence The way that the chorus characterizes itself through its interaction with the individuals of the play also signals a challenge to more familiar tragic paradigms. In some respects, the chorus of night watchmen has a very recognizable role and relationship with the main characters. They focus on certain individuals, as many choruses do, in the first two stasima, praying for help for their spy and praising the bravery of Dolon (224–63) and then turning to Rhesus, celebrating his divine parentage and anticipating his success as their future 25

See pp. 56 7, cf. also p. 120 n. 25 and p. 121 n. 29.

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saviour (343–79, 455–66). They also greet Rhesus as he enters on stage (380–7), just as we see the chorus greeting their king in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (783–5).26 We see also the chorus performing the role of counsellor, persuading an individual, in this case Hector, to pursue a certain course of action. When Hector understands the chorus’ report, his immediate plan is to attack the Achaean camp before they can flee, but they advise caution and, together with Aeneas’ advice, Hector is persuaded not to attack. The role of the chorus in his change of strategy is explicitly mentioned—νικᾶις, ἐπειδὴ πᾶσιν ἁνδάνει τάδε, ‘you win, since these plans are pleasing to everyone’ (137) referring to the chorus’ endorsement of Aeneas’ plan (131–6). Once again, when Hector is planning to reject the help Rhesus might be able to offer, the chorus persuade their general to use Rhesus as an ally (327–39) and Hector concedes—σύ τ’ εὖ παραινεῖς, ‘your advice is good’ (339). In these respects, the chorus appears to be very much in line with what is found in fifth-century tragedy. A choral focus on military leaders is particularly apparent in Ajax and Philoctetes, plays that are comparable to Rhesus in setting and in terms of the identity of the chorus and its relationship to a military superior. In Ajax, the very first words of the chorus in the parodos establish how linked the fate of the chorus is with the fate of their leader Ajax (136–40) and the reciprocal responsibility of both leader and led is highlighted throughout.27 Their wellbeing is defined by the fate of Ajax, both in life and death. Similarly, in the Philoctetes the chorus, although apparently older than their master (they address him as τέκνον, 141) have a clearly reciprocal relationship with Neoptolemus. They are to follow his lead (148–9) and do so literally in a strophe (391–402) echoing Neoptolemus’ complaint about the arms of Achilles being handed over to Odysseus. They reproach (522–3), persuade (507–25), are appealed to by Neoptolemus (974) and profess loyalty to him in return (1072–3). Does the Rhesus, then, fit into this model of dependent and interdependent relations with main characters? The focus on individuals in the two stasima and the interaction with Hector detailed above might suggest, initially, yes. However, what the comparison to the two Sophoclean plays above brings out is a 26

See also E. El.988 97. E.g. fear on behalf of Ajax, 254 6, prayer on Ajax’s behalf, 185 6, and attempts to control Ajax’s behaviour 344 5, 362 3, 377 8, 386, 483 4. 27

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relative but nevertheless distinct lack of concern in the Rhesus chorus for the fate of those figures they variously praise and interact with. Looking closer at the chorus’ interaction with characters, we find a more varied picture than at first glance. Hector himself is not put in the way of any danger and therefore there is perhaps not the opportunity to caution and support in terms of prayer and praise, as is the case with Ajax in Sophocles’ play. Although Neoptolemus is not being threatened with the wrath of the Atreidae and the Achaean army, as Ajax is, he is responsible for the decisive move that will result in the fall of Troy and thus the stakes are raised, thereby justifying the chorus’ concern and involvement in their master’s actions. But in the Rhesus too, we are at a pivotal moment when the Achaean army has suffered severe loss and a Trojan victory is within the soldiers’ grasp (as Hector is keen to point out at 59–62). Yet the chorus do not align themselves with Hector in the same way as the choruses of the Ajax and Philoctetes do, a difference that should lead us to examine the choral relationship with its leaders once more. Rather than being concerned for the fate of their superiors, the chorus here are more concerned with the end of the war and a release from their duties.28 It is perhaps for this reason, rather than any sense of allegiance, that they first praise Dolon and pray for his success in the first stasimon, and then to a greater extent laud the coming Rhesus, a potential saviour who has more than a wolf ’s disguise to help the Trojans win their war. While Dolon is still abroad, they show concern for his safe return (557–61), but once Rhesus’ death is revealed, we hear no more about the unlucky spy and he is not mourned. In contrast to the extravagant praise Rhesus receives before and during his entry on stage, the chorus leave the mourning to his mother the Muse, saying only ὅσον προσήκει μὴ γένους κοινωνίαν/ ἔχοντι λύπης τὸν σὸν οἰκτίρω γόνον, ‘so far as grief is fitting for someone outside the family, I pity your son’ (904–5). One wonders whether the correlative ὅσον is a deliberate sign that the chorus display only the bare minimum of sorrow in the face of their own private disappointment at having lost a potential champion for

28

Feickert 2005: 12 has noted in the chorus’ character a particular and strong desire to be subordinate. Liapis 2009: 79 80 links the ‘rambunctious character’ of the chorus to the Macedonian practice of ἰσηγορία in the army. Pace 2004: 247 77 sees the chorus as decidedly disloyal to Hector in comparison to Dolon and Rhesus.

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Trojan victory.29 Although viewed by some as unbelievable, the difference between the chorus’ attitude towards Rhesus before and after his death seems to indicate something concrete about the character of the chorus and just how invested they are in their superiors, as opposed to the chorus’ own potential safety. The focus of the chorus on their own welfare is clear from a number of other small but significant signs which serve to distinguish this chorus in terms of their disconnectedness from their leaders. For example, they justify their arrival at Hector’s tent in the middle of the night thus, σοὶ δ’, ὑποπτεύων τὸ μέλλον,/ ἤλυθον ἄγγελος ὡς/ μήποτέ τιν’ ἐς ἐμὲ μέμψιν εἴπηις, ‘fearing what’s about to happen, I have come to you as a messenger, so that you don’t find fault with me’ (49–51). It is because they ‘fear what is about to happen’ that they come to Hector, specifically because they fear being rebuked if they do not (see also 722–3). Contrast this with the opening of the Ajax parodos, or indeed the sentiments expressed by the chorus of Corinthian women in Euripides’ Medea (131–7). Similarly, the men of the chorus agree with Aeneas’ plan, not because it is necessarily the best thing to do but because they want to keep safe themselves—σφαλερὰ δ’ οὐ φιλῶ στρατηγῶν κράτη, ‘I do not like the reckless power of generals’ (132). When the Muse has revealed the murder of Rhesus and the divine causation of all, the chorus’ response picks up only on the fact that they were not the ones responsible for the murder—μάτην ἄρ’ ἡμᾶς Θρῄκιος τροχηλάτης/ ἐδέννασ’, Ἕκτορ, τῶιδε βουλεῦσαι φόνον, ‘Empty were the Thracian charioteer’s accusations against us, Hector, that we planned the murder of this man’ (950–1). During the considerable amount of time that the chorus are alone on stage, they continue to be mostly concerned with their own condition—they recount the orders of the watch (538–41), they discuss their fears (560–1, 722–3) and act on the basis of their discussion (562–4). Finally, one might point to the image painted by the chorus as their ideal of peace in the second stasimon (360–9). Here the chorus list all the elements of a symposium (drinking health [προπότας], drinking contests [κυλίκων . . . ἁμίλλαις], the Bacchic revel [θιάσους], the passing around of wine [οἰνοπλανήτοις ἐπιδεξίοις], song [ψαλμοῖσι], and desire [ἐρώτων]), whereas in other choral prayers for peace or 29 The argument holds even if one accepts Wecklein’s emendation ὅσῃ. See v. 983 an abrupt switch from apparent mourning to preparing for the coming day’s battle. See Fantuzzi forthcoming for a different but persuasive reading of this correlative.

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remembrance of happier times, one might find the evocation of a choral performance, i.e. an activity that reinforces the community (e.g. A. Ag.22–4 or E. IT.1143–52). Although the symposium, too, is a communal activity, one could say that the chorus’ prayer for peace in the form of sympotic pleasure is less universal in scope than is often the case and in keeping with their more self-centred presentation. It should be noted that there is none of the reciprocal concern from the individuals towards the chorus here either. Hector is their main interlocutor (Dolon has a brief conversation with the chorus about his disguise at 204–23, but Rhesus has no interaction with the chorus at all) but does not betray any concern for the men other than anger at the watchmen’s failure to catch the Achaean spies (808–19).30 Indeed we might modify what was said above about the chorus’ persuasive power by noting that Hector’s response at 339–41 seems to attribute his change of heart about accepting Rhesus as an ally specifically to the messenger and not the chorus—ὁ χρυσοτευχὴς δ’ οὕνεκ’ ἀγγέλου λόγων/ Ῥῆσος παρέστω τῆιδε σύμμαχος χθονί, ‘in light of the words of the messenger, may Rhesus in his golden armour stand with this land as an ally’ (340–1). These points should not outright contradict the more traditional aspect of choral interaction with named characters mentioned above, but it is important to note that, in contrast to many if not most other extant tragedies, there are some remarkable moments of choral independence from any ties of concern with those characters. It is true that nowhere in the play do we hear who these watchmen are, though we know the provenance of the first, second, third, and fifth watches of the night (539–45) and perhaps one should not assume that they are Hector’s men but rather representatives of the army as a whole.31 The chorus’ first words in fact suggest they are not Hector’s guards—Βῆθι πρὸς εὐνὰς τὰς Ἑκτορέους·/ τίς ὑπασπιστῶν ἄγρυπνος βασιλέως/ ἢ τευχοφόρων; ‘Come on to where Hector sleeps! Which of you guardsmen of the prince or a bearer of his arms is awake?’ (1–3). The watchmen differentiate themselves from those men permanently with Hector, as the Salaminian soldiers might be 30

Cf. Euripides Andromache, in which no named character addresses the chorus. Liapis 2009: 77 with n. 34 and 2012: 73 reads the call to Hector’s ὑπασπισταί in line 2 as referring to the ὑπασπισταὶ οἱ βασιλικοί who were the official guardsmen of the Macedonian king (Arr. An. 1.8.4 and 5.13.4. and Plu. Alex.51.6), something that, if true, sets up the watchmen’s relationship to Hector as subjects, but no more closely connected than that. 31

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with Ajax, calling for one of them to summon Hector. And yet, even in plays where the chorus has a somewhat tenuous rationale for being present at times of crisis, e.g. the Phoenician women of Euripides’ play, the chorus invest in the fates of the main characters all the same.32 One should not forget that the identity of the chorus is always at the poet’s discretion and therefore we should assume that this disengagement with the characters is a deliberate effect.33 We have seen here, then, how the chorus’ distinct lack of concern for their leader figures contrasts with the close relationship between chorus and at least one leading figure seen in so many tragedies—a contrast that, again, points to a very different type of choral body. There is, in fact, something of the satyr chorus in this kind of characterization, although the presence of Silenos might provide some comparably close relationship to an individual.34 Rather than an embodiment of ‘the collective’ supporting or reacting to certain characters, this chorus speaks, acts, and reacts more as a group of individuals, with their own individual concerns.

2.1.3. The Separated Strophic Pairs Finally, we turn to a more puzzling aspect of the Rhesus chorus but one that can be added to the growing list of characteristics that mark the chorus out as subtly but significantly different to our models of choral dramaturgy based on extant fifth-century choruses. The separation of corresponding strophic pairs in choral song is relatively unusual within our extant corpus of tragedy, but not unheard of.35 For example, in Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes there are three separated strophic pairs (417–21 = 452–6, 481–5 = 521–5, 563–7 = 626–30), the six sections dividing up the messenger’s account of the seven Argive generals at Thebes’ seven gates and Eteocles’ assignment of a Theban general to face them. In this case the separation of the 32 In Phoenissae, the third stasimon (1018 66) is a highly charged and explicit account of the emotional involvement of the maidens in the unravelling fates of the royal household. 33 Björck 1957: 14 suggests that the setting of the play leaves the author little room for choosing his chorus’ identity ‘the chorus must be composed of Trojan soldiers’ (author’s italics). However, we might compare this with the Iphigenia at Aulis and the evident potential for tragic choruses to have unexpected identities in similar military campaign settings. 34 35 See Seidensticker 2003: 118. Ritchie 1964: 330 1.

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three strophic pairs serves to link the speech of Eteocles and the messenger, and contributes to the building of tension before the inevitable revelation that Eteocles must face his own brother Polyneices at the seventh gate. Perhaps more striking is the separation of strophe and antistrophe in Euripides’ Hippolytus where the chorus first sing of the newly revealed unholy love of Phaedra for her stepson (362–72) but then the responding antistrophe, over three hundred lines later, is sung by Phaedra (668–79),36 lamenting her sealed fate now that her love has been revealed to Hippolytus himself. Despite the interval between corresponding strophe and antistrophe, one that even includes a choral ode, both passages are clearly connected in terms of their sense. Both strophe and antistrophe react to recently revealed news, both contemplate the imminent death of Phaedra (371–2, 677–8) and both mourn for her fate (366, 679).37 In the Rhesus we find not one but two38 separated strophic pairs (131–6 = 195–201 and 454–66 = 820–31), the second of these spanning around three hundred and fifty lines and framing not only two other choral odes but also an epiparodos of the chorus (565–674). Furthermore, unlike the multiple separated pairs of the Seven, or the Hippolytus, there is no obvious link between the two sections in sense. Rather, in all four of the passages, the content seems to be governed by immediate events. The strophe at 131–6 is a reaction to Aeneas’ advice of caution about the Achaeans’ night fires, while the antistrophe provides a somewhat restrained response to Dolon’s intended night sortie. One could perhaps see a link in the chorus’ approving action that ensures their own safety, but even then the connection is tenuous.39 It is interesting therefore to find a number of aural correspondences in the first separated strophic pair, beyond what one might reasonably consider accident: τάδε . . . τάδε . . . νόει in 131, and an assonant resonance in μέγας . . . μέγάλα . . . .ἑλεῖν in 195; corresponding infinitives μολεῖν and πέλειν in lines 134 and 198; and matching cretics δαίεται and φαίνεται in 136 and 201. Similarly, in the second separated strophic pair, there is no clear sense link between strophe and antistrophe. The first celebrates Rhesus’ coming 36

Or, perhaps, sung by the Nurse, see Barrett 1964: 225. Wilamowitz 1921: 443 and Ritchie 1964: 331. Not including 23 51, separated by seven anapaestic lines spoken by Hector. 39 Note the dochmiacs used here (see Dale 1983: 150). The ‘affinità tematica’ suggested by Pace (2001: 25) of both stanzas reflecting on the plan to send a spy is weak. 37 38

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in the hope of decisive victory with his aid. The second is a reaction to Hector’s anger at the watchmen allowing spies to enter the Trojan camp, and is wholly focused on defending themselves. Once more there are striking aural resonances: ἰὼ ἰώ 454 and 820; εἴργειν and αἴθειν at the end of lines 457 and 823; οὔτε . . . . οὔτε in the same position in lines 459 and 825; final μοι in 458 and 824; and first syllable εἰ in 464 and 829. The importance of this apparent effort on the part of the poet to connect separated strophic pairs in sound as well as metre, but not necessarily in sense, comes into focus by comparison with the separated strophic pair of the Hippolytus where very little aural responsion may be found.40 In discussing this second of the separated corresponding pairs, Ritchie suggested that the words are of secondary importance and that the fact that the two odes respond is enough to draw a comparison between the hope of the strophe and the despair of the antistrophe.41 However, we should note that the majority of separated strophic pairs in fifth-century tragedy act as connecting links between different parts of the play and remind audiences of a mood or sentiment from earlier, either reinforcing or contrasting with later events specifically through the antistrophe’s words. But in this example of fourth-century tragedy, the use of separated strophic pairs seems to be predominantly about the connection in and of itself, without reinforcing any implied comparison with the content. One wonders, perhaps, whether the echo of ἰὼ ἰώ in 454 is meant to link up with the chorus’ greeting ‘ἰὼ ἰώ, μέγας ὦ βασιλεῦ’ at 380, even though there is no metrical link between those two odes. One possible reason could be to set up expectations of a corresponding ode only to take the audience on a slightly different journey. The same tactic can be seen throughout in the way the play interacts with but frequently inverts motifs and moments from the Iliadic version of this story.42 There must be more to say about this technique, and its intended effect has been lost in transmission, but we might fairly class this use of separated strophic pairs as an innovation that subtly shifts how we view the dramatic structure of the tragedy. On the other hand, it

40

Similarly slight responsion seen in S. Ph.391 402 = 507 18 and E. Or.1353 537. ‘This fact does not need to be made explicit in the words of the chorus; the reminiscence of the ode is enough in itself to underline the contrast between the former confidence and the present confusion and despair’, Ritchie 1964: 331 2. 42 Fantuzzi 2006a and 2006b. 41

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should still be noted that corresponding strophic pairs are seen in the parodos and first two stasima.43 The innovation in the use of separated strophic pairs is not universal within the drama but rather seems to be an additional way of using lyric responsion in drama as a more developed structuring tool. * The picture of the chorus in the Rhesus constructed above may seem to be full of contradictions. Although sometimes some members of the chorus seem to speak individually, there is no reason to think they did not still perform the majority of their lyrics in unison. Although the technique of antilabe is used at unconventional times (540) i.e. not a time of high emotion, sometimes antilabe is used at tense moments (e.g. 683–9). Although self-centred, the chorus do, at times, also focus on individuals. Despite the fact that the two separated strophic pairs (131–6 = 195–201 and 454–66 = 820–31) do not have a clear sense link, there are other instances of recognizable strophic responsion within two of the play’s choral odes. To reconcile these apparent contradictions in choral technique, one need only call to mind the tendency, seen across poetic genres throughout much of antiquity, to build on and use familiar or traditional elements, and combine them with more innovative modes of expression. A conscious emulation of elements regarded as traditional would account for both the recognizable and innovative elements in the way the chorus is presented. This is, of course, not only confined to matters of choral dramaturgy, as one can observe similar contrasts between traditional and more innovative theatrical practices in the rest of the play as well, e.g. the appearance of a deus ex machina, but one that both speaks and sings in lyric.44 Because of the distinctive nature of choral speech, however, the contrast of traditional and innovative modes of choral performance in the Rhesus is particularly clear. Recognizing the potential for the chorus in ancient Greece to act as a ‘mediating principle’ provides a further way to frame these conclusions.45 To judge from the Rhesus, it seems that the chorus 43 See Liapis 2012: 78, defending the strophic pair of the parodos at 23 51, separated by recitative anapaests at 34 40. 44 Fantuzzi 2007: 173 99. 45 For the chorus as a ‘mediating principle’ see Nagy 1994: 49 and Gagné and Hopman 2013: 1 28. For the principle in practice see also Kowalzig 2007 passim and Kurke 2007: 63 101.

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has extended the remit of its mediatory capability. The chorus in its traditional guise is capable of mediating between single and collective voices in that it can be both ‘one’ (one identity, one voice—perhaps sometimes embodied by the chorus leader—and unison movement against which irregular movement is the exception) and ‘many’ (reflecting the audience itself in terms of collectivity and anonymity). But this collectivity in the known models of the tragic chorus is different to the multiplicity of voices portrayed at certain points in this play as indicated by this chorus’ fragmented voice. The speech of individual chorus members, as well as the conversation between chorus members, must surely have created, at times, a plural voice as opposed to the recognizable ‘collective’ voice of many tragic odes. As well as conjuring up the abstract idea of ‘the people’ (as Hector seems to do at 137 by referring to the chorus as ‘everyone’) the chorus in the Rhesus also evokes the groups of individuals seen every day in councils and meetings.46 There is this further mediation between collective and plural voices. What we see in the Rhesus is not only an example of the kind of dramatically integral and effective chorus that could well have been current in tragedy of the fourth century, but also an expansion of our current models of the chorus’ dramaturgical capability. Greater demands were being made on every element in tragedy in the fourth century to maximize its potential to entertain. It seems that the chorus was viewed as one more part of tragedy, along with its actors and auletes, that was expected to contribute to the brilliance of the drama, which it could do in a variety of modes.

2.2. THE CHORUS IN THE FRAGMENTS OF FOURTH-CENTURY TRAGEDY It is regrettable that so little else remains of choral speech and song from fourth-century tragedy. The titles of the plays which works like the Suda have fortuitously preserved in bulk, attached to authors 46 We can note that the stagecraft of the play encourages us to believe that much of the action occurred away from whatever raised stage there was in front of the skene and predominantly in the orchestra (Liapis 2012: 69 70). The flexibility of stage space is noted by Perris (2012: 151 64) and might serve to underline the way in which choral unity is variously interrupted by individuals speaking from their number.

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whom we know to have lived and worked in the fourth century, provide us with a sense of some possible choral identities in fourthcentury tragedy: Apollodorus’ Greeks and Suppliants (TrGF 64 T1), Cleophon’s Bacchae (TrFG 77 T1), Dicaeogenes’ Cyprians (TrGF 52 F1), Chaeremon’s Minyan Women (TrGF 71 F12), perhaps even Astydamas’ Epigonoi (TrGF 60 T1). Of course, a collective play title need not necessarily refer to the play’s chorus, for example Apharaeus’ Peliades which, like Euripides’ play of that name, was likely named after the two daughters of Pelias, not a chorus of them; but it would be wrong to insist that all plural names referred to pairs or groups other than the chorus. Occasionally the paratext of a quotation from a play can offer information, as is the case with the identity of the chorus in Antiphon’s Meleager. The introduction to the quoted fragment, given by an ancient Aristotelian commentator, says that ‘the chosen men of Aetolia’ (οἱ ἔκκριτοι τῶν Αἰτωλῶν) had come to Oeneus, the father of Meleager, and tells us why this selected group had come: ‘not to slay the wild beast, but in order to witness Meleager’s virtue on behalf of Greece’.47 Such a group could be the chorus of the play—the designation of the fragment of these men as ‘witnesses’ (μάρτυρες) suggests as much—and these two trimeters could have been spoken by one actor introducing the chorus, or justifying their presence, to another (cf. Soph. OT.91–4).48 References within the texts themselves to the chorus on stage are visible but cannot certainly be dated to the fourth century.49 When searching for what lines amongst the many fragments were spoken or sung by the chorus, things become a little more difficult. There are a number of fragments that could have been partly or

47 συνῆλθον τῷ Οἰνεῖ τῷ πατρὶ τοῦ Μελεάγρου οἱ ἔκκριτοι τῶν Αἰτωλῶν: j οὐχ ἵνα κάνωσι θῆρ’, ὅπως δὲ μάρτυρες j ἀρετῆς γένωνται Μελεάγρῳ πρὸς Ἑλλάδα (Anon. ad Arist. 1.1 Comm. Arist.Gr XXI 2, 141, 23. Cf. also Arist. Rhet.2.6.1385a9). 48 Of no certain date, but conceivably from fourth century tragedies are adesp.662 where we see a chorus of women associated with a (probably female) character whose name begins ΑΝΔ (Andromache, or perhaps Andromeda) and adesp.664, a papyrus fragment from Oxyrhynchus listing the characters Gyges, Candaules, and a Queen, as well as a chorus of women: see Marini 1992: 37 44 and also Kotlińska Toma 2015: 181 5. 49 See Xanthakis Karamanos 1980: 173 7 for a papyrus fragment of a Medea play, where a χοροῦ mark is followed by an address to γ]υναῖκες αἳ Κορίνθιον πέδον/ [οἰκεῖ]τε, and Kotlińska Toma 2015: 181 5 for discussion of a Gyges play and possible address to the chorus of women by the queen. The dates of both of these plays are uncertain.

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wholly performed by a chorus.50 The first challenge lies in how to distinguish choral utterances from other characters’ speech or song when there is not enough immediate information to establish a speaker’s identity. The second challenge is that the fragments that survive without an attested author—the ‘adespota’—are very difficult to date, and so cannot be assigned to the fourth century with certainty. The criteria for dating such fragments have traditionally been founded on a particular conception of what was possible in the fifth, fourth, and third (and later) centuries. Still today the attitude persists that anomalies and perceived infelicities, or innovations, will mean a fragment is dated to the Hellenistic period, while evidence of ‘good’ lyrics will be edged towards the fifth century. Even editors that eschew such subjective criteria rely on comparisons to known instances of word and phrase usage, despite the fact that our available sample of dramatic texts from the fourth century gives only slight grounds for establishing what was possible, likely, innovative, transgressive, or ‘impossible’ at the time. These two challenges mean that the three examples (all, incidentally, possibly linked to the playwright Astydamas) explored here can only act as test cases in lieu of a full-length textual study of possible choral fragments. It is appropriately vexing that the most impressive example of choral speech and interaction comes from one of the anonymous fragments, adesp.649 (P. Oxy. 2746, first published in 1968), although there has been recent support for adding this to the collection of fragments of Astydamas’ Hector.51 In this fragment we are presented with a scene where a riddling, mantic Cassandra is ‘seeing’ the death of Hector, while her father Priam seeks to calm her. A character labelled in the papyrus as ‘Xo.’, almost certainly the chorus, responds both to Priam and Cassandra in antilabe, although these lines are not preserved completely. ΠΡΙΑΜΟΣ θάρσησον, ὦ παῖ· μὴ κάμῃς· στῆσον πόδα, καὶ σαῖσι β[ο]υλαῖς προσδέχου τὰ κρείσσ[ονα· ᾠδή 50 A tentative list of possible fourth century choral speech/song: 60 F4, adesp.127, 129+130, 375, 415a, 456, 482, 499, 629, 646, 649, 657, 663.1 3, 679, 686, 690+691, 692 (PMG 1023). 51 Taplin 2009: 251 63. Arguments for a later date in Catenacci 2002: 95 104 and Kotlińska Toma 2015: 195 8. Further discussion and attempts at reconstruction in Liapis 2016: 77 84.

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The Chorus in New Tragedy {ΚΑΣΣΑΝΔΡΑ} βέβληκε δεινὸν κάμακα [ {ΠΡ.} τίς, τέκνον; φράσον· {ΧΟΡΟΣ} ὁ Πηλιώτης [ {ΚΑ.} ἀλλ’ ἠστόχησε· {ΧΟ.} εἶπας ὡς ἔχει[⏑– {ΚΑ.} Ἕκτωρ {δεδεμλει{· {ΧΟ.} δυστυχὴς ἀγω[ν ⏑– {ΚΑ.} ἴσως ἐδυστύχησεν [ ᾠδή κοινὰ μέχρι νῦν νικῶμεν .[ {ΔΗΙΦΟΒΟΣ} τίς ἦχ[ο]ς ἡμᾶς ἐκ δόμων ἀνέκλαγε; [ ᾠδή {ΚΑ.}] ἔα ἔα· τί λεύσω; .[ {ΔΗ.} αἰνίγ[ματό]ς̣ μοι μείζον’ ἐφθέγξω λόγο̣[ν· ᾠδή {ΚΑ.}] .[] . . . πρὸ πύργων οὐκ̣[.]σε[ {ΔΗ.} μέμηνα[ς] αὐτὴ καὶ παρεπλάγχθης φρένα[..  Take heart, my child—do not struggle—steady your feet And face what is more powerful with sound judgment. She sings  He has hurled his terrible weapon. : Who, child? Tell me. : The man with Pelian spear : But he has missed! : You’ve said how it is . . . : Hector . . . : Unlucky contest . . . : Just as unlucky . . . She sings . . . a luck that’s shared as long as we are winning . . .  What is the sound that summoned me from the house? She sings : Ah! Ah! What do I see? : You’ve spoken words more obscure than a riddle. She sings : . . . in front of the towers . . . not . . . : You’re ranting and out of your mind . . .

This fragment is remarkable for its depiction of an interactive chorus in a scene of manifestly high drama. The choral performers are likely to be physically close to Priam and a wandering Cassandra (his appeal

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to her to ‘steady her feet’ indicates some kind of frantic movement on the part of his daughter) in order to achieve the necessary pace of quick-fire antilabe with both Priam and Cassandra. Separation from her, in particular, is unlikely as she is cognizant of their presence and responding specifically to what they say: they call the ongoing duel an ‘ill-fated contest’ (δυστυχὴς ἀγων) and she picks up on their comment and uses a cognate of δυστυχής in her next line (ἐδυστύχησεν). A certain sympathy between the chorus and Cassandra becomes clearer after the entrance of Deiphobus whose tone is, by contrast, far more brusque (‘you’re ranting and out of your mind . . . ). As well as adding a further layer to the aural pyrotechnics provided by the extrametrum singing indicated by the frequent ᾠδή marked in the papyrus, the chorus must have provided a dynamic and shifting visual spectacle for the scene.52 Although many still maintain a link in their minds between the emergence of the high stage (the proskenion), whenever that may have been, and the physical (as well as existential) separation of chorus and actors, moments of close performance proximity such as this which, in all likelihood, would have taken place in the orchestra rather than on the proskenion, are important to foreground.53 This brief moment, fortuitously preserved, gives one snapshot of possible choral dramaturgy in later tragedy. A fragment from Astydamas’ Hector (fr.1 col.2) contains the usual indicator for a choral ode in the textual tradition, the words χοροῦ μέλος, ‘song of the chorus’. Although often read as a straightforward indicator of an ‘embolimon’—a choral song unrelated to the plot of the play—this mark, as has been demonstrated by Egert Pöhlmann, can mean a few different things, and is often as much to do with the scribe or editor’s conception of drama as how the play 52 Taplin 1977b: 121 32 discusses various apparent parepigraphê in fifth century tragedy and satyr play. Liapis 2016: 80 gives three possible interpretations for ᾠδή: that it indicates the mode of delivery of the words i.e. singing; that it indicates a place where the actor was instructed to improvise song; or that it indicates a place where the author had written some words and song but invented song could be substituted. Taplin 2009: 260 favours the last. The traditional interpretation of χοροῦ μέλος continues to inform how other such parepigraphê are read despite its own unstable meaning, see pp. 140 7 below. 53 See Sifakis 1963: 31 45, Hughes 1996: 95 107, and the more recent calculations of the precise height of the stage by Green 2001: 51 3. As long as there was an orchestra space that was empty (and this only ceased to be the case in the Roman period) the likelihood would always be that the actors came down to the chorus, rather than the chorus flooding the proskenion.

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was actually performed.54 This is particularly relevant in light of this fragment where, after the χοροῦ mark, there follow four lines of lyric, not iambic trimeter or trochaic tetrameter as is usual after a choral ode in Greek tragedy. The precise metre cannot be discerned with certainty, although galliambics, a metre not found elsewhere in extant tragedy and more common in Hellenistic and Roman poetry, is still regarded as the most likely.55 χρ]ησμος̣ [ . . . ].ας[ . . . ] . . . [ . . . ]θ̣ιγ̣ ̣ ω̣

Λυ̣κί̣ η̣ ̣ [ς . . . ] Φοῖβε, τίνα κλύω τὸν α̣[ ὁ θυηπόλος [ . . . ] μάντις Ἕλενος ε . . . αχε̣[ . . . ]π.[ .ο̣ι ̣[ . . . ]ανοι.[ . . . ]λ̣’ ἐσιδὼν φόβον ἔχω τι[ πρᾶξι̣ς τί̣ς ἦ̣ ν χερὸς ὅτ’ ἄλλον ἔνοικον [ Oracle . Touch

Phoebus . . . of Lycia, what sort of . . . do I hear . . . The soothsayer . . . the seer Helenus . . . . . . having seen . . . I am afraid . . . What his hand did when . . . another inhabitant . . .

The speaker here addresses ‘Phoebus of Lycia’ and expresses surprise at hearing something (τίνα κλύω) from Helenus the seer, and seeing something that makes them afraid (ἐσιδὼν φόβον ἔχω). The first few words suggest an immediate response to something that has just happened, or perhaps is ongoing. This could have been performed by a male character, a member of the Trojan family, perhaps, entering the stage ready to report what they have seen Helenus doing.56 It is plausible, too, that these lines were spoken by the chorus. On this reading, we might interpret χοροῦ μέλος as a kind of stage direction, in the same way that others have read the ᾠδη mark in adesp. 649 as indicating not a song itself, but a mode of performance in the lines that follow. If this were the case, the fragment demonstrates a continuity of choral dramaturgy in terms of what a chorus might say at the beginning of an ode (cf. for example A. Ag.975–83 which contains a similar sense of foreboding) but an apparent departure or 54 Pöhlmann 1977. See e.g. the discussion in Handley 1953: 55 61 and Beare 1955: 49 52, and p. 145 7 below. 55 Liapis 2016: 75 7 for a discussion based on his emendation of the text. 56 Liapis 2016: 72 avers that this could be Priam (as suggested by Webster 1954: 306) or a coryphaeus.

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expansion of lyric expression for those familiar sentiments. The instability of the meaning of the χοροῦ mark will be more thoroughly discussed in Chapter 5, but this fragment of Astydamas points the way to how a reassessment of how that mark is read can result in new fragments being scrutinized for signs of chorality. Completely devoid of context, but happily firmly attributed to a different play of Astydamas (and therefore to be safely assigned to the fourth-century corpus of fragments), are four lyric lines from a play named Heracles Plays the Satyr (fr.4): ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ δείπνου γλαφυροῦ ποικίλην εὐωχίαν τὸν ποιητὴν δεῖ παρέχειν τοῖς θεαταῖς τὸν σοφόν, ἵν’ ἀπίῃ τις τοῦτο φαγὼν καὶ πιών, ὅπερ λαβών χαίρει , καὶ σκευασία μὴ μί ’ ᾖ τῆς μουσικῆς . . . But just as at an elegant dinner party the refined hostess, The poet, must provide clever stuff for the spectators, So that anyone might head home having eaten and drunk whatever pleases and not have suffered a single distraction from the poetry.

These lines are in Eupolideans, a metre linked firmly with comedy. The obvious resonance with comedy in terms of the sentiment, too, are striking. The imagery of luxurious dining is found throughout fifth- and fourth-century comedy, but the metatheatrical reference to the poet and the audience points towards a specific element in comedy—the parabasis.57 Parabatic speech of the kind seen in this Astydamas fragment can be spoken by individual characters,58 but this kind of comment in the guise of the poet is, according to our current models, overwhelmingly associated with the chorus. We might plausibly imagine here a chorus of satyrs aping (in an appropriately comic metre) an attitude of comedy and/or a comic chorus. The kind of generic interactions that are visible in fifth-century comedies and tragedies clearly continued on in the drama of the fourth century. There is growing consensus, too, that the satyr play was particularly lively in terms of its genre-bending in the fourth century.59 Our evidence is incomplete, but it seems that the satyr play detached itself from tragedies and could (and in 341 and 340, at least, did) stand

57

A typical instance is Ar. Ach.628 58. Ar. Ran.1053 6 is one possible instance. 59 Shaw 2014: 123 43. Shaw explicitly links this fragment with ‘the general trend of the period’, 134 n.40. 58

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alone in the performances of the City Dionysia, a shift in context perhaps supporting more substantial changes in content and style.60 These three fragments are useful for pointing us towards several possibilities for fourth-century choral dramaturgy. The chorus could and would still have periods of close interaction with actors, amplifying and enriching moments of high drama, as seen in adesp. 649. What is more we can see the tragic poet looking to the chorus to achieve these effects. They might be seen maintaining their traditional role as a shaper of mood, a booster of tension, and a zooming lens on moments in a previous scene, whilst still performing in unusual (for tragedy) metres, as seen in Astydamas’ Hector. The chorus might be recast in terms of the genre, or be used by the dramatist to allude to specific and specifically choral moments in other genres, and their authority overlaid with that quintessentially comic presence—the voice of the poet—as in the fragment from Heracles Plays the Satyr just discussed. The presence of fragments in lyric metres provides yet more possibilities for choral utterance in the corpus of fourth-century drama, although the fact that so few can be linked to any definite time period or author remains problematic. Adesp. 127 consists of ten lines of aeolic lyric, gnomic in content and possibly choral. Adesp. 692 (PMG 1023) is also in aeolics and features the kinds of cosmic and landscape imagery familiar from many lyric and choral odes. The dochmiac (the one metre closely linked with the genre of tragedy in particular) flavour of adesp. 483 and 499 make them possible candidates for choral lyrics, and their gnomic content adds to that likelihood.61 It is tempting to include in the list of possible fourth-century choral lyric those fragments that mention elements of Dionysiac celebrations, or self-referential descriptions of choral celebration and dance. The word θίασον in adesp. 686 and Bromios in adesp. 690 are possible indicators of who performed these highly lacunose lines. Similarly in adesp. 657, the mention of a ‘hymn’ (ὕμνον), the mimicking of Nereids (μίμημα Νηρή[ι]δ̣[ων) and the verb ‘dance’ (ε̣χορε̣υ̣ε), encourage us to read this fragment as choral. These are tentative beginnings to what must surely become a more focused study

60 61

Cohn 2015: 545 76 esp.551. Adesp.483 ὁρῶ γὰρ χρόνῳ/ δίκαν πάντ’ ἄγουσαν εἰς φῶς βροτοῖς.

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in its own right. The provocations are there, however, and point the way towards very necessary scholarly work yet to be done. * We may not have all that we would like to flesh out a picture of the chorus in the new tragedies composed and performed in the fourth century, but we do have some helpfully provocative fragments, and one complete play. Set in the context of what we know was a busy theatre industry, the fragments invite a more detailed analysis. The choruses’ identities, as far as we can tell, remained diverse and their characterization innovative and capable of delighting audiences. The chorus continued to interact with named characters, and at crucially dramatic moments too, as seen in the fortuitously preserved adesp. 649. In the Rhesus we see how the creators of new tragedies might look to the chorus to show off their dramaturgical range. In light of the increase in specialism taking place in all roles throughout the theatre and performance industries in the fourth-century, it is hardly surprising that tragedians used the enhanced skills of choral performers to achieve an ever more sophisticated soundscape. As we move on to consider what the chorus was performing in other dramatic genres, all these conclusions and potential characteristics will become more and more persuasive.

2.3. LYRIC POETRY IN THE FOURTH CENTURY Fourth-century non-dramatic lyric composition has, like fourth-century tragedy, been revived from the doldrums of critical assessment in recent decades, and an oblique look at the activities of fourth-century lyric poets (many of whom also wrote drama), can provide further indications of the possibilities for choral dramatic performance during this century. Like tragic lyric, there are poems or fragments of poems preserved in quotation by other, usually later, authors. Crucially, however, a great deal of fourth-century lyric exists inscribed on stone and preserved entirely by chance. This kind of evidence, a random sample of the kinds of lyric poetry being produced and performed, has done much to fill out the picture of lyric poetic composition, particularly for the fourth century. There are also one or two examples of lyric preserved on papyrus, the most exceptional of which is Timotheus’ nome Persians,

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found in Egypt in 1902. The collected corpus of fourth-century lyric exhibits diverse types of lyric poetry being composed and performed— dithyramb, nomes, prosodia, paeans, hymns to individual gods, as well as innovative dramatic-lyric pieces—in all the usual festival, cultic performance venues, and some unusual ones as well.62 Fame came to many of these lyric poets, especially those associated with the so-called ‘New Music’, active and producing new works in the first decades of the fourth century—Timotheus, Telestes, Philoxenus, Polydius and Lycophronides. We should also include in the coterie of fourth-century lyricists such figures as Aristotle63 and Dionysius the Tyrant of Sicily,64 who were likewise producing influential or, at least, much-discussed poetry during this time. Analysis of fourth-century lyric, as well as the texts that provide the important and influential contextual information for these authors, pieces, and performance sites, is now all the more accessible to English readers following the publication in 2014 of Pauline LeVen’s book-length study of the topic, The Many-Headed Muse. LeVen identifies many key aspects of change and continuity in lyric poetry up until the Hellenistic poets of Alexandria. As has been noted regarding the development of tragedy in the fourth century, there is more continuity from the sixth and fifth centuries into the fourth than is usually accepted. Two points raised by LeVen are of particular relevance in this chapter. First, lyric poetry, particularly in the first third of the fourth century, continued to engage in a vigorous, agonistic poetic discourse with drama (just as it did in the fifth century).65 Philoxenus’ Cyclops or Galataea was described in antiquity as a δρᾶμα.66 Polydius’ nome Iphigenia seems also to have had some connection to tragedy, in particular Euripides’ play of the

62

Furley and Bremer 2001a and b contain many helpful discussions of a range of epigraphic hymns. See Athenaeus 12.542c f (PMG 845) for a poem written by Castorion of Soli for Demetrius of Phalerum. 63 His Hymn to Virtue is analyzed by Ford 2011. 64 The biographical tradition has not been kind to some of these, especially the tyrant Dionysius. See Wright 2016: 130 43 for a judicious discussion of this tragedian. 65 LeVen 2014: 193 221. 66 PMG 819 and 824. On the dramatic qualities of this ‘dithyramb’ see Sutton 1983: 39 43, Zimmerman 1992: 127 8, Power 2013: 237 56, and LeVen 2014: 233 42. Drama was also giving as good as it got, it seems, cf. the tragedian Chaeremon’s polymetric Centaur (TrGF 71 F9a 11, Aristotle Poetics 1447b21), and pp. 109 15 on the parodos of Aristophanes’ Wealth.

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same name and set in Tauris.67 A second important point raised by LeVen is how lyric poetry continued to engage with political and cultic manoeuvres amongst the poleis of Greece.68 This has also been made apparent through a number of thoughtful analyses of certain epigraphic hymns, including Isyllos’ Paean found at Epidaurus.69 Andrew Ford’s study of Aristotle’s Hymn to Virtue highlights, among other things, the political repercussions for Aristotle in writing such a hymn (although unlikely to have been performed in the same kind of public and cultic setting as Isyllos’ poem)—it was to be cited as one of the reasons for a charge of impiety, causing him to flee Athens in 322. Lyric’s potency, then, as a vehicle for bolshy, literary one-upmanship, religious communication and expression, as well as artful political spin, is fully in evidence in the non-dramatic lyric compositions of the fourth century. A brief look at one example will serve to illustrate how non-dramatic lyric can, mutatis mutandis, point to the possibilities of dramatic choral lyric. Philodamus’ Paean to Dionysus gives an unusually peaceful account of Dionysus’ birth, travels, and celebration by mortals across Greece. It combines a traditional hymn with some specific, local business and enjoins the Amphiktyons (the governors of the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi) to make haste in completing the rebuilding of Apollo’s temple at Delphi, and for the organizers of the Pythian festival to establish a contest of circular choruses in honour of Bacchus. The hymn was inscribed on a marble stele, but was re-used (luckily, placed with its inscription face down) in late antiquity to pave the Sacred Way at Delphi. It was discovered during excavations there in 1892, and first published in 1895. The inscription is severely damaged in two places, but consists of two columns of fifty lines of text that can easily be put into twelve, metrically identical stanzas. The metre is aeolo-choriambic, an appropriate metre for hymnic utterance, with two lines (5 and 11) of ionics which signal a refrain— ‘Euhoi, o io Bakch[os], o ie Paian . . . Ie Paian, come o Saviour’. Webster used these lines of ‘stately song in slow time’ as paradigmatic for late classical choral lyric (‘danced in slow time to uncomplicated metres’).70 The medium of transmission, however, must surely be important; the 67

68 Aristotle Poetics 1455a6 8 and b9 12. LeVen 2014: 62 7. Sineux 1999: 153 66, Kolde 2003 and 2010: 125 39, Vamvouri Ruffy 2004: 101 3, 168 71, Fantuzzi 2010: 183 9. 70 Webster 1970: 194. 69

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intention for the hymn to be inscribed could be borne in mind when the hymn was composed and a relatively easy-to-read hymn created accordingly. A prose paratext inscribed at the bottom of the stele allows us to date this choral lyric with some confidence to 340/339,71 and the text of the poem itself alludes to a likely first performance at the Theoxenia festival (δε[ῖξαι] δ’ ἐγ ξενίοις ἐτειοις θεῶν . . . τόνδ’ ὕμνον, 110–12). The construction of the narrative of the hymn is, scholars agree, ingeniously handled by Philodamus. We see how Dionysus was joyfully received in Thebes, on Parnassos (Delphi’s local mountain), in Eleusis and at Olympus, and all couched in the motifs and language more usually associated with Apollo’s own travels around Greece establishing his cult.72 This blending of the figures of Apollo and Dionysus is seen in the very refrain quoted above where Bacchus is invoked with the traditionally Apolline cry of ‘Paian’. As LeVen has persuasively argued,73 Philodamus carefully builds this mythological account of Dionysus by appealing to multiple moments of the Dionysian myth and exploiting the temporal confusion to establish this new, Apolline narrative. There is skill, too, in the way Philodamus succinctly draws suggestive parallels between the two gods, e.g. their shared divine blood (γένει συναίμωι, 111), and Dionysus’ own role as healer in the holy Mysteries at Eleusis (32–6). The assimilation smooths the apparent changes to the ritual calendar, in which Dionysus is usually celebrated in Delphi during the winter months only, and then cedes to his brother and the celebrations of Apollo in paeanic performances during the spring and summer. Such blending serves to show the significance of Philodamus’ hymn—engaged in the kind of creative cultural politics seen in the archaic and classical lyrics of Pindar and Bacchylides.74 We might also note the authority claimed by the poet Philodamus in this lyric, again very much in line with the postures of earlier lyric poets. Having led his audience through this new narrative of Dionysiac travel and healing power (and after a gap in our text of three stanzas) the poet gives voice to the wishes of Apollo: ‘The god commands the Amphiktyons to execute the action with speed, so that he who shoots from afar may restrain his anger’75 (105–8). This 71

72 Furley and Bremer 2001a: 124 5 and n. 94. Strauss Clay 1996: 95. 74 LeVen 2014: 307 8. Kowalzig 2007, Kurke 2007. 75 Ἐκτελέσαι δὲ πρᾶξιν Ἀμφικτύονας θ[εὸς] κελεύει τάχος, ὡ[ς Ἑ]καβόλος μῆνιν ε[. .] κατάσχηι. 73

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covert claim to divine wisdom and authority is given at least some weight by the rewards we hear Philodamus received for the composition and, perhaps, production of the lyric performance:76 ‘The people of Delphi have granted Philodamos of Skarpheia, son of Ainesidamos, and his brothers Epigenes and [Man]tidas—to these persons and their offspring—the privileges of proxeny, privileged consultation of the oracle, seats in the first row [at the Games], privileged treatment in court, freedom from taxation, enjoyment of all civil rights which the citizens of Delphi have.’ LeVen has noted that these privileges (also granted by the people of Delphi to another fourth-century lyric poet, Aristonous of Corinth) match those granted to victorious athletes at the Pythian games.77 The value of lyric poets and their compositions in the middle of the fourth century, then, should inform our attitudes towards the practice of lyric composition more generally in this period. This sideways glance at what was happening in non-dramatic lyric confirms the potential for cultic, political, and poetic matter in the odes of drama. Both lyric and dramatic poets, sometimes one and the same people, continued to tussle over their respective poetic mastery, as indicated by the blurring of comic and satyric sentiment in Astydamas’ Hercules, and as we shall see again in considering the parodos of Aristophanes’ Wealth and its interaction with contemporary lyric poetic performance.

76

Furley and Bremer 2001b: 57 n. 8.

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LeVen 2014: 294 5.

3 The Chorus in ‘Old’ Tragedy As well as new tragedies composed by the likes of Astydamas and Theodektes, fourth-century audiences could also enjoy the ‘old’ plays of fifth-century dramatists.1 This practice of revival, of both tragedy and comedy,2 in all likelihood began in the fifth century and at first took place (as far as we can tell) as a result of ad hoc arrangements specific to city, poet, and patron.3 The wealthy rulers Hieron in Sicily and Archelaus in Macedon are said to have invited Aeschylus and Euripides (respectively) to come to their courts and compose new dramas and also to oversee new productions of plays already performed in Athens.4 We hear of the comic Telekleides’ Sterroi being performed ‘a second time’ in 431/0, but in what circumstances we do

1 Classic treatments on the subject of reperformance of both comedy and tragedy: Taplin 1993 esp. 89 99, and 2007a, Green 1994: 49 56, Dearden 1999: 222 48, Nervegna 2007: 14 42. For an astute and provocative recasting of the questions raised by ‘reperformance’, see Hunter and Uhlig 2017. For my choice of the term ‘revival’, as denoting a narrower form of ‘reperformance’, see above p. 17 n. 7. There is much more to be discussed and written on the role of revivals in the fourth century, particularly as part of a dialogue with recent discussion in performance studies (e.g. Carlson 2003 and Schneider 2011). The historical and practical approach to the topic pursued in this chapter is a necessary first step, however, in recalibrating our jumping off point for such further discussions of revival and reperformance in the ancient world. 2 On the revival of comedies see Hartwig 2014. 3 Our first instance, in fact, is of a prohibition of any future revivals; Phrynichus’ Sack of Miletus was deemed, according to Herodotus (6.21) too upsetting for the audience in the late 490s. 4 Life of Aeschylus 18, with Hanink and Uhlig 2016: 55 6. The case is less clear for Euripides, see Scullion 2003: 389 400 for a highly sceptical reading of the evidence. On Euripides and Macedonian theatre more generally see Revermann 2000: 451 67 and Moloney 2014: 231 48.

The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE: Presence and Representation. Lucy C. M. M. Jackson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Lucy C. M. M. Jackson. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198844532.001.0001

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not know.5 Perhaps most famously, Aeschylus was said to have been awarded a special honour by the Athenians who would give institutional support to anyone requesting to revive one of his plays.6 One source reporting the second production of Aristophanes’ Frogs suggests that this kind of honorific reperformance was still regarded as exceptional for the end of the fifth century,7 at least at the main Dionysia festivals, but by 405 we can be confident the groundwork for a habit of ‘revival’ had already been laid. At the City Dionysia of 386 a precedent was set when a group of actors (tragoidoi) produced a revival of a tragedy.8 But even before this it is likely that new productions of old plays were being mounted in theatres outside of the city. The time spent outside of Athens by Aeschylus and Euripides shows that tragedy was already a product for export in the fifth century and there was a growing appetite for Attic drama in Sicily, southern Italy, and Macedon. The sheer number of venues for dramatic performance, a number that was rapidly increasing during the fourth century, also encourages us to suppose that a large proportion of plays were performed again after an initial production; they could even have been written with these repeat performances in mind. Between the mid-fifth century (and the decree concerning the plays of Aeschylus) and the beginning of the fourth century, the number of venues for the performance of drama had doubled.9 The suggestion that some of the slots for performance would have been filled by plays already premièred in Athens is an appealing and likely one. Some recent scholarship has shown how the extent of tragic revivals can be more accurately estimated by identifying the imprints made by such performances on the texts and iconography of the period.10 Plato and Aristotle, Demosthenes and Aeschines, and a 5

IG XIV 1098a (IGUR 215). Revermann 2006a: 75 8 on various other forms of rewriting/reperformance of fifth century plays. 6 Life of Aeschylus 12 and Σ.Ar.Ach.10. See below 3.2 Seven Against Thebes for discussion of Aeschylus’ afterlife. 7 Nervegna 2007: 16 on the third hypothesis to Aristophanes’ Frogs οὕτω δὲ ἐθαυμάσθη . . . ὥστε καὶ ἀνεδιδάχθη . . . ‘It was so admired . . . that it was even per formed a second time’ (Wilson OCT 29 32). 8 9 IG II2 2318.201 3. Csapo and Wilson 2015: 381. 10 Taplin 1993: 89 99, 2007 passim, Hanink 2011: 311 28 (with Wise 2008: 381 410 and 2013: 117 39), Hanink 2014a and 2014b: 189 206. These ‘imprints’ might, themselves, be conceived of as ‘reperformances’, see Hunter and Uhlig 2017: 1 17.

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whole swathe of comic poets and pottery painters project a familiarity with older plays, and also a familiarity with seeing those plays in performance. The wrinkly tights in the depictions of comic costume, e.g. on the magnificent ‘Choregos’ vase,11 while a helpful signifier of ‘theatre-realism’ (a trend in vase-painting and one in line with comedy’s highly self-conscious mode) likely correspond to actual comic costume as seen on stage. The anecdotes of actors’ egos (Aristotle tells of one actor who insisted plays be re-shaped so that he was always the first performer to speak on stage)12 may stem from a more general disdain for ‘professionals’ at the time, but they also cohere with what we know of some actors’ power and influence during the period. The snobbishness attached to different venues for performance must be carefully unpicked13 but they also point to the more informal but highly competitive atmosphere around the production of drama in the fourth century. The plays of the fifth century were known in textual form, to be sure, but such were the frequency of dramatic performances in the later Classical period that they would have been more widely known ‘by means of performance’.14 In light of the recent appreciation of revivals as a staple of the theatrical diet in all places where Attic drama was performed (particularly in the fourth century), the fragmentary picture of fourthcentury dramatic choral performance built in this volume gains a crucial but underappreciated extra component. We can take as a general rule that fourth-century audiences will have seen fourthcentury choral performers dancing and singing the choruses of fifth-century tragedies, thirty-two of which we have in their entirety. And while not every single one of those thirty-two would have been revived regularly, as a collection of performance texts they do allow us a sense of the kind of choral performances that were still ongoing throughout the fourth century. A look at some of the certain or highly likely fifth-century plays that were revived in the fourth century will help explain the significance of this general assertion. The epigraphic records of performances at the City Dionysia tell us that an Iphigenia of Euripides, 11 Apulian bell krater, c.390. Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum 96.AE.29 with Taplin 1993: 55 9 and Wilson 2000: 259 62. 12 Arist. Rhet.1403b33. 13 E.g. in Plato Laches 183a b. For a brisk defence of deme theatres see Csapo and Wilson 2015: 325. 14 Cf. Hall 2006: 16 17 on the staying power of performance in the human mind.

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probably his Iphigenia in Tauris,15 was revived in 341 and his Orestes produced the year after in 340.16 While both plays provide opportunities for actors to galvanize audiences with their performances, the character of the chorus continues to be dramatically important, too. In the Iphigenia in Tauris, the chorus of temple maidens provide physical (168–9) and antiphonal (179–81) support for Iphigenia’s lament early on in the play. They are the object of an impassioned appeal by Iphigenia where physical contact is suggested by the text once more (ἀλλὰ προς σε δεξιᾶς/ σὲ καὶ σ’ ἱκνοῦμαι, σὲ δὲ φίλης παρηίδος, ‘But by your right hand / and yours, and yours, I beg you, and by your dear cheek’, 1068–9). They are also directly responsible for misdirecting a hostile messenger (1284–304). The odes of this play, too, are filled with beautiful imagery and the kind of verbal effects that would make apt vehicles for the kind of music that still gripped auditors throughout the fourth century. The Orestes is an undeniable star vehicle and, as Csapo has noted, actors’ song is double that of the chorus in that play.17 And yet even here, the entry of the chorus (‘a most unusual “tiptoeing” processional dance’18) and their initial exchange with Electra plays an important role in establishing her character and the setting.19 The dochmiacs of the lyric exchange are made all the more exciting for being shared between the two parties, and occasionally Electra and the chorus split a single dochmiac metron (e.g. 147–8). Later in the play the chorus perform an antiphonal lament with Electra (960–1012), although there remains some uncertainty as to the precise allocation of lines at this point in the play.20 The chorus as a provider of this kind of antiphonal support retains an important function, and one that is difficult to imagine falling to any other character.

‘Comparison with the titles used by Aristotle in the Poetics (likely a nearly contemporary document) suggests that this play was Iphigenia in Tauris: in the Poetics, the IT is simply called Iphigenia (1454a7, 1454b32, 1455a18), whereas the IA is given the more extended title ἡ ἐν Αὐλίδι Ἰφιγένεια (1454a32).’ Hanink 2011: 315 n.11. 16 IG II2 2320.2 3 and 20 1. Another play of Euripides’ was revived in 339, but the inscription breaks off before the play title is given. 17 18 19 Csapo 1999 2000: 410. Willink 1986: 104. Wright 2008: 36. 20 Damen 1999 suggests this was all the chorus. Willink states that ‘It is surely intolerable that El. Should be silent throughout the ritual part of the lament’, 1986: 240. See Catenaccio forthcoming for the highly unusual nature of this monody, if it is a monody. 15

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These two plays were performed at the high-profile and well-funded City Dionysia. But elsewhere, in the demes and beyond Attica, too, we hear of the kinds of fifth-century tragedies (and their choruses) that played to fourth-century audiences. Contemporary literary testimonia provide strong evidence for revivals and reperformances of Sophocles’ Antigone21 and Oenomaeus,22 as well as Euripides’ Hecuba23 and Cresphontes (or possibly Temenidae).24 Later sources give details of at least two productions of Sophocles’ Electra.25 An honorific monument dated to the early fourth century and found in the deme of Halai Aixonides records a victory with a Telepheia by Sophocles, a possible trilogy comprising The Sons of Aleus, Mysians, and Eurypylus.26 This is as far as our direct evidence goes for which plays, and hence which choruses, were revived in the fourth century, but it does a good job of fleshing out what we might imagine the ongoing revival of fifthcentury texts for fourth-century audiences added to the general dramatic culture of the time. Scholarship on the interaction between vase-painting and the performance of Attic drama outside of Attica has played an essential role in illuminating not only the spread of drama in the fourth century, but also the frequency of fifth-century revivals in theatres, particularly in Sicily and southern Italy.27 Oliver Taplin in his thorough and vivid study of theatre-informed vase-painting, Pots & Plays, acknowledges the limitations of this kind of evidence for revivals. Vase-painting cannot be looked to as a conclusive litmus test for popularity of plays in general; the Orestes or Phoenician Women of Euripides, for example, which were favourites amongst later audiences, 21

22 23 Dem.19.246. Dem.18.180, 242. Dem.18.267. Dem.18.180. 25 Aulus Gellius 6.5. Plut. Mor.737b. On these see Duncan 2005: 55 79. 26 Wilson 2000: 248 for discussion of the monument and whether it refers to fifth or fourth century performances. Finglass 2015a: 214 suggests that these plays could plausibly make up a Telephus trilogy, and takes this as indicative of a fourth century revival in the deme. ‘Telepheia’ in the inscription need not refer to three plays, however, but could refer to two, if two plays were expected rather than three, as was the case at the Lenaea, see pp. 17 18 n. 9 and n. 10 above. 27 Trendall, Webster, and Green’s work in the 1960s and ’70s was fundamental, see Webster 1967, Trendall 1967, Trendall and Webster 1971, Webster and Green 1978, and also Green 1995, 2001, and 2012b. On the renewed debate around the relationship between vases and performances of Attica drama see Taplin 1993 and 2007a, Giuliani 1996, 2001, and 2003, and Revermann 2010: 69 97. More recent work on the material record of Attic drama outside of Attica includes a wider range of theatre related objects, see Csapo 2010a: 38 82 and Green 2014. 24

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have made very little impression on the vase-painters of southern Italy.28 Tastes almost certainly will have varied in different locations, too—Ruth Scodel argues that Aeschylus didn’t seem very popular in Athens in the fourth century, yet clearly held a special place for theatrelovers in Paestum, where over half of the potentially ‘tragic’ vases relate to the Oresteia.29 Nor can vase-painting in any way be treated as a documentation of performance as it happened; the particularities of the artistic medium exercise an unambiguous control over the kinds of scenes that are depicted and how they are composed.30 Taplin is careful in identifying a middle way between the ‘philodramatic’, where all scenes of myth are viewed as relating to tragic performances, and the ‘iconocentric’, where the self-sufficiency of the painters of Sicily and southern Italy outweighs any suggestion of theatre influence.31 The middle way allows the vases to be appreciated in their own right, but the reading of their scenes can be greatly enriched if we suppose fourthcentury viewers had an understanding of tragedy in performance, and a detailed one at that. Taplin’s analysis provides a sense of which plays caught the attention of theatre-going audiences (possibly predominantly those in Sicily and south Italy) in the fourth century. Of Aeschylus’ plays, two in particular seem to have fired the imagination of artists and/or their clients: Libation Bearers and Eumenides. A magnificent Apulian calyx-krater, attributed to the Konnakis Painter and dated to the 350s, shows the sleeping Erinyes with white hair (cf. Aesch. Eum.69) and Taplin notes ‘this is the only painting that reflects that detail’.32 But other Aeschylus plays have been identified in vase painting with reasonable certainty: Edonians, Niobe, Prometheus Released, and Phrygians. Scenes from Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Electra are all recognizable. For 28

Taplin 2007a: 156. Taplin 2007a: 19. For the presence of Aeschylus in performance in the fourth century, see Scodel 2007: 130 3 and Hanink and Uhlig 2016: 59 77. 30 Lada Richards draws our attention to tragedy’s ‘double migration, between cultures as well as media’ 2009: 104. See also Taplin 2007b: 177 96 for his discussion of why choral representatives, rather than groups, are more common in tragic scenes on vases. 31 The same nuance of method is less obvious in a more recent study of tragedy and vase painting by Vahtikari 2014. 32 Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum Et. 349. Taplin 2007a: 64. Salutary is Lada Richards’ vigorous restatement of the importance of seeing performance rather than text as the primary guide for the vase painters, Lada Richards 2009: 123 35. 29

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Euripides, his Medea, Hippolytus, Iphigenia at Tauris, Andromeda all feature prominently in Taplin’s collection, but so do scenes from Children of Heracles, Andromache, Hecuba, Antiope, Melanippe the Wise, and Telephus.33 Considering the fictional identities of the choruses in all these tragedies, together with those in plays noted by the more direct evidence mentioned above, we can contemplate the continuity of tragic choral performance across the Classical period: the choruses that filled fifth-century stages—men and women from the local area,34 female slaves,35 old men,36 and occasional non-human groups such as Titans or Erinyes37—continued to dance on fourth-century stages. There has from time to time been a suggestion, or assumption, that the revivals of fifth-century plays in the fourth century had a reduced or negligible choral component. In the perceived zero-sum game of audience attention, it is thought that the tremendous success and fame of fourth-century actors who featured in these revivals, as well as new plays, eclipsed the presence and importance of the chorus entirely. This assumption has, on occasion, been taken to extremes. Specifically citing the agency of actors in the production of revivals, Jennifer Wise has stated that throughout Aristotle’s lifetime (384–322) the old tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were performed ‘only in decontextualized, heavily excerpted form . . . an Everyman’s Library of “greatest tragic hits,” a storehouse of politically neutral scenes and monologues to select from in pursuit of an acting award’.38 Sebastiana Nervegna, however, has scrutinized the evidence for this assumption concerning excerpted and non-choral revivals in the fourth century and beyond. Tracing the history of what she calls the ‘extract’ theory back to Ludwig Friedländer and his 33

Further plays are listed in Vahtikari 2014: 125 98. Phrygians (Aeschylus’ Phrygians), Edonians (Aeschylus’ Edonians), Tegeans? (Sophocles’ Sons of Aleus), Mysians? (Sophocles’ Mysians), Thebans (Sophocles’ Antigone), Men of Colonus (Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonos), Theban men or women (Aeschylus’ Niobe), Argive women (Euripides’ Orestes), Trojan women (Sophocles’ Eurypylus), Corinthian women (Eurpides’ Medea), Women of Troezen (Euripides’ Hippolytus), Friends of Andromeda (Euripides’ Andromeda). 35 Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers, Euripides’ Iphigenia at Tauris. 36 Sophocles’ OT and Antigone, Euripides’ Cresphontes. 37 Aeschylus’ Prometheus Released (?) and Eumenides. 38 Wise 2008: 400. See also Wise 2013: 134. The assumption of a diminished choral role lurks, too, behind some of the questions raised by Uhlig and Hunter in their consideration of reperformed drama 2017: 9. 34

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foundational Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms (1888), Nervegna has pinpointed how it is only by reading the Classical sources with later performance habits (which did include performing ‘extracts’) firmly in mind that such a theory can be plausible.39 In fact, the evidence for the ‘dissolution of tragic structure’ in the Hellenistic, Republican, and Imperial periods is ‘contradictory and indicates that what happened in one place did not happen in others’.40 As far as the fourth century is concerned, the evidence extends only as far as Aristotle’s statement that actors wielded significant power in the production of drama,41 something that we would expect in an environment where actors were acting as producers of revivals, as was the case in 386 at the City Dionysia. The various ‘anthology’ papyri listed by Gentili, all of which are dated to the third century or later anyway, are much more likely to be related to ancient scholarly, rather than performative, practice, as Nervegna has quite clearly demonstrated.42 And while it is more probable that in the third century there was more flexibility in the way that companies of actors might select and combine scenes from old plays for new performances,43 there is absolutely no evidence that choral parts were diminished for fourth-century revivals. In the absence of any such evidence, moving forward on the basis that plays were performed in their entirety seems justified. * In many ways it is more helpful to qualify our idea of ‘reperformance’ and revival, foregrounding these occasions as ‘performances’ in their own right. Reviving a play for the stage requires creativity. Set at some temporal or geographical distance from a première, a new creative team—actors, chorus, chorodidaskalos, aulete, costume and prop maker—must be gathered. New creative decisions must be made in terms of movement, props, costume, and choreography. Aulus Gellius, writing in the 2nd century , tells of how the actor Polos 39

40 Nervegna 2007: 24 5. Sifakis 1967: 120. Arist. Rhet.1403b33. 42 Nervegna 2007: 25 31 and 41; see esp. pp. 28 9 for the two exceptions to reading the anthology papyri, both of which contain choral lyrics, as related to scholars’ activities. 43 See Slater 1993: 189 99 for his reading of the Sarapeia inscription. Dio Chry sostom in the 1st century  gives our first unequivocal statement of an old tragedy being performed without lyrics, choral and monodic (Or.19.15). 41

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decided to use a very special prop for his performance in Sophocles Electra—the urn containing the ashes of his own son who had only recently died, an anecdote (even if spurious) that demonstrates the particularity and power of artistic choice in revivals.44 Beyond the likelihood that actors and producers might want to put their own spin on a play (as is certainly the case today for revivals of classic plays), informal or formal competitive contexts would add further incentives to create the play anew. The audience, too, would have had a role to play in remaking and reinterpreting any given drama. The institutional revivals of old tragedies at the City Dionysia were not judged as part of the competition, but there are suggestions elsewhere that there was a precedent for revivals being included in dramatic contests.45 Informally, actors as performers and producers had reputations to make and maintain. While any reperformance instantiates a brandnew theatrical moment,46 it is important to recognize the particular opportunities for creative reimagining and remaking of old tragedies on the part of fourth-century theatre producers. We need not rely on modern notions of theatre practice in suggesting that fourth-century producers invested considerable creativity in these new ‘old’ productions. At multiple points in our extant fifthcentury tragic texts, there are indications that later hands have been at work, weaving extra lines into speeches, adding dramaturgical flourishes or whole scenes, and even reworking elements of the plot.47 These so-called ‘interpolations’ demonstrate a continued attention on the part of producers to the specificities of the time, place, and audience in later theatre-making, and their own desire to create an

44

Aulus Gellius 6.5. Cf. Duncan 2005: 63 5. The usual interpretation of the Greek verb used of the 386 revival παραδιδάσκω is that it signals a non competitive performance (Pickard Cambridge et al. 1968: 124, Ghiron Bistagne 1976: 127 8). For signs that plays of Aeschylus were included in some competitions see Wilson 2000: 22 and Revermann 2006a: 20. See Nervegna 2007: 18 19 esp. 18 n. 27 for the more regular competitions of old tragedy that began in the mid third century. 46 This must have been true for those productions that ‘toured’, maintaining the same cast of actors and chorus, and the same creative choices, music, and choreog raphy, etc. Plato’ Laches 183a b gestures to this practice of touring in the Attic demes (see Götte 2014: 99). 47 Page 1934 is a seminal but flawed treatment of the phenomenon. See also Hamilton 1974, Falkner 2002 on actors’ involvement in this process. Finglass (2015b: 259 76) presents a refreshingly open and even assessment of how to identify and study texts in relation to their performance and reperformance. 45

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‘old’ play anew.48 It has been suggested that the number of changes found in a play can act as a loose metric for the play’s popularity in the revival repertory, although such a measurement relies on our ability to identify all changes securely.49 Although usually regarded as a nuisance (or worse) by textual critics, these alterations provide those with different scholarly goals (i.e. beyond identifying the ipsissima verba of the poet) with valuable information about later theatre tastes. These alterations are a valuable window into later theatrical culture. Most significantly for the purposes of this study, there are several passages that display the same kind of attention and creativity devoted to reworking the chorus’ role in the drama. The significance of these choral additions has not ever been adequately appreciated, as far as I am aware. Most scholars are happy to discuss these alterations in the same way that one might discuss the addition of two lines of iambic trimeter in a messenger speech; but a choral addition made for a performance is a much larger undertaking. Unlike the relatively simple process necessary for a single actor to add a line or speech into a performance or play text, substantial choral additions for a revival require a broader dramaturgical view, a sense of the specific contribution to a drama that a chorus can make, as well as the requisite competence in choral lyric composition. In short, it is a lot more effort.50 These choral ‘interpolations’ constitute an attractive, alternative kind of ‘choral fragment’. By closely analysing the choral text that is added to a performance, we can begin to uncover an unexplored resource for how the chorus was viewed and used by producers of revivals after the fifth century. In what follows, there is much that has to remain provisional since there is so much we do not and cannot know, particularly regarding how and when additions found their way into the play texts we have today. There are some fairly

48 A practice with a long and varied history, see Hunter 2017: 218 29 on the practice of diaskeue. 49 Finglass 2015b: 254 notes that ‘the biggest deviations from the original scripts may be the hardest to detect’. Revermann (playfully, and devastatingly) raises the question, ‘How can we be sure that our text of, for instance, Euripides’ Troades represents the script of the original performance at Athens in 415 and not, say, a performance at Thurioi in 350?’ Revermann 2006a: 81. 50 Interpolations that have been added with no performance in mind can also be identified in our texts (see below under 3.1 Iphigenia at Aulis re. IA.598 606), see Mastronarde 1988: 39 41, but are not the focus here.

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frightening gaps in our knowledge about early textual transmission.51 What even was the original starting point for a play or play text?52 Considering the requirement for choral parts to be taught orally (and in conjunction with dance), were all parts of a play immediately set down in writing?53 Who maintained the texts after the first performance?54 Was a single copy held by someone—the playwright or a member of his family—or should we imagine a papyrus-saving ‘sheaf of parts’ that included draft speeches and rehearsal copies?55 And finally, what was the relationship between texts sold by book-sellers, the play texts used by actors, and the copies of all the thousands of plays that found their way to the library at Alexandria?56 In light of all these questions, any argument concerning the historical qualities of the dramatic interpolations analysed in the rest of this chapter must remain provisional. Yet the potential for these choral additions to be linked with the prevalent practices of producing revivals is too intriguing to relinquish without further exploration. That said, we have some good grounds for claiming that the choral additions discussed below were composed and performed in the fourth century. The introduction of ‘old’ tragedy at the City Dionysia in 386, as noted above, confirmed an already busy industry of revivals that had its roots in the fifth century but is likely to have grown exponentially with the spread of theatre in the fourth. Later, the freedom to alter the plays of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles 51 Revermann 2006a: 66 87 and Finglass 2015b give a good overview of the issues at stake. 52 Revermann 2006a: 66 7 sets out sound and theatrically informed grounds for there being a ‘master’ text. Constructive comparisons can be made with Shakespear ean textual studies; see Stern 2004: 34 61. 53 The famous anecdote recorded in Plut. Nic.29, where the inhabitants of Sicily glean knowledge of Euripides from Athenians that stray to their shores, clearly indicates that teaching choral parts relied on oral rather than written methods: μάλιστα γὰρ ὡς ἔοικε τῶν ἐκτὸς Ἑλλήνων ἐπόθησαν αὐτοῦ τὴν μοῦσαν οἱ περὶ Σικελίαν, καὶ μικρὰ τῶν ἀφικνουμένων ἑκάστοτε δείγματα καὶ γεύματα κομιζόντων ἐκμανθάνοντες ἀγαπητῶς μετεδίδοσαν ἀλλήλοις. 54 The presence of ‘theatrical families’ (see Sutton 1987: 9 26) might be one locus, although there are no guarantees that texts in the family archive might not have been significantly reworked: Aeschylus’ son Euphorion was perhaps responsible for the composition and/or reshaping of Prometheus Bound, see Scodel 2007: 141. 55 On the keeping of rough drafts in Shakespearean times see Stern 2004: 146. 56 ‘On the one side, we find what we conceive to be actors’ interpolations; on the other, we read that actors did in fact interpolate’ Page 1934: 70. Revermann 2006a: 84 5. Mastronarde posits a parallel tradition of ‘actors’ texts’ and ‘booksellers’ texts’ 1988: 39 40. However, Page’s succinct rationale is hard to dismiss entirely.

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appears to have been curtailed by a decree attributed to the Athenian politician Lycurgus.57 At some point in the 330s, and as part of a much larger series of measures,58 he is said to have attempted to limit the creativity of those staging revivals of the plays of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles by calling for the texts of their plays to be set down and maintained ἐν κοινῷ—‘for the public/general interest’.59 There is something to the suggestion that the decree had as much symbolic import as it did practical.60 Nevertheless, in lieu of any forthcoming evidence to the contrary, scholars have taken the decree of Lycurgus as grounds for cautious confidence that a textual recension of some kind did occur. Dating the interpolated choral text with any more accuracy is difficult. However, the relative certainty of these two milestones provides the best basis for a time frame within which substantial portions of text, created for revivals, could have been incorporated into the textual tradition.61 * In recalibrating our attitudes towards interpolated text and viewing such additions as sources of fourth-century dramatic practice in their own right, the methods for identifying interpolation must be addressed. The following analysis of choral additions takes existing textual analysis into account but remains sensitive to the highly subjective criticism, less persuasive in light of new approaches to fourth-century literature more generally, which deems anything ‘poor’ to be a later addition. Recent recognition of the lyric variety in fourth-century compositions means that the presence of ‘goodquality’ choral lyric cannot be used as a criterion for dating.62 An awareness of tragic convention and possible deviations from traditional models of tragic structure has a role to play, although we must 57

Plut. Mor.841.8 12. Humphreys 2004: 77 129, Hanink 2014a: 60 89 esp. 62 8. 59 On the language of the decree as reported in ps Plutarch, see Sickinger 1999: 134 5. 60 The fact that the decree makes no mention of regulating the book trade with regard to these poets can be taken to support the idea that performance was still the primary means of transmission at the end of the fourth century. For ‘the social meaning of establishing a public text’ see Scodel 2007: 129 52. 61 On the fascinating case of a significantly altered text of Euripides’ Heracles, including a choral parodos, see Diggle 1977: 291 4, Cropp 1982: 67 73, Musso 1983: 49 56, Janko 2001: 1 6, and most recently Luppe 2008: 161 6. 62 The assumption that good choral lyric was non existent after the end of the fifth century is apparent throughout Page’s analysis; see, e.g. 1934: 192. 58

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always remember our imperfect picture of what those traditional models were in the fifth century. Combining these two approaches, and applying them on a case-by-case basis, we can be cautiously optimistic that the material analysed constitutes a set of examples of fourth-century dramatic choral practice. What we shall see from this analysis are the kinds of rationale that could have been at play in a producer’s choice to increase the role of a chorus or even, as in the case of the Iphigenia, to create a secondary chorus. Just as was seen in the Rhesus and some of the choral fragments, the way the chorus is used gestures towards the choral techniques familiar from extant tragedy while at the same time pointing towards new kinds of dramatic capacity. Various capabilities specific to a chorus are deployed in these choral additions, showing how the particular role of the chorus continued to be recognised and valued by later producers of fourth-century tragic revivals.

3.1. IPHIGENIA AT AULIS The potential instances of choral interpolation in Euripides’ unfinished play are numerous. Taking dramatic and linguistic factors into account, the following sections of choral song and speech are likely to have been added after the first performance: the second half of the parodos (231–302); two speeches at the beginning of the second episode (590–7 and 598–606); a section of the epode in the second stasimon (773–80); perhaps the chorus’ speech in answer to Iphigenia’s final speech (1510–31);63 and, lastly, the choral interjections in the final scene where Iphigenia’s disappearance is recounted by a messenger (1613–4, 1619–20, and 1627–9). Although most scholars would agree that a number of sections of the Iphigenia were altered or added for a revival in the fourth century, the only parts that recent editors of the text are all in agreement about as regards inauthenticity (i.e. 598–606, 1613–14, 1619–20, and 1627–8) are those that are commonly labelled ‘Byzantine’ on account

63 A deletion of 1470 99, Iphigenia’s lines, could be an alternative to supposing the chorus’ lines were the ones added later. For a defence of both passages see Weiss 2014: 119 29.

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of their disregard for rules of prosody and metre.64 The remaining choral passages (231–302, 590–7, 773–80, and 1510–31) are subject to divided opinion and I set out the possibilities and problems below before evaluating their possible contribution to our knowledge of fourth-century dramatic choral practice. The first section to consider is the second half of the parodos— 231–302. Denys Page stated his reservations most strongly, pointing to its unparalleled, unusual metaphors and numerous repetitions65 and monotony of metre (trochaic generally with most lines ending in lekythia).66 Further points can be made relating to the nature and tone of the second half, supported by the change in complexity of metre (164–231, by contrast, are in a mixture of aeolic metres, mainly glyconics and pherecrateans with some variations), marking the second half out as distinct from the first half. Most other editors are less certain. David Kovacs remains ambivalent on this issue, noting that while there is no reason to have expanded the parodos beyond the accepted strophe, antistrophe, and epode (164–230), the theme explored in lines 231–302 is appropriate for the ‘First Performance’ text (cf. in particular 1259–60).67 James Diggle deems these lines to be a later addition, although he does not discuss his reasons.68 Hans Günther on the other hand follows Wilamowitz in defending the lines, although, again, with no discussion.69 Yet Wilamowitz’s inclusion of the lines in the ‘authentic’ first performance text is far from conclusive: ‘Ob uns dies Experiment behagt, ist eine Sache für sich: ein Zwang ist auch nur lieber dem jüngeren Euripides zuzuweisen, ist nicht vorhanden.’ He is no more positive than that. Walther Kranz, also cited by Günther, observed that, as with a number of later Euripidean plays (e.g. Phoenissae), this half of the ode displays the tendency for tragedy’s interaction, or as As Page notes, even if these lines were originally based on either a first perform ance or revised speech, they are unrecoverable from what has been transmitted to us. See West 1981: 74 5 for a more precise dating to the 4th 7th century . 65 In particular, note the number of words deriving from the stem ναῦ at 231, 238, 248, 249, 252, 254, 258, 260, 263, 266, 267, 278, 287, 293, 294, and 300. 66 Page 1934: 142 6. Perhaps it is fanciful to note Aristophanes’ mockery of Euripides for a preponderance of just this type of ending, cf. Ran.1205 50. Whether this makes it more or less likely that a reviser would purposely use such an ending, we cannot know. 67 Kovacs 2003: 83 4. 68 He takes exception to one particular phrase {μείλινον{ ἁδονάν (234). 69 Wilamowitz 1921: 282. 64

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Kranz puts it ‘Wetteifer’ (rivalry) with epic, but we could say that this is also observable in fourth-century tragedy, the Rhesus being a prime example.70 Walter Stockert in his edition has produced the most comprehensive defence of these lines, picking up on the considerations of style and providing his own justifications for the metrical and linguistic oddities.71 I maintain it is possible to argue these lines were added after the first performance for two reasons: first, the sharp contrast in tone between the two halves of the ode; and second, the unusual length of the parodos. The fact that both of these do not cohere with Euripidean choral technique, rather than there being anything wrong with such techniques, should guide the way here. Upon their entry, the women of the chorus introduce themselves (as is common for a choral entrance), and they provide some key information about their identity—where they are from (Chalcis), that they are married (176) and the reason for their coming (171)—but we are also provided with a description of the heroes from a manifestly subjective point of view: the point of view of swooning, awestruck young women. Their blushes, indeed the very reason for their coming shapes the way we understand the narrative. This subjectivity, however, disappears in the second half. In between the two clumps of self-references at 231–4 and 295–302, there is only one first-person verb used (εἰδόμαν at 254), i.e. once in sixty lines.72 Compare this with the previous section, where their self-reflexive references are spread throughout, with the largest gap being twenty-six lines.73 The emphasis throughout this second half is on describing the visual details of the collected forces in a distinctly impersonal way. Stockert rightly points out that this contrast of tone may be found in different Euripidean odes within the same play and he uses the example of the first and second stasima of Euripides’ Phoenissae. The first ode in that play (638–89) begins in a detached way, telling the history of Thebes (Κάδμος ἔμολε τάνδε γᾶν . . . ‘Cadmus came to this land . . . ’), while the second (784–833) is a prayer to Ares, emotionally charged and with much emphasis on the experience of the choral speakers (in particular their prayer ὦ πολύμοχθος Ἄρης, τί ποθ’ αἵματι/ καὶ θανάτωι κατέχηι Βρομίου παράμουσος ἑορταῖς; ‘O Ares, god of many struggles, why are you obsessed with blood and 70 72 73

71 See, e.g., Fantuzzi 2006a and b. Stockert 1992: 232 3. References to themselves are found at 231, 234, 254, 295, 299, 301, and 302. 164, 168, 171, 176, 187, 192, 218.

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death, discordant with the celebrations of Bromios?’ 784–5). But the juxtaposition of the two modes of choral speech within the same ode in the parodos of Iphigenia, as opposed to the two separate odes in Phoenissae, is striking and gives us some grounds to suggest an unusual effect is being sought. We should note that producers of revivals would have had no incentive to hide the changes and additions they made; this was, after all, the thing that would give them credit, along with the classic poet. The shift in tone might even be a deliberate signal to the audience of new material, as well as achieving a dramatic effect in its own right. Second, we should note that this is one of the longest choral odes in extant tragedy (and the longest from the Sophoclean and Euripidean corpus). This can initially be taken as one more sign the ode is an addition to the first performance text.74 But it might also be an example of a particular effect that a reviser was aiming for, namely emulation of those long choral odes from the tragedies of Aeschylus. An aim of this nature would explain why a triadic ode was expanded to almost double its original length. The producer may be consciously recalling the style of earlier tragedy, characterized as it was by extended choral lyric.75 The content of the addition, even divorced from its full impact in performance, has considerable dramatic power.76 By providing a more detailed backdrop of the mighty forces gathered at Aulis, as the enumeration of the armed forces in this second half of the parodos does, the chorus is able to intensify the difficulty for Agamemnon in making his decision, and it is this decision upon which the entire drama hangs. The fleet cannot be brought on stage and so the chorus’ ability to delineate space beyond the immediate dramatic

74 Stockert 1992: 232 3 denies that the length can be used as an argument for inauthenticity, citing other long and late odes found in Bacchae (64 166) and Phoenissae (202 60), but this comparison is valid in form only (i.e. one triad of aeolics followed by a trochaic song). The IA parodos, at 138 lines long (164 302) is exceptional and must be recognized as such. 75 For a further Aeschylean effect that seems to have been added for a later revival, see below p. 99 n. 78. 76 For the appropriateness of the catalogue in these lines see Wilamowitz 1921: 282, Kranz 1933: 257, Stockert 1982: 21 30 and 1992: 232 3, and Michelakis 2006: 12 13. To these I would add that the shift of emphasis from the quality of the heroes, something that is magnified by the identity of the chorus as blushing married women who should know better, to the quantity of the forces, where the identity of the chorus is less useful for communicating the effect, creates a more comprehensive picture of the indomitable and intractable Greek army.

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bounds is picked up by the later writer and exploited to the full.77 The second half of the parodos performs a characteristic choral function in providing a backdrop that intensifies a pivotal element in the play (Agamemnon’s dilemma) and enlarges the dramatic space via the description of the forces at Aulis. The next section of choral song I shall deal with can be judged as a later addition with a bit more certainty on dramatic grounds. Kovacs has shown how the inconsistency regarding the knowledge of Calchas’ prophecy, as well as the unusual use of the chariot make it a virtual certainty that the beginning of the second episode (590ff) where Clytemnestra, Iphigenia and baby Orestes arrive in a chariot, was added for a fourth-century revival.78 Just before Clytemnestra speaks from the chariot there are two speeches, both by choruses, one of which (598–606) is certainly an interpolation from the late antique period but is also clearly meant to be spoken by the chorus of Chalcian women, since they refer to themselves as Χαλκίδος ἔκγονα θρέμματα (‘born and raised in Chalcis’, 598). The speakers of the other choral passage (590–7) cannot be the same group79 as the main chorus of women for two reasons. First, the speakers’ envy of Iphigenia and Clytemnestra’s ‘considerable fortunes’ (595) and calling them οἵ ὀλβοφόροι, (‘those bringing-bliss’, 596) does not suit the Chalcian women of the chorus, since they know of the fate that awaits Iphigenia, and such irony would be strangely and uncharacteristically cruel. Second, they address Iphigenia as ἄνασσαν ἐμήν (‘my mistress’, 592) which most agree would be incongruous with their fictive identity—they are Chalcian women, not Argive women.80 When taken with the incongruous sentiment of their speech, this address has led some to conclude that a secondary 77

On this capability specific to the chorus see Wiles 1997 passim. See Kovacs 2003: 77 103. For the spectacular effect of chariots on stage in Aeschylus and the later use of the chariot as an archaizing stratagem see Taplin 1977b: 77. 79 Clytemnestra’s separate addresses first to one group ἀλλ’ ὀχημάτων/ ἔξω πορεύεθ’ ἃς φέρω φερνὰς κόρηι/ καὶ πέμπετ’ ἐς μέλαθρον εὐλαβούμενοι and then later to the Calchian women ὑμεῖς δὲ νεάνιδές νιν ἀγκάλαις ἔπι/ δέξασθε καὶ πορεύσατ’ ἐξ ὀχημάτων clearly indicates two different groups, and the plural ‘ὑμεῖς’ affirms that the speaker of 590 7 is, indeed, a plural one. 80 Some have argued that this address should not be taken as indicating allegiance and therefore requiring an Argive speaker, e.g. ‘ἄνασσαν ἐμήν sei eine feierliche Form der Anrede und dürfe nich “gepresst” werden’, Stockert 1992: 376, echoing Lammers, ‘eine feierliche Art der Anrede’, 1931: 104. 78

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chorus must have been introduced (just as we get a secondary chorus in a number of tragedies, e.g. Euripides’ Hippolytus). There does not seem to be any other way of explaining the above two difficulties if one insists on the Chalcian women speaking these lines. It is true that there are examples of a chorus using particularly pointed ironic speech: Kovacs suggests Euripides’ Electra 988–97 for a situation when an irony in choral speech is warranted, a passage that has, as it happens, often been cited as the text copied by the creator of 590–7 in this play.81 We might use, then, this unusual similarity in vocabulary as a further indication that this secondary chorus was added into the play by a later hand, since such intertextuality is unparalleled (as far as we know) within the same author’s corpus.82 It is clear a second chorus would contribute to the spectacle of a chariot entering and would magnify the words of praise through the altered timbre of choral speech—and sheer volume if nothing else. Here, then, is a still bolder still addition made by a reviser: the addition of a second chorus. The third passage (773–84) to be discussed is different again, being a section of choral speech from within what is in all likelihood an epode (although arguments have been made for a corresponding strophic pair) in the second stasimon. Suspicion has been roused on linguistic grounds but primarily on account of its altered tenor. Placed amid the progressive shifts of perspective throughout the ode from the arriving Achaeans in the strophe, to the waiting Trojans in the antistrophe, and finally to the perspective of the captured women in the city, as imagined by the chorus itself (785–9), these lines are seen as something of an intrusion83 and the section has no clear subject (though Ares is a safe assumption). Various other small points encourage the judgement of these lines as a later addition, e.g. that 785 has the air of the beginning of a final epode.84 81 Cf. ἰώ, in Electra with ἰὼ ἰώ in IA; παῖ Τυνδάρεω with τὴν Τυνδάρεω τε Κλυταιμήστραν; πλούτου with ὀλβοφόροι; μεγάλης τ’ εὐδαιμονίας with the opening invocation in 590, μεγάλαι μεγάλων/ εὐδαιμονίαι. 82 A possible comparison is Aristophanes quoting himself in the parabases of two different plays V.1030 1 and Pax 741 3. 83 Or perhaps a ‘bridge’; see Stockert: ‘diese Verse offensichtlich einen Versuch darstellen, den abrupten Übergang zwischen der Antistophe . . . und der Epode zu überbrücken, die uns plötzlich in die Endphase des Krieges versetzt’, 1992: 425, following England 1891: 80. 84 See Kranz 1933: 312. For full textual discussions of these lines see England 1891: 80 1, Wilamowitz 1921: 261, Page 1934: 170 1, Stockert 1992: 424 7, and West

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If these lines are indeed a fourth-century addition, we have yet another example of a reviser augmenting a choral ode. We can note a detail regarding the metre of these lines that is significant. It has not been drawn to attention enough that 773–83 are in recognizable (if not faultless) aeolics85 and, it has been noted, partially correspond to the strophe. As we now can expect for lyric composition of the fourth century, here is an example of dramatic choral lyric being composed to a high standard. The fact that the composer of these lines emulated the rhythms of the strophe is only a possibility, but one could tentatively suggest that this would provide the continuity necessary so the added lines would not be jarring, and might also help in the training of the chorus, who could follow the same pattern of rhythm, music, and/or steps. The potential for sensitive lyric composition by fourth-century revisers is something that coheres with recent reappraisal of lyric composition more generally, and this passage can add to that reappraisal of literary merit in the later Classical period. Finally, I turn to the choral song at 1510–31, athetized by Page, strongly suspected by Diggle, but defended by Kovacs and, more recently, Naomi Weiss.86 Kovacs argues that the choral speech was part of the first performance text, pointing to Iphigenia’s instruction at 1467–9 for the young women to sing a paean to Artemis, which, if Iphigenia’s subsequent amoibaion with the chorus were removed, they would immediately proceed to do (1510–31).87 However, it need not automatically indicate an inconsistency if Iphigenia herself was to sing before the maidens’ called-for paean. Characters frequently say they are about to do something but delay actually doing it for several lines, sometimes more.88 He also argues that the linguistic errors in the choral speech are less serious than those found in

1981: 71. While Page does not deem the lines interpolated, he admits that ‘a faint suspicion abides’. 85 For the colometry see Dale 1971: 150, Günther 1988: 64 5, and Stockert 1992: 419. 86 Weiss 2014: 119 29. Other editors either make a decision with no discussion or abstain from judgement. See Page 1934: 191 2, West 1981: 73 6, and Stockert 1992: 617 18. 87 Kovacs 2003: 98 100. 88 E.g. Cassandra in the Agamemnon (1313) says she will go into the house, but remains on stage for a further twenty lines. There may well have been some stage business here to justify Iphigenia’s amoibaion, but it is not necessary.

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Iphigenia’s monody and therefore suspicion should fall more heavily on the latter. Among the phrases that are repeated, ‘the worse member of the pair is in [the monody]’ (98). Meanwhile, Weiss has made a very convincing case for Iphigenia’s and the chorus’ lyrics working well together and enacting a kind of antiphonal paean song. Such invocation and subversion of lyric genre is a common tactic on the part of tragedy’s choruses.89 In such cases, there can be no definitive answer. And, following through from what we have already observed might be possible for a skilled and sensitive producer of a revival, we can suggest that either speech might have been added, but in a way that interacted superbly with the first performance text, whatever that may have been. As a final point regarding the motivations of revisers, I might suggest that beyond magnifying the individual parts for the highly paid actors in the later Classical period and beyond, there may have been a practical reason for inserting extra speeches for both actors and chorus. When originally performed at the Dionysia or Lenaea as part of the regular dramatic line up, there may have been a necessary limit on the length of each play. However, when an individual play was taken on its own, it may have been the case in some circumstances that even more of what the audience loved—actors’ monodies and choral odes—would not be a bad thing.

3.2. SEVEN AGAINST THEBES As mentioned above, it is usually believed that the plays of Aeschylus were reperformed in Athens at various points throughout the second half of the fifth century.90 The evidence cited for this belief is, at first glance, strong, consisting as it does of both contemporary source material91 and of an unchanging story told in the biographical tradition.92 Consequently, the alterations made to the ending of the Seven 89

On which see Swift 2010 passim. Easterling 1993: 564 6, Revermann 2006a: 71 2, Nervegna 2007: 15 18, Hanink and Uhlig 2016: 52 69. Hutchinson 1985: xlii iii gives a succinct dismissal of the idea of Aeschylean revivals. 91 Ar. Ach.9 11, performed in 425, and Ran.868, first performed 405. 92 Σ.Ar.Ach.10, Σ.Ran.868, Quint. Inst.10.1.66, Philostr.VA.6.11.128 32, Life of Aeschylus 12, Alciphr.3.12.1 2. 90

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Against Thebes might be thought to come from a fifth-century revival of the play.93 Recently, this scholarly consensus has been seriously and convincingly called into question. Zachary Biles has taken both the contemporary and biographical sources and demonstrated how they do not, in fact, provide any good grounds for the belief that Aeschylus was reperformed in the fifth century.94 In the case of the joke made in Aristophanes’ Acharnians (9–11), he has shown that the joke lies not in Dicaeopolis’ disappointment at seeing a play by Theognis rather than Aeschylus, but the fact that he expects to see an Aeschylean drama at all; he has not been to the theatre for such a long time and is so out of touch with the events in the city, he expects to see a play by a poet long dead.95 Undermining the force of the evidence from the biographical tradition, Biles notes that the consistency of information in sources across antiquity is, in itself, suspicious and points to ‘a single line of transmission’, one that ‘may originate with a source that is as likely to be misleading as truthful’.96 Following Biles, then, and returning to the (slightly) more certain data points mentioned in the Introduction, namely, the instigation of revivals in Athens in 386 and the Lycurgan decree in the 330s, it is possible to posit that the interpolated text discussed below may have been created for fourth-century revivals. For those who insist that the text could stem from a fifth-century revival, and the interpolations conceived by a fifth-century author/producer, the following analysis will, at least, demonstrate how large-scale changes were made to previously performed plays and the artistic integrity of those responsible for such changes. Although fragmentary, it is possible to identify a certain amount about the plot of Aeschylus’ Theban trilogy.97 We know the plays’ 93

For a suggestion of a more exact date see Lech 2008: 661 4, who compares two passages of Aristophanes, one from Lysistrata and one from Frogs, and finds that a more exact knowledge of Seven can be found in Frogs thus providing a window for the revival of the play between 411 and 405. 94 Biles 2006 7: 206 42, anticipated in some ways by Hutchinson (n. 90 above). 95 Biles’ discussion of Frogs 865 9 and Aeschylus’ statement that his tragedies did not ‘die’ with him (227 8) is, perhaps, the weakest part of the argument. On this statement see Hanink and Uhlig 2016: 66. 96 Biles 2006 7: 210. On different kinds of second performance, see Biles 2011: 173 5. 97 Related fragments are collected with notes and apparatus in Hutchinson 1985: xvii xxiii.

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titles, Laius, Oedipus, Seven Against Thebes, and Sphinx, and can infer from these the main events that occurred in each play.98 Gregory Hutchinson has shown convincingly that the events of the previous two plays are ‘suppressed’ in the first half of Seven building up to the moment when Eteocles places himself opposite his brother, where ‘the past breaks in suddenly on the present’.99 The power inherent in this sudden foregrounding of the curse of Oedipus is in its destructive and absolute effect. Therefore the references we find later to the ‘Epigonoi’ (i.e. the descendants of Polyneices and Eteocles who will war once again with the result that Thebes will be utterly overthrown) are somewhat jarring with what we can tell of the progression of the rest of the trilogy.100 Many have concluded that it is unlikely that the first performance of the Seven Against Thebes would have included Antigone and Ismene, visible proof of the continued family line of the Labdacids, not that it would have taken such an unexpected and unprepared turn with the introduction of the decree against burial, and Antigone’s doomed defiance. I therefore proceed on the basis that all things that indicate a continuation of the house of Laius and his curse101 are likely to have been added after the first performance in its trilogic context. This broad approach to the question of identifying later additions primarily relies on what makes dramatic sense, but it is also reinforced by the consensus of textual critics. Combining dramatic and linguistic factors in judging what is an addition, it is possible to identify two choral passages in this play that are likely to have been composed after the first performance: 861–74 and 1054–78.102 And while it has been suggested that these lines are not necessarily the

98

Hutchinson 1985: xxiii xl and Sommerstein 2010: 84 90. Hutchinson 1985: xxxi. For the references to and potential means of removal of the Epigonoi, see Dawe 1967: 19 20. 101 As opposed to Oedipus’ curse which entails the destruction of his sons alone. For the two curses in action in Seven, see Stehle 2005: 101 22. 102 In addition we can note the interpolated line 903 κτέανα τοῖς ἐπιγόνοις which certainly and specifically invokes the continuation of the curse via the Epigonoi. For the meanings and associations of Epigonoi, see Lloyd Jones 1959: 90 and further discussion in Hutchinson 1985: 903n. For the main detailed discussions of linguistic problems and rarities, see Pötscher 1958: 140 54, Lloyd Jones 1959: 80 115, Fraenkel 1964: 58 64, Erbse 1974: 169 98, Brown 1976a: 6 21, Dawe 1967: 16 28 and 1978: 87 103, Lupas and Petre 1981, Hutchinson 1985, West 1990: 119 125, Barrett 2007: 322 50. 99

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creation of the same person, exactly who wrote the lines is impossible to know and of little importance to the present enquiry. What is clear is that these passages were added later and therefore can shed some light on how later choruses could be viewed and used in drama by producers of revivals. The first passage to discuss is a section of choral anapaests that follow on from the maidens stating they will begin to lament (853–5). In this passage, they are initially prevented from doing this by the entry of the sisters (861) who the chorus imagines have come to lament (οἶμαί σφ’ ἐρατῶν ἐκ βαθυκόλπων/ στηθέων ἥσειν, ‘I think they will sing from their heaving chests a lament for their beloved brothers’ 864–5). The women state their right to sing first (πρότερον, 866), and after a brief apostrophe to the sisters, profess the sincerity of their grief (873–4). Besides the assertion that lines 861–74 were added after the first performance, very little else can be said with certainty. It is incredibly difficult to see these lines as anything other than awkward. A statement of intention may be given and not followed through in tragedy, but the intentions of both the chorus and the sisters are diverted or delayed three or four times in this short passage, and this has led most scholars to suspect the lines. The following options may be possible solutions to this awkwardness: 1) that these lines may have been a draft of a linking choral passage which would introduce the sisters but provide some reason for their silence while the chorus began the lament;103 2) similarly, in these lines we have a collation of possibly performed parts that could have been used variously for different performances, depending on the exigencies of the individual production—the stichic nature of these anapaests could allow for any of the transmitted lines being inserted, or be replacing other lines, e.g. were a producer to decide to have mute actors playing the sisters for the purposes of pathos (cf. the entry of the daughters in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King 1480ff ), lines 861–2 and 870–4 could easily be inserted into a performance; 3) it could be that we are to imagine a certain amount of stage business going on during these lines which then make the need to hold the sisters back from launching into their lament obvious to the audience (similarly this might explain the odd apostrophe to the sisters at 870–2 when the chorus has just stated

103

See Stern 2004: 146 on rough drafts in early textual transmission for Shakespeare.

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their intention to mourn the brothers); 4) that this points to the enactment of some other ritual tradition known to the audience and irrecoverable by us today. What really went on in the performances during these lines must remain elusive. Something intriguing in these lines is that they indicate that, for some reason unknown to us, it was δίκη for this chorus to lead off the lament. The conventions of lament that would be recognizable to fifth and fourth-century audiences are difficult to pin down with certitude. The sumptuary decrees that can be used as sources for what did go on at funerals give us only the extreme cases and there is also more generally a great variety in the stages of lamentation and in the people responsible for beginning the lament.104 Hugh Lloyd-Jones suggested a parallel for the lamentation of the brothers in the lamentation of Hector in book 24 of the Iliad (719–24) where male hired singers are placed next to the body to lead it off and then the family join the lament afterwards.105 Using this as a paradigm, the chorus of Seven would be acting as the leaders of the lament and the sisters would therefore be justified in staying silent until it was their turn to lead the lament, as Andromache does at 723. However, this is not necessarily the usual order in the Homeric epics, or indeed in funeral rituals of the Classical period. When Hector is brought into the city just a few lines prior to the passage quoted by Lloyd-Jones, the order of lamentation is wife, mother and then the crowd of people.106 Similarly, during the mourning of Patroclus, it is Briseïs who mourns first, with the women following (19.301). Margaret Alexiou has noted that there are no strict rules of order in lamentation and beginning the lament need not be an indicator of importance. And yet the language used by the chorus, namely that it is δίκη (not εἰκός or πρέπει or other such words indicating propriety or expediency) for the women to make their ἐχθρὸν παιᾶνα (‘hated paean song’) does award them some primacy. Although it is unclear to us, these lines show a conscious design in having the chorus sing first, indicating that they were performing a function that another character could not perform. In revivals, then, the chorus seems to have maintained a monopoly on certain ritual functions. Finally, these anapaests reveal the power that the chorus holds within this dramatic situation. The women see the sisters come on 104 106

On this see Alexiou 1974: 4 23 esp. 11 14. See Il.24.707 15.

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Lloyd Jones 1959: 101 2.

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stage and reasonably suppose that they are about to begin to lament for their brothers, but they stop the sisters from doing this, pointing out the justice in their beginning the lament. Whether this indicates the ritual importance of choral lamentation or not, one must admit that the chorus is controlling the dramatic situation here and is granted that authority by the reviser of the play. As shall be seen later, the chorus displays a remarkable autonomy in its decisionmaking, curtailed up until this point by the vaunted authority of Eteocles, ruler of Thebes. With that ruler gone, the chorus’ independence (hinted at in their earlier, somewhat defiant, exchange with Eteocles, 230–63) shows itself clearly here. Although independent and actively autonomous choruses are not unheard of in Greek tragedy (e.g. Aeschylus’ Eumenides), they are demonstrably rare. Here, then, the chorus does control the action, delaying the lament of the sisters, providing a reason for that delay, and supporting its decision by an appeal to δίκη. What, then, of the second section of choral speech believed to have been added after the first performance of the play; what is the impact of the final choral anapaests (1054–78)? It is commonly asserted that the ending has been changed in order to bring the revival of this play ‘into line’ with the plot of Sophocles’ Antigone.107 This suggested rationale for a revision is, in light of all we know about dramatists in the fifth and fourth centuries, bizarre. What benefit is there for a producer in making all mythical plots follow the same path? Even when we recall the words of Quintilian speaking of how Aeschylus’ plays were apparently ‘corrected’ by later dramatists,108 we are still far from having any evidence that a producer of a revival would have wanted to make this new Seven ‘fit’ with Sophocles. The idea that an audience would only find a play on the subject of Eteocles and Polyneices pleasing if it adhered to the features of Sophocles’ play, surely distorts the place of the Antigone in the Classical period. We first hear of this suggestion about ‘fit’ from a nineteenth-century commentator, Theodor Bergk, and it is a rationale that suits the nineteenth-century obsession with Sophocles’ play very well, to be sure. Preferable to my mind is the notion that these final anapaests

107 Lloyd Jones 1959: 96 7, Winnington Ingram 1983: 17, Barrett 2007: 322. The idea goes back to Bergk 1884 vol. 3: 330. 108 Quint. Inst.10.1.66.

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have been composed and added to the play with their own dramatic purpose in mind. From the chorus’ initial lament over the bodies of Eteocles and Polyneices (875–960/1004), we can see that, in this play at any rate, there are not any clear distinctions made between Labdacid house and the city of Thebes, and hence little distinction between civic and familial responsibilities.109 In 900–2 the performed lamentation of the chorus is implicitly equated with the cries sounding throughout the entire city (διήκει δὲ καὶ πόλιν στόνος, ‘the groan goes through the city’) and then, more boldly, the chorus assimilates themselves with the very towers of Thebes (στένουσι πύργοι, ‘the towers groan’) and the ‘man-loving soil’ (στένει/ πέδον φίλανδρον). Just as a γόος can be described as a living creature,110 so here the στόνος is raised by the chorus and then goes on to take control of the city itself.111 Similarly in 915–21 (despite the severe corruption in 915) the γόος is likely to belong to the house (δόμων, 915) and is also linked to the chorus (ἐτύμως δακρυχέων/ ἐκ φρενός, ἃ κλαιομένας μου μινύθει,/ τοῖνδε δυοῖν ἀνάκτοιν, ‘shedding true tears from a heart that fades with my lament for these two leaders). We might also note a strong affiliation between royal house and Theban land implied by the speakers of 994–5 ([α] ἰὼ πόνος [β] ἰὼ κακὰ/ [α] δώμασιν [β] καὶ χθονί, ‘Oh struggle . . . / Oh evils . . . / for the house . . . / and for the land’). A lack of distinct boundaries between house, city, family, and representatives of the city has caused some concern, although there are parallels. ‘It is illogical that this chorus of citizen maidens should speak in the name of the bereaved, mourning palace.’112 It is important to recognize how closely the chorus identifies with the fate of the royal house and of the city (and that those two, house and city, are themselves presented as interdependent) because this justifies the chorus’ somewhat unexpected response in the final anapaests. Unlike other treatments of the story surrounding the unlawful burial of Polyneices, here the chorus sees itself as inextricably implicated in the dilemma. They ask πῶς τολμήσω μήτε σε κλαίειν/ μήτε 109

Compare this with Phoenissae and the separation of city and royal family. In that play the citizens are only minimally represented: the characters are all members of the royal family and the chorus is ‘imported’. 110 See Hutchinson 1985: 917n. 111 Cf. Pr.397 435, noted by Hutchinson 1985: 900n. 112 Sommerstein 2008: 251. He goes on ‘but the chorus of Argive elders in Agamemnon do likewise’ (Ag.1481 4, 1532, 1565 6).

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προπέμπειν ἐπὶ τύμβῳ; ‘How will I dare neither to weep for nor accompany you to your tomb?’ (1058–9). Because of this, there is a different dramatic effect. We the audience are prompted to respond in a slightly different way than to the decision of Antigone to bury her brother alone. In that situation we admire her heroism in being solitary and steadfast in action. Together with admiration, there is also an implicit disapproval in her going against the general response to the edict, i.e. obedience, in spite of reservations. Now, as in their initial lament over the bodies of Eteocles and Polyneices at 875–960 (or 1004), in these final lines it is indicated that the chorus divides, clear from the adversative sense of ἡμεῖς γὰρ . . . ἡμεῖς δ[ε] (1068–72) and supported by various markings in our manuscripts.113 With the division of the city, represented here by the divided chorus, we are pointed towards polis-wide civic strife which goes beyond family ties. The horror we feel at this ending is, in a way, more serious. No matter how piteous Antigone’s plight, with her acting alone the city still stands. With the division of the whole city, Thebes itself must fall. This shift in emphasis runs counter to the notion that Sophocles’ Antigone is a key influence here. Although Antigone is used to provoke the dilemma, ending with the chorus’ response and consequent action puts the emphasis firmly on civic, rather than inter-familial, strife. This is no rip-off of Sophocles, but a scene that speaks more to the pain of a city divided. The chorus’ division is not only in action but also in outlook. Although somewhat opaque, the phrase one semi-chorus uses πόλις ἄλλως/ ἄλλοτ’ ἐπαινεῖ τὰ δίκαια, ‘a city praises different things as just at different times’ (1070–1) seems to point to a markedly different approach to government. This contrasts with the second semi-chorus’ answer, ἡμεῖς δ’ ἅμα τῷδ’, ὥσπερ τε πόλις/ καὶ τὸ δίκαιον ξυνεπαινεῖ, ‘But we [will go] with this man, as both city and righteousness approve of in one voice’ (1072–3), implying a more dogmatic approach to obeying the commands of those who govern. In addition to the power of this divided chorus, divided in intention and more general political outlook, we must add the impact of the visual

113 Ἡμιχ. appears in M before the extra metrical φεῦ φεῦ and before 1072, with paragraphoi before 1057, 1062, and 1066. There is some variation though: some have the whole chorus 1054 6, Ismene or Antigone 1057 9, Ἠμιχ before 1062 in most MSS. and the same at 1066 and 1072, with the whole chorus sometimes given lines 1072 8.

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spectacle of a divided chorus and its leaving as two separate parties carrying the two bodies to two different locations.114 Building on the intrinsic connection of the chorus to ‘a community’ and hence a single entity, a bonded quality that has been reinforced throughout the play as the chorus sing, dance, panic, and mourn together, this civic body departing in two separate directions carries a great deal of cultural weight, untranslatable, perhaps, for us today.115 While certain aspects of the chorus are familiar here, such as this link to the idea of representing a city and its community, it must be noted that the chorus of the final anapaests is very unusual in its autonomy. Although one half places more importance on the ritual duties of the woman to mourn than it does on obedience to a ruler, they should not be seen as simply an extension of Antigone.116 We see them discuss what course of action they will take and see that decision being made, rather than their immediate agreement or disagreement with a protagonist they have formerly identified themselves closely with (e.g. the chorus’ reaction to Medea’s intention to kill her children). That Polyneices may only be buried by his sister is still possible at 1063–5 (κεῖνος δ’ ὁ τάλας ἄγοος/ μονόκλαυτον ἔχων θρῆνον ἀδελφῆς/ εἶσιν, ‘But that man, poor wretch, will go unlamented with only his sister singing a solo dirge at his grave’) but this prospect seemingly prompts the defiance of one semi-chorus—ἡμεῖς γὰρ ἴμεν . . . (1068f ), a spontaneous and independent reaction and decision. These two sections of choral speech and song in Seven are rich in possible details regarding later or alternative dramatic choral practices. Most clearly, we have seen that the chorus was not only included and considered carefully in the production of revivals, but could constitute a focus for a producer in creating specific dramatic 114 It is likely that the chorus remained split following the bringing on of the corpses at 848. This must certainly be the case at any rate at 1062 3 where the speaker contrasts σύ with κεῖνος, indicating that they are stood nearer the body of Eteocles than Polyneices. 115 Taplin 1977b: 190 recognizes the dramatic impact. Lloyd Jones, despite seeing the chorus as leaving the stage divided, believes the bodies are to be buried in the same place. Brown 1976b: 213 14 and Taplin, 1977b rightly reject this. Separate exits, together with their clearly stated intentions, must entail separate burials, lawful and unlawful. 116 Contra Hutchinson (1985: 1069 71n.) who compares this with Pr.1063 70 where a chorus’ decision reinforces the resolution of the protagonist. Yet in Seven we have an immediate contrary statement from the other half of the chorus and therefore Prometheus does not provide a straightforward comparison.

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effects, with serious political and ritual ramifications in the drama. The bold, divided exit of the chorus in this revival also signals that new themes and fresh perspectives can be cast over ‘old’ plays in these revivals, indicating something about the artistic integrity of Athens’ reperformed plays as well as those performed for the first time. * The choral texts of fifth-century plays, and the text added to fifthcentury plays for fourth-century revivals, constitutes a new and suggestive resource for building a picture of the dramatic chorus in the fourth century. Beyond testifying to the obvious quality and quantity of the choral contribution in tragic revivals of the era, these fragments of fourth-century choral text, transmitted in the text of earlier tragedies, point to a range of choral potential on the fourth-century stage. Regarding the choral techniques that are familiar from fifth-century tragedy, a degree of continuity is evident. Within the choral additions, the chorus enacts traditional ritual functions, as seen in its appropriation of the right to lament for fallen leaders in Seven (861–74). It performs potent choral lyric (Iphigenia at Aulis 773–83). It describes in rich detail a location offstage that has significance for the drama that ensues (Iphigenia at Aulis 231–302). Its intrinsic connection to the body politic can be activated at moments of strife and civic crisis (Seven 1054–78). Embedded as these interpolations are in an older form of tragedy, it has also been possible to identify how producers of these revivals valued the chorus as a unique tool to achieve certain effects. The divided final exit of the chorus in Seven is unparalleled in all of extant tragedy, comedy, and satyr plays, and its powerful representation of imminent civic strife relies on the political resonances of choral performance in particular. The addition of a secondary chorus in Iphigenia at Aulis (590–7) shows how the visual impact of a character’s entrance with attendant chorus continued to be valued by producers (and must have justified the added expense in costumes alone). The expansion of the choral parts throughout that play, too, suggests that choral performance in tragedy satisfied a desire in audiences for choral musico-poetical performance within drama. The rise of the actor could not entirely eclipse the depth, range, and power of choral performance in the fourth century.

4 The Chorus in Comedy The comedies written in the fourth century and their choruses have, unusually for fourth-century drama, been subject to sustained study and summary in modern scholarship. The majority of the relevant choral fragments have been gathered and discussed multiple times over the past century.1 The issue of how the discussions are framed shows itself, once again, to be crucial. Despite a good deal more material with which to work than, say, the genre of tragedy, a strangely pessimistic view of what these fragments might indicate about fourth-century choral activity has been more or less constant. In what follows, I bring together all the evidence for the quality and activity of the chorus in fourth-century comedy, but I also demonstrate that by taking a more positive standpoint, it is possible to produce new conclusions based on relatively well-known material. Not considered in detail here but an important element in to bear in mind (as was demonstrated in the previous chapter) is the practice of revivals of comedy in the fourth century.2 This practice seems to have been more prevalent in certain areas of the Greek-speaking world (especially Sicily and southern Italy) and does not seem to have occurred on the same scale as for tragedy, but there are nonetheless indicators that comic revivals took place in a range of locations, and we must be wary of dismissing those indicators out of hand. For example, in Plato’s Protagoras there is a description of the sophist after whom the dialogue is named, where Socrates notes in some detail how Protagoras is followed around by a ‘chorus’ of followers (315b2–8). It has been suggested that Plato is alluding here to a 1 Maidment 1935, Sifakis 1971, Hunter 1979, Rothwell 1992, Lape 2006, and Hartwig 2014. 2 Hartwig 2014: 211 16 on the fourth century reception of fifth century comedy.

The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE: Presence and Representation. Lucy C. M. M. Jackson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Lucy C. M. M. Jackson. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198844532.001.0001

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particular scene from ‘Old’ Comedy and two plays in particular have been noted as possible inspirations: Eupolis’ Flatterers and Ameipsias’ Connus.3 It is possible that Plato could have read the text of these plays, but it is also possible that one or both might have been revived and seen by Plato either in Sicily or in Athens/Attica itself. The visual impact of Protagoras leading an attentive ‘chorus’ of followers around a courtyard might push us towards seeing in Plato’s text the traces of a strong impression made by witnessing such a revival.4 The comic, dramatic, and political import of the partially preserved choral narrative in Aristophanes’ last two plays, Assemblywomen (first performed in 392/1)5 and Wealth (in 388), may not have been discussed as fully as it might have been in scholarship, but such import is clear once one fully engages with the texts, as we shall see in sections 4.1. and 4.2. of this chapter. We then turn to the traces of choral activity in Menander’s plays, together with the more fragmentary evidence from so-called ‘Middle’6 and New Comedy, adding further texture to the increasingly familiar, though incomplete picture of varied and vibrant choral dramatic performances in this century. Literary sophistication and dramatic potential are manifest in the choral texts of these plays and fragments, if one is willing to see it.

4.1. ASSEMBLYWOMEN In many ways Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen has a very typical ‘Old’ Comedy chorus. It appears on stage early on in the play after a prologue speech, and using traditional parodos language (ὥρα βαδίζειν, 30),

3

See Storey 2003: 184 92 and n.25. Protagoras was definitely a character in Eupolis’ play (Eupolis fr.157) but the chorus in Ameipsias’, a group of ‘deep thinkers’ (φροντισταί ), might suit this scene in Protagoras better than the chorus of flatterers in Eupolis’. 4 See also the reference made later in the dialogue to Pherecrates’ chorus of ‘misanthropes’ (327d4 e1). 5 Although 392/1 is the most likely date, we do not know for certain when and where the play was first performed. See Sommerstein 1998: 1 7 for this suggested date in relation to the historical and political background of the period. 6 The label ‘Middle Comedy’ as a distinct subset of the genre is an unhelpful term, see Nesselrath 1990: 3 27 and more recently Chronopoulos and Orth 2015 especially Konstatakos 2015: 159 98.

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just as the choruses of Acharnians, Wasps, and Peace do.7 They have a particular connection to one of the characters, here Praxagora,8 as is also frequently the case for many choruses in Aristophanes’ comedies.9 They complain and criticize the state of affairs nowadays (301–10), as so many comic choruses do. In more formal terms, they speak at customary points in the dramatic action, performing a lyric to encourage Praxagora ahead of an easily identifiable agon scene (571–82), appealing to the judges to favour the current production (1155–62), before rounding the play off with a vigorous song and dance (1163–83).10 As yet the unique contribution to the play made by its chorus has been undersold in scholarly literature.11 Studies have tended to focus on the political aspects and ramifications of the ‘utopia’ suggested by Praxagora, on questions of gender, on the elements of the play that might exemplify the changes in Athens supposedly brought about by its defeat in 404 at the hands of the Spartans, on the straitened economic circumstances, stagecraft, and changes in audiences’ taste.12 While the choral elements in this play certainly contribute to how these issues of politics, gender, and recent Athenian history are discussed within the play, there are further aspects of the chorus’ role to be appreciated. Here, I focus on how the chorus is used to enhance the dramatic, comic, and political impact of the drama. More than this, it is possible to suggest how the handling of this chorus might inform our understanding of the uses of, and attitudes towards, the comic chorus at the beginning of the fourth century. More than usual is lost when the Assemblywomen is reduced to text alone. The silent appearance of the chorus does not lend itself to an easy or immediate interpretation but we find the real coup of the ὥρα βαδίζειν, 30. Cf. Ach.204, V.230, Pax 301. See also Lys.254 and 321 and Sommerstein 1998: 140 for a more comprehensive list. 8 The chorus call her their strategos 491 and 500, and admire her skill 516. 9 Philocleon and the chorus of wasp ish old men in Wasps, the old women in Lysistrata and indeed the chorus of citizens and Chremylus in Wealth. 10 Ach.1231ff, Nu.1510ff, V.1516, Lys.1316ff. 11 Discussions usually focus on the marked absence of the text of the choral odes at lines 729/30 and 876/7, e.g. Russo and Wren 1994: 220 4. For the high likelihood that these excised odes were of the sort familiar from earlier Aristophanic tragedy, see Sutton 1990: 92. Slater 2002: 207 34 is a brilliant exception. 12 Assemblywomen is often paired with other Aristophanic comedies with Lysis trata and Women at the Thesmophoria (the ‘women’ plays, see Saïd 1979: 33 69, Foley 1982: 1 21) or with Wealth (the ‘late’ plays, see Flashar 1967: 154, Pütz 2007: 66). On ‘Politics’, see Rothwell 1990, Ober 1998: 122 55, and De Luca 2005: 69 124. On ‘Stagecraft’, see Ussher 1969: 22 37. 7

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opening scene in the unusual (and comically potent in performance) act of double transvestitism the chorus perform. The play opens with a chorus of women, played by men, trying their utmost to look and act like (male) Athenian citizens, which many of the choral performers could actually have been in real life. It is during their entrance that we get the first slapstick of the play, of which there are only traces in the text itself (e.g. τὴν Σμικυθίωνος δ’ οὐχ ὁρᾷς Μελιστίχην/ σπεύδουσαν ἐν ταῖς ἐμβάσιν; ‘do you see Smikythion’s wife Melistiche struggling along in his boots?’ 46–7). We have every reason to believe that the first gender switch (male performer to female Athenian) would in itself be unsurprising, so common was this requirement for all dramatic performers.13 There are enough instances of female choruses in tragedy, at any rate, to suggest that a certain level of teaching and convention existed to allow such gender-shifts to be expected by the audience.14 To act the second gender-switch, however, and have men pretending to be women pretending to be men, and make that performance funny as opposed to seeming merely shambolic, would require some quite serious training and skill on the part of the chorus. Similarly, readers of the text of the play are left without the aural humour in the scene, something that often seems to have had a role to play in such transvestitisms15 and is here further complicated by the falsely high voices being ‘suppressed’ during the choral song at the end of the scene at lines 289–310. The chorus even draw attention to this aural dexterity: σαυτῷ προσέχων ὅπως/ μηδὲν παραχορδιεῖς ὧν δεῖ σ’ ἀποδεῖξαι, ‘make sure that you don’t let your voice slip from how you’re meant to sound’ (294–5). The statement works just as well outside of the fiction of the play as inside, encouraging members to remember when they’re supposed to act male, and when female. In an illuminating chapter on the use of metatheatre in the Assemblywomen, Niall Slater has described how the silent entry of the chorus and the way the women are shown practising their roles constitutes comedy’s first ‘rehearsal scene’.16 Here, Aristophanes has

13

Revermann 2006a: 88. See Green 2001: 37 64 for the representation of women on pottery in the fourth century. 15 ἢν λαλῇς δ’, ὅπως τῷ φθέγματι/ γυναικιεῖς εὖ καὶ πιθανῶς Ar.Th.267 8. See also Halliwell 1990: 69 79. 16 Slater 2002: 207 34. 14

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crafted a series of episodes where the audience are transported ‘backstage’. The members of the chorus enter the stage space singly, carrying their costumes or wearing parts of them (‘they have not yet put on their characters’17), preparing for their roles and rehearsing the performance they are about to give.18 Whilst there are other comparable ‘rehearsal’ scenes in extant comedy, we must remind ourselves that the impact of the opening scene of Assemblywomen would have been greater than those: rather than an individual preparing for a role (as is the case in Acharnians where Dicaeopolis dresses as Telephus or Women at the Thesmophoria where the in-law must act the part of a woman), an entire chorus of twenty-four are all engaged in such activities.19 More than that, it is possible to see this metatheatrical device of staging a rehearsal as drawing on the intrinsic qualities of some choruses, beyond what Slater allows. In fact, the scene shall be shown to be not only a humorous metatheatrical conceit, but also a parodic picture of Athens’ idealized contemporary choral practice. Building on Slater’s observation of the ‘rehearsal scene’ that has been set up at the beginning of the play, it is not too far a leap to see it acting as a caricature of the process of being taught how to move and act the opposite gender by a theatre professional, something that audience members might have taken part in themselves or observed in the public spaces that were probably the location for rehearsals.20 The fact that Praxagora would have been played by an actor mirrors her quasi-professional status as orator and male imitator within the fiction of the play, while the chorus of women-imitating-men whom she chides and trains are in a similar position to those choruses (including the chorus of this comedy) who would have had to undergo a similar kind of training in reverse, i.e. how to be menimitating-women.

17

Slater 2002: 210. The inversion of inside and outside is continued after the chorus’ first exit when Praxagora’s husband Blepyrus comes on stage to relieve himself: οὐ γάρ με νῦν χέζοντα γ’ οὐδεὶς ὄψεται, 322. This may also be parodying the way in which some tragedies signalled to the audience that the proceedings were occurring in the dark, e.g. the opening scene of Rhesus or Sophocles’ Lakainai, see Walton 2000: 137 47. 19 What is more, ‘this is not just improvisation in character but a preconcerted narrative’ Slater 2002: 316 n. 36. See Revermann 2006a: 87 95 on the rehearsal process. 20 Wilson 2000: 71 4. 18

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The demands made on the chorus of Assemblywomen, even in the choral text that has been preserved, are considerable and would have required virtuosity on their part as performers. This can be seen perhaps most clearly from the 98-syllable word, an invention of twenty-eight dactyls, describing the food at the feasts at the end of the play, which might have been performed by the chorus en masse (1169–75). The practice of transvestitism would have been familiar to many audience members, whether from theatre, ritual, or komastic practice, and this kind of training could have resonated with the audience as a whole.21 Aristophanes’ audience would certainly have recognized such a parody of the requirement for chorus members to rehearse acting another gender. Throughout the first scene, the political parody of ritual and rhetoric in the Assembly is certainly uppermost, but this additional strand of metatheatre, which draws on audience awareness of similar ‘rehearsal’ scenes they themselves may have participated in, is also clearly present. The way in which ‘off-stage’ is brought on stage, and a kind of ‘on stage’ is imagined off-stage, something that is signalled by the rehearsal elements that Slater highlights, is extended beyond the first scene. The chorus is the prime means by which the inversion is created and shaped in the first half of the play. The first choral song proper (285–310) clearly marks itself out as a parodos by virtue of their exhortatory statements (ὥρα προβαίνειν, ὦνδρες, ἡμῖν ἐστι, ‘Come on, time for us to go, gentleman’ 285; χωρῶμεν εἰς ἐκκλησίαν, ὦνδρες, ‘Let’s get to the Assembly, gents’ 289) that frequently mark the beginning of a choral entry song.22 However, the chorus, rather surprisingly, perform a song suitable for a parodos as they exit the stage space instead of entering it. In doing so, they invite the audience to imagine that as they exit they are, in fact, entering into a parallel theatrical space off-stage. Just as the choral performers would have put on their costumes and been rehearsing their female mannerisms before coming on stage to perform Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen, so the chorus of women within the play have been shown putting on their costumes (60–77, 118–19, 121, 124–7, 149–50, 268–79) and 21 See, for example, the Boston pelike, which depicts two men in the process of dressing up as women. Pickard Cambridge et al. 1968, fig. 39. On transvestism in Archaic and Classical Greece see Miller 1999 esp. 241 6. 22 In addition, Parker 1997: 529, citing Whittaker 1935: 184, notes that the passage of ionics preceding (285 8) the stichic tellesileans 289ff is also typical of some comic parodoi.

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rehearsing their male mannerisms (87–97, 153–9, 163–8, 189–91, 263–7) before ‘entering’ what is for them a different kind of theatrical space, i.e. the assembly. Using the parodos as a marker, and relying on its recognizability as a component of dramatic structure signalling the point at which the (nominally) citizen chorus enter a stage space, Aristophanes skilfully collapses the political and dramatic spaces by having an imagined political space off-stage being approached as if it were a theatrical space, and the stage space of the actual theatre the play was being performed in being treated as if it were a political space. Further strengthening this idea that the chorus of women are not just playing the part of Athenian men but, at the same time, are selfconsciously playing the part of ‘a citizen chorus’, the chorus of Aristophanes Wasps offers a nice parallel. In that play we find the chorus leader exhorting members of the choral body by name: ὦ Κωμία, βραδύνεις . . . . νυνὶ δὲ κρείττων ἐστί σου Χαρινάδης βαδίζειν./ ὦ Στρυμόδωρε Κονθυλεῦ, βέλτιστε συνδικαστῶν,/ Εὐεργίδης ἆρ’ ἐστί που . . . ’νταῦθ’ ἢ Χάβης ὁ Φλυεύς, ‘Comias, you’re dragging your feet . . . but now Charinades walks with more purpose than you. / O Strymodorus of Conthyle, finest fellow-juror,/ is Euergides about somewhere? Or Chabes of Phlya?’ 230–4. In a similar way, we see the chorus calling to its own members in the Assemblywomen, again using individuals’ names: ἀλλ’, ὦ Χαριτιμίδη/ καὶ Σμίκυθε καὶ Δράκης,/ ἕπου κατεπείγων, ‘Ah Charitimides, Smikythus, and Draces, hurry and follow me’ 293–4.23 While the naming of individual choral performers is not a radical break with convention (as far as our extant sources go), it is rare nonetheless. It could be suggested that Aristophanes, then, is parodying himself (or building on the parodies of others) in having the women-dressed-as-men exhorting themselves to hurry to the political spaces of the city in the same way as his chorus of wasp-ish old men did.24 The fact that both these choruses are on their way to political spaces (the ‘wasps’ to the courts, the women to the Assembly) ties the two closer together and marks the inversion of the parodos in Assemblywomen as even more powerful.

23

See Kanavou 2011: 83 5 and 173 6 on the generic nature of these names. Wasps was first performed in 422, around three decades before the first per formance of Assemblywomen. Yet even from our small sample of evidence, the level of inter text in plays that have similar temporal distance (for their first performances at least) shows that these kinds of jokes would have found an audience even if they would not have been recognized by the whole audience. 24

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Alternatively, both Wasps and Assemblywomen may be drawing on a recognized technique in choral performance, whereby the partial naming of individuals within the group may suggest that it has not yet achieved choral unity, i.e. it is not yet a chorus.25 This, too, supports the notion that the audience is being presented with a ‘backstage view’ of a chorus entering the political/dramatic space. Once the chorus of women have thus signalled that they are going ‘on stage’ during their exit song from the actual stage, their re-entry might naturally be viewed as a kind of exodus from that off-stage ‘stage’ space. This is supported in the first instance by what the women immediately do, which is to divest themselves of their ‘costumes’ (496–9, 501–3, 506–9), just as real choral performers might do after their performances in the theatre. Brief but indicative, too, is the gargantuan word made up of twenty-eight dactyls that describes the food to be served at the feast at the end of the play (1169–75). The length of the word, ninety-eight syllables, is unparalleled in extant drama. However, Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, first performed only seven or eight years earlier, contains a passage of twenty-six dactyls, also spoken by the chorus (228–34) and it is not impossible that the passage in Assemblywomen was parodying this aural effect.26 In doing so, Aristophanes’ chorus not only show they can match the virtuosity of a tragic chorus, but can also make fun of the stylization by using the heightened tone to describe ‘limpets and saltfish and sharksteak and dogfish . . . ’, etc. Comedy’s continued contest with Tragedy is apparent throughout fourth-century comedy, and the comic chorus has a part to play in maintaining that antagonism. What these inversions, parodies, and metatheatrical moments all serve to show is that Aristophanes has his chorus playing with recognizable choral elements in drama, the choruses of previous comedy, the cultural associations of choral performance with ‘civic’ performance (most readily summoned through the tribal circular choral performances), and choral conventions more generally. The same must have also been the case throughout the rest of the play

25 Budelmann 2013: 91 notes the rarity of partial naming of choruses (citing PMG 1.39 40, Ar. Ach.609 12 and Lys.254 and the Pronomos vase) and suggests it may be linked to the creation of a pre or post performance space. Cf. Sophocles’ Ichneutai 176 202 with O’Sullivan and Collard 2013: 359 n. 35. 26 See Parker 1997: 5.

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where, unfortunately, the words the chorus would have sung have not been preserved.27 Even from the text that remains, we can infer how the physical presence of the chorus on stage throughout demonstrates the female dominance in the city under the new order. And further to that, it falls to the chorus to embrace metatheatre once more in the closing lines of the play when the chorus, or perhaps coryphaeus, appeals to the judges not to forget the intelligence and humour of the piece just because this play drew what was apparently the short straw of performing first (1155–62). It is difficult to argue for any more concrete effects, as so much depends on the lost text of the chorus in the second half of the play. And yet, it has been possible to draw out further dramatic significance from the chorus in Assemblywomen by recognizing its traditional functions within comedy and Aristophanes’ manipulation of those functions. That being said, there are some remarkable breaks with convention in this play too. Following Praxagora’s opening speech, a figure appears from one of the entrance ways and says ‘Time to move! Just now, as we were on our way, the Herald crowed a second time . . . ’ (30–1). The assignment of lines in the opening scene is difficult, and who one believes to have said what is unavoidably subjective.28 However, this is exactly the kind of statement that marks the beginning of a choral entry song in comedy. But before the expected parodos can proceed, Praxagora interrupts, berating the figure’s tardiness and she immediately turns to knock on her neighbour’s door (33–5). A woman, mostly likely one of the actors, emerges from the stage building, making her own excuses, and she and Praxagora start to identify by name other women approaching the stage (41–53). This kind of silent choral entry is also found in Aristophanes’ Birds (268ff ). In tragedy, too, we find silent entrances of the chorus in Aeschylus’ Eumenides (they too leave the stage space during the course of the play) and Euripides’ Suppliant Women. Another play where some of the members of the chorus are given names is Timocles’ Orestautokleides (fr.27), first performed in the 330s or 320s.29 The end of the chorus’ entry on stage is indicated by the words of the latecomer who speaks 27 Sutton has noted that the unusually low line count in Assemblywomen and the fact that some of the odes have been transmitted, seems to suggest that two odes were taken out of the manuscript, 1990: 92. Cf. also Pöhlmann 1977: 75. 28 Recognized by Ussher 1969: 26. See also Sommerstein 1998: 140. 29 See also Wilson 1977: 278 83 on the fairly common occurrence of individual izing the chorus in ‘Old’ Comedy.

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the lines at 54–6. The women sit down and the ‘rehearsal scene’ begins. The signalling of a traditional parodos song is suggested in Assemblywomen at 30–1 but the continuation of that parodos is interrupted and delayed by Praxagora, in a way unparalleled in extant comedy. As well as serving to confound the expectations of the audience by cutting off the parodos initially signalled at line 30, the fact that at least one of the actors seems to have come on stage with the chorus (54–6) and then emerged from their number as a regular speaker, goes some way towards destabilising the conventional boundary between actor and coryphaeus/chorus.30 Praxagora’s request that the women be seated (57–8) again brings the two actors playing the characters named in most editions as ‘Woman A’ and ‘Woman B’ closer to the chorus.31 Indeed, Woman A and B are never seen without the chorus and so might legitimately be viewed as both part of the chorus and simultaneously separate. The stage picture, in choral terms, presents Praxagora as a leader-figure, a role she assumes and maintains with ease and with the approbation of the choral body that surrounds her.32 From this choral picture we move to another, perhaps equally recognizable, choral picture where Praxagora remains leader and the two anonymous women act almost as deputies, both taking turns to speak. The choral body, meanwhile, is marked off as separate, perhaps spatially but definitely by virtue of their silence (from lines 46 to 279 or 285). The silence does not seem to be merely incidental. When Praxagora asks if all the women have brought their beards with them (68–72), instead of a choral reply, one of the actors replies on their behalf— φασί· κατανεύουσι γοῦν ‘They say they have. They’re nodding at least’ 30

There is always the possibility that choral speech could have been a lot more fragmented than is traditionally thought. Cf. Rhesus where Dolon possibly emerges from the chorus of soldiers (see above pp. 59 60). 31 Slater suggests that Praxagora’s order that the chorus sit down when they come on stage, making them a theatrical audience, is in line with the apparent stronger division of theatrical space and connected decline in choral contribution in drama (2002: 214). There is no evidence for such a separation of stage space until the Hellenistic period and even when a high stage was introduced, this did not seem to prevent choral interaction (see Sifakis 1967: Appendix 1 and esp. 130); does the ghost of the Schlegelian ‘ideal spectator’ lurk behind such a statement? See Slater again p. 214: ‘Now, as the theater space breaks up, we see that both bodies become spectators primarily, divided from the action by an invisible but growing gap.’ 32 After the failed attempts of Woman A and Woman B to address the ‘assembly’, Praxagora takes to the stage at 170. Approval of her ability and counsel is voiced by actors and chorus at 189, 204, 213, 241 2, and they elect her as στρατηγός 246 7.

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(72). Why are the chorus prevented from speaking in this way? Ussher’s explanation for this apparent awkwardness is that some of the spectators in the theatre would be too far away to see the chorus nodding their heads.33 But this does not address the question of why the chorus itself, when directly asked by Praxagora, does not reply. Slater has suggested that the chorus enter and remain silent as they have not yet found their political voice, and while this is a pleasing and persuasive interpretation, we might be forgiven for pressing the question a little further.34 We cannot know for certain the reason for the choral silence here (although some kind of visual gag could be possible, e.g. attempted speech being smothered by the beards, choking fits vel sim.), but this relatively minor point could signal something about hierarchy within this choral group and also about the genre of chorus (and its cultural associations) that is being alluded to. The internal structure of choruses is elucidated by two passages of Aristotle that are of some relevance to this stage picture of a three-tier chorus: leader-figure, two deputies, and choral body. In both the Politics and the Metaphysics Aristotle, writing around fifty years after the first performance of Assemblywomen, refers to a figure called a parastates (παραστάτης), which in the context of the Aristotelian passages connotes ‘the one who stands next to the coryphaeus’.35 These references are, perhaps, especially useful because of the incidental way in which Aristotle provides these details, suggesting that such figures would have been fairly recognizable. The presentation of the internal structure of a chorus (if we allow that the audience would view the collective of women in toto as a chorus) builds on the selfconscious quality of the play’s first scene, making a visual comment on the chorus’ own internal structure. The presence of the two ‘deputies’ in Assemblywomen might serve to underline the allusions to the civic, tribally organized circular choruses; the uniquely large number of performers in these circular choruses would, from a practical point of you, invite the use of ‘deputies’ to ensure co-ordination, in a way that is not so urgent for a group of fifteen or twenty-four. Such a reading is made tentatively, but the suggestion is, I think, a useful one. We have seen how Aristophanes seems to be using his chorus in some very traditional ways but also how he plays on his audience’s 33

34 Ussher 1973: 84. Slater 2002: 210. Arist. Met.1018b26 9 and Pol.1276b40 1277a12. In the Metaphysics, Aristotle also mentions the τριτοστάτης, a sort of third in command. 35

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expectations in order to subvert and foreground those traditions in surprising ways. As well as being interwoven in the play’s political themes and dramatic structure, we are also able to identify some of the new ways in which the poet appears to use his chorus. Particularly striking is the flexibility with which the chorus interacts with the actors. They begin with one of the actors integrated into the group, the woman who speaks from the entering chorus at lines 54–6, and move on to act as subordinate to Praxagora and two deputies, Woman A and Woman B; they then act as a chorus proper, performing the parodos as they go off-stage. When they return the chorus is divided more clearly into leader-figure and choral body by virtue of the fact that Praxagora singles out one of the women to get the others organized (509), in which recognizable choral form (i.e. leader and choral body) they remain until the end of the play when the chorus address the audience directly, almost in the manner of a parabasis, and ask for the judges’ favour in the contest (1155–62). If we had the two odes that have been excised, the choral plot in this play would be much easier to discern. At the very least, they are a consistent presence throughout the play. Once Praxagora leaves at 727 the chorus, closely allied with Praxagora, in effect can stand in for her. Even from what we do have, it is still possible to see the dramatic, thematic, and comic impact of this play’s chorus and the techniques that were still in play at the beginning of the fourth century.

4.2. WEALTH The process of textual transmission has been even more unkind to Aristophanes’ Wealth in removing nearly all of its choral odes. All that remains of the choral contribution to the play is its entrance (257–89) and a lyric exchange with the slave Cario (290–321). Something that has been recognized by many scholars is that this lyric exchange is clearly parodying an apparently famous dithyramb by the poet Philoxenus, Cyclops or Galatea.36 Such literary interaction is significant. Here we see Aristophanes in his last extant play 36 See PMG 815 24 for Philoxenus’ poem. Sommerstein (2001: 156) lists three further works by comic poets that may have parodied this particular dithyramb (Nicochares’ Galatea, Antiphanes’ The Cyclops, and Alexis’ Galatea).

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continuing to engage in parody of contemporary literary works, as he does to a greater or lesser extent in all of his plays. Along with the manifest sophistication in terms of literary parody, this ode also passes comment, and perhaps even challenges, the musico-political developments in the air at the beginning of the fourth century. Far from the lyric exchange being a ‘set piece . . . only tenuously connected to the plot’,37 the ideological and status-related issues raised by the choral performance prepare for and contour themes that will continue to run for the rest of the play. With so restricted a view of the choral contribution to the comedy, it is difficult to draw hard and fast conclusions about its role in the play as a whole, but we can at least see indications of the potential directions a dramatist could go in deploying his comic chorus for parodic, ideological, and political purposes. When Cario reveals to the chorus that his master has managed to obtain the divine personification of Wealth and intends on sharing him/it with his hardworking friends (284–7), the chorus are overjoyed and declare their desire to dance (ὡς ἥδομαι καὶ τέρπομαι καὶ βούλομαι χορεῦσαι/ ὑφ’ ἡδονῆς, εἴπερ λέγεις ὄντως σὺ ταῦτ’ ἀληθῆ. ‘I’m so pleased and happy, I want to dance for joy, if what you’re telling us is true’ 288–9). But before they can carry out their intended choral dance of joy and thanksgiving, Cario initiates a different kind of performance. Shifting into lyric iambics he assumes the quasidramatic role of the Cyclops, casting the chorus in the role of his sheep and goats (290–5). The chorus rejects the role, choosing instead to be the companions of Odysseus and threatening to blind the ‘Cyclops’ (Cario) with a ‘wooden stake’ (296–301). Turning to a different story from the Odyssey, Cario then takes on the role of Circe who famously transformed Odysseus’ companions into pigs; the chorus once more is cast in an animal role. Taking their turn and rejecting this too, the chorus opts instead to play Odysseus (τὸν Λαρτίου μιμούμενοι, ‘imitating the son of Laertes’ 311)38 but soon break character (although maintaining the metre and vocabulary of the previous strophe) and finish up their ‘turn’ in this game of literary capping by threatening Cario once again with a most unpleasant punishment (312–15). A sore loser, Cario abandons the ‘game’ and 37

Parker 1997: 555. So too in Philoxenus’ poem, an actor might play the Cyclops and the chorus would play Odysseus, Power 2013: 238. 38

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calls for them to ‘turn to a different form of dance’ (ὑμεῖς ἐπ’ ἄλλ’ εἶδος τρέπεσθ’ 317), which they do.39 Early commentators on the Wealth were able to identify lines and phrases in this choral exchange lifted from Philoxenus’ dithyramb. The refrain ‘θρεττανελο’ seems to have been used by Philoxenus’ Cyclops (PMG 819). Line 292 (ἀλλ’ εἶα, τέκεα, θαμίν’ ἐπαναβοῶντες/ βληχωμένων τε προβατίων, also PMG 819) is noted as a direct quotation, while elements of line 298 are also identified in Philoxenus (PMG 820). The concentrated metrical resolution in line 292 is (as expected) echoed in the corresponding line in the antistrophe (298), aurally emphasizing the allusion to the dithyramb and its predilection for fast-paced, heavily resolved metres.40 However the parody is not only of the linguistic features of Philoxenus’ dithyramb. Rather, this lyric exchange places itself firmly within politico-literary discourse of the period and engages in some competition with not one but two other genres of poetic performance. First we must consider the innovations Philoxenus, author of the clear inter-text in the lyric exchange, is believed to have made in creating his dithyramb before we can turn to Aristophanes. As Timothy Power has noted, it must have been somewhat startling for Philoxenus to have made his central figure, the Cyclops, ‘act’ the role of the sophisticated and fashionable citharode, as indicated by the Cyclops’ use of the onomatopoeic ‘threttanelo’ (imitating the sound of the cithara), and this seems to have signalled some kind of generic contest between nome and dithyramb. In Power’s compelling reading, the Cyclops is not modelled (as suggested by some ancient commentators) on Dionysius the Sicilian tyrant (at whose court Philoxenus spent some time) but Timotheus, ‘the mimeticizing, dithyrambizing, kitharoidos himself ’, in the same way as, e.g. the leather merchant in Aristophanes Knights is seen as Cleon.41 Such a parody on the part of Philoxenus maps well onto what we know of the high-profile inter-generic competition, both during the time of these two lyric poets, and within the traditions of Greek poetry

χοροῦ, 321/2. On the character of the New Music see Csapo 2004: 207 48, D’Angour 2006: 276 80, Power 2010: 500 7. 41 Power 2013: 251. See PMG 816 and 819. 39 40

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more generally.42 The comparison is clearly not meant to be flattering for the citharode. When this generic contest is then incorporated into Aristophanes’ play, the potential resonances and poetic recriminations are doubled: the exchange between chorus and soloist in lines 290–321 are, in fact, a parody of a parody. Within this three-way, literary tussle for poetic and generic supremacy, Aristophanes, as far as we know, had the last laugh, managing to deploy the associations of a literary critique of a ‘dithyrambizing’ citharode and to build on that in order to assert his dominance over both the citharode and the dithyrambic poet, and he does this by absorbing the inter-generic contest between nome and dithyramb into his own genre, comedy.43 There is a second strand to Aristophanes’ critique in this lyric exchange. Here he comments on the inter-generic contest (as well as both genres of lyric performance) by re-framing Philoxenus’ dithyramb as a contest between collective (the chorus) and individual (Cario) performers.44 Animosity between chorus and Cario has already been established while the old men are getting on stage (253–89) and the insults flung back and forth escalate in the lyric exchange.45 In the dialogue, the chorus rather weakly threatened the slave with a beating or the stocks (272–6). In the lyric exchange, however, they pick up the situation, register, and vocabulary that Cario has used in the strophe and proceed to ‘cap’ his strophe with an antistrophe that overturns his dominance as leader and renders

42 Generic interaction/competition is, of course, present in our earliest works but for the generic competition between dithyramb and kitharoidia, see Power 2013: 242 50. 43 ‘The spectacle of a slave playing the Kyklops playing the kitharoidos playing the Kyklops cleverly elaborates Philoxenus’ ludic critique of the distortion of the noble Apollonian art’, Power 2013: 255. 44 For the suggestion that satyr play also is being alluded to in the chorus’ parodos, see Imperio 2011: 128 9. 45 Rogers 1907: 33 4 talks about the exchange as a kind of rustic game, but very little comment is made elsewhere on the overtly adversative nature of this parodos, although see Olson 1989: 195 6 and Dobrov and Urios Aparisi 1995: 169 71. This passage is yet one more counter example to the belief (e.g. of Dearden 1976: 104) that this kind of antagonism between chorus and individual characters had no place in later comedy. See Lape 2006: 104 5 for the competition of status between chorus and individual in New Comedy. A comparable example of a contest between chorus and individual is found in Ran.209 68 and, perhaps, Lys.430 66 where three old women (from the chorus) verbally abuse the Magistrate.

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him figuratively blind.46 In the second strophic pair, sexual and scatological insults become yet more intricate and obscene.47 In addition to providing some typical, comic obscenity, (and it should be noted that those who construe ‘Middle’ comedy as more sanitized could not have this parodos anywhere in mind) the manifest animosity between the two parties casts Aristophanes’ interaction with Philoxenus’ dithyramb in the light of an ongoing competition of genre. In his emulation of the citharode, Cario draws attention to his (alleged) control of this particular performance, using imperatives (ἕπεσθ’, ‘follow’ 295; ἕπεσθε μητρὶ χοῖροι, ‘follow your Mum, piggies’ 308; ὑμεῖς ἐπ’ ἄλλ’ εἶδος τρέπεσθ’· ‘Try a different kind of dance’ 317) and emphasizing his own role (290–2, 302, 306, 318). We might compare this with the description given by Aristotle of the aulos player who ‘drags his chorus leader around’ in Timotheus’ Scylla (Poetics 1461b31–2). Cario’s imperious tone towards the chorus, in addition to his assumed identity as citharode/Cyclops (and both of these identities could be construed negatively in the minds of an Athenian), combine so that the slave in this context is able to enact a clear, and negatively framed, subjugation of choral performance. We might even be tempted to suggest that Cario’s ἕπεσθε μητρὶ χοῖροι (308—χοῖροι itself being a euphemism for female genitalia) might be heard as a subtle pun—‘follow your Mum, piggies’ but very close also is ἕπεσθε μητρὶ χοροί, ‘follow your Mum (i.e. solo performance, perhaps?), choruses’.48 The patronizing tone, bolstered by the allusion to a human/animal interaction (Circe and pigs) would certainly fit the characterization of Cario as a representative of a genre, at the centre of which lay a skilled, individual performer, that some (perhaps Aristophanes) felt was becoming uncomfortably dominant. It is suitable and elegant that Cario’s attempts to subjugate the chorus/choral performance are foiled in part by the form of the lyric exchange itself—the strophic structure, one that is especially 46 The chorus’ mention of a σφηκίσκος ‘stake’ in line 301 might point to some kind of visual parallel to the end of Cario’s verse (295), since both focus on phallic objects near the face. On capping more generally see Rosen and Marks 1999, Ruffell 2002: 138 163, Collins 2004 passim, and Hesk 2007: 124 60. 47 See Sommerstein’s note of explanation on αὐτὴ δ’ ἔματτεν αὐτοῖς (305) which renders the allusion as a typically dense Aristophanic combination of wit and obscen ity 2001: 158 9. The reference to Aristyllus (314), also mentioned in Assemblywomen (646 8), apparently alluded to coprophilia (Sommerstein 2001: 159). 48 Cf. Ran.334 7 where a similar pun of χορείαν and χοιρείων is deployed.

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associated with choral performance.49 The chorus is compelled to follow the metre of the strophe, but they turn this to advantage by re-using in its antistrophes the phrases and rhythms set up by Cario. Their aggressive ripostes act not only within the fiction of the play, but also in the broader cultural landscape where choral performance may have taken a posture of being threatened by the increasingly acquisitive genres of nome and dithyramb and their appropriation of other genres’ tropes.50 Within a choral structure and representing choral performance, the chorus of Wealth enact a cultural battle that was ongoing at the time of first performance. It need hardly be pointed out that it would be impossible for anything other than a chorus to represent ‘choral performance’ in this way. In addition to the literary and musico-political battle being staged, we can also read an ideological battle. It is within this ideological contest, enacted during the chorus’ exchange with Cario, that we can identify a key theme that will recur throughout the play. We might frame the lyric exchange as a contest being fought between the ‘lowbrow’ individualist for whom individual advantage is a priority, and the (significantly idealized) traditional and stalwart everyman who struggles on, following traditional values and keeping to traditional practices. Cario has clearly been portrayed as the former: Chremylus calls him ‘my most trustworthy and most larcenous slave’ (27); he touts the view that ‘in our age, the key to real success is to avoid every wholesome practice’ (49–50); when he and Chremylus are pointing out to Wealth all the things that men cannot have too much of, the master lists cultured things such as ἔρωτος . . . μουσικῆς . . . τιμῆς . . . ἀνδραγαθίας . . . φιλοτιμίας . . . στρατηγίας (love, mousikê, esteem, manly virtue, love of honour, generalship), while the slave Cario mentions less lofty items such as ἄρτων . . . τραγημάτων . . . πλακούντων . . . ἰσχάδων . . . μάζης . . . φακῆς (bread, snacks, cakes, figs, barley bread, lentil soup, 190–2). In addition, he is identified with a New Musician such as Timotheus and therefore takes on the associations of the New 49 Even if this is only at the level of etymology: ‘strophe’ and ‘antistrophe’ refer to the direction and then reversing of direction of choral performance, see Mullen 1982: 225 30 on the sources for this appreciation of choral movement from later sources. 50 Philoxenus is as engaged in this kind of generic appropriation as Timotheus (and indeed Aristophanes himself ), particularly if, as Sutton argues, his Cyclops or Galatea contained dialogue between two actors within what was broadly conceived of as a choral genre, hence its reputation as a ‘quasi dramatic’ dithyramb, see Sutton 1983: 37 43.

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Musician, both good (extremely popular and well-paid) and bad (foreign and well-paid). The men of the chorus meanwhile provide a social group of ‘righteous people who’ve gone without their daily bread’ (219) and ‘lovers of hard labour’ (254); in other words, an idealized majority of Athenian citizens, hounded and done down by politicians, tax-collectors, and informers.51 Without doubt, an audience would happily identify with both parties, but this need not negate the idea that an ideological battle between (very broadly) ‘old’ and ‘new’ is being waged on stage. The use of the chorus as representatives of an ‘everyman’ figure is apt. The fact that the lyric exchange between Cario and the chorus invokes a form associated with the civic ‘circular chorus’ makes the ideological conflict between individual and citizen collective all the more pointed. In the rest of the play we see how the ‘utopia’ suggested at the beginning, created by returning Wealth’s sight so that he may avoid the wicked (95–6) and visit the just (97), is undercut and ironized at many points. To take just one example, Chremylus claims that he first went to Apollo for the sake of his son (32–8), about whom we hear nothing once Wealth has entered his house.52 However, it is only by establishing a sharp dichotomy between old and young, traditional and dangerously innovative (although this was by no means original in Aristophanes’ plays), that the episodes that make up the rest of the play can later be undercut. The role of the chorus in the parodos and lyric exchange with Cario is to reassert the power of the demos, the power and primacy of the traditional choral performance, as well as the everyman figure, and justify their claim to Wealth over those self-seeking, fast-buck-making individuals represented by Cario.53 The identity the chorus create for themselves here allows 51 There can be no doubt that Athens’ involvement in the Corinthian War (395 87) had placed a significant burden on the city’s finances and there was a greater gap between rich and poor during this time, see David 1984: 4, 14 20 and French 1991: 24 40. 52 Or again, Chremylus’ line just before Wealth does enter the house, ‘Well, why would anyone lie to you?’ (252), is heavy with irony in light of the preceding discussion. 53 Cario is a negative exemplum in more ways than one. It is indicated early on that he has only recently become a slave, perhaps because of his own extreme poverty ‘in my case, it was for small change that I lost my freedom and became a slave’ (147 8). Thus he acts as a representative of the possible future destitution of the people (although, as Athenian citizens, they would not be reduced to slavery). See Olson 1989: 193 9.

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their presence throughout the play (they continue to be referred to by characters despite the fact that their songs have been removed, see 322, 487–8, 627, 802, 959) to act as a counterpoint to the experiments within the new order.

4.3. THE CHORUS IN MENANDER AND THE FRAGMENTS The comic fragments, as was true for tragedy, cannot support a definitive argument concerning the role of the chorus in the fourth century.54 While Richard Hunter’s call for an ‘honest profession of ignorance’55 regarding many aspects of the later Classical comic chorus remains as valuable today as it was in 1979, as noted above there is still more that can be done with the available evidence, particularly in the light of the change of attitudes towards fourthcentury drama more generally. What the following brief review is able to do is complicate the picture of choral development and provide some idea of the potential variety of choral practice in the later Classical period.56 The dates of many of the fragments are uncertain and scattered across the full span of the century. However, the relative anarchy of the evidence becomes an advantage in the attempt to display how choral practice in the fourth century was anything but uniform and, as we might expect, was continually shifting, as well as varying from author to author. The attempt to complicate current assumptions about the fourthcentury chorus is particularly challenging in the case of the playwright Menander. The belief that he did not write choral odes and that, even if he did, these would be entirely irrelevant to the plot, remains entirely unchallenged in modern scholarship. As already suggested in the Introduction to this book, and as we shall see in more detail in the next chapter, there are grounds to reject such assumptions of irrelevance and/or inauthenticity of choral content. 54 See also Nesselrath 2010: 423 53 for sobering discussion of the factors involved in the transmission and text of comic fragments. 55 Hunter 1979: 23. 56 For evaluation of most of the fragments discussed here in light of the question of choral development see Webster 1953: 58 63 and Hunter 1979: 23 38.

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The same applies to the way Aristotle’s embolima (Poet.1456a25–32) are used and applied to comedy. Maintaining for the moment our focus on the choral text we do have, it might be possible to see why a new evaluation of the meaning of χοροῦ and embolimon is appealing, even when it comes to Menander. It is misleading to view Menander as a representative writer of New Comedy and this is just as clear when looking at the issue of choral identity. The fact that the plays of Menander often appear to have choruses of a similar identity, introduced in a formulaic way by the characters on stage,57 has been used to support the argument that the chorus was standardized and lacking in unique qualities in all later comedy. ‘Standardized’ identity in itself should not be viewed negatively: we should remember that the consistent identity (to a degree) of the chorus in satyr play does not detract from its contribution to the drama. However, this notion that all ‘Middle’ or New comic choruses had roughly the same identity may, in any case, be dispensed with easily. Outside of the texts of Menander there is plentiful evidence for the variety of choral identity during the fourth century. In Aristophanes’ Aiolosikon (first quarter of the century) we see a chorus of women, as we do in Alexis’ Gunaikokratia (fr.42)— first performed sometime between 350–300—and in Autocrates’ Tympanistai (fr.1). Antiphanes, one of the most prolific comic poets of the so-called ‘Middle’ period of comedy, whose work spans the fourth century down to c.330, gives us a chorus of Scythians in a play of that name (frr.197–9)58 and knights in his Knights (frr.108–9). Anaxilas’ Circe (frr.12 and 13), performed some time during the middle of the fourth century,59 had a chorus of Odysseus’ companions. A play by Heniochus, performed at some point during the fourth century, seems to have had a chorus of individualized cities (fr.5).60 Timocles’ Orestautokleides (frr.27–8), one of the plays we can date to the last third of the fourth century,61 could well have had a chorus of Furies and it may be that the list of names we have (fr.27) are of those 57

Arnott 1978: 18 19. See also Antiphanes fr.199 for a description of a group ‘all wearing tunics and trousers’, possibly a chorus, with Webster 1953: 62. 59 Anaxilas is said to have ridiculed Plato and so is thought to have been writing during his lifetime, see Diog.Laert. 3.28. 60 Maidment 1935: 14 and Webster 1953: 59, comparing Eupolis’ Demes. 61 Timocles won first prize at the Lenaea sometime between 330 and 320, IG II2 2325.158. 58

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Furies.62 Choruses of ‘tipsy revellers’ meanwhile are far from apparent outside of Menander;63 we only have Alexis’ Kouris (fr.112), which we are told had a group of komastai. The use of plural play names from fourth-century comedy, e.g. Posidippus’ Builders (fr.10) or Women Choreuts (fr.28), both performed at the very end of the fourth century or early third, or even a play such as Epicrates’ Chorus (fr.8), might also provide a further, though more unreliable, body of evidence for variety in choral identity during this time.64 Even in Menander whose extant texts suggest a preference on his part for young male revellers, there is room for diversity within that broad category.65 In his Hero the chorus is a band of huntsmen.66 Nor should we be too wedded to the idea that his choruses were always a komos rather than a chorus in all its polyvalent potential.67 A fragment (adesp.1147) possibly of Menander, possibly from his Twice Deceived, refers to χορός τις (line 127, not komos) appearing, two lines before a mark indicating a choral ode in the manuscript.68 While culturally there is some overlap between the komos and the chorus, the two bodies are distinct enough to warrant a note that here too Menander is varying from what is believed to be a standardized choral identity. Smaller variants help to chip away at the orthodoxy on Menander’s choruses. P. Köln 20546, a third-century papyrus fragment, has a chorus being announced before a χοροῦ, using an echo of the Menandrian formula, but there is no mention of drunkenness.69 Within Menandrian scholarship this standardization of identity and what it signifies about the later comic chorus has been called into question. The chorus of Dyskolos has been re-evaluated in light of its metatheatrical capabilities, ‘rather than being a superfluous

62 Maidment 1935: 13 and Rothwell 1992: 217. Pickard Cambridge 1946: 163 argues against these being the names of the Furies. 63 Asp.245 6, Dys.229 32, Epit. 168 71, Pk.261 6. 64 See Körte 1900: 89 n. 2. 65 It is now recognized that the Bad tempered Old Man chorus of ‘Pan singers’, or perhaps ‘paian singers’, is of significance to the play’s themes and a locus for some variation in terms of choral identity, see Gomme and Sandbach 1973: 172 3 and Marshall 2002: 10 n. 33. 66 See Gomme Sandbach 1973: 397, Arnott 1996: 38 9. 67 Lape 2006 argues for Menander’s komos being a significant part of the play’s structure and exploration of themes, but we cannot rule out the idea that he did not always frame his chorus as a komos. 68 = P. Köln 243 a+b.16. See Nünlist 1993: 258 70. 69 Grönewald 1987: 52 60.

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holdover from earlier drama, Menander shows the chorus becoming part of an arsenal of metatheatrical devices used by the playwright’, as well as being seen as a character and integrated into the plot.70 Susan Lape has emphasized that the komos-chorus of Menander as an embedded choral genre that can be used in the play’s visual narrative.71 With a variety of identity comes a variety of dramatic purpose and the potential for significant interactions with the characters of the plot. Despite the ‘nothing to do with the plot’ rhetoric in modern scholarship (borrowed from certain overly-influential scholia on tragedy), there are a number of strong indications that actors did engage with the chorus and vice versa in comedy throughout the fourth century. Most well-known, perhaps, is a reference by Aeschines in a speech delivered in 346 to an actor, Parmenon, saying something ‘to the chorus’ (πρὸς τὸν χορόν).72 But there are more numerous indications of actor/chorus interaction in the plays themselves. In a fragment of Antidotus (writing in the third quarter of the fourth century), an individual addresses a group of men standing nearby, something which points to integration: κατὰ τὴν στάσιν δὴ στάντες ἀκροάσασθέ μου ‘Hear me, you standing all lined up’ (fr.2.1). We have good reason to believe the character is talking to the chorus. The reference to ‘standing all lined up’ is wholly appropriate for a chorus, a body that is defined by such formations on stage. Second, the name of the play is Πρωτοχορός; the title cannot be translated with certainty but nonetheless supports the idea that the chorus of the play featured in its plot as well as its spectacle.73 The fragment of Antidotus is not an isolated instance of a character talking to a chorus. In fact, we can be fairly certain from the traces that have survived that this was a regular feature of comedy. Two fragments of Eubulus also are possible instances of choral integration: in the Ankulion a character addresses a plural group of women: εἶεν, γυναῖκες (fr.2)74 and in his Stephanopolides, an individual,

70

71 Marshall 2002: 4, and more generally 3 17. Lape 2006: 89 109. Aeschin. In Tim.157. 73 E.g. the title could refer to an individual who is ‘first in the chorus’, i.e. a leader figure, or could refer to a chorus that performs first in a competition, or wins first prize. See Wilson 2015: 124 6 for a discussion of this word, used in a deme inscription in the fifth century. 74 Hunter (1983: 88) argues that the individual could be addressing women inside the house; a possibility, but Hunter frequently seeks to downplay the potential involvement of the chorus. 72

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Aigidion, is addressed by name (fr.103), and it is generally agreed that he is a member of the chorus.75 There is a fragment that contains a line actually spoken by the chorus—a rare find in our texts. A papyrus from the third century76 has a group of men being referred to by one of the speakers and called on as witnesses (adesp.1032.18, 26), and a plural speaker, most likely the chorus, replying—ἅπ]αντες ἡμεῖς γ’ οἱ παρόντες ἐνθαδε/ νομίζ]ομέν σε παρανομεῖν εἰς τὴν θεόν (24–5). The clear participation of the chorus in the action of this comedy has caused some commentators to rule out Menandrian authorship, but in light of a recalibrated approach to the later comic chorus, this need not be the case. The date of the play’s first performance is unknown, but these findings are suggestive in building up the picture of choral integration nonetheless.77 Variety of identity, address to and speech by the chorus are clear from the evidence reviewed above. Further to this, there are fragments that suggest a continued lyric component and the continuation of the parabasis. Concerning the lyric fragments, Hunter, always erring on the side of scepticism as to the potential for lyric variety in fourth-century comedy, has, nevertheless, identified a range of metres.78 Some have preferred to remain ambivalent on this point

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76 Hunter 1983: 198. = P. Berol.1171. Some have also adduced the groups of characters in Plautus’ plays as indicative of an active role for the chorus in some Greek New comedies: the lawyers in his Carthaginian, the fishermen in Rope and the slave overseers in Prisoners (Flickinger 1912: 26 n. 2). As long as the prevailing modern attitude towards Roman Comedy consisted of framing those plays as copies of Greek ‘originals’, the argument that such groups must have been present in that original in order to explain their presence in the chorus less comedy of Republican Rome, seemed logical. However, with a recognition of the originality of authors such as Plautus and their skilful handling of Greek material (but by no means their lack of originality in the way they use that material) it is far less certain to what extent these plural groups (all of which could be played by other actors not required on stage at the time, see Marshall 2006: 112) do in fact stem from Greek originals. The most comprehensive statement of this is Lowe 1990: 274 97. See also Maidment 1935: 23, Hunter 1979: 37 8, Rosivach 1983: 83 93, Arnott 1994: 67 8 and 2004: 63 n. 10 (against his own thoughts in 1996: 284 7). There may be a counter case to be made; it is interesting to note, for example, that the tone of the initial speeches of both the fishermen and the slave overseers in Cartha ginian and Prisoners respectively has a certain moralizing, general quality to it which, perhaps for a Roman Republican audience, was typical of a Greek chorus. 78 Anaxilas Circe frr.12 and 13, Alexis Trophonoios fr.239, Aristophanes’ Aiolosi kon frr. 8 and 10, Eubulus frr. 102, 103, 111, and 137, and Plato Comicus fr.167. See Hunter 1979: 23 38. 77

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despite the various metres in evidence from even our small sample of comic choral text from the fourth century.79 Martin Revermann has noted that the parabasis, too, continued to have a place in later comedy, citing two fragments of Alexis (frr.209, in eupolideans, and 239), the second of which also includes an insult aimed at Boiotians and an instruction to strip. Also relevant is the fragment from Astydamas’ Heracles Plays the Satyr (fr.4), possibly a genre-bending satyr play, which is written in eupolideans and contains the kinds of statements that are typical of a comic parabasis.80 The evidence is slim but, once again, we have no reason to believe that comic choruses did not perform a parabasis just because the text has not survived for us to read.81 The argument from probability can only take us so far, but nevertheless it has been possible to highlight the ways in which choruses were created with a specific role within the plot and that the dialogue they shared with characters, although lost for the most part, can be identified at least in some of the fragments. *

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E.g. Rothwell 1992: 223. With Barbieri 2002: 121 32 we should recognize the fact that one level of humour is related to musical innovation; Alexis Trophonoios (fr.239), where a group are told to strip ‘lest they look entirely Boiotian’; Alexis (fr.209); Anaxandrides Gerontomania (fr.10). See Revermann 2006a: 278 80. 81 Flashar 1967: 154 75 and Ireland 2010: 78 84. Dover 1972: 195 suggested there were no parabases because of the need for comedy to be exportable while Schmid et al. 1946: 442 sees the political circumstances of the time as responsible for curtailing comedy’s parabatic liberty. There is, perhaps, a further strand of argument to explore within the fragments of fourth century comedy. Marshall has highlighted how Menander seems to have used the chorus for deliberate meta theatrical effects in the Bad tempered Old Man (Marshall 2002: 15 17). Lape, too, has identified metatheatrical moments in Menander’s The Shield where Daos is able to appeal to the chorus (νοῦν ἔχετε, 287) in order to support and heighten the paratragedy of the situation and his own words (Lape 2006: 99). We might add a third instance of Menander’s deployment of the chorus in order to make a metatheatrical point. In his Sicyonians, a character (Sm[ikrines?]) enters after a χοροῦ mark in the manuscript (149/50) saying, ὄχλος εἶ φλυάρου μεστός, ὦ πόνηρε σύ. It is clear that the character’s speech is directed at another individual (εἶ . . . σύ) entering the stage at the same time. However, considering the presence of the chorus, often referred to elsewhere in Menander as an ὄχλος (e.g. Dys.432), we are justified in reading a second meaning in this exclamation and have the character addressing the chorus too. A more detailed investigation into the metatheatrical poetics of Menander’s choruses, particularly in sections where tragic quotation is being foregrounded, e.g. Asp. 391 428 than can be afforded here would clearly be worth pursuing, although on metatheatre in Menander see Gutzwiller 2000: 102 37. 80

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In terms of dramatic structure and basic action, the comic chorus, as visible in our partially preserved plays and fragments, continues to play a role familiar from fifth-century plays: it is present, sings, and dances at multiple points throughout the play, addresses and is addressed by individual characters, and can still be responsible for some biting personal invective. In terms of what the chorus performs, as far as can be told from our partial texts, they spoke as characters integrated into the plot and setting of the play, engaged in literary parody, made use of the potential for metatheatre specific to dramatic choral performance and self-consciously played with the broadly political connotations intrinsic to choral identity (e.g. the relationship between circular choral performance and Athenian citizenship). The changes that we can identify can only be cautiously set out; our sample of material is so slim that comparison to dramatic or choral ‘norms’ of the fifth century is almost guaranteed to be partial or incorrect. What we have identified, particularly clearly in Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen, is the potential for poets to play with choral structures, and make the metatheatre that relies on audience awareness of choral conventions (both on and off stage) more sophisticated and overt.

5 An Interlude Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima

The previous four chapters have been concerned with locating and examining where the chorus of drama is present and its activity hinted at in our fourth-century sources. As already noted, we lack a critical mass of evidence to suggest how choral techniques in drama developed and changed over the course of the century. But the evidence for presence and activity is there: the odes and actorinteraction of the Rhesus chorus; the literary and political odes that have been preserved as part of the fourth-century comedies, Assemblywomen and Wealth; the definite and likely choral fragments of tragedy and comedy quoted by later authors and preserved on papyrus, some of which speak to specifics of choral plot and choral interaction with actors; the varied and integrated characterizations given to the tragic and comic chorus which go beyond explaining their presence in a certain plot or place; and the indications that choral parts of revived fifth-century dramas such as Iphigenia at Aulis were added to or used to reshape a play’s themes. Little can be said with certainty about the performance of satyr play in the fourth century, but we can at least note the activity and integration that continued to be central for that genre’s chorus.1 Distinct from these texts, as well as the testimony related to the institutional and financial support for choral performance, there are two (frequently conflated) phenomena that have formed the basis for the traditional story of the chorus’ development in drama after 401. The first is the presence of χοροῦ in papyri and manuscripts in place 1

See Cohn 2015 for discussion of the fourth century satyr play and its character.

The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE: Presence and Representation. Lucy C. M. M. Jackson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Lucy C. M. M. Jackson. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198844532.001.0001

140 An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima of the text of choral odes. The second is Aristotle’s assertion that embolima began to take the place of odes integral to the plot at some point in tragedy’s development. The usual interpretations of these two phenomena are in tension with the evidence for choral presence examined fully in the earlier chapters of this book. Now we will consider how these two markers of ‘choral absence’ have been, and might be, read. This chapter will also show how the gaps in our evidence have come to define discussions of drama’s development, rather than the positive evidence available, some of it readily available for centuries, some of it only brought to light in the past few decades. We begin with the gap in our records that has been inscribed and transmitted as part of the textual tradition. In some of the earliest papyri containing the texts of Greek drama, as well as in a host of later manuscript copies, we find the words χοροῦ μέλος (sometimes shortened to χοροῦ or just χο., although a number variations exist)—‘song of the chorus’—at points where we know or it is thought that the chorus would have performed an ode. The regularity of its appearance in the surviving copies of Menander has meant that the mark is especially associated with the development of comedy, but it is important to note at the outset that it frequently appears in papyri containing the texts of tragedy too, as we have already seen in the analysis of the fragment from Astydamas’ Hector (fr.1 col.2) in Chapter 2.2 Reading absence in the available source material as absence or unimportance in any kind of lived reality may have been a common habit in scholarship, but such an approach rests on the general and false assumption that truly important (or valued) information has been preserved for us today. In the same way, the significance of the χοροῦ mark has traditionally been taken to be selfevident: the odes were not included in the text of the play either because the choral songs were not unique to the work, but rather generic or traditional songs not worth writing out on expensive papyrus, or because specially-composed songs did not exist in the first place. But other approaches to reading the mark are possible. The interpretation of the χοροῦ mark as indicative of an entirely absent chorus has a particularly long history. Platonius states in On the Difference of Comedies that Aristophanes’ Aiolosikon had no choral odes (27–8, 35–8), a statement we know to be untrue since 2 Pöhlmann 1977 remains the authoritative review of relevant papyri containing these marks.

An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima 141 we have two fragments of that play which contain parts of the parodos, performed by a chorus of women (frr.8 and 9).3 It is possible that he made such a statement on the basis that the text of Aristophanes he had at his disposal did not have the odes written out, and so he read the absence in the text as indicative of absence in performance. In order to explain this sudden disappearance, Platonius adduced Athens’ apparent political and economic ruin at the end of the fifth century (25–7, 45–51, 66–9), a trope propagated by any number of contemporary Greek writers (including Aristophanes himself).4 Platonius also suggests that there were restrictions on political lampooning in Athens from the early fourth century (39–43), a statement negated by a number of comic fragments from the period.5 Platonius’ testimony, comprehensible in its approach but mistaken, exemplifies the longevity of a kind of ‘textually positivist’ reading of certain copies of plays that either replaced odes with a χοροῦ mark or entirely left out any trace of the choral odes. More than being unsound in theory, we have evidence for χοροῦ indicating the place for an ode that had been written by the author and was specific to the play being missed out in some copies. A third-century papyrus (P. Sorb. 2252), published in 1962, contains lines 1–57 and 73–106 of Euripides’ Hippolytus, while the ode the chorus sings (with the three lines of introduction from Hippolytus himself) has been excised from this particular text.6 We cannot discern if there was a χοροῦ (or similar) marked in the gap, as only the latter half of the lines are 3 While we have little idea when Platonius was writing, the reference to seeing Menander performed (Platon.Diff.Com.79 81) indicates a pre Byzantine date, see Sommerstein 2009: 273 4. Cf. Perusino 1989: 51 for a defence of Platonius. 4 Sommerstein (2009: 275) suggests that Platonius was transposing contemporary concerns onto the past. 5 On the continuation of criticism of politicians and politics in comedy, see e.g. Luraghi 2012: 371 who argues political lampooning continued even after Athens’ capitulation to Macedonia ‘se la libertà greca era morta a Cheronea, qualcuno si era dimenticato di dirlo agli Ateniesi’. 6 See Cadell 1962: 25 36. Barrett (1964: 438 9) suggests of the gap of two lines ‘ubi si quid scriptum fuerat (velut χορου vel χορου μελος) papyro abscissa periit’, a suggestion followed by Pöhlmann 1977: 70. Taplin (1976: 49) does not admit the possibility of the blank space containing χοροῦ μέλος on the grounds that there was no embolimon at this point, but a choral ode. If we reject the idea that χοροῦ μέλος is indicative of the content or quality of the ode (something that is only achieved by assuming an embolimon signified the same thing as χοροῦ), then Barrett’s suggestion that χοροῦ μέλος may be in the manuscript is obviously attractive.

142 An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima visible on the fragmentary papyrus. In some earlier papyri we find χο. in the left-hand margin, rather than in the middle of the line which may explain the gap in P. Sorb. 2252.7 However, the fact that a play we know had connected choral odes exists in textual form without its choral odes (whether χοροῦ marked the spot or not) clearly demonstrates that an absence of choral text does not necessarily mean an absence of choral performance (words, music, dance) specific to the play. A second example of odes being excised from plays during the process of textualization is relevant here. In our version of Aristophanes’ Wealth an ode has been removed or missed out by one of the play text creators. Following directly on from a manuscript mark of ΚΟΜΜΑΤΙΟΝ ΧΟΡΟΥ (an example of the kind of variation in χοροῦ formula used in some texts) at line 771 Wealth says καὶ προσκυνῶ γε πρῶτα μὲν τὸν ἥλιον . . . , ‘More than that, I greet and worship the sun . . . ’. The language strongly implies this sentence is in reply to something someone else has said, and the most likely candidate for that interlocutor is the chorus figure.8 The preceding ode (which was promised in 760–1) must have contained not only a celebratory bout of song and dance, but also some direct questions to one of the actors, which has been removed together with the lyrics. Here, then, is another example of absence in a text not being indicative of absence or unimportance in terms of the play itself. In light of the Hippolytus papyrus just mentioned, we also cannot assume that the displaced text was written by someone other than the author. These two examples, and the conclusions drawn from them, have some important ramifications for the way we read and date dramatic fragments. For example, a fragment of an Oeneus tragedy (adesp. 625) is usually thought to be a fourth-century tragedy because the papyrus includes a χοροῦ mark. If we are right to view χοροῦ as a graphic habit, rather than indicative of the quality of the ode, it is possible that this could be an Oeneus drama from the fifth century as much as the fourth. The example of P. Sorb. 2252 demonstrates that it might even be connected to Euripides’ Oeneus, as some have tentatively suggested. 7

Pöhlmann 1977: 73 4. Sommerstein 2001: 185 rightly dismisses the special pleading of some scholars, emphasizing the effect of continuing a conversation in the combination of καί . . . γε, contra Denniston 1934: 158. 8

An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima 143 These two instances of excision prompt an immediate question: why omit the choral odes in making a text of a play? One approach to this question is to consider who would be reading these texts, and what the texts were used for.9 A further (to my mind crucial) consideration is that while the beauty of the choral poetry will have been important to some and enjoyable, perhaps, to read, the predominant pleasure of the choral element in drama must have come from seeing and hearing the performance itself. Musical notation in some form or other existed from at least the fifth century, but no examples of fourth-century notation exist in our current evidence.10 It is possible, then, that the consumers of written copies of drama did not want to read choral odes, but preferred to focus on the rhetorically brilliant speeches of individual characters. The habits of scribes and readers in the fourth century is the most likely force behind the absence of choral text in the earliest copies (outside those made by the poets and theatre-makers themselves). Of course, we do have the choral odes in text form for every complete extant play of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles. The intervention of Lycurgus in the 330s makes for an inviting datum to explain how the choral odes of these playwrights became part of the textual tradition. Lycurgus was, after all, seeking to consolidate cultural capital, and the complete textualization of these plays constitutes just this kind of consolidation. If the Rhesus had, as some of the play’s recent commentators have suggested, become part of the Euripidean corpus by the 330s, this would also explain how those choral odes have survived for us today. The question of Aristophanes and the preservation of most, but not all, his choral odes is more of a challenge. The temptation to link the partial preservation of his two last plays’ choruses with the political upheaval in Athens around the production of Frogs is strong; and yet with so much else in drama staying relatively the same from 430–380,11 we could be justified in at least entertaining the following, alternative scenario. Restating that, as far as we can tell, the use and preservation of play texts took multiple forms in the fifth and fourth centuries is a good start. Amid the proliferation of new plays and revivals, of the need for 9

We might compare the practice in fourth century rhetorical speeches of missing out witness statements and oracles in their written versions, although these were of vital importance to the speech as a whole. 10 11 Pöhlmann and West 2001. Hall 2007.

144 An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima rehearsal spaces and rehearsal strategies, of the specialists and artists responsible for the production, of audiences wanting to consume these dramas in performance and/or textual form, via the family archives, the book sellers, the schools and schoolmasters, the bibliophiles and their private libraries, the theatre practitioners and their collections of ‘parts’, the routes available for play texts to make their way from orchestras around the ancient Mediterranean to the Library of Alexandria were legion and heterogeneous. Many were able to take on the role of ‘editor’ of a play text, in a way that is alien to the modern world and its formal editing roles within the publishing industry. If Platonius, whenever he was writing, was convinced of a decisive break in choral practice around 405, it is possible that excisions were made by early ‘editors’ of texts (copies of which could end up siring the texts we have today) in the belief that any odes that were part of a copy had been added by a later hand, or did not live up to certain ‘Classical ideals’, and were therefore not worthy of inclusion in their copy or edition.12 Choral parts of drama did, however, continue to have a life in other textual traditions, now lost to us. Some copies of choral odes must have been in circulation alongside the readers’ copies of chorusless drama. In the second century CE, authors such as Aelian, Athenaeus, and Hephaestio were all able to quote choral passages from the comic poets such as Anaxilas (fr.13, aeolics), late Aristophanes (fr.9, possible bacchic dimeters), Autocrates (fr.1, non-specific lyric), Eubulus (frr.102–3 and 137, non-specific lyrics) and Plato Comicus (fr.96, non-specific lyric).13 The existence of collections of tragic choral lyrics (e.g. P. Strasb. WG 304–7 which contains some lyrics from Euripides’ Phoenician Women) similarly demonstrates the fact that texts which transmitted only lyric and choral parts were in existence and had a (perhaps limited) circulation throughout antiquity.14 Later authors were also able to quote tragic lyrics that could well have been performed by a chorus, e.g. Diodorus Siculus (adesp.127, 129+130), Plutarch (adesp. 375, 415a), and Stobaeus (adesp. 482 and 499). 12

Csapo 2000: 126 suggests that copyists who had read Aristotle’s comments on embolima might have consequently missed out odes they thought were covered by that term. 13 For discussion of the likelihood that these passages are indeed choral see Maidment 1935: 12 14, Webster 1953: 59 62, Hunter 1979: 33 8, 1983: 195 8 and 228, and Rothwell 1992: 217, 219 20. 14 Turner 1987: 60.

An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima 145 We have several instances where odes were written down but separately from iambic parts as a matter of course in early textual transmission, something that confirms the χοροῦ mark need not be indicative of the odes’ qualities. A second-century papyrus fragment from an Achilles drama of unknown authorship has at the bottom of one of the columns of text ἄλλα ὀπίσω χοροῦ μ[έλος (P. Köln 20270–9, A Col.II.28).15 Egert Pöhlmann and Martin West have taken this as an indicator that the choral text must have been written on the other side of the papyrus.16 They also note a parallel with another papyrus from the third or second century (P. Ash. inv. 89B/31, 33), which contains musical fragments (with ‘the appearance of tragic lyric’) on one side and iambic and anapaestic portions of a tragedy on the other.17 Here, too, χοροῦ does not seem to be indicative of the quality of the choral ode. We might even build on the suggestion made above regarding the motivation for textualization being crucial. These are precisely the kind of ‘temporary’ documents theatre scholars such as Toph Marshall and Martin Revermann have identified as so important in the rehearsal process.18 If chorus and actors might be rehearsed separately, as seems reasonable for large portions of the rehearsal period, then the appearance of copies that feature one or other kind of performer—chorus or actor—makes a lot of sense (as long as the rehearsals for actor or chorus were not running simultaneously). These temporary documents survive by accident, as opposed to the more carefully curated book-texts, which goes some way to explaining why the majority of text that has been preserved comes from the parts of drama most easily enjoyed via reading alone. As for the χοροῦ mark itself, observing the disorder in how it is deployed by early editors allows us to see just how separate this graphic habit was from the performance practice of the fourth century. A pair of articles (Handley 1953 and Beare 1955) show just how 15 Such is the suggestion of Grönewald (1987: 6 7, 8 9, 20) from the visible letters: ] . . . . .σω χ.ρου [. Grönewald’s reading is dependent on the assumption that post classical tragedy always contained χοροῦ/embolima, but the letters remain suggestive of the practice of splitting choral text and non choral text. 16 Pöhlmann West 2001: 22 5. 17 For the fragments from this Sophoclean Achilles see West 1999: 43 53 and on the lyric nature of the fragments (possibly a lament?) 48 53. If we imagine this papyrus, as with the Köln papyrus, to have had ἄλλα ὀπίσω χοροῦ μ[έλος then that would indicate the lyrics are indeed choral lyrics. The parallel is made tentatively, but it is suggestive nonetheless. 18 Marshall 2004 esp. 31 3 and Revermann 2006a: 88 94.

146 An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima various the forms and positioning of the mark are. Focusing on the occurrence of ΧΟΡΟΥ and the variant ΚΟΜΜΑΤΙΟΝ ΧΟΡΟΥ in the Wealth (mentioned above) we can observe how these marks can be found in the middle of the column of text, or to the left or the right. The term ΧΟΡΟΥ is sometimes abbreviated, and shortened versions in the margin are thought to be versions of a different original placement of ΧΟΡΟΥ, or of a note by an original scribe or scholiast. Pöhlmann’s seminal article assessing all the χοροῦ markings in manuscripts and papyri known at the time of writing pushed forward the reassessment of the significance of choral absence in these texts,19 but he downplays the variation that is found in some of the earlier papyri. In a first-century CE papyrus fragment of Menander’s Carthaginian (P. Colon. 4 inv. 5031 = CGFPR 159) we find a further variant, the interlinear marking ‘ΧΧΧΧ’, thought to be signalling an omission of some kind, perhaps a choral ode.20 Similarly obscure are the traces of ink at the edges of another papyrus fragment of the first century (P. Berlin 9767 = CGFPR 162) from Menander’s Citharistes; a case could be made for their being connected to a χοροῦ mark but in light of the possible alternative as presented in the Carthaginian fragment, we cannot be sure. What these small variants (χο., no χοροῦ, XXXX etc.) demonstrate is that, within the editorial tradition in antiquity, the practice of writing χοροῦ where a choral ode would have been does not necessarily stem from a first performance text but is dependent on one particularly strong strand of textual transmission dominating our perception of the tradition as a whole. Beyond this more superficial variety in χοροῦ-practice, Handley and Beare show how editors ancient and modern might be responsible for adding a χοροῦ mark where there had been none before. The insertion of a χοροῦ mark where a later editor thought the stage would be empty is clear between lines 252–3 in Wealth. As Handley points out, ‘there must be a pause at 252–3 while Carion joins the old men . . . But there can be no question of a choral performance at this point: the absurdity would be that the chorus must perform in order to give Carion time to meet it off stage, and then enter with him from the country.’21 Clearly for the editor who added the χοροῦ mark at this point, the word indicated a pause of some kind, rather than a performance, despite the fact that a performing chorus in that play is 19 21

See also Pöhlmann 1988: 132 44. Handley 1953: 59.

20

See Arnott 1996: 100 1.

An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima 147 evident in the parodos.22 Finally, as Beare recognizes, ‘in deciding to print XOPOY editors have been guided not so much by the manuscript evidence as by their own sense of what is fitting’ and he includes himself within that tradition.23 This recognition of the disconnectedness of how χοροῦ markings find their way into texts and what may have been performed is essential in destabilizing any assured or uncomplicated ‘reading’ of this absence of choral text. * In our earlier discussion of dramatic ‘interpolations’ in Chapter 3 we observed the impact performance and revival had on the texts of fifthcentury plays. In the case of χοροῦ, however, there is little reason to suppose a connection between its presence in our texts and a notional absence of integrated or authentic choral odes in performance. And yet, this is an interpretation of χοροῦ that has driven many accounts of choral development from the fifth to the fourth century in the last one hundred years. The time period is significant. There was a pivotal intervention in how χοροῦ was interpreted at the beginning of the twentieth century. The discovery of the so-called Cairo codex in 1908 revealed a slew of χοροῦ marks in the texts of Menander’s plays. The sheer number of χοροῦ marks brought a much greater prominence to the habit of missing out choral text, and with this came a new conviction of choral superfluity, stretching from Aristophanes’ Assembly Women in the 390s onwards. The suggested relationship between χοροῦ and ‘odes of an intermezzic character’ was already present in scholarship at the turn of the century,24 but the equation between these marks of absence in the texts of comedy, and the embolima briefly described by Aristotle in his Poetics (1456a28–32) with reference to tragedy, took on a greater role in supporting a stronger claim to the disappearance of the traditional dramatic chorus after the fifth century.25 This chance discovery encouraged and strengthened a casuistic rationale for connecting embolima and χοροῦ, when in fact the two phenomena exist within two quite separate frames of reference. The term embolimon is used by Aristotle to describe the quality of some choral parts of tragedy (and the clear focus at that point in the discussion is solely on the tragic genre) at the hands of a group of 22 24

See Imperio 2011: 135. See e.g. Capps 1895: 320.

23

Beare 1955: 49. Flickinger 1912: 31 4.

25

148 An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima poets referred to as οἱ λοιποί (whoever they might be).26 The χοροῦ mark, as we have already seen, was used as a textual shorthand by copyists and editors of both tragedy and comedy, but gives no indication whatsoever as to the quality, authorship, or connection to the rest of the play. The interpretations of each have commonly been used to inform the other, in spite of their differences, and continue to do so to this day. The comparison is inviting, to be sure, but is it justified? We now turn to Aristotle’s embolima in order to continue our exploration of how the perceived absence of chorus continues to shape the way we read the manifest presence of the chorus in our sources. Aristotle’s testimony in the Poetics, even more than the presence of χοροῦ and its variants in play texts, has been fundamental to the way the development of the chorus in drama has been described. The Poetics is a profoundly influential text, but is known to be difficult to interpret on account of its ‘cryptic concision’.27 ‘There is no lack of sentences which can be made to appear intrusive, and editors have made the discovery that, if much of the book is left out, the rest becomes easier to explain’, states one wry commentator.28 Aristotle’s embolima are, by contrast, often referred to in scholarship as self-evident in meaning, and this meaning (as with the traditional way of reading χοροῦ in papyri) exists in tension with our positive evidence for choral integration and value. It is, at the outset, a little puzzling that the chorus, the defining feature of Greek tragedy, satyr play, and comedy, has so small a part to play in this seminal work of literary criticism.29 There is a temptation to read the brevity of Aristotle’s treatment as indicative of the more general attitude towards the dramatic chorus at the time, but the nature of the work and the parameters for the discussion alluded to by Aristotle provide some important explanatory context.30 First, it is possible that Aristotle had (or planned to) discuss the chorus in

26

See below p. 157 for discussion of the various interpretations possible. 28 Mastronarde 1998: 69. Lucas 1968: xi. 29 Halliwell identifies two passages in the Poetics but, ‘These passages apart, there is scarcely anything in the Poetics which declares or implies a positive view of the tragic chorus . . . not one of his nearly forty citations of particular plays tell us anything at all about the dramatic significance of the chorus in these works’, 1986: 241. 30 On the date of composition of the Poetics see Burkert 1975: 175 (suggesting it cannot have been written after 335) and Halliwell 1986: 324 30. The third quarter of the fourth century seems the most likely date for the work. 27

An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima 149 another work. There are several of his works, listed by Diogenes Laertius (5.22–7), that could have included fuller treatments of the topic of choral function, and two in particular are likely candidates: ‘On Mousikê’ (Περὶ μουσικῆς) and ‘On Tragedies’ (Περὶ τραγῳδιῶν). Considering that references to choruses appear in works such as Metaphysics and Nicomachean Ethics we may be certain that further choral discussion could have been found in less obviously named works as well.31 From chapter six onwards the focus in the Poetics is quite clearly on the method of composing tragedy and the shaping of its plot.32 Performance, while part of his conception of the genre, is not a concern in this work; he states that ‘the effect of tragedy does not depend on its performance by actors’ (ἡ γὰρ τῆς τραγῳδίας δύναμις καὶ ἄνευ ἀγῶνος καὶ ὑποκριτῶν ἔστιν, 1450b18–19). Opsis (‘spectacle’) is acknowledged to be ‘attractive’ and has a power to affect the audience (ψυχαγωγικός, 1450b16–17), but once again his interest in the literary construction comes out clearly when he states that opsis has ‘the least’ to do with the making of poetry (ἥκιστα οἰκεῖον τῆς ποιητικῆς, 1450b17–18). Something like the chorus, which gains its greatest impact in performance, could understandably not be seen as germane to the discussion. In the same way, he acknowledges the art of song-making (melopoiia) as the ‘greatest of the other elements that enrich tragedy’ (τῶν δὲ λοιπῶν ἡ μελοποιία μέγιστον τῶν ἡδυσμάτων, 1450b15–16), and yet there is no substantial discussion of that aspect in the Poetics. Like the creation of a chorus, melopoiia is in some sense the province of the poet through its use of music, mode, and movement, but full consideration of this aspect of tragedy, more prominent in performance than in textual form, we understand to be missing from Aristotle’s poet and text-centred discussion.33 Aristotle has a specific focus in the Poetics, which explains the cursory treatment of choral function there. But beyond this we should

31

See Janko 2000: 315 540 on the fragments of Aristotle’s On Poetry. Halliwell 1986: 337 43. 33 At the beginning of chapter 19, Aristotle says that all aspects have already been talked about apart from diction (lexis) and thought (dianoia), although there has been no discussion of melopoiia or opsis. We are left to infer that these aspects have been covered in the discussion of the chorus 1456a25 32. See Halliwell 1986: 238 40. Similarly, the art of costuming is highlighted as something that has nothing to do with the art of the poet (ἔτι δὲ κυριωτέρα περὶ τὴν ἀπεργασίαν τῶν ὄψεων ἡ τοῦ σκευοποιοῦ τέχνη τῆς τῶν ποιητῶν ἐστιν, 1450b19 20). 32

150 An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima recognize and accept that his own subjective preferences are identifiable in the Poetics, as they are elsewhere. The structure of events (ἡ τῶν πραγμάτων σύστασις, 1450a15) does seem to have been the most engaging and thrilling aspect of the tragic genre in Aristotle’s eyes. We need not assume this was universally agreed, or even the opinion of a majority, but such a statement forms an important part of how we understand Aristotle’s framing of the genre. We can also note that Aristotle had a decidedly negative view of the choregia and repeatedly criticizes it as something of minor importance in society, explicitly calling it a ‘useless liturgy’ (Pol.1309a15–21).34 It is possible to imagine that Aristotle viewed contemporary choral technique as determined more by the desire of the choregoi to win the approval of the audience than its dramatic duty of contributing to the production itself. Possibly relevant, too, is the fact that Aristotle secularizes tragedy in his presentation of the genre in the Poetics. Divine inspiration in the creation of poetry is ignored as a concept and the contribution of the gods in tragedy is significantly and perhaps deliberately downplayed.35 The chorus’ connection to the celebration of and communication with the gods is a powerful and intrinsic one throughout Greek culture, and no less so in dramatic performances. Without an interest in this significance of choral performance, its potential as an active ingredient in tragedy’s impact and meaning may well not have been of interest. Aristotle’s direct testimony on the dramatic chorus and its development consists of three sentences at the end of chapter eighteen, following on from an apparently unrelated discussion of plot. καὶ τὸν χορὸν δὲ ἕνα δεῖ ὑπολαμβάνειν τῶν ὑποκριτῶν, καὶ μόριον εἶναι τοῦ ὅλου καὶ συναγωνίζεσθαι μὴ ὥσπερ Εὐριπίδῃ ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ Σοφοκλεῖ. τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς τὰ ᾀδόμενα οὐδὲν μᾶλλον τοῦ μύθου ἢ ἄλλης τραγῳδίας ἐστίν διὸ ἐμβόλιμα ᾄδουσιν πρώτου ἄρξαντος Ἀγάθωνος τοῦ τοιούτου. καίτοι τί διαφέρει ἢ ἐμβόλιμα ᾄδειν ἢ εἰ ῥῆσιν ἐξ ἄλλου εἰς ἄλλο ἁρμόττοι ἢ ἐπεισόδιον ὅλον; 1456a25 32 34

See also Eth.Nic.1123a23 with Sifakis 1971: 410 32 for choregic profligacy and Pol.1299a15 28 for the choregia being regarded as something less than a magistracy. 35 ‘[The] compound emphasis on action and causality makes highly problematic, and may even exclude, the scope of choral lyric within tragic drama’, Halliwell 1986: 249 (see also 202 37 and in particular 233n.42 for further bibliography on Aristotle’s attitude towards the divine). For Aristotle’s characteristic recognition of a concept in the wider world without agreeing with it himself, see e.g. Poetics 1460b23 61a9.

An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima 151 The chorus should be treated as one of the actors; it should be a part of the whole and should participate [sc. ‘in the action’], not as in Euripides but as in Sophocles. With the other poets, the songs are no more integral to the plot than to another tragedy hence the practice, started by Agathon, of singing interlude odes. Yet what is the difference between singing interlude odes and transferring a speech or whole episode from one work to another? (Trans. Halliwell 1995)

Donald Mastronarde provides a representative summary of the way in which this passage is usually parsed: ‘In some fourth-century tragedies the choral parts had apparently become mere interludes dividing the “acts” (eventually the canonical “five acts”) in which the named characters performed their scenes without any interaction with a chorus, and such unrelated songs or embolima (as Aristotle termed them) had, so far as we know, no relation in content to the actors’ scenes.’36 There are two things that prompt a re-evaluation of the scholarly consensus on the overall significance of this passage. As already noted above, the meaning of certain key terms is debatable and contested. The difference in interpretation of terms like συναγωνίζεσθαι or embolima are often smoothed out in the final interpretation and translation. The instability of these key terms is the very thing that can allow fresh perspectives on what Aristotle means and its relationship to wider performance practice. The second reason to reconsider its import is the fact that, as with interpretations of χοροῦ, there is some tension between paraphrases of this passage of Aristotle (even ones as carefully worded as Mastronarde’s) and the evidence we do have for what the fourth-century dramatic chorus was like. The persistent dissonance between, on the one hand, our positive evidence (the surviving texts, but also the continued financial and institutional support awarded to choral performance) and, on the other, the alleged insignificance of the chorus (clear in the common characterization of embolima as ‘mere interludes’ in Mastronarde’s paraphrase) means that it might be time to re-evaluate Aristotle’s statements and the influential interpretations of those statements. More than any other work of Aristotle’s, the Poetics has been subject to considerable emendation throughout the course of its

36

2008: 88.

152 An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima transmission.37 While the passage we will analyse is not unusual in its opacity, at the level of textual criticism, Kassel’s text provides a firm enough basis to begin our re-reading of the passage for sense.38 The passage falls into two parts: a prescription for the ideal choral technique (καὶ τὸν χορὸν . . . ὥσπερ Σοφοκλεῖ) and a description of a feature Aristotle seems to have observed in contemporary practice (τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς . . . ἐπεισόδιον ὅλον). The emphasis in Aristotle’s prescription appears to be on the integration of the chorus into the whole enterprise (ἕνα . . . τῶν ὑποκριτῶν, μόριον . . . τοῦ ὅλου, συναγωνίζεσθαι), although the precise nature of that integration remains unclear. An attempt at clarification seems to be made by the reference to the differing choral techniques of Sophocles and Euripides.39 The prescription of choral technique is contrasted with the description of the choral technique of οἱ λοιποί (it is unclear, again, precisely who these individuals are).40 37 Modern textual criticism relies on four ‘primary witnesses’ to the text: the tenth century codex Parisinus Graecus 1741, the codex Riccardianus 46 dated somewhere between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, the Medieval Latin translation by William of Moerbeke and a Syro Arabic translation. For a recent detailed treatment of the transmission of Poetics, see Tarán and Gutas 2012: 3 128. 38 The importance of this passage means it will be worth giving a very detailed account of the text in this note. Other discussions are Tarán and Gutas 2012 (referred to here as TG), Scattolin 2011: 161 215, Halliwell 1986, Lucas 1968, Else 1957, Gudeman 1934, Bywater 1909, with further bibliography listed in Scattolin 2011: 161. Scattolin and Halliwell (and on some issues, Else) are the only comprehensive treatments of the problems in this passage and so feature prominently in the following discussion. Regarding the text, in line 25 the agreement of both Π and Σ render the already implausible χρόνον (found in B) impossible. Some commentators print ὑπολαβεῖν but I follow TG in preferring the MSS. Β and Φ to A. An emendation in the Aldine edition has ὥσπερ ⟨παρ’⟩ Εὐριπίδῃ . . . ὥσπερ ⟨παρὰ⟩ Σοφοκλεῖ in line 27 to make sense of the datives corresponding to συναγωνίζεσθαι (cf. Thuc.5.109 and Xen. Cyr.4.5.49), a change revived by Gudeman but now generally dismissed. Lucas points out (1968: 193), in light of Ar.Thesm.1060, that the dative is ‘quite natural’. The Syriac tradition has πολλοῖς for λοιποῖς in line 28, based perhaps on a misunderstanding of the nominative ᾀδόμενα. MSS. Π and Σ agree on ἄλλης τραγῳδίας as opposed to B’s ἄλλως τραγῳδία. The uncertainty about τοῦ τοιούτου is insoluble; the Latin text is suspect and there is evidence for placing τοῦ τοιούτου either before Agathon or as printed at the end of the sentence (TG deem this ‘idiomatically superior to placing it before Ἀγάθωνος’, 281). Gudeman’s suggestion that this is a corruption of a marginal note τοῦ ποιητοῦ incorporated into the text is possible but cannot be confirmed. The small discrepancies in 31 (εἰ in Π, εἰς in B and Σ) similarly cannot be decided on definitively. The fact that ἢ ἐπεισόδιον ὅλον is omitted in the Arabic version has led some editors to bracket this last part of the sentence. Despite their number, the discrepancies are small enough to have relatively little impact on my interpretation. 39 Halliwell 1986: 244 6 sets out the problems well. 40 ‘Chorusmen’ is an extremely unlikely subject of ᾄδουσιν, Scattolin 2011: 181 2. For further discussion of who the λοιποί are, see below p. 157.

An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima 153 Aristotle ends with a rhetorical question (a kind of reductio ad absurdum41 argument?) implying that if the practice of οἱ λοιποί were acceptable, it would be just as acceptable to interchange speeches or episodes. There is a sense that this passage is a slight digression from the concerns of plot and language that come before and after it. Does Aristotle have a serious point to make here, or should we see this as an offhand remark? A more systematic discussion of the various components of the passage will allow us to start from first principles, but also to identify where and what notions about theatre have been supplied by interpreters in order to make sense of the passage. In the following point-by-point analysis we shall see how each phrase might be interpreted in more than one way. Having canvassed a range of possibilities, as well as some new readings, a reconfigured reading that allows us to make sense of these sentences in the context of the fourth-century theatre industry becomes possible. (1) τὸν χορὸν δὲ ἕνα δεῖ ὑπολαμβάνειν τῶν ὑποκριτῶν—‘the chorus should be treated as one of the actors’. Drawing on the usage of the verb ὑπολαμβάνειν a few lines after this at 1456b15 and again 1461a35, a translation of ‘to conceive of ’ seems preferable to ‘be treated’ (sc. by the poet). The statement remains vague, though. Some scholars have expressed consternation at this comparison, citing the inherent difference between one performer and a group of performers, although it is possible that this distinction—between individual and collective—is of greater concern to modern scholars than it was to those in the fourth century.42 Another reading is that Aristotle is confining himself to the chorus in its interlocutory form here, i.e. when the chorus or coryphaeus speaks in iambics with actors. In this way, we are to understand the chorus in two apparently separate forms in the first two sentences, the first being the chorus as interlocutor (‘[the] phrase . . . would scarcely be intelligible applied outside the act’43), the second being the chorus as 41 Aristotle, after all, is believed to be the first to discuss the hypothetical proof of ἡ εἰς τὸ ἀδυνάτον ἀπαγωγή, see Pr.An.I.23.21 46. 42 Halliwell 1986: 247 ‘we are left with an unexplained challenge to the fundamen tal distinction between the chorus and the actors of tragedy’. See also Mastronarde 2010: 89. Is this fundamental distinction one that has been created by modern scholars? Strong links between the chorus and the citizen collective have provided an influential structural frame for much tragic analysis of the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries, e.g. Vernant et al. 1988: 24 5. 43 Heath 1989: 46 7.

154 An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima singer of choral odes (τὰ ᾀδόμενα). The connective δέ, however, in τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς is difficult to explain away. This choral interlocutory role cannot be the only function, since the reference in the second sentence to ‘sung things’ (τὰ ᾀδόμενα) strongly implies the chorus as performer of dialogue and choral odes.44 It is more likely that the topic of both the first and second sentences is τὰ χορικά in tragedy, as defined at 1452b14–18.45 Are we to conceive of the chorus and actor as performers, or as components in the mechanics of drama? Both are possible. (2) μόριον εἶναι τοῦ ὅλου—‘it should be a part of the whole’. The broad statement adds something to the previous statements but does nothing to clarify the previous injunction to conceive of the chorus as an actor; indeed, it invites the reader to supply their own ideas of what ‘the whole’ might mean. The emphasis in the rest of the Poetics on ‘co-determinate interdependency’ (1451a30–5) and the technical sense of ‘the whole’ defined in chapter seven (1450b25–7), suggests a ‘strong’ reading of the phrase, i.e. that the chorus should take up an essential role in the progression of the plot. Yet such a reading, which seems to ‘prescribe (if taken seriously) no mere thematic pertinence, but indispensable involvement in the action of the plot’,46 is inconsistent with the comparison to the choral technique of Sophocles that follows. The strong reading does not help us much. An alternative reading would be that the phrase is not related to the concepts of ‘the whole’ explored earlier in the Poetics, but rather refers to the production. As with the previous statement, we cannot be absolutely certain if Aristotle is talking about the literary text or the production. The temptation to read this and the preceding statement as stressing the importance of connectedness to the rest of the play is encouraged if we read ahead to the unconnectedness of the so-called embolima that are apparently common practice in Aristotle’s day. We must be wary of allowing the whole passage to be defined by a preconceived notion of what an embolimon is and means. Leaving the meaning of ‘the whole’ vague for the moment, we now turn to our next unstable term. (3) συναγωνίζεσθαι—‘should participate [sc. “in the action”]’. Disagreement on how to translate this verb falls into two broad

44 Halliwell 1986: 245 6, Scattolin 2011: 187. Scattolin 2011: 161 8 discusses the meaning of χορικόν in chapters 4 and 12 of Poetics and has shown the term includes both choral song on its own and with actors, but excludes kommos and monody (although S. concedes there is a certain amount of flexibility within this structure). 45 46 Scattolin 2011: 187 n. 51. Halliwell 1986: 243.

An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima 155 categories that echo the production/play alternatives/simultaneities already noted as active in (1) and (2). The use of the verb in Women at the Thesmophoria (1060) has led some to interpret the verb as ‘help in the contest’.47 Taking into consideration the emphasis in the preceding passages on how to create a tragedy that will be successful in the theatre (1456a18–19), such an interpretation seems most likely, although what form this ‘help’ might take is obscure. Would a competition be won on the basis of pleasing the audience with spectacle or fine poetry? We have even less idea of how audiences would determine a win in the competition than those writing plays at the time did. On the other hand, recalling what was noted above concerning Aristotle’s clear disdain for the choregia, we might better interpret the call for the chorus to participate in the tragedy rather than act only as part of a semi-political, highly performative but extradramatic choregic contest. Other scholars prefer the sense of the verb as used in Thucydides and Xenophon, i.e. ‘take a share in the action [of the drama]’.48 The verb sits equally well within the practical world of theatre production (help win the competition) or in the world of the play itself (contribute to the action). Both are possible. Once again, there is room for a reader to project their own ideas of what might constitute ‘helping the contest’ or ‘sharing in the action’, and Aristotle’s perfunctory prescription does not support any more conclusive interpretations. (4) μὴ ὥσπερ Εὐριπίδῃ ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ Σοφοκλεῖ—‘not as in Euripides but as in Sophocles’. An initial point of disagreement is whether to take this comparison as referring only to the preceding prescription (for the chorus ‘to help in the contest/action’) or with the two preceding points also.49 The fact that we have some examples of Sophocles’ and Euripides’ choral technique makes this instability all the more frustrating. How might Sophocles’ choruses be seen to help win in a competition, or participate in the action? Can this shed new light on how we understand Aristotle’s conception of what wins competitions or what constitutes ‘action’? For many, the absence of Aeschylus as an obvious expositor of interactive, participatory 47 Else 1957: 552 4, Lucas 1968: 193 4, Gentili 1984: 34 although cf. Scattolin 2011: 185 6. 48 Thuc.5.109 and Xen.Cyr.4.5.49. In these cases, παρά lends an apparently neces sary force in creating such a meaning. The Aldine edition contains a παρά, as its editor believed this was the meaning of συναγωνίζεσθαι intended by Aristotle. 49 Scattolin 2011: 184.

156 An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima choruses is odd (although in keeping with his citation tendencies more generally). In light of the philosopher’s commitment to a teleological picture of tragedy’s development this begins to make sense.50 Aeschylus’ absence at this point is a useful reminder of the tension present throughout the Poetics, between historical theatrical practice and the biologically-informed model of theatre production model that Aristotle appears to be committed to (a model that is, itself, consistently throughout the work bifurcated along prescriptive and descriptive lines). Aside from the absence of Aeschylus, and as already mentioned, it is a challenge to reconcile the invocation of Euripides and Sophocles with the criteria Aristotle lays out, i.e. the chorus being treated as one of the actors, being part of the whole and helping in the contest/action. Both later poets contain comparable ranges of choral ‘involvement’ both in terms of plot intervention51 and fictional identity.52 So far the scholarly attempts to understand the three points (‘one of the actors’, ‘part of the whole’, ‘help in the contest/action’) by looking at the differences in extant Sophoclean and Euripidean choruses, while interesting in themselves, have not been especially illuminating in terms of Aristotle’s meaning.53 This approach tends towards circularity, too, as readings of these choral odes, particularly regarding a putative irrelevance in the odes of Euripides, often depend on readings of the Poetics and early scholars, readings that still warrant some scepticism.54 One point of difference between the two poets that we

50 ‘Aristotle was committed to regarding Aeschylus, so it appears from Poetics ch. 4, as working with a still less than perfectly mature dramatic form’, Halliwell 1986: 247. Cf. 1449a15 18 on Aeschylus’ supposed role in reducing the choral component. 51 E.g. Sophocles’ Philoctetes or Euripides’ Ion. Conversely, minimal choral plot intervention may be seen in, e.g. Sophocles’ Electra or Euripides’ Andromache. 52 Sophocles’ Ajax or Euripides’ Suppliants. Euripides is well known for the unexpected identities of his chorus in relation to the circumstances of the plot, e.g. Phoenician Women or Iphigenia at Aulis. That being said, we have more than double the number of Euripidean plays than Sophoclean, so we cannot be certain that the identity of Sophocles’ choruses was always so obviously related to the circumstances of the plot. 53 See Halliwell 1986: 143 9 and Mastronarde 2010: 145 52 for particular emphasis on Euripides’ choral technique in light of Aristotle’s censure. 54 Scattolin justifies the use of the comparison to Euripides’ and Sophocles’ choral technique on the basis of Aristotle’s experience of contemporary theatre, where, according to Scattolin, ‘le parti corali erano ridotte a intermezzi’, 2011: 185. If one removes the assumption that the choral odes were ‘intermezzi’ then comparison of Euripidean and Sophoclean technique needs reinterpreting.

An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima 157 can point to with some certainty is Euripides’ interest in the so-called ‘New Music’ and his use of imagery and metre typical of that development in mousike.55 Other than this the comparison has failed to elucidate Aristotle’s meaning in any substantial way. (5.) τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς τὰ ᾀδόμενα οὐδὲν μᾶλλον τοῦ μύθου ἢ ἄλλης τραγῳδίας ἐστίν·—‘With the other poets, the songs are no more integral to the plot than to another tragedy’. With the ‘sung parts’ the subject of the verb ‘to be’, and the dative of οἱ λοιποί providing a variety of possible relationships, the syntax works to obfuscate who is responsible for this variant technique of choral composition. Two key terms are unstable in meaning and able to be interpreted in different ways. Οἱ λοιποί can mean not only ‘the others’ or ‘the rest’, as is borne out in Halliwell’s translation, but could also mean ‘those in the future’56 perhaps adding a further possible sense. We might take this phrase as meaning ‘those after Euripides and Sophocles’. The inclusion of Agathon (born c.448) among these ‘others’ (the originator of the new kind of choral technique described in the lines that follow) means we cannot take it in the strict sense of ‘only after Sophocles and Euripides’. Indeed, there is no way to construe Aristotle’s meaning as precise here. We can also compare Aristotle’s use of οἱ νῦν (1450b8) to mean ‘the poets of today’; οἱ λοιποί is likely to mean something more than just the poets of Aristotle’s own day. So general is the term that there is also room for other kinds of theatre maker to be included in Aristotle’s critique. In light of the many specialists involved in the production of theatre, it is possible that actor/playwrights, or any other creative who was part of the process, might be understood as included under this umbrella term. There is an indeterminate limitation on who is referred to by the term, in any case. A second key term in this half-sentence, μῦθος, can also be interpreted in two different ways. In the Poetics it is used in both a general and a semi-technical sense: the general meaning is close to our word ‘myth’ or ‘story’, the kind which formed the basis for many tragedies.57 The more technical connotes what we understand as ‘plot’, i.e. the 55

Csapo 1999 2000: 399 426. Cf. Scullion 2002: 126 n. 64. E.g. Dem.59.46. 57 See 1451b24 (where Aristotle is talking about particular tragic dramas [τραγῳδίαι] that either do or do not use παραδεδομένοι μῦθοι, ‘traditional stories’) and 1453a18 (where μῦθοι appear to be equated with stories about famous households). See also 1450a32 3 where μῦθος seems to signify something more than the technical ‘arrange ment of events’. Very close to our passage at 1456a25 32 we find ὁ τῆς Ἰλιάδος μῦθος 56

158 An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima arrangement of events (ἡ πραγμάτων σύστασις, 1450a15), and this technical sense is introduced at 1450a3–5.58 The technical sense is usually preferred in modern translations, but a reading of the general sense of μῦθος is perfectly possible. An awareness of the two ways of construing μῦθος awards us some further room in how we understand the significance of what Aristotle refers to as embolima.59 (6) διὸ ἐμβόλιμα ᾄδουσιν πρώτου ἄρξαντος Ἀγάθωνος τοῦ τοιούτου— ‘hence the practice, started by Agathon, of singing interlude odes’. There are three things to note before we begin discussing the central term embolima. The purpose of the connective διό here is unclear and rarely discussed. The causal link between the nature of the sung parts (τὰ ᾀδόμενα) at the hands of the ‘others’ and the singing of embolima is mysterious. Second, regarding the singing of these embolima—we are left to assume that the subject of the verb is οἱ λοιποί. Since the verb used is one related to performance rather than composition, are we to understand that Aristotle has in mind that οἱ λοιποί might also be performers? This would lend a little weight to the suggestion made above that we could possibly include actor/playwrights in our understanding of οἱ λοιποί. Finally, the citation of Agathon as the originator of embolima has been noted as a little odd, when that same poet is portrayed by Aristophanes in his Women at the Thesmophoria composing ‘live’ a choral ode and exchange with an actor.60 Comedy should, of course, not be looked to for objective reportage of a poet’s practice, but this depiction of Agathon would be very strange if he was actually universally deploying odes that were unrelated or not written by himself. There is more than objective documentation at play here on Aristotle’s part, and there are possible reasons why Agathon in particular made for an attractive poster boy for the practice of embolima.

(1456a13) with a meaning that is neither strictly technical nor wholly general. The word remains fairly flexible. 58 ἔστιν δὲ τῆς μὲν πράξεως ὁ μῦθος ἡ μίμησις, λέγω γὰρ μῦθον τοῦτον τὴν σύνθεσιν τῶν πραγμάτων. See Else 1957: 243 50 for discussion of this new sense of μῦθος in the context of ch. 6. 59 See Capps 1895: 291 who also translates μῦθος in the general rather than particular sense. It may be significant that this opinion is voiced before the discovery of the χοροῦ filled Cairo Codex of Menander, after which time (see e.g. Flickinger 1912: 24 34) the practice of χοροῦ becomes firmly associated with the embolima, affecting how the entire Poetics passage is understood. 60 The oddity is noted by Xanthakis Karamanos 1980: 10, Dearden 1976: 103 and Scattolin 2011: 182 n. 41.

An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima 159 As far as we know, Aristotle was the first to use the adjective ἐμβόλιμος as a noun. It is plausible that he was creating a new technical term in doing so (as he did with μῦθος), as Paolo Scattolin suggests.61 Aristotle’s opinions of the phenomenon are relatively clear, even if the nature of the phenomenon itself is not. The third and final sentence of the passage casts a definite, negative light on embolima: καίτοι τί διαφέρει ἢ ἐμβόλιμα ᾄδειν ἢ εἰ ῥῆσιν ἐξ ἄλλου εἰς ἄλλο ἁρμόττοι ἢ ἐπεισόδιον ὅλον, ‘Yet what is the difference between singing interlude odes and transferring a speech or whole episode from one work to another?’ However, interpreters of this statement have exaggerated its claim, taking this as indicative of actual practice, as opposed to a rhetorical extrapolation.62 The connotations of the term were amplified by authors in antiquity, too, assimilating the slightly different phenomenon of ‘interpolation’ (where new material is added into a play) with embolima (where material is allegedly taken from another play—ἐξ ἄλλου).63 Stronger than this is the suggestion that the later practice of contaminatio can be read into the phenomenon Aristotle describes here.64 These exaggerated readings of Aristotle continue to resonate and perhaps justify ‘interlude/intermezzo’ as the most prevalent translation of embolimon used today.65 Yet this interpretation of an embolimon as an interlude (‘mere’ or otherwise), is not quite what Aristotle alludes to here. It is unfortunate that we have no examples of the term being used elsewhere to support any interpretation of what embolimon actually means. In the absence of corroboration from contemporary sources, it is perhaps inevitable that more modern ideas about choruses, whether they be theatrical, musical, or operatic, have crept into current readings of the passage. The terms used to

61

62 Scattolin 2011: 206. E.g. Sidwell 2001: 83. Hsch. s.v. has: ἐμβόλιμα ἔπη· τὰ ὑπὸ τῶν γραμματικῶν ὡς ἀλλότρια καὶ νόθα ἀθετούμενα. Cicero uses the word in the same way (Ep.ad.Q.Fr.3.1.24). 64 Scattolin 2011: 200, Gentili 1979: 21 2 (although cf. Nervegna 2007: 14 42), Sidwell 2001: 78 84, and, most recently, Hunter 2017: 214 16. Contaminatio is explicitly mentioned in the prologues of Terence’s dramas, where scenes and speeches from Greek New Comedy were often translated wholesale and put together, making new plays. See, e.g. Girl from Andros 15 19. 65 Donini 2008 translates the word, as most Italian translations do, as ‘intermezzi’ but notes, ‘letteralmente ’. Else 1957: 551 8 translates as ‘imported’, but this is very much governed by his own somewhat idiosyncratic argument concerning how we are to understand the verb συναγωνίζεσθαι. Gudeman has ‘Einlage’, 1934: 329. Sidwell 2001: 78 has ‘inserted lyrics’. Bywater 1909: 254 and Flickinger 1918: 144 opt for ‘intercalary’. 63

160 An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima translate embolimon are telling: ‘interlude’, ‘intermezzo’, ‘entr’acte’, ‘Zwischenaktmusik’. The anachronism of applying the language of Italian Renaissance drama and its equivalents aside, the emphasis on ‘inbetweenness’ in all these terms subtly reinforces the idea that what the chorus sang and danced was incongruent with the dramatic plot and action of individual actors—a suggestion readily refuted even from our relatively small sample of fourth-century drama. Returning to the roots of the word and analysing its connotations and referents in some detail may help to illuminate new aspects of the term and allow us a better sense of why Aristotle chose this term to describe the phenomenon he had in mind in this sentence. Before Aristotle, the word is used in Herodotus as an adjective describing the months added into the calendar (1.32 and 2.4) and would continue to have this meaning both in Aristotle’s day and beyond.66 The quality of ‘intercalarity’ is what Aristotle sees these odes as having, i.e. that they exist as a recognizable entity (a month, an ode) and are able to be transposed as that entity into the calendar year or drama. Significantly, the intercalary month affects the year as a whole by making it longer. Building on the strong ‘intercalary’ connotations of the word, I suggest that two non-mutually exclusive readings of embolimon are possible in the context of the Poetics. The embolima are odes that can be inserted and also that can be seen as making ‘the whole’ (here, the drama) longer. Scattolin suggests ‘canti riempitivi’, a translation that coheres with this second interpretation.67 In making such an interpretation, Scattolin raises the possibility that Aristotle saw these self-contained lyrics not as things that were only ‘inserted’, but as things that ‘expanded’ or made a ‘whole’ longer. In support of such a reading, we can point to Aristotle’s own censure of Agathon for having too much material in his plays (1456a15–19) as well as the evidence from the interpolated version of Iphigenia at Aulis where the parodos was doubled in length by the interpolator and a second chorus added. The notion that Aristotle is criticizing ‘the others’ for having choral parts that LSJ also cites a fragment of Eupolis (fr.112), but Kassell Austin print ἐκβόλιμοι. The use of ἐμβόλιμος in inscriptions, always in the context of the calendar and always adjectival (see, e.g. IG II2 358, 458, 471 all from the late fourth century), connote the insertion of a month but also the creation of order by doing so. 67 2011: 200 n. 76. Scattolin offers no justifications for this translation, although I believe it to be a good one, and does also use the, in my opinion unhelpfully anachronistic, ‘intermezzi’. 66

An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima 161 included a range of material that was not necessarily germane to the plot, but ranged wide in their subjects, is attractive. Pushing a little further in our analysis, two qualities of embolima are frequently assumed: first, that they bear no relation to the play into which they are added, and, second, that they are not written by the author of the rest of the play. It is possible to raise some questions about both of these assumptions using the text of the Poetics itself. First, the question of relevance to the μῦθος of the play. As already outlined above, Aristotle shifts between two senses of the word μῦθος. By understanding the word in our passage to have carried a more general meaning,68 we might read the passage as saying ‘but the other poets make choral odes that have no more to do with the myth than [the myth of] any other tragedy’.69 Such a reading draws on the understanding that fourth-century Athenians conceived of myth in discrete ‘streams’ that had a related chronology in the age of heroes but were ultimately separate from one another. Thus, an ode that drew on tales from the Trojan cycle of myth would be an embolimon if found in a tragedy concerning the house of Cadmus. However, for a poet wishing to demonstrate virtuosity, there might be much to gain from drawing on multiple streams of myth in any one play.70 The second quality that is often attached to the embolima is that of inauthenticity. The majority of scholars who analyse the passage at some length take the etymology of the word ἐμβόλιμον as a sign that the choral ode must be ‘inserted’ from another source, as is suggested by ἐξ ἄλλου εἰς ἄλλο (‘from one play to another’) in the final sentence.71 The fact that we know Agathon, Aristotle’s prime example of this practice, was well known for his skill as a writer of choral lyric, should give us pause.72 Again, the tone in the last sentence where we find the detail of embolima being ἐξ ἄλλου εἰς ἄλλο is too easily ignored by some. The fact that the scenario envisaged by Aristotle See above pp. 157 8 on the general and particular sense of μῦθος. Bywater 1909: 254 5, although he uses the translation ‘plot’, adheres to this interpretation. 70 Poet.1456a15 19. 71 Flickinger 1912: 34, Else 1957: 555 n. 122 builds on Hesychius’ definition (see above, 159 n.63) as well as the etymology of ἐμβόλιμον in arguing that ‘the decisive criterion is that the verses or songs in question are somebody else’s work, not the poet’s’ contra Gudeman 1934: 329. Scattolin 2011: 205 7 argues from the grammar of the passage and, contra Gallavotti 1977: 157 62, sees a clear implication that the odes must be from another tragedy. See for a summary of opinions Martina 2003: 464 5. 72 Ar.Thesm.99 100 with Σ on 100. See also TrGF 39 T19 and 20. 68 69

162 An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima in the final sentence of our passage of the Poetics, of poets taking parts of ‘other’ plays and fitting them together does not cohere with any other existing evidence for fourth-century tragedy, or indeed drama, is troubling. Separating out how the passage has been interpreted by scholars from what is actually said (and in what tone) allows a coherency in Aristotle’s thought to come through. It is suggested, then, that the embolima Aristotle refers to are choral odes that are internally coherent and, more importantly, that they served to expand the drama as a whole. The goal in this analysis of 1456a25–32 has been to highlight the instability in what this text might actually mean. By highlighting alternative interpretations of different elements in the passage, it is possible to begin to reconfigure traditional interpretations. It has also been useful to demonstrate where previous interpretations have gone beyond Aristotle’s text in their parsing of meaning and in some cases over-extrapolation on the basis of later theatrical practice as well as the inescapable subjectivity in how one conceives of the chorus, actors, and what a play is. For any interpretation of what the passage means as a whole, an appreciation of Aristotle’s intellectual milieu is crucial.73 As is true for most of the writers we have from the fourth century, Aristotle was a member of an intellectual elite. Justice cannot be done here to the variation and nuance apparent in his works regarding his broad political outlook, but Aristotle’s affinity with a generally conservative view, particularly as regards mousikê, is clear74 and his account of music in education is typical of a conservative approach.75 The criticism of οἱ λοιποί is in line with a recurrent strand of criticism from conservative thinkers of the fifth and fourth centuries, which appeals to an idealized standard in the past and denigrates a dissolute present. An example of such an attitude on Aristotle’s part is found in his detailed discussion of harmony and rhythm in the Politics (1341b19–42b34). There he recognizes two types of spectator; one educated and the other ‘drawn from the class of common workers’, who appreciate ‘deviant harmonies and strung-out melodies and 73 Useful discussions are Ackrill 1981: 1 23, Barnes 1995: 1 26, Bouchard 2012: 183 213, Ford 2011, Guthrie 1981: 18 45, Lynch 1972, Nussbaum 1986: 378 94, and Webster 1956: 57 69. 74 See, e.g. Ford 2004: 309 36. 75 Pol.1340b20 41b18 with Kraut 1997: 199 202.

An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima 163 poor ornamentation’, a clear reference to the so-called ‘New Music’.76 Aristotle may single out the deviant harmonies, but text and content was as much a part of New Music as its tunes and modulations. If we read Aristotle’s dismissive reference to οἱ λοιποί as reflecting the trend among new poets, or even actor/poets, of including complex and unorthodox modulation and melody in choral odes (as well as in monody, of course) together with the kind of broad range of mythical material possibly gestured to by Aristotle in his comments on μῦθος, his criticism of fourth-century choral technique can no longer be understood as a purely aesthetic critique but also as a political critique. Such were the resonances of the New Music in musicopolitical discourse, particularly from the end of the fifth century onwards, that the critique in the Poetics becomes similarly politically charged. Rather than the problem being that the chorus was sidelined in tragedy after Euripides and Sophocles, we might reasonably read Aristotle’s view as spoken against contemporary trends which saw the chorus’ function (as he saw it) being high-jacked and expanded, both in terms of what they sang and how they sang it, by (some) irresponsible, crowd-pleasing poets. We should remember too that even for Aristotle’s prime example, Agathon, the experimentation with embolima was far from universal. The suggestion of ‘odes that expand [the play]’ as a translation for embolima would coalesce with the idea that choral odes in particular could be crowd-pleasers in the fourth century and one of the loci for the popular ‘New Music’/ theatrical music. Producers and poets, aware of what would gain the greatest positive response from an audience, might make the most of any opportunity to fill their plays with such popular modes of musical performance. Words that served the aural effects of the New Music might also explain Aristotle’s charge that the choral parts have ‘nothing more to do with the muthos than any other tragedy’ (1456a28–9). When these odes were then read rather than seen in performance, their content will have seemed all the more detached from the rest of the play, as is already possible to observe with certain Euripidean odes charged with ‘irrelevance’.77 The more subtle criticism of Euripides in the Poetics passage is also explained by foregrounding Aristotle’s generally conservative 76

Pol.1342a16 28. Cf. Plato Laws 700d3 701a3. See Mastronarde 2010: 145 7 on the perceptible detachedness in the text of some of Euripides’ odes. 77

164 An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima standpoint. Although part of the recognized canon of Athens’ three tragedians and one of the most popular playwrights in terms of reperformance, Euripides was subject to considerable criticism, during his own lifetime and beyond, regarding his choral technique, and is known to have used the New Music in his choral odes.78 As already noted, the relationship between Aristotle’s positive strictures for choral technique and his preference for Sophocles over Euripides with respect to their choral technique has been recognized by a number of scholars as difficult in light of our extant tragedy.79 If we are to see Aristotle as identifying Euripides with a kind of choral technique that had begun to embrace the New Music, the qualification of ‘not as in Euripides but as in Sophocles’ becomes more political than technical and, simultaneously, reflects a difference between the two poets that is clearer to us. The avoidance of the New Music, a key concern for Aristotle as evidenced elsewhere in his works,80 is to be preferred and hence Sophocles (who represents, for Aristotle at least, an ‘old guard’) is considered worthier of emulation than Euripides. With the weight of the comparison to Sophocles’ and Euripides’ choral technique set in this context, we finally come to consider how we are to understand the three prescriptions of the first sentence. Setting himself up in opposition to much (if not all) contemporary choral practice, it seems plausible that Aristotle’s three points— that the chorus be treated as one of the actors, be part of the whole, and help in the contest/action—are made in reaction to that contemporary practice. In this way, we can read Poetics 1456a25–32 as representative of a strand of elite thought current in the late fourth century but connected to a much longer tradition of cultural conservatism in musicopoetic discourse. Where Aristotle sets out his prescriptive ideal for what a chorus in tragedy should be, the relatively unadorned content of the odes and iambic interaction is more important than the choral spectacle of dance and song, and the chorus is also envisaged as one more element for the poet to use and deploy in his drama, as opposed to a separate entity given prominence through its association with the 78 For Euripides and the New Music see Csapo 1999 2000: 399 426, 2008: 262 90, and Mastronarde 2010: 151 n. 123. See Scullion 2002: 126 n. 64 for the suggestion that ‘Sophocles, too, should be counted as a new musician’. 79 Halliwell 1986: 143 9 and Mastronarde 2010: 145 52 and works noted above. 80 We might also point to Poetics 1461b29 32 where his distaste for the perform ance of a dithyramb by Timotheus, a key poet in the New Music movement, is manifest.

An Interlude: Absence, χοροῦ, and the Aristotelian Embolima 165 extra-dramatic contest between choregoi. The contemporary poets are guilty of expanding or puffing up their odes (something that we indeed find in the ‘interpolated’ parodos of the Iphigenia at Aulis) with longer odes supporting sensational New Music. Agathon, well known for his musical virtuosity, but a poet whose choral texts were, perhaps, not transmitted with his plays, comes to be thought of as the first serious practitioner of puffed-up odes, even if this was only one approach that he took to choral composition. With a distaste for the sensational and popular music, Aristotle focuses, in a digression on this tactic of expansion, and dismisses it as inorganic to plot progression, as well as feeding the desires of a misguided and vulgar audience. Much needs to be supplied in any reading of Aristotle’s lacunose sketch of the chorus’ function in tragedy and, as will by now be quite clear, I would be suspicious of any claims that there is an obvious or natural meaning that stands independent from centuries of accreted assumption. The advantage of the reading suggested here is that it attributes a credible and consistent attitude to Aristotle as regards his view of the chorus, while managing to explain the difficulties scholars have identified in these three sentences. The distance of Aristotle’s view from the view of most theatre-goers (which Aristotle himself admits in the Politics—1342a16–28) allows us to construe the passage as interesting, but representative of conservative cultural thought at the time.

6 Chorus and Festival While the predominant focus in the first five chapters of this book has been on the dramatic chorus, in these last two chapters we shall expand our horizons a little in terms of genre. Although it has been important and useful to bring to the foreground the particular activity and material circumstances of the chorus in Attic drama, these dramatic choruses were not experienced by their audiences in a vacuum. Circular choruses and performances of dithyrambs took place at the very same festival in the case of the City Dionysia. Choral odes would be sung before the contest even began.1 Temporal and spatial proximity would not be the only things that invited audience members to make connections with the many other kinds of chorus that made up their daily lives—the grand and elaborate or local and low-key, paeanic, theoric, hymenaeal, funerary, epinician, and encomium. Whether memories of all these kinds of chorus were gained by taking part in them or by observing them, the experience of all forms of choreia—of choral performance—could have informed the audience’s experience of the chorus in drama, although the precise associations will be as many and various as the individuals present in each audience. It is the peculiar quality of the chorus, a large group of people singing, speaking, and moving in unison, that would have provided a fundamental link between all of these types of performance. As has been so well explored in recent years, one of the most affective techniques of the dramatic chorus was their ability to combine and reshape multiple choral genres for specific emotive effects.2 And indeed, Plato’s apparent horror at the ‘modern’ habit of mixing up the words and music of different lyric genres (Laws 700D–701A) only serves to

1

Isocrates 12.39.

2

Swift 2010, Andújar et al. 2018.

The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE: Presence and Representation. Lucy C. M. M. Jackson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Lucy C. M. M. Jackson. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198844532.001.0001

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demonstrate that this multi-choral practice was continuing strong into the fourth century.3 Analysis has, understandably, focused on the textual markers that signal such combining and appropriation. That there would be associations made with the non-textual elements— the space for performance, the visual impression of a choreographed group, the music, the personnel facilitating the performance, their ritual, cultic, and civic purpose—that could be shared between dramatic and non-dramatic choruses is a suggestion I propose to explore, albeit indirectly, in these next two chapters. The importance of other choral genres for enriching the audience experience of the dramatic chorus means that it will be worthwhile exploring the broader landscape of the chorus in the fourth century. A full-scale exploration into the material circumstances of all these genres of choral performance is a monumental task yet to be attempted. It is also one that would lead us far from our primary focus on the dramatic chorus and its presence and power in the fourth century. Therefore, rather than pursue an historical enquiry into when and where all these non-dramatic choruses danced, I turn, in this last section, to the snapshot of choreia created by our fourthcentury sources. We might imagine the works of the comic poet Antiphanes or of Xenophon as a surface where the impression made by the chorus can be traced. The mind of an audience member might preserve an impression of a performance in far more detail than a delicate papyrus or the frangible surface of a stone inscription ever could.4 In this light, the ways that authors employ the chorus as an image or as an idea are a valuable further source for this investigation. The topic of how choruses were configured and deployed for their rhetorical or associative power in literature and art has been discussed only on an ad hoc basis and as an issue remains relatively unexplored. There is much to be uncovered in the references, metaphors, and similes that call an image of a chorus to mind. Here, then, we begin to examine what impression the ‘real’ choruses of the fourth century made on those who were writing and inscribing, carving and painting during this period. Such a survey will allow us to see what were the aspects of choral performance (in all its forms) that captured the imaginations of fourth-century artists or offered themselves as useful

3

Scullion 2002: 126 7.

4

Hall 2006: 6 8.

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metaphors for communicating ideas about the world they lived in. By setting out at least some of the literary and artistic contexts for the way the chorus is imagined in the fourth-century works that survive for us (prose, poetry, marble relief, or vases), we are able to construct a suggestive backdrop to our understanding of the dramatic chorus and its particularities. We certainly do not read the choruses of drama as entirely separate from their broader choral context, especially since structuralist approaches to choreia opened up new vistas for modern understanding of ancient chorality.5 There is, then, also a point to make about the impact of these authors’ and artists’ use of the chorus in their works on how the fourth-century chorus, and indeed the archaic and Classical chorus more generally, has been received by later scholars, from antiquity to this day. Many of the fourth-century texts (including iconographical ‘texts’) considered in these final two chapters continue to exert a significant influence on how the dramatic and non-dramatic choruses are understood in the modern world. This is particularly true of Plato, not least because of the uniquely substantial discussion of the chorus in the Laws (a work that has been subjected to considerable scrutiny in the past ten years), but also because of his influential discussions of tragedy, drama, poetry, and the city. These have given his testimony on ancient choral culture an extra significance for most scholars.6 The discussion that follows of where and how the chorus is represented in fourth-century works will illuminate how we later readers of fourth-century Greek culture have been encouraged to privilege some aspects of choral performance at the expense of others. This initial exploration will allow us to identify some of the rationales behind different authors’ and artists’ choices when using the chorus as an image, or including a reference to a choral performance, and in doing so we can establish a helpful distance between fourth-century ideas about choruses more generally (valid and ‘real’ in value for our understanding of culture at the time) and the dramatic choruses we have considered in the first half of this book, who performed on fourth-century stages around the ancient Mediterranean.

5

E.g. Calame 1977, Mullen 1982, Lonsdale 1993, Kowalzig 2007, Kurke 2013. Kowalzig 2004: 39 66, Mullen 1982: 53 7, Lonsdale 1993: 21 43, and now Prauscello 2011: 136 55 and 2013: 257 77, and Peponi 2013a passim. 6

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A relatively full range of different choruses are represented in fourthcentury sources.7 In a fragment of a Eubulus comedy we hear mention of the traditional, informal chorus, created for the ceremony ten days after a baby was born (fr. 2). Both Xenophon and Isocrates mention the funerary chorus (Xen. Cyr.8.7.1 and Isoc. Evag.1). Joining in with a spontaneous choral paean seems to have got Aeschines into a spot of bother whilst he was on an embassy to the court of Philip II (Aeschin. De Fals.163). The historian Philochorus refers to an impromptu chorus forming to honour the winner in a footrace (FrGH 328 15.7). The choruses of various types of initiation (Bacchic, Corybantic, mystic) make more than one appearance in the works of Plato (e.g. Euthydemus 277d6–e3, Laws 672b3–7, and 790d2–e4). However, the vast majority of the choruses that are mentioned or described by fourth-century authors are taking place within a festival context. Choruses were, after all, part of the usual architecture of celebrating the gods—the formulation of ‘feasts, choruses, and sacrifices’ as the standard line up for honouring a god is found in Plato’s Symposium (197d1–3).8 The religious aspect of choral performance rested in part on the belief that an object of such wonder would attract the beneficial attention of the gods themselves whilst, at the same time, such dancing would mirror the divine dance of (often) Apollo, the Muses and Graces, and all the rest of the gods in their immortal bliss.9 The triple aim of a choral procession being pleasing, being observed by mortals, and being observed by the divine is referred to in a matter-of-fact fashion by Xenophon in his Cavalry Commander (3.2). And while the level of belief in divine witnesses at these choral events may have varied amongst those present, the gods were clearly an important part in the underlying rationale for the chorus and any ritual practices around its performance.10 It is hardly controversial to 7 There are hints at other kinds of possibly choral contests that remain shadowy, not least most of female choreia in the Classical world, see Budelmann and Power 2015. 8 Cf. also an oracle apparently quoted more than once in Athens’ law courts, see Demosthenes [43].66 and Demosthenes 21.52 3. On the likelihood that these are genuine oracles see MacDowell 1990: 270. 9 For an outline of the various religious resonances of the chorus, see Kowalzig 2007: 1 12. 10 Scullion 2012: 231 2 and Seaford 2013: 263 provide a good example of the different ways of reading the importance of the divine witness in this passage of Xenophon.

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say that, set so frequently within a festival context, the idea of the chorus will have summoned happy associations, and memories of feasting and time free from work—for many if not most, at any rate. Within this majority of references to festival choruses there is a critical mass of examples that talk specifically about the circular choruses that we know competed at the City Dionysia, Thargelia, and Panathenaea, as well as some deme Dionysia, no doubt in part due to the predominance of Athens-related evidence in our corpus.11 Although there were more dramatic choruses being formed and performing in Attica than has traditionally been recognized, it is true that, even by the most tentative calculations, around the same number of circular choruses were required by the festival calendar as for dramatic choruses in Attica, and more in a year when the Great Panathenaea was held.12 Many more, and perhaps a greater range of people, viewed and participated in these circular choruses; at fifty performers per chorus, a very great number of citizens would be required to satisfy the annual choral cast in the city festivals alone.13 One could even assume women saw at least some of these circular choruses; Xenophon chooses to use an image of a circular chorus as a paradigmatic arrangement for how a wife should her arrange her kitchen utensils (Xen. Oec.8.3 and 20). Even a woman, then, would from experience have understood the significance of the comparison of a circle of ladles and cheese-graters to a perfectlyspaced men’s chorus. It may be unsurprising then, that it was the tribal, circular choruses that captured the attention of writers and feature prominently in the written record. It is important to note, in contrast, just how few direct or specific references to dramatic choruses there are in our written sources, a paucity that is in no way proportionate to the numbers of choruses forming or performing in fourth-century Attica. Plato, although most certainly an idiosyncratic thinker, actually provides a helpfully representative data set in this regard. From around seventy references to the chorus in his works, only four concern dramatic choruses: in the 11

Wilson 2000: 305 7. Around forty six choruses were formed for tragic, comic, and satyric perform ances in Attica by the middle of the fourth century (see p. 23 n. 35). It is likely that forty circular choruses were required for the City Dionysia (twenty), the Thargelia (ten) and the Little Panathenaea (c.ten?), or c.twenty for the Great Panathenaea. 13 Aristotle certainly sees the ability to judge choruses as intrinsically linked to having taken part in them (Pol. 1340b 23 25, 33 9). 12

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Symposium he mentions Agathon celebrating with his tragic/satyric chorus (173a5–7); in his Protagoras he refers to two different choruses of comedy—Pherecrates’ chorus of misanthropes (327d4–e1) and a probable parody of a scene from a different comedy, complete with its chorus (315b2–8);14 and in the Republic he describes the ‘theatre-lovers’ who rush around to all the different Dionysia which, as we know, predominantly featured drama (475d5–8).15 Outside of Plato, references to dramatic choruses, as opposed to general festival or circular choruses, number just two in the extant written record.16 Dramatic choruses do, however, feature on a few (fortuitously) found and preserved marble reliefs, although, again, the material record commemorates more circular choral victories than dramatic (or pyrrhic) ones.17 On the whole, our fourth-century sources disproportionately feature discussions of and references to circular choruses, and the more general festival chorus. Just as it was necessary to remember this odd mismatch of presence and representation of choral activity in the papyri and manuscripts of comedy, or in Aristotle’s discussion in the Poetics, so too we must be aware of the tendency in fourth-century authors to focus away from the dramatic chorus and onto the circular chorus. The fact that the circular choral contests were organized almost without exception along tribal lines marks them out in Attica’s choral culture.18 There was a particular way for certain audience members, and indeed performers, to become invested in the success or failure of their performance, because they were doing it on behalf of ‘the tribe’. Writers, perhaps understandably, looked to the circular chorus for its particular tribal quality, and its consequent ability to draw in the reader, relating the image or reference to a probable experience of their own (if they were citizens, at least). Such investment would be 14

See Storey 2003: 184 92 and n. 25. Not included in this are his two uses of the phrase χόρον δοῦναι, ‘to give a chorus’ (Republic 383c1 5 and Laws 817d4 8) as this is a formulaic phrase. 16 Arist. Eth.Nic.1123a19 24; Aeschin. In Tim 157. 17 See, e.g. Fig 1.1, Athens, Agora Museum S1025 + S1586 + S2586 (SEG 28, no. 213, MMC3 118 19), dated to 340, a high stepping comic chorus from a base supporting a free standing relief (see Csapo 2010b: 86) or Fig. 6.1, Athens, NM 1750 (MTS2 34, AS 5) a relief with six tragic masks from a commemorative monu ment, dated to 375 50, found near the theatre of Dionysus, see Csapo 2010b: 85. 18 Ceccarelli 2004: 115 17 notes that the pyrrhic chorus was closer to the dramatic chorus than the circular, precisely because it does not seem to have been organized tribally. 15

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possible for dramatic choruses on an emotional and artistic level, but not in terms of tribal pride. The critical engagement of audiences with specifically circular choral performances is something that is featured with a notable frequency in fourth-century literature. One such instance is in Demosthenes’ On the Crown (318) where he calls for an individual to be judged in comparison to other individuals of his day—as this is how other things are judged such as poets, choruses, and competitors. In Aeschines’ speech Against Ctesiphon delivered in 330, he compares how stringent his audience is in their judgement of circular choruses at the City Dionysia, with their less careful judgement of the laws and of political integrity (232). Xenophon, although talking not so much about different audience members using their individual discrimination, relies on a reference to audiences thinking the same sorts of things about choruses, auletes, and poets in his attempt to underscore the importance of homonoia for a city (Xen. Mem.4.4.16). Plato approaches the topic of choral and dramatic performance with a very particular philosophical and political agenda, but we can note that his image of the theatocracy of audiences (Laws 700D– 701A), led by degenerate poets, similarly relies on the assumption that audiences were not passive consumers of these spectacular performances, but were engaging their judgement when they entered the theatre. This prominent presentation of a competitive choral context (one that is only contiguous with the dramatic chorus—itself competitive, but in a different and perhaps less overt way as far as the choral performers were concerned) is helpful to recognize as we move forward in our survey of the kinds of chorus brought out most clearly by fourthcentury authors. Let us return to the earlier point about the happy associations with the chorus in its festival context. One prominent strand of choral imagery in fourth-century sources, but one that picks up a trend in earlier literature and art too, is the use of the chorus as a location for something (ironically) unhappy or unholy to occur. We find an illuminating but brief use of this tactic to enrich a scene in Xenophon’s Hellenica. There, the messengers bearing the news of Sparta’s defeat at Leuctra in the summer of 371 happened to arrive during the Gymnopaedia festival and, Xenophon says, during the performance of the men’s chorus.19 The ephors, on hearing the news, are devastated

19

Xen. Hell.6.4.16.1 8.

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(ἐλυποῦντο). However, they decide not to interrupt the choral performance (τὸν μέντοι χορὸν οὐκ ἐξήγαγον) but rather allow them to complete their performance for the competition before announcing the names of the dead. Despite over half of the Spartiate fighters being killed in this one battle, the choral performance was not stopped and, in the context of the festival, the women were ordered not to cry out and begin their mourning. While indicating something about the piety of the Spartans for not interrupting the religious ritual of a choral performance,20 the coincidence of news of such a total disaster for the Spartans at the very moment of a celebration of their community, and their beautiful men in particular, is immediately clear and affective. Turning to Plato’s Laws we find a description of festivals in Athens that, by picking up on the same kind of happy and, here, religious quality, achieves an emotive irony. At this point in book seven, the Athenian stranger is discussing the need to monitor and establish the right kinds of hymns to be sung at festivals. He describes the practices of various cities in the following manner. Now, where we live this is, more or less, precisely what happens in nearly every polis. Once an official has performed a public sacrifice, not one chorus but a whole crowd of choruses turn up and stand near sometimes right next to the altars. Then they drown the holy offerings in a deluge of blasphemy, and tug at the heartstrings of the audience with their words and rhythms and overwrought melodies . . . 21 Laws 800c5 d4

The power of the image is striking, not only because of the juxtaposition of a sacred site (a festival) and unholy, blasphemous speech, but because the agents of the blasphemy are the festival choruses themselves. As already noted, the belief that choruses played a key role in mortals’ worship and communication with the gods was deeply held in ancient Greek society. It is by playing on this understanding that

20 Arguably a delayed piety Xenophon includes a detail at 6.4.2 about the Spar tans breaking the oath of the peace treaty by not disbanding their troops, see Gray 2011: 197. 21 Ἐν τοίνυν τοῖς παρ’ ἡμῖν τόποις τοῦτ’ ἐστὶν ταῖς πόλεσι γιγνόμενον ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν σχεδὸν ὀλίγου πάσαις· δημοσίᾳ γάρ τινα θυσίαν ὅταν ἀρχή τις θύσῃ, μετὰ ταῦτα χορὸς οὐχ εἷς ἀλλὰ πλῆθος χορῶν ἥκει, καὶ στάντες οὐ πόρρω τῶν βωμῶν ἀλλὰ παρ’ αὐτοὺς ἐνίοτε, πᾶσαν βλασφημίαν τῶν ἱερῶν καταχέουσιν, ῥήμασί τε καὶ ῥυθμοῖς καὶ γοωδεστάταις ἁρμονίαις συντείνοντες τὰς τῶν ἀκροωμένων ψυχάς . . .

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the image becomes far more violent than if the Athenian were to describe a single actor, citharode, or perhaps even a priest performing a similar kind of ‘blasphemy’. The chorus’ unique power in the context of festival celebration to attract the beneficial attentions of the gods is, here, perverted, as they enact the opposite function. Indeed, this choral image follows on from another example of what the Athenian wishes to guard against, but there it is an individual standing by the altars and blaspheming (800b8–c3). The choral image acts to ‘cap’ this already offensive image, the offence all the greater because of the medium (a chorus) in which it is performed. An association with the happy and sacred festival in this case allows Plato to make his point all the more strongly. A more tentative reading along the same lines might be given to an enigmatic choral reference in book eight of the Republic. In the discussion of various political constitutions, there is an extended image where the transformation of oligarchy to democracy is described as if the soul were a city being captured and corrupted (559e2–561a5). Those who propel the action of overthrow in this description are the ‘boasting arguments’ (οἱ ἀλαζόνες λόγοι). Socrates describes how these λόγοι remove all virtues from the soul of the oligarchic man/city via means of ‘great and costly rites’ (μεγάλοισι τέλεσι), after which point these same λόγοι lead home a host of vices attended by a chorus who sing encomia and call these vices flattering names. And when they [the logoi] have emptied and purged these [virtues] from the soul which they possess and have initiated in magnificent rites, they immediately restore, surrounded by torch light and a great chorus, insolence, anarchy, excess, and impropriety to the soul . . . 22 Republic 560d8 e4

The language at first might suggest mystical initiation; the soul of the young man is ‘held’ (κατέχομαι), a word used for inspiration, while both τελουμένου and τέλεσι allude to mystic initiation rites themselves. While a chorus can sometimes have a role in the performance of such a ritual,23 I would argue that it is the chorus’

22 Τούτων δέ γέ που κενώσαντες καὶ καθήραντες τὴν τοῦ κατεχομένου τε ὑπ’ αὐτῶν καὶ τελουμένου ψυχὴν μεγάλοισι τέλεσι, τὸ μετὰ τοῦτο ἤδη ὕβριν καὶ ἀναρχίαν καὶ ἀσωτίαν καὶ ἀναίδειαν λαμπρὰς μετὰ πολλοῦ χοροῦ κατάγουσιν ἐστεφανωμένας, ἐγκωμιάζοντες καὶ ὑποκοριζόμενοι. 23 Cf. Euthydemus 277d e, Phaedrus 250b c, Symposium 210a.

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understood connection to celebration, and festival celebration at that, that is being exploited.24 Not only is the city suffering a terrible defeat but that defeat is being celebrated with an honour, i.e. choral performance, that is sacred. The incongruity is decidedly pointed, and made so by the utilization of a choral image. This reading is given some extra weight when we consider the appalled reaction of both the historian Duris and the orator and politician Demochares to the choral welcome to Athens given to the conquering Demetrius of Phalerum in 307 by the Athenians themselves.25 There, too, we can observe the gross and inappropriate use of a chorus to perform something so distasteful as welcoming an enemy into the city. A subset of instances where divine and blessed choral dance is described in literature have that blissful happiness being ruptured by the marking out of one dancer, usually a beautiful parthenos, for seizure and rape.26 This motif is featured in archaic texts such as the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (117–20) where the goddess, in the guise of a Phrygian princess, is seized from the chorus of Artemis (ἀνήρπαξε . . . ἐκ χοροῦ Ἀρτεμιδος) made up of a number of brides and maidens (νύμφαι καὶ παρθένοι) while dancing (παίζομεν). The context of a celebration of a divinity amidst age-mates are crucial elements in this choral rape motif. Heroic mortals, too, are vulnerable to the desires of gods whilst at play in their choral dance. In the Iliad (16.179–83) we hear of Polymele, who sparked the love of Hermes (ἠράσατο), also whilst singing in a chorus of Artemis (ἐν χορῷ Ἀρτέμιδος).27 Within the archaic paradigm of this motif, the danger of being seized and raped is present, even when the act is not actually carried out. This sense of vulnerability, specifically while at play in a choral context, underpins the tense arrival of Odysseus to the court of Phaeacia in book six of the Odyssey.28 We should note too that in

24 See Heath 1988: 180 93. For an alternative interpretation see Seaford 2013: 270 1. 25 FGrHist 76 F10(27) with PMG fr.845. See O’Sullivan 2009: 300 for the resonance with the later Demetrius Poliorcetes. 26 On how we are to understand the term ‘rape’ in the context of Ancient Greece see Harris 2004: 41 83. 27 Frequently mortal choral dancers are compared to divine counterparts, e.g. Hom. Od.6.102 8, Bacchyl. Dith.17. 28 It is not insignificant that Nausicaa is compared to Artemis (102 9), recalling again the easy habit of comparing mortal and divine activity. Cf. also in lyric, e.g. Bacchyl. Dith.17.

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these instances of seizure in a choral setting, the (potential) victim is often marked out by superior beauty, skill, and stature, qualities that act as justifications for the perilous gaze of admiration.29 This choral rape motif is, interestingly, redeployed in the fourth-century in the plots of many New Comedies. The ancient paradigm is alluded to in seven plays of Menander and all these rapes take place (so far as we can tell from the fragments) in a festival context.30 More than this, the associations with the archaic choral rape motif, as briefly set out above, have both general and local significance within the world of New Comedy and the themes of the individual plays. In The Arbitration (Epitrepontes), a young man named Charisios has returned home from a short trip to find Pamphile, his wife of five months, pregnant. Assuming the child cannot be his, Charisios has moved to his friend’s house. Through the machinations of his slave Onesimos, the truth eventually comes out that at the last celebration of the Tauropolia Charisios had raped his wife-to-be, and the child is, in fact, his. Choral dance is foregrounded as the context for the rape that takes place (χορῶν ἀποσπασθεῖσαν, ‘she was dragged away from the choruses’)31 and, furthermore, Menander alludes to the archaic rape motif paradigm by having Charisios’ mistress Habrotonon describe Pamphile in the same way as epic and lyric poets describe the leaders of the chorus who are potential or actual victims of rape.32 Ἁβρ. οὐδὲν οἶδα πλὴν ἰδοῦσά γε γνοίην ἂν αὐτήν. εὐπρεπής τις, ὦ θεοί καὶ πλουσίαν ἔφασάν τινα. Ον. αὕτη ’στιν τυχόν. Ἁβρ. οὐκ οἶδ’ ἐπλανήθη γὰρ μεθ’ ἡμῶν οὖσ’ ἐκεῖ, εἶτ’ ἐξαπίνης κλάουσα προστρέχει μόνη, τίλλουσ’ ἑαυτῆς τὰς τρίχας, καλὸν πάνυ καὶ λεπτόν, ὦ θεοί, ταραντῖνον σφόδρα ἀπολωλεκυῖ ’ ὅλον γὰρ ἐγεγόνει ῥάκος.

485

490

29 See Calame 1997: 72 4 for the typical attributes of choral leaders. For paradigms of the archaic choral rape motif see Lonsdale 1993: 228 32. 30 The Apparition (Phasma), The Arbitration (Epitrepontes), The Girl from Samos (Samia), The Farmer (Georgos), The Hero (Heros), The Lyre player (Kitharistes) and The Necklace (Plokion). See Bathrellou 2012: 153 5 and 152 n. 4 on the almost total lack of previous comment on the festival context for rape in New Comedy. 31 Men. Epit.1117 22. Similarly, choral dance is the location for the rape in Phasma 93 104. 32 See Hom. Od.6.15 16, PMG 1.54 9, 3.68.

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Habrotonon I don’t know a thing but I’d recognize Her if I saw her. She’s a pretty one, Gods, yes! And they said she was rich, too. Onesimos Maybe it’s her. 485 Habrotonon I don’t know. She was there with us, and wandered off Then suddenly she ran up, crying and on her own, Ripping at her hair, oh her pashmina, Gods, it was so light and lovely, 490 Absolutely ruined. Completely torn to bits.33 The Arbitration (Epitrepontes) 483 490

Habrotonon highlights the victim’s beauty, wealth, and fine clothes— all familiar markers for female chorus leaders and rape victims.34 What the inclusion of a choral context for the rape does is to connect the violent attack on Pamphile to a paradigm, familiar from epic, which might contextualize the seizure within a traditional (divine, even) framework. For all its domestic detail, the comedy of Menander relies on certain repeated and recognized elements of plot structure, and one of these elements is the common, expected ending of a play consisting of the marriage or reunion of a young couple.35 The sanction of the choral rape motif in New Comedy, provided by the allusion to an epic and occasionally divine paradigm, acts within that quasimythical world where Fate is a ruling factor and human aberration (in New Comedy, abandonment of proper self-control on the part of the men) is foretold and, sometimes, seen to be almost inevitable.36 There can be no doubt that these are descriptions, however brief, of traumatic events that would have occurred in the lived reality of many members of Menander’s audiences. Recognizing the paradigm of the choral context for these rapes does, however, allow us to see them also as part of a long literary tradition where the act is made all the more violent by the context of what is usually a blessed and happy setting.

33

See Rosivach 1998: 30 2 on the rape in Epitrepontes. See Bathrellou 2012: 173 4. 35 On convention and variation in New Comic plots see Zagagi 1994: 15 45, and Hunter 1985: 59 82 and 59 61 on the Epitrepontes and its Roman ‘version’ the Hecyra. 36 See Lape 2004: 13 17, 92 3 (with further bibliography at n. 76) on politics and the democratic context of rape in New Comedy, Rosivach 1998: 13 50 on the rape motif in comedy more generally and 42 6 for the argument that the primary source of the rape motif is Euripides. It will be clear that I think that both Euripides and the poets of New Comedy are interacting with a much broader and mythical tradition of the rape motif. 34

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The choral rape motif is also parodied and distorted for humour in comedy. In this fragment by Eubulus (c.380–335), we see how many different associations of choral song and dance are alluded to, and overlaid on the description of foodstuffs for a banquet. ὁμοῦ δὲ τευθὶς καὶ Φαληρικὴ κόρη σπλάγχνοισιν ἀρνείοισι συμμεμιγμένη πηδᾷ, χορεύει, πῶλος ὣς ὑπὸ ζυγοῦ. ῥιπὶς δ’ ἐγείρει φύλακας Ἡφαίστου κύνας, θερμῇ παροξύνουσα τηγάνου πνοῇ. ὀσμὴ δὲ πρὸς μυκτῆρας ἠρεθισμένη ᾄσσει. μεμαγμένη δὲ Δήμητρος κόρη κοίλην φάραγγα δακτύλου πιέσματι σύρει, τριήρους ἐμβολὰς μιμουμένη, δείπνου πρόδρομον ἄριστον.

5

10

A squid37 and a young Phalerian girl38 together, Getting cosy with the sheep entrails, Bounce around and cavort, like a foal bucking under the yoke. A fan rouses Hephaestus’ guard dogs, Stimulating the hot breath of the frying pan. The aroma that has been all stirred up hits the nostrils. The daughter of Demeter has been worked over And shaped by fingers into a hollow roll, In imitation of a trireme’s ram, The best prelude to a dinner.39 Eubulus fr. 75.4 13

With an awareness of the importance of luxurious foods at a festival, and an awareness of the choral rape motif (in both its divine and mortal instantiations), we can identify a complex accumulation of associations and references in this fragment that feed off and enhance each other, and in which the image of the festival choral dance is central. First, we can see that the various foodstuffs—the squid, the Phalerian ‘maiden’ (a sprat), and the lambs’ entrails—are all described as participants in a choral dance (πηδᾷ, χορεύει). The fragment also makes clear allusions to a particular kind of chorus—a maiden chorus no less—engaging with and exploiting other motifs familiar from a 37 38 39

See Thompson 1947: 260 1, Davidson 1997: 211 12, and Olson Sens 2000: 204. A ‘sprat’, see Hunter 1983: 168. See Hunter 1983 ad loc for further discussion.

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maiden song such as Alcman PMG fr.1.40 Here we have two potential female leaders, the squid and the sprat, comparable to the kinds of figures found in the Alcman fragment, Agido and Hagesichora. The erotic desire felt by those singing this ‘maiden song’ for their choral leaders is picked up by Eubulus with his use of the verb συμμείγνυμι, here connoting sexual activity.41 The double entendre may not have been viewed as ‘either inevitable or desirable’ by the poet’s most recent commentator,42 but in the context of the allusion to a maiden song, as well as the other verbs that have sexual undertones (e.g. παροξύνειν, 8, ἐρεθίζειν, 9) the double entendre most certainly becomes both inevitable and desirable, undermining as it does the elevated poetry of the ‘maiden song’ with some typical comic ribaldry. The comparison to a colt (πῶλος ὣς ἄπο ζυγοῦ), too, echoes the similes commonly used to describe unmarried girls (and occasionally boys). The image of dough being kneaded by a finger that is, in turn, compared to the manifestly phallic ‘battering-ram’ (τριήρους ἔμβολος) is obviously obscene, and at the same time picks up on the rape of Persephone, ‘the daughter of Demeter’, whose capture whilst gathering flowers is here relocated in the gesture of the fragment to a maiden choral dance.43 The fragment is, in short, both highly sophisticated in terms of its literary associations and recasts an established literary motif in the context of an aischrologic, pre-dinner party piece. The piquancy of such a meshing together of high and low is magnified by situating this description of feast foods in a choral context, both inviolable and violated by Eubulus in this fragment. The regular festival context for so many choral performances provides a rich interpretative frame for a large proportion of choral references in fourth-century texts. The potential of this frame allows such references to carry with them associations of happiness, or foreboding, of divine communion, or of gross blasphemy. Through the interplay of frame and, in the case of the Eubulus fragment, the frame within a frame (festival, festival choral rape), the way the chorus is presented provides some rich, literary renderings of a completely different kind of choral experience. At the same time, in

40 Erotic desire amongst the maiden chorus: ‘H. wears me out with love’ (77). The unyoked horse as image for an unmarried girl: PMG 3.57 9, Anacr.75.1, Eur.Hec.142, Eur.Hipp.546, Cratin.87, Epicr.9. The rape of Persephone: h.Hom.Dem.1 14. 41 Cf. Antiphanes fr.55 for a similar possible undertone. 42 43 Hunter 1983: 168. See Anderson 2008: 175 81.

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our use of these sources to help us understand the dramatic chorus in particular, we are aided by recognizing how focused they are in general on the tribal, circular chorus and that competition. The reasons may be more to do with the greater numbers involved in the circular choruses of Athens, and the rhetorical capital to be gained by activating a reader’s particular connection to the tribal contest, a contest any citizen of Athens would likely have an interest in. These, then, are some of the ways the festival, circular chorus, whilst still linked to the chorus of drama, occupies its own space in the fourthcentury imagination.

6.2. CHORUS AND CHOREGIA We now turn to a slightly different subset of choruses as invoked in fourth-century art and literature; the ‘choregic’ chorus. For any Athenian with wealth over a certain amount, it was expected that they use their considerable resources to support the city in some way, by undertaking leitourgiai, that is, the organization and financing of some crucial element in public life. One of these was the choregia, contributing to the running of Athens’ festivals by facilitating and funding the performances of its choruses—dramatic, circular, and pyrrhic. These leitourgiai, and in particular the choregia, carried with them benefits and dangers. Immense political capital might be gained through such an ostensibly altruistic ‘gift’ to the demos and its festival culture. The peculiarly public nature of this particular leitourgia made the choregia ‘an especially privileged field of Athenian social drama’.44 It was often through the performance of these leitourgiai that rising stars and future leaders would make themselves known to the demos. In the competitive performance of the choregia, the high stakes for a small group of wealthy individuals could easily spill over into public displays of enmity as well as calamitous consequences of bankruptcy or ostracism. With such stakes, it is no surprise that the presentation of the chorus in conjunction with such individuals takes on a particular hue. The Athenian institution of choregia provides another key frame for references to the chorus in fourth-century sources. In this section 44

Wilson 2000: 107.

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we explore how a reference to the chorus could be used to shape, and mediate, the self-image of choregoi on the Athenian political stage. An appreciation of the material and financial mechanisms that allowed choral performances of all kinds to flourish in Classical Athens is, as has been so comprehensively demonstrated in the past two decades, essential background for our understanding the role of the chorus in drama in Attica or wherever this method of funding was deployed.45 And yet, although chorus and choregos are contiguous within the framework of the Athenian festival, and share certain moments of simultaneous ‘performance’,46 there are significant conceptual differences between the associations of the two. A determined sensitivity to these differences is fair and necessary. In the previous section we saw some of those associations that came with a chorus, potential in all festival choral performances and existing independently of the method of their organization or funding. While the associations with the chorus observed there were rooted in ritual practice, divine and mythical paradigms, and tribal organization for Athenian choruses in particular, the primary associations of the role of choregos are financial. As a way of demonstrating the pre-eminence of wealth and status as markers of choregic performance, it will be helpful to review some of the ways in which the choregia and choregoi were talked about in the fourth century.

6.2.1. The Choregos in the Fourth Century The role of choregos in Athens had moved on from the more traditional role of ‘chorus leader’ as the word is used in earlier lyric poetry. Performing as part of their chorus was not unheard of in the fifth century.47 We noted in Chapter 1 the fifth-century speech by Antiphon On the Choreut where the ideal choregos was described as taking an active part in attending to his young choral performers, although it is likely that a choregia for the boys’ chorus would have been a slightly

45 On the spread of the choregia in relation to Athenian influence around the ancient Mediterranean see Csapo and Wilson forthcoming. 46 Wilson 2000: 95 8. 47 Wilson 2000: 130 6. Aristotle in his Politics (1341a33 7) clearly shows some awareness of ordinary citizens performing, as aulete, with their choruses, but from the examples he gives it seems he is locating this practice in the early to mid fifth century.

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different kind of enterprise because of their minority status.48 But especially in these cases there could be no question of the choregos performing with the boys, and indeed by the fourth century we have no known cases of choregoi taking part together with their choruses.49 It may have been the case that some choregoi were able to provide a space for the training of their choruses within their own house but this would be rare and so it would be up to the choregos to make arrangements for hiring a suitable space outside of his own property.50 In a Socratic exchange imagined by Xenophon one Nicomachides says ‘being in charge of a chorus is nothing like being in charge of a military campaign’ (ἀλλ’ οὐδὲν ὅμοιόν ἐστι χοροῦ τε καὶ στρατεύματος προεστάναι, Mem.3.4.3). Even though Socrates will go on to make an argument about some similar aspects in terms of management, the statement is presented as common or conventional opinion. The fields of activity for chorus and choregos are in all practical terms very separate. Dancing, singing, performing, or even consorting in any way with the chorus was not necessarily expected in the performance of this job, but rather the possession of expertise in management to be able to employ the best people to train and look after the performers and, most importantly, the resources to finance the enterprise. And it is wealth that really defines the office and role. This was frequently self-proclaimed by former choregoi as a concrete way of proving their civic worth as benefactors to Athenian society. A speech of Lysias, delivered just before the turn of the century, provides a truly exceptional example of this tactic. The young man on trial, accused of taking bribes, lists a total of eight choregia (along with several other major financial outlays such as funding Athens’ navy and funding the city’s theoric choruses) and, to underline it all, details the amounts that he spent on each.51 Variations of this tactic are found throughout Aeschines gives the fullest explanation for this ‘Solonian’ law stating that ‘he [Solon] prescribes that the choregos, the man who is going to spend his own wealth on you, must be over 40 years of age when de does this, in order that he may only be involved with your boys when he has already reached the most self controlled time of his life’ (Aeschines In Tim.11). 49 There are some fifth century instances of this e.g. IG I3 969. 50 E.g., Antiphon On the Choreut 11. See Wilson 2000: 71 4. 51 For a tragic chorus, 3000 drachma; for a male circular chorus, 2000 drachma; for a pyrrhic chorus, 800 drachma; for another male chorus (plus commemorative monument), 5000 drachma; a circular chorus at the little Panathenaea, 300 drachma; a circular chorus of boys, more than 1500 drachma; a comic chorus, 1600 drachma; another pyrrhic chorus at the Little Panathenaea, 700 drachma (Lysias 21.1 6). 48

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fourth-century law court speeches. The speaker in Isocrates’ Aegineticus (19.36) claims the benefits of his ancestors having served as choregoi.52 One speaker might point to an opponent’s lack of a choregic service, as Demosthenes does in On the False Embassy (19.282), or he might invalidate the worth of choregic service by pointing to a failure to win in these contests, as in Isaeus’ Concerning Dicaeogenes (5.35–6). There may even be an opportunity to point to the physical monument of an ancestor’s successful choregia as was the case for the speaker of that same Isaeus speech (5.41).53 These physical monuments, particularly those set up in the city of Athens itself and to which embattled speakers amid their prosecutions might gesture, provide some fascinating testimony for the presentation of choregic service and performance, and the tensions that were part of it.54 The majority of these city monuments, as far as choral victories go, seem to have been in honour of the circular choral contests, although memorials for the pyrrhic and, very occasionally, dramatic are also in evidence.55 The impression these monuments would have made on those living or visiting the city must have been considerable. The traditional prize for the circular contest was a tripod—around five metres high for the men’s choruses and around three metres for the boys’—commissioned and paid for by the city itself, but it was the choregos who would be responsible for setting up this tripod.56 An inscription would be added to identify the tribe who had been successful, the choregos, and the poet of the piece, together with the name of the eponymous archon and, later in the century, occasionally the aulete in place of the poet. Sometimes, but not always, the type of contest would be noted, usually only using the genitive plural ‘of boys’ or ‘of men’ (the word ‘chorus’ not even necessary).57 These inscriptions, along with fragments of stone reliefs and structural elements, are of obvious use to us in identifying the date and character of the choral victories commemorated. It is important to 52 As Wilson 2000: 284 5 notes, this is as an important example of a non Athenian (the speaker is a Siphnian exiled on Aegina) using this tactic in a non Athenian context. Cf. Isocrates 16.35 for the same tactic but with a false humility ladled on for good measure. 53 Cf. Isaeus 7.40 and Wilson 2000: 202 on the possible arrogance of such a gesture. 54 Wilson 2000: 198 262 Csapo 2010b, Götte 2007, and Agelidis 2009. 55 56 Wilson 2000: 207, Csapo 2010b: 80 1. Amandry 1976: 70 1. 57 E.g. Ἀκαμαντὶς παίδων ἐνίκα, IG II2 3042, dated to 335/4.

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remember, however, that the weight of the inscription is balanced out by the monument itself. What would be left dominating the experience of the viewer was the opulence of the extra adornments that could be added to the tripod by the choregos at his own artistic and financial discretion: hefty marble bases with multiple tiers decorated with reliefs,58 mini (or not so mini) temple-like structures that surrounded the tripod, or columns that elevated it to a height of around ten metres. These towering structures, memorials to choregic victories, lined the route to the sanctuary of Dionysus in Athens from the north east, and continued on right into the theatre itself. On one’s way to the theatre in the city, it was the financial outlay of the choregoi that was most clearly on display. The fact that a choregos might alter or add to an existing choral monument in order to commemorate a later victory in a different kind of competition again underscores how these were memorials closely connected to individual, rather than tribal or demotic, success and victory.59 The voluntary spending that some choregoi went in for (the setting up of a monument does seem to have been entirely voluntary in the first place)60 is contrasted by the theme of the choregos as held to ransom by the demos, notable in both poetry and prose.61 A character in Antiphanes’ Soldier or Tychon, speaking about the mutability of human life, gives a picture of the chorus in gold cloaks, while the choregos is dressed in nothing but rags (fr.2.1–8). A fragment from another comedy, Hedonist by Theopompus, a poet active in the first third of the fourth century, gives another brief but evocative image in this vein: ‘Stand in a line, like a starving chorus of grey mullets,/ being entertained and fed vegetables, like geese’, καὶ στῆτ’ ἐφεξῆς κεστρέων νῆστις χορὸς/ λαχάνοισιν ὥσπερ χῆνες ἐξενισμένοι (fr.14).62 The picture 58 The design of these reliefs, of which we have around ten, is ‘purely generic and has nothing to do with either the narrative or the performance of the circular choruses they commemorate’, Csapo 2010b: 82. 59 This seems to have been the case with the mid fourth century Atarbos monu ment, celebrating a victory in both the circular choral contest and the pyrrhic contest, IG II2 3025, Acropolis Museum, Athens 1338, see Shear 2003 and esp. p. 74. Cf. also Athens NM 3854 with Wilson 2000: 236 7. A monument (IG II2 1138) commemor ating all the victorious choregoi of the tribe Pandionis acts as an opposite example of this strategy of listing multiple individual victories, see Wilson 2000: 171 and 215. 60 Wilson 2000: 206 7. 61 Probably fifth century but in the same vein is the ‘Old Oligarch’ Athenian Constitution 1.13. See Wilson 2000: 184 7. 62 This fragment may also give an indication of choral diet (and dieting).

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of a hungry chorus, here cast as both fish and fowl, certainly fits in with a common trope of the choregos as the harried provider of food and luxurious other items.63 But this presentation of the chorus as a financial drain is, as with so much in choregic discourse, doubleedged. Whether this kind of comment constituted a sincere plea or a ‘humble brag’, the chorus provides a means to display the individual wealth of the choregos, just as the monuments lining the approach to the theatre proclaimed his wealth. Aristotle notes in his description of a typical vulgar man that he would dress his comic chorus in luxuriant purple (Eth.Nic.1123a23). The fact that this luxury supposedly lavished on the chorus was always more to do with the choregos than the chorus is seen clearly in another variation on this theme of luxurious costume; in his Areopagiticus, Isocrates bewails the extravagance and ostentation with which festivals are carried out ‘nowadays’, providing the pathetic image of choral performers dressed up in gold cloaks for a performance, but with nothing to wear in the winter (7.53–4).64 The overwhelming preoccupation with wealth in the presentation and representation of choregoi in fourth-century discourse is so clear that it is hardly surprising that the verb ‘to act as choregos’ came to be semantically fused with financial outlay more generally.65 A further aspect of the choregia that we see in some speeches, an aspect closely related to the requisite capability for substantial expenditure, is that of elite status. In his On the False Embassy, Demosthenes attempts to undermine the argument of his opponent, Aeschines, by pointing to his parentage, claiming that his father was a clerk or teacher (γραμματιστής) and his mother a ‘convener of thiasoi’66 and then asking: Will you let this man off, a man born of such parents, a man who has done nothing useful for the city, neither himself, nor his father, nor any other member of his family? What horse, what trireme, what army, what chorus, what leitourgia, what special contribution, what act of

63

Wilson 2000: 124 6. Mere expenditure is also disparaged, although relating to spending on funerary choruses in Isocrates’ Evagoras (9.4). 65 Aeschines Ctes.240 with Wilson 2000: 177, cf. Demosthenes 9.60 and 19.216. 66 Demosthenes has already mentioned Aeschines’ mother in the speech, with similar disdain, at 199 200. 64

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goodwill, what venture, what of any of these at any point in his life has he contributed to the city?67 Demosthenes, On the False Embassy, 281 2

The link made between parentage and the capability to perform any of the public services listed here is explicit. Naturally, it is in Demosthenes’ interest to belittle his opponent in this way and highlighting Aeschines’ less than illustrious family as well as his lack of any liturgical service both aid him in this. But a more subtle manipulation of the understood elite quality in choregoi demonstrates how intrinsic a quality it really was to choregic performance. In his speech Against Timarchus, Aeschines is detailing the career of Timarchus as a ‘prostitute’ as a means to justify his call for Timarchus’ atimia. Having shown how Timarchus set himself up in the houses of a string of wealthy men (Euthydicus a physician, Misgolas, Anticles 40–53), he then introduces the character of Pittalacus, a ‘slave of the city’,68 who duly asks Timarchus to come and stay with him in his house. This abhorrent man here had no qualms with the fact that he was going to degrade himself with a public slave, but indeed thought only of how he might secure him as choregos for his own disgusting desires; to virtue or vice he never gave a thought.69 Aeschines, Against Timarchus, 54

The condemnation that Aeschines seeks here depends on the fact that Timarchus is prostituting himself not only to older men of higher status, which at the very least conforms to patterns of homosexual relations in Athens at the time,70 but also, now, to someone of the lowest kind of standing—a slave. The label of choregos for someone 67 τοῦτον ὑμεῖς λαβόντες, τὸν τῶν τοιούτων, τὸν οὐδὲ καθ’ ἓν χρήσιμον τῇ πόλει, οὐκ αὐτόν, οὐ πατέρα, οὐκ ἄλλον οὐδένα τῶν τούτου, ἀφήσετε; ποῖος γὰρ ἵππος, ποία τριήρης, ποία στρατεία, τίς χορός, τίς λῃτουργία, τίς εἰσφορά, τίς εὔνοια, ποῖος κίνδυνος, τί τούτων ἐν παντὶ τῷ χρόνῳ γέγονεν παρὰ τούτων τῇ πόλει; 68 The actions of Pittalacus that follow, including bringing a suit against Timarchus and his new lover, Hegesandrus, seem to indicate that he had full citizen rights, despite Aeschines calling him an ἄνθρωπος δημόσιος οἰκέτης τῆς πόλεως, 54.2 and 6. 69 Καὶ ταῦτ’ οὐκ ἐδυσχέραινεν ὁ μιαρὸς οὑτοσί, μέλλων ἑαυτὸν καταισχύνειν πρὸς ἄνθρωπον δημόσιον οἰκέτην τῆς πόλεως· ἀλλ’ εἰ λήψεται χορηγὸν τῇ βδελυρίᾳ τῇ ἑαυτοῦ, τοῦτο μόνον ἐσκέψατο, τῶν δὲ καλῶν ἢ τῶν αἰσχρῶν οὐδεμίαν πώποτε πρόνοιαν ἐποιήσατο. 70 For the democratic/political implications of this kind of male prostitution see Halperin 1990: 88 104. The choregos image might even be pushed further in this respect.

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who is a slave clearly is playing with and inverting an assumed elite quality that people expected from the choregoi, making the application of the label to Pittalacus extremely effective for shocking the audience. These two central characteristics of the choregia and choregoi in Athenian discourse—wealth and elite status—constitute a powerful lens through which the choregic chorus can be viewed by readers of these texts and monuments. Both kinds of performance, choregic and choral, inform the way the other is conjured and talked about in the fourth century, as we shall see in the following sections of this chapter.71 Such is the prominence of many of the choregic individuals that there is a substantial body of epigraphic, artistic, and literary evidence relating to these choregic choruses. And in these references we see how the chorus can have an active role in the way these individuals constructed their public personae. A reference to the chorus could not only enrich a literary text but, as we shall see, had the cultural power in the fourth century to be used to magnify a crime committed against an individual choregos, or act as an instantiation of private beneficence to the demos or, perhaps, mediate an overweening display of private wealth.

6.2.2. Magnifying Crime Our most extensive example of the use of the chorus in this way is found in Demosthenes’ Against Meidias. In 348, Demosthenes had acted as choregos for his tribe’s adult circular chorus at the City Dionysia. After over a decade of personal enmity (which we hear of only from Demosthenes’ perspective, as presented in this speech, 77–101) and a series of acts aimed at undermining the successful performance of this leitourgia, Meidias, a fellow wealthy Athenian, accosted Demosthenes in the theatre of Dionysus and hit him in the face (1, 6, 12, 18). Demosthenes tells us he raised the matter at the meeting of the Assembly that followed the festival and secured from the people a judgement in his favour that condemned Meidias’ behaviour (2).72 71 Philonikia/Philoneikia is an important third aspect but one that is less particular to the choregos, shared as this attitude seems to be between chorus and choregos see Xen. Mem.3.3.12, 3.4.1 6, Cyr.1.6.18, Rep.Lac. 4.2.2 and Hipp.1.26.5. 72 Demosthenes is alleged to have received 3000 drachma and called off the trial (Aeschines Ctes.51 2), but see Worthington 1991: 67 and Ober 1994: 90 92, who

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Demosthenes has to deploy considerable rhetorical strategy in order to justify a prosecution that could all too easily be viewed as purely the concern of two private individuals and nothing to do with the demos. One of the key difficulties he faces is that he is prosecuting Meidias for a crime that is not strictly codified in law.73 Although the assault occurred whilst the two were amid their own high-profile choregic performance (indeed the attack, for Meidias, was part of that performance), technically the scuffle was that of any two men coming to blows in a sacred precinct; it was not particularly dignified, but nor was it illegal. The choregia was one of the more ‘secular’ offices in Athens,74 and it is only in one speech, Isocrates’ Trapezeticus, that there is a hint that a choregos might take on some of the same qualities as a magistrate. There we hear of one Pythodorus who was reckless enough to open the voting urns (ὑδρίαι) containing the names of potential judges for the City Dionysia, even though they had been ‘stamped by the prytaneis and sealed by the choregoi’ (αἳ σεσημασμέναι μὲν ἦσαν ὑπὸ τῶν πρυτάνεων, κατεσφραγισμέναι δ’ὑπὸ τῶν χορηγῶν, 34), and were guarded by treasurers and kept on the Acropolis. This snippet could indicate that, even in light of the many other instances where the choregia is clearly distinguished from religious office, it would be possible to argue that the choregia could have some kind of religious quality, outside of Demosthenes’ Meidias speech. Meidias, then, will be accused of impiety and hubris in the speech but the trial itself is not one for impiety (ἀσεβεία) but only a probole ‘which has been made in connection with the procession or the contests at the Dionysia’ (τὰς προβολὰς παραδιδότωσαν τὰς γεγενημένας ἕνεκα τῆς πομπῆς ἢ τῶν ἀγώνων τῶν ἐν τοῖς Διονυσίοις, 8).75 By bringing the language of this probole case closer to that of a γραφὴ ὕβρεως or ἀσεβείας, Demosthenes seeks to strengthen his case for the prosecution. Part of this overall strategy, to sacralize the office of the choregos, is to capitalize on the actual, widely held, and unchallenged association of the chorus with religious ritual and a certain kind of sanctity. Just under a quarter of the way through the speech (and, significantly, around

recommend scepticism on this. On the inconsistencies in the speech, perhaps as a result of hasty revision before publication, see MacDowell 1990: 24 8. 73 74 MacDowell 1990: 12 13. Martin 2009: 25n.32 and Scullion 2002. 75 On the probole see MacDowell 1990: 13 16.

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the same time that he introduces the idea that Meidias could well be charged for asebeia76), Demosthenes reminds his audience of the place choruses hold in society: You know, of course, that you put on all these performances of choruses and hymns for the god, not just according to the laws set up for the Dionysia but also according to the oracles. In all of these, whether from Delphi or Dodona, you will find it decreed for the city to establish choruses according to tradition, to scent the streets with sacrifices, and to wear garlands.77 Demosthenes, Against Meidias, 51 2

He goes on to quote an oracle that lists the gods for whom choruses must be established—Zeus, Herakles, Apollo Protector (Ἀπόλλων προστατήριος) and Apollo of the streets (Ἀπόλλων ἄγυιος), Leto, and Artemis. These choruses might be viewed as more obviously cultic than the festival choruses of the City Dionysia, but we should bear in mind the potential links between all kinds of choral performance that may have been active, or activated, in such a rhetorical speech. Here we see our first example of the way Demosthenes’ insinuates himself within the ranks of the performing chorus. Accordingly, it is clear that, when we are gathered together throughout those days for the contest, all the choruses there, and the choregoi, wear crowns for Athens in accordance with the oracles . . . So when a man insults any of these chorusmen, or choregoi, as one would an enemy, and does so during the contest itself and in the precinct of the god, are we to say he is not guilty of impiety?78 Demosthenes, Against Meidias, 54 5

There is, of course, no mention of choregoi in the oracles. Nor could Demosthenes outright claim that the choregia had any formal recognition in cultic practice in his preamble to those oracles at 51 and 52.

76

Martin 2009: 21. ἴστε γὰρ δήπου τοῦθ’ ὅτι τοὺς χοροὺς ὑμεῖς ἅπαντας τούτους καὶ τοὺς ὕμνους τῷ θεῷ ποιεῖτε, οὐ μόνον κατὰ τοὺς νόμους τοὺς περὶ τῶν Διονυσίων, ἀλλὰ καὶ κατὰ τὰς μαντείας, ἐν αἷς ἁπάσαις ἀνῃρημένον εὑρήσετε τῇ πόλει, ὁμοίως ἐκ Δελφῶν καὶ ἐκ Δωδώνης, χοροὺς ἱστάναι κατὰ τὰ πάτρια καὶ κνισᾶν ἀγυιὰς καὶ στεφανηφορεῖν. 78 οἱ τοίνυν χοροὶ πάντες οἱ γιγνόμενοι καὶ οἱ χορηγοὶ δῆλον ὅτι τὰς μὲν ἡμέρας ἐκείνας ἃς συνερχόμεθ’ ἐπὶ τὸν ἀγῶνα, κατὰ τὰς μαντείας ταύτας ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν ἐστεφανώμεθα . . . τὸν οὖν εἴς τινα τούτων τῶν χορευτῶν ἢ τῶν χορηγῶν ὑβρίζοντ’ ἐπ’ ἔχθρᾳ, καὶ ταῦτ’ ἐν αὐτῷ τῷ ἀγῶνι καὶ ἐν τῷ τοῦ θεοῦ ἱερῷ, τοῦτον ἄλλο τι πλὴν ἀσεβεῖν φήσομεν; 77

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This is a specious, yet suggestive, move on his part to bind the qualities (and fates) of the chorus and choregos together. Shoring up the connection of between choregos and religious office, Demosthenes next provides two anecdotes of how choral performances in the past might have had legal grounds for being interrupted but were not, precisely because of the sacred quality to choral performance. He gives the example of Sannion, a particularly experienced tragic chorus trainer and dancer, but a man who had been convicted of evading military service (58–9). As someone who had suffered disenfranchisement, Sannion would not have been allowed into any of the sacred precincts, including the theatre of Dionysus: the competing choregoi would have been well within their rights to perform an apagoge, arresting the man themselves.79 Similarly, one Aristeides of the tribe Oineis had suffered atimia and yet continued to act as a leading choral dancer in his tribe’s circular choruses (60). In both cases, Demosthenes points out how neither man’s performances were interrupted, ‘so great is the pious restraint which may be seen in every one of you’ (τοσοῦτον τῆς εὐσεβείας ἐν ἑκάστῳ τις ἂν ὑμῶν ἴδοι τὸ συγκεχωρηκὸς, 59). In light of the various instances where the chorus is represented as a privileged space, and passages such as the account of the news of Leuctra arriving at Sparta during the performance of a men’s chorus in Xenophon’s Hellenica, we might place a cautious confidence in these anecdotes as indicative of more generally held views, even though it would most certainly benefit Demosthenes to underscore such scruples. A more tenuous link that Demosthenes makes between the religious role of the chorus and the injuries he, as choregos, suffered occurs a little earlier. The very first crime that he accuses Meidias of plotting is the destruction of the costumes and crowns intended for his chorus. He inserts an important parenthesis into his account of this ‘crime’, saying ‘I consider everything made for the festival as sacrosanct up until the point it is used’ (ἱερὰν γὰρ ἔγωγε νομίζω πᾶσαν ὅσην ἄν τις εἵνεκα τῆς ἑορτῆς παρασκευάσηται, τέως ἂν χρησθῇ 16). The damage intended in this planned (and, we should note, not achieved) act is not only an attack on what must count as Demosthenes’ personal property at this point, but rather an impious crime by virtue of the clothes’ future contact with a chorus. The connections between sacrosanctity, the 79 For what we can make out about the procedures for imposing fines and/or interrupting a choral performance, see MacDowell 1989: 72 7.

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chorus, the clothes, and crowns are made very fast and create a helpful, if impressionistic, equation for Demosthenes’ rhetorical ends. One does not need to look very hard, however, to identify some logical leaps in such an argument. The religious associations of the chorus are quite clearly co-opted (and perhaps over-stretched) by Demosthenes in this speech. But there is another characteristic of his chorus that he is also able to deploy as he blurs the boundaries between chorus and choregos. More than any other chorus, the circular chorus was directly tied to the citizen body at large. Each of the ten adult fifty-strong choruses at the City Dionysia would be drawn from one of the ten tribes that made up the citizen demos of Athens. It is this that allows Demosthenes to underline how Medias’ crimes are not against him alone (‘the offences done to the chorus are also offences against the tribe, that is, one tenth of yourselves’, ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ μὲν τοῖς εἰς τὸν χορὸν γεγενημένοις ἀδικήμασιν ἡ φυλή, δέκατον μέρος ὑμῶν, 126). Similarly, in demonstrating why he has brought this indictment of Meidias to public trial, as opposed to a private case (a δίκη ἰδία), Demosthenes stresses that ‘The chorus belonged to the city’ (ὅ τε γὰρ χορὸς ἦν τῆς πόλεως, 26) something that allows his indignant outrage at being attacked personally (as he owns in the same sentence—‘and I, the victim in all this, was a choregos’, ἐγώ θ’ ὁ πεπονθὼς ταῦτα χορηγὸς ἦν, 26) to be elevated to a matter of public concern. We can note that even a boys’ chorus could maintain this association of being representative (and a large representation) of the citizen population. As Wilson has explored in the case of the young man named Boiotus in another speech of Demosthenes, dancing in the boys’ choruses enacted a form of proto-citizenship. (39.28).

6.2.3. The Chorus as a Choregic Gift The choregic chorus is also able to act as something that is not only made up of the demos but constitutes a gift to the demos (and one that warrants a reciprocal gift of ‘favour’ from the people). As Wilson has noted, a ‘balance of reciprocal benefits, often construed as gifts and counter-gifts, between the demos and its élite leaders, serves as a crucial and delicate support for wider relations between the two’.80 The chorus, then, acts as the pivot for an exchange and interaction 80

Wilson 2000: 173, with 172 84.

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between audience/the demos and the choregos. From the point of view of the audience, the chorus is the means by which the choregos donates an element that is (nominally) related to the cult celebration of the god, Dionysus, but more likely understood as a feast for the eyes and festival entertainment. For the choregos, the chorus is the means by which his beneficence, generosity, and democratic commitment to the city and its running is demonstrated. In both cases, the chorus acts as a conduit for audience and choregos’ respective benefit.81 The process of euthunai exposes the mechanics of this process of exchange. Any Athenian who undertook any kind of public office would be subjected to an audit (a euthuna) within a month of the end of his period of service.82 While this was not the case for choregoi (they supplied their own funds, after all) it is tempting to understand the process of judging at the festival as a kind of euthuna, whereby the demos evaluated how well the elite individuals had invested time and money in their chorus and hence the extent to which that individual had ‘bought into’ the democratic reciprocity. There are three passages from the speeches that indicate the same kinds of evaluation would be made of a choregia as a magistracy responsible for public funds. A fragment from Eupolis’ Cities that was quoted in a speech of the late fourth-century orator Dinarchus uses language resonating with official decrees concerning the ‘auditing’— ἄνδρες λογισταὶ τῶν ὑπευθύνων χορῶν.83 The fragment is puzzling out of context, and yet the image of a chorus being evaluated in the same manner (ὑπευθύνων) as individual magistrates were evaluated is telling. Wilson describes this fragment as ‘fascinating if quite impenetrable’; to his mind, it is the choruses and not the choregos being evaluated by the spectators, based on the idea that the choruses mentioned are those of the current performance.84 Without knowing if it is a chorus speaking the fragment, we cannot be sure that this would be the case. There is room for an interpretation either way, but considering the high profile of choregoi in and around the choral performances I suggest we should see this fragment as inviting us to 81 The language of leitourgiai is always directed to the benefit of these services to the audience/jury/demos/city. Hence Lysias 7.30, Demosthenes 19.282, Isaeus 5.35. See Wilson 2007e for the discussion of an inscription that points towards the possible monetary benefits for choregoi in the deme theatre of Thorikos. 82 See Hansen 1991: 222 4 on the process of euthunai. 83 84 Dinarchus Against Timocrates = Eupolis fr. 239. 2000: 359 60 n. 64.

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view the chorus as standing in for the choregos himself, standing before the demos and being evaluated on how he has spent his money, and the audience’s judgement being based on the appearance and training of the chorus.85 In this sense, the chorus itself disappears and represents, entirely, the quality and civic worth of an individual. In the light of the Eupolis fragment we might see a similar meaning in a passage from Aeschines’ Against Ctesiphon, where the speaker compares the jury’s judgement of Ctesiphon to the audience’s judgement of circular choruses. You punish the judges at the Dionysia if they fail to award their prizes fairly in the circular choral competition; but will you reward the suc cessful cheat, against all regulation, and when you sit in judgement not over the circular choruses but over the laws and integrity of public life?86 Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon, 323

While this may be just a straightforward appeal to other contexts where an audience is called on to assess critically the worth of an offering, the further aspect of critical assessment of a choregos’ ‘offering’ to the demos may be being alluded to also. Audience, chorus and choregos are equated with demos, civic service, and official. The chorus is the gift (the chorus members themselves do not receive, they are the medium by which the gift to the demos is given) given by the individual, and that gift is judged and evaluated before the gathered people, i.e. the audience in the theatre. Viewing the chorus as a ‘gift’ given by the choregos transforms it from a group of (possibly highly skilled) performers and, in the case of the circular choruses of the City Dionysia, citizens, into the product and personal creation of the choregos. Such a framing of the choral performance demonstrates that not only did the chorus have a power to shape the image of the choregos, but the nature of the choregia itself subtly affects how we view the activity, and agency even, of the chorus as a group of performers.

85 That some of these offerings may be judged as sub standard is evidenced by Isaeus 5.36. 86 καὶ τοὺς μὲν κριτὰς τοὺς ἐκ τῶν Διονυσίων, ἐὰν μὴ δικαίως τοὺς κυκλίους χοροὺς κρίνωσι, ζημιοῦτε· αὐτοὶ δὲ οὐ κυκλίων χορῶν κριταὶ καθεστηκότες, ἀλλὰ νόμων καὶ πολιτικῆς ἀρετῆς, τὰς δωρεὰς οὐ κατὰ τοὺς νόμους οὐδ’ ὀλίγοις καὶ τοῖς ἀξίοις, ἀλλὰ τῷ διαπραξαμένῳ δώσετε;

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6.2.4. The Chorus on Choregic Monuments It was not a requirement for any choregos to include a depiction of a chorus on his commemorative monument—whether it be for a victory with a tragic, comic, circular, or pyrrhic chorus.87 Some appear to have opted to depict themselves alone, and/or decorated their monuments with a more generic type of design—the goddess Nike, the tripod or bull that they had won, and, for Dionysiac contests (we presume), satyrs and Dionysus.88 The choice afforded to the choregos must have been even more pronounced for drama where no physical item, such as the circular chorus’ tripod, was awarded by the city to be ‘set up’. Indeed, for drama there seemed to be a range of alternative methods to commemorate a victory; the decorated pinax (literally ‘tablet’) that could be hung on a statue or other structure; the accoutrements of performance (the skeue)—masks, costumes, garlands, etc.—placed in the temple of Dionysus; those accoutrements remade in stone, bronze, or terracotta and dedicated in the same way or in conjunction with a monument.89 A marvellous example of a choregic victory that was commemorated with the depiction of stone masks on a relief was found near the theatre of Dionysus in Athens (Fig. 6.1), and although the date of this relief is uncertain, we can clearly see that four of the six masks are identical and identifiable as those of young women, indicating that this was commemorating a victory of a tragic chorus.90 The choice afforded to the choregos means that where we do find depictions of choruses we are right to regard these as carrying a pointed message, and one that is worth exploring briefly here. Pictorial depictions of choruses themselves could be found on both upper and/or lower registers of these choregic structures. The fragments of a marble base for one Athenian choregic monument show

87 Wilson 2000: 198 262, Vierneisel and Scholl 2002, Csapo 2010b, with updated readings in Csapo and Wilson forthcoming. 88 See, e.g. Athens, National Museum 1463; Vierneisel and Scholl 2002 figs 13 14; Agelidis 2009 no. 29 pl. 5c e. Date c.340. The choregos himself: e.g. Athens, National Museum 1490; Vierneisel and Scholl 2002 fig 15; Agelidis 2009 no. 12, pl. 12. Wilson 2000: 207 8. Date: 350. 89 Lysias 21.4. Wilson 2000: 238. 90 Athens, NM 1750, MTS2, 34, AS 5, Agelidis pp. 222 3 pl. 10d e. Cf. a free standing stone relief Athens, National Museum 4531, Agelidis 2009: 22, no. 98, pl. 10c found near a sanctuary of Dionysus at Ikarion depicting comic/satyric(?) masks; see Csapo 2010b: 85, Dearden 1999: 225 n. 15, Wilson 2000: 241.

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Fig. 6.1. Relief found near the theatre of Dionysus in Athens, dated to 375 350, Athens, National Museum 1750 VS. National Museum, Athens.

an extremely lively dance of a comic chorus of men, carrying sticks and raising their right knees high as they move from left to right (Fig.1.1).91 A variation in the space between dancers in some of the fragments has led to the suggestion they come from two different sides of a rectangular base, with six dancers on each side, making up the twenty-four performers of a comic chorus in the middle of the fourth century (see Fig. 6.2).92 Another relief, also depicting a comic chorus, takes the form of a stone pinax (identifiable as such due to the stone’s slim depth of 17 cm at its base), that would most likely have been mounted high, on a pillar 91

Athens, Agora S1025 + S1586; MMC AS 3; Agelidis 2009, no. 94, pl. 9a d; Csapo and Wilson forthcoming IV E ‘Choregic Relief with Comic Stick Wielders’. Date: c.350 40 (by style). 92 Csapo and Wilson forthcoming.

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Fig. 6.2. Imagined reconstruction of a choregic monument commemorating a comic victory. © Eric Csapo.

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Fig. 6.3. Fragment of choregic pinax in ‘pentelic’ marble. Agora S 2098. Reproduced by kind permission of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens: Agora Excavations.

perhaps (Fig. 6.3).93 While the base relief imagined and tentatively reconstructed in Fig 6.2 would have allowed for all performers to be depicted, on this stone pinax we can identify a row of choral performers behind the five visible dancers, an example of a different way to portray the ‘rank and file’ of a chorus in performance, perhaps entering or exiting the space.94 There are shared characteristics between these two comic choruses and the depiction of the circular and pyrrhic choruses on the so-called Atarbos base, above which would have stood a statue of c.1.8 m; again all performers are dressed in a similar fashion (the seven circular choral performers in himatia, the eight pyrrhic performers naked 93 Athens, Agora S 2098; MMC AS 4. Csapo and Wilson forthcoming IV E ‘Choregic Relief of Comic Exodos?’. Date: c.350 40 (by style). 94 Csapo and Wilson draw some firm conclusions in their reading based on 9th century Pollux. See Csapo and Wilson forthcoming.

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and holding shields), and shown moving in unison from left to right. The difference on the Atarbos base from the two previous reliefs is the inclusion of two divine female figures immediately leading the circular and directly behind the pyrrhic chorus, who are likely to be Muses.95 The presence of a divinity is much more prominent in a second kind of representation of choral performers on choregic monuments (possibly alluded to on the Atarbos monument) that shows the chorus after their performance and moving as a group towards a divine figure. One such relief is Fig. 6.4, a choregic dedication found in Koropos (probably the ancient deme of Sphettos) where sixteen figures (a tragic chorus together with their choregos), garlands on heads, all dressed the same and bringing a sacrificial pig, move towards a super-human sized Dionysus (identifiable from his fawnskin, high boots, and drinking cup).96 This type of so-called

Fig. 6.4. Choregic dedication, dated to c.350 25, Athens National Museum 2400. National Museum, Athens.

95 Wilson 2000: 40, Shear 2003: 167 8, which also include illustrations of this important depiction of the non dramatic chorus. 96 Agelidis 2009: pl. 10a (Kat.97, Athens NM 2400). Date: c.320. Csapo 2010b: 86 8.

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‘adoration’ relief presents a chorus together with their choregos communing with the god in perpetuity.97 Even from this relatively small sample, a picture emerges of common concerns in the choregic depictions of the chorus. They are always depicted wearing the same costume and masks as each other, with only small details varying between performers. Whether shown in the midst of performance, or in a post-performance act of veneration, their movement is depicted in absolute unison. This order and uniformity is made all the more apparent by comparison to a collection of choral depictions, all from around the turn of the century, the most famous of which is the so-called ‘Pronomos’ vase, where choral performers are portrayed engaging in individual movements, and are even, on that vase, given individual names.98 Some flexibility in this tendency is notable. On the one hand a vase, known as the Benaki Chous, portrays a comic chorus in a strikingly similar way to Figs 1.1/6.2 and 6.3.99 Meanwhile, a votive relief, the so-called ‘Peiraieus’ relief, perhaps significantly dated to around the same time as the Pronomos vase, depicts three choral performers (identifiable as such through their identical, female costume) holding tympana engaged in a more realistic kind of posture, akin to the style seen on pottery.100 In general, however, we can see a trend in how choregic monuments, when they do portray choruses, show them massed, without much differentiation, and moving in unison. We can read these tendencies as governed by the over-arching concerns of the choregos who was, after all, financing this monument for himself and his tribe, and not making any attempt to document the specifics of the choral performance. Their similar costume acts as an indicator for viewers (ancient and modern) that these performers are indeed a chorus as opposed to actors. But the quality of unison, particularly reflected in their movement, reflects well on the ‘gift’ that is curated and financed by the choregos. Although the full number of choral performers may not always be depicted on a stone relief, the numerous quality of a chorus is an important feature of choregic representations of the chorus as it shows how the choregos spent his For other kinds of this ‘adoration’ motif see Csapo 2010b: 86 96. Braund and Hall (2014b: 4) link the disordered movement seen on an Olbian vase fragment with a barbarian choral identity. 99 Athens, Benaki Museum, 30895, Froning 2002, 89 fig.123; Csapo and Wilson forthcoming IV E ‘Benaki Chous’. Date: c.380 60 (by style). 100 Athens NM 1500, c.400, see Csapo 2010b: 94 6. 97 98

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money. Such depictions act as a reminder of the performance itself, the particularity of choral as opposed to solo performance, and also the costs of maintaining and providing for fifteen, twenty-four, or fifty individual performers. Here, again, the invocation of the chorus can be read in two ways, at one and the same time proclaiming the choregos’ generosity to the city in providing this ritually sanctioned, civic spectacle,101 and also his own personal wealth and civic worth.102 The chorus provides a means of proclaiming a sense of being quite pleased with himself, but also, perhaps, a means of staving off any envy or at least acknowledging his obvious self-promotion. * While the political prominence of the choregic individuals throughout the fourth century has meant more information about the practicalities of organizing and training a chorus for performance is mentioned in sources, we have seen how frequently the choral body is assimilated with the individual choregos. The chorus prompts some helpful associations—of sacrosanctity and an importance in ritual, of its connection to the demos, of its potential for entertainment and public benefit—all of which encouraged choregoi to associate themselves closely with it. It is through this choregic lens that this particular kind of chorus is viewed presented in our sources—both literary and monumental. A final tendency to note is the way in which the figure of the choregos in our sources frequently overshadows the presence and performance of the chorus itself. In Aeschines’ speech Against Ctesiphon (delivered in 330), the orator is complaining about the practice of honouring individuals with crowns before the beginning of the competitions. He lists those who are left waiting while these honours are given out—‘the spectators, the choregoi, and the competitors’ (τοὺς μὲν θεατὰς καὶ τοὺς χορηγοὺς καὶ τοὺς ἀγωνιστὰς, 43). It is a brief example, but it is indicative of the way in which choral 101 Csapo suggests the number aids associations between chorus and wider demos. ‘The effort to suggest the entire depth of the choral line is an elegant way of stressing the larger community (and tribal) effort behind the production’ (Csapo and Wilson forthcoming). 102 The same tactic can be seen in an epigram, inscribed on stone, found in Anagyrous, commemorating two victories in comedy, although the chorus here is invoked in name alone rather than being depicted (as far as we know); see IG II2 3101 with Wilson 2000: 246 8.

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performers, even when the competition consists only of choral performance such as the circular contests, are not given the same prominence in our written and artistic sources as must have been manifest in the experience of the festival. From an historical perspective, we can note how there are evident risks in participating in a chorus precisely because of the reputation of the choregoi involved in the competition that year. Demosthenes in his list of Meidias’ attacks on him whilst performing his choregia includes acts that would most certainly have had an impact on the choral performers themselves; the ‘corruption’ of the chorus trainer (‘we would not have even been in contention for a prize, men of Athens, but the chorus would have gone into the orchestra unrehearsed and we would have been utterly humiliated’, οὐδ’ ἂν ἠγωνισάμεθ’, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, ἀλλ’ ἀδίδακτος ἂν εἰσῆλθεν ὁ χορὸς καὶ πράγματ’ αἴσχιστ’ ἂν ἐπάθομεν, 17)103 or, even more distressing, the way that associates of Meidias were able to barricade the side-entrances (παρα σκήνια) when Demosthenes’ chorus was due to perform, forcing them to change their entry point onto the stage. These sorts of actions were undertaken by Meidias as a means to attack the choregos; and yet the impact was on a greater number of performers who had no part in this particular quarrel. In the same way, the reputation of Alcibiades was enough to secure the judges’ vote in favour of his chorus, to the detriment of his rival choregos, Taureas, and his chorus, according to the speaker of Andocides’ Against Alcibiades. We might recall, too, Isocrates’ image of the choral performers dressed in gold cloaks for performance, but with nothing to wear in the winter.104 Choregic beneficence itself could be ephemeral and, for the performers in his chorus, double-edged. The tendencies in our sources to focus, and to encourage us to focus, on the choregos might mean we miss some of these intriguing aspects of choregic choral performances, elements that could further enrich our understanding of the complicated and contested choral culture of the fourth-century. Once more we can see how an examination of the impression made on the artists and thinkers of the time can allow us to tease out ideas associated with choral performance, and how the testimonia speak to the lived reality of those performances.

103 Cf. Demosthenes says that Meidias ‘prevented the chorus from learning’ (χορὸν μανθάνειν ἐκώλυεν, 63). 104 Isocrates 7.54.

7 The Chorus and Society In the previous chapter we examined how the chorus’ associations with festival (and festival leitourgiai) were harnessed in the rhetoric of artists and writers. There, the setting and location of the choral dance was paramount for understanding the full weight of meaning in a reference to, or image of, the chorus. In this chapter the content of choral performance, or rather, the visual spectacle of the chorus and the psychology of the choral performers themselves will be the focus, as represented by two fourth-century authors in particular: Xenophon and Plato. Both of these authors deploy references to and images of the chorus as a microcosm of society; and not just society as a whole, but all kinds of societal groups—a polis, a military company, or a philosophical school. Both Xenophon and Plato present the chorus as a useful analogue, but also as an excellent context for discussing and evaluating leaders. A reliance on individuals was becoming more and more evident in fourth-century politics,1 and with that came a greater fervour in dissecting the qualities of the successful individual in the political arena. The chorus lent itself as an explanatory model for how the correct dynamics between leader and led could result in political excellence and the success of society as a whole. These authors do not confine themselves to consideration of the choregos or coryphaeus as a leader, indeed part of the interest in assessing all the choral images gathered in this chapter is an appreciation of just how variously the title of ‘leader’ might be applied when it comes to the chorus. Xenophon’s and Plato’s concerns are focused on articulating what a leader is responsible for, and what effect they are capable of having on the group in question. In taking

1

Ferrario 2014.

The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE: Presence and Representation. Lucy C. M. M. Jackson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Lucy C. M. M. Jackson. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198844532.001.0001

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into consideration the psychology of those who follow, and exploring that psychology with comparisons to choral performers in particular, both of these authors stand out from writers like Isocrates and Aristotle. While all four of these early ‘political theorists’ refer to the chorus as part of their everyday surroundings,2 the way Xenophon and Plato repeatedly return to the chorus as a paradigm for good leader/led dynamics, and excellence in the performance of their duties (when done well), is remarkable. The importance of Plato and, to a lesser (but growing) degree, Xenophon3 in political theorists’ analysis of leadership makes these choral images highly charged potential spaces for how to conceive of leadership in society, ancient and modern. The differences between the two are, likewise, significant. A brief survey of Xenophon’s concerns and interests in the way he presents the chorus will lead on to a much longer treatment of Plato’s choruses. The main reason for this (beyond echoing the more extensive engagement with the chorus in Plato) is that where Xenophon’s choral imagery is sophisticated but illustrative, Plato’s is determined by a broader political outlook. As we shall see in the latter part of this chapter, I argue that his goals in creating harmony in a society (and in the ‘second best’ city of the Laws in particular) produce a profoundly distorted picture of the chorus and the dynamics between leader and led.

7.1. XENOPHON’S CHORUSES By the fourth century, there was already a tradition of comparing military and choral spheres of activity. There was, of course, the pyrrhic chorus, a form of choreographed performance that integrated military manoeuvres.4 But beyond this, comparisons between choral performance and military activity are visible well before the fourth century;5 one kind of connection was most famously 2 E.g. Isocrates 9.1, Arist. Poet.1461b29 32. Aristotle in his Politics uses three images of the chorus as an analogue for the city: 1276b4, 1276b40 1277a12, and 1284b12 13. 3 4 Ferrario 2016. Ceccarelli 1998 remains the authoritative study. 5 A late sixth century Attic column krater (Antikenmuseum, Basel, BS 415) depicts a choral group from a tragedy in military dress; see Foley 2003: 11 13, 17 19 for

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articulated (allegedly) by Socrates: ‘Those who show the gods the finest honours in choruses are the best in war.’6 Such comparisons are also apparent in fourth-century literary sources such as Plato’s Phaedrus, where we find the circling, divine choruses described like military companies drawn up in order (246e6–247a7), or a fragment of comedy by Diphilus in which lunch (τὸ ἄριστον) is described as dancing into view with its various foodstuffs likewise drawn up in battle order (παρατεταγμένη φάλαγξ, 43.1–3). There are also some indications that, in Athens at least, the same performance space was sometimes used for both choral and military display, something that could have created an immediate and powerful equation between the two kinds of performance, both visually and perhaps ideologically as well.7 The two activities overlap within a larger nexus of activities that centred around civic display: a means to display a tribe or city’s excellence in ‘honour-loving’, a display of physical strength to rouse the blood before battle and scare the enemy, or a display of citizenship.8 Xenophon himself, a military man and Athenian-born, had experience in both of these arenas. We have no certain knowledge of his participation in choral performances, but we do find, placed in the mouth of a politician, an appeal to those fighting for the oligarchs, after the civic strife of 404, that they remember their shared history in order to encourage an end to the current conflict. For we never did you any harm but, with you, we have taken part in the most holy ceremonies and sacrifices, and the most wonderful festivals. We have danced in choruses together, gone to school together, borne arms together. We have faced umpteen dangers on land and sea in defence of the mutual safety and freedom of us both.9 Hellenica 2.4.20.4 further discussion of tragic choruses of soldiers. See also Hom.Il.7.238 41 (but also in opposition 24.261), Ar.V.1060 2 and Pl.Lg.796c2 4. 6 Οἵ δὲ χοροῖς κάλλιστα θεοὺς τιμῶσιν, ἄριστοι ἐν πολέμῳ, Athen.628f3 4. 7 See Arist.[Ath.Pol.]42.4, discussed Winkler 1990: 22. Dillery (2002: 462 70) challenges the idea that the performance space was the theatre of Dionysus, although he does not consider the circular chorus. 8 On the relationship between military and choral performance in modern schol arship see, e.g. Wheeler 1982: 223, Winkler 1990 (with Wilson 2000: 77 88), Nagy 1994: 43 4, Ceccarelli 1998: 19, Lech 2009: 356. 9 ἡμεῖς γὰρ ὑμᾶς κακὸν μὲν οὐδὲν πώποτε ἐποιήσαμεν, μετεσχήκαμεν δὲ ὑμῖν καὶ ἱερῶν τῶν σεμνοτάτων καὶ θυσιῶν καὶ ἑορτῶν τῶν καλλίστων, καὶ συγχορευταὶ καὶ συμφοιτηταὶ γεγενήμεθα καὶ συστρατιῶται, καὶ πολλὰ μεθ’ ὑμῶν κεκινδυνεύκαμεν

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That there had to be mass citizen participation, especially in the city’s circular choruses, makes it all the more likely that Xenophon would have had such experiences and formed such bonds with his fellow chorusmen. It is a delightful quirk of history that both Plato and Isocrates were of the same tribe as Xenophon, Aigeis, and it is possible these three were very real ‘companions in the chorus’. It may not be surprising, therefore, that Xenophon’s use of the chorus as an image and simile is often framed within a military context. As well as recognizing the role of choral performance as part of everyday life,10 Xenophon provides the most comprehensive set of evidence for the chorus acting as a paradigm of good order in a group of people and, as such, making an ideal analogue for perfect military formation and manoeuvres. We can recall how Ischomachus in the Oeconomica used the image of a chorus as a paradigm for his wife in describing the order (taxis) that was suitable for the arrangement of household implements.11 In a description of a contingent of Mossynoecians in the Anabasis, Xenophon notes the way in which they prepare for battle by arranging themselves ‘like choruses, drawn up in lines facing each other’ (οἷον χοροὶ ἀντιστοιχοῦντες ἀλλήλοις), although the use of the verb ‘drawn up in lines’ (ἀντιστοιχέομαι) indicates this is more akin to a processional chorus, such as would be seen in the grand procession preceding the contests at the City Dionysia.12 We see the same use of the chorus as a paradigm of good order in the Cyropaedia in an account of a Persian attack on an Assyrian fort. Xenophon recounts how after making a successful attack Cyrus decides to make a strategic retreat. Xenophon notes the perfect discipline of his soldiers during this retreat and how they assume their positions once out of range ‘more accurately than a chorus’ (πολὺ μᾶλλον χοροῦ ἀκριβῶς 3.3.70). An intrinsic part of how the chorus is conceived as superlatively well-ordered is the automatic (in theory) obedience of the choral performers to their teacher or immediate leader in performance. In καὶ κατὰ γῆν καὶ κατὰ θάλατταν ὑπὲρ τῆς κοινῆς ἀμφοτέρων ἡμῶν σωτηρίας τε καὶ ἐλευθερίας. 10 Hell.6.4.16; Hipp.3.2.5 6. One could also include the many occasions in Xeno phon’s accounts of military action where the paean is sung, e.g. Cyr.3.3.58. 11 Oec.8.3 4, 8.20 1. Dillery notes ‘perhaps the most illustrative model of order for him was the chorus’ (2004: 261, cf. Dillery 1995: 27 35). 12 Ana.5.4.12.3 18. On the overlap in the language used for military manoeuvres and choral movement, particularly in later sources, e.g. Pollux 4.108 9, see Lech 2009.

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an encounter between the son of the famous Pericles and Socrates, Xenophon has his Socrates use the chorus’ discipline (εὐταξία) as an indication that Athenians aren’t completely unable to control themselves in their apparent love of argument and disagreement with their leaders and each other: ‘Don’t you see how well they maintain order in their naval manoeuvres, how orderly they are in obeying the umpires at the athletic competitions, and how they are second to none in taking orders from teachers in their choruses.’ (Mem.3.5.18.).13 A little earlier in this particular discussion, Socrates has similarly alluded to the manifest obedience of chorusmen in performance. Obedience is less common when a city is confident, Socrates says, but when a city is feeling afraid men are more obedient (εὐπειθέστερος) and orderly (εὐτακτότερος). Using the example of sailors on board ship in a storm, the image he reaches for is, once again, choral—‘So long as they [the sailors] have nothing to fear, they are grossly insubordinate; but when they’re worried about a storm or an enemy attack, they not only carry out all instructions, but they wait in silence for their orders, just like chorusmen’ (Mem.3.5.5–7).14 For Xenophon, then, the chorus as a well-recognized feature of society where training over a period of time led to an obedient and disciplined group was an easy analogue for an ideal kind of discipline that was so crucial to military success, and one he reached for on multiple occasions. From a different perspective, he also saw the choral competition that made up a prominent part of the Athenian festival calendar as a forum for training men to pursue excellence. Socrates in another exchange notes the Athenians’ excellence in the choruses compared to others in Greece, and attributes this not to their musical or physical skill but to their philotimia (Mem.3.3.13).15 It is this pursuit of honour that should be engendered, too, in the troops of a commander, Socrates says to his young interlocutor, a newly-elected commander of cavalry (3.3.14). Xenophon here points to the choral culture of Athens as a parallel arena where the positive 13 οὐχ ὁρᾷς, ὡς εὔτακτοι μέν εἰσιν ἐν τοῖς ναυτικοῖς, εὐτάκτως δ’ ἐν τοῖς γυμνικοῖς ἀγῶσι πείθονται τοῖς ἐπιστάταις, οὐδένων δὲ καταδεέστερον ἐν τοῖς χοροῖς ὑπηρετοῦσι τοῖς διδασκάλοις. 14 ὅταν μὲν γὰρ δήπου μηδὲν φοβῶνται, μεστοί εἰσιν ἀταξίας· ἔστ’ ἂν δὲ ἢ χειμῶνα ἢ πολεμίους δείσωσιν, οὐ μόνον τὰ κελευόμενα πάντα ποιοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ σιγῶσι καραδοκοῦντες τὰ προσταχθησόμενα, ὥσπερ χορευταί. 15 ἀλλὰ μὴν οὔτε εὐφωνίᾳ τοσοῦτον διαφέρουσιν Ἀθηναῖοι τῶν ἄλλων οὔτε σωμάτων μεγέθει καὶ ῥωμῃ, ὅσον φιλοτιμίᾳ, ἥπερ μάλιστα παροξύνει πρὸς τὰ καλὰ καὶ ἔντιμα.

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results of philotimia can be seen as contributing to the excellence of the group. Related to this desire for honour—philotimia—is the desire for victory—philonikia. This, too, Xenophon identifies as a crucial characteristic in the successful military unit, and is something that must be encouraged in a leader’s troops. In the Constitution of the Lacedaemonians, Lycurgus is sensitive to the positive effects of encouraging philonikia and aware that choral contests are a practical and apt arena to channel such a feeling as ‘Among those who have the greatest desire to win, you will find the choruses most worth hearing and the athletic competitions most worth seeing’ (Rep.Lac.4.2.2).16 He is aware, too, that setting young men against each other in such contests would result in the greatest levels of excellence (ἀνδραγαθία). Beyond Athens and Sparta, Xenophon saw the same link between competition and excellence in action, using once again a choral analogue to confirm this. In Persia, in the account of the young Cyrus being advised on various aspects of leadership by his father Cambyses (Cyr.1.6.1–44), the dangers of idleness amongst soldiers comes up in discussion and Cyrus plans to practise various warlike exercises and to announce contests with prizes. Cyrus’ father approves and says that in doing so he will gain companies of soldiers that perform their duties ‘like choruses’ (Cyr.1.6.18.).17 The efforts made to engender philotimia or philonikia, observed in the preceding examples, appear at first to be aimed at the soldiers/ chorusmen themselves. We do, in the Cavalry Commander, see an instance where this encouragement to the love of honour and victory might also be just as, if not more applicable to the elite leaders in society. In this work we find all the familiar injunctions about obedience and leading by the example of one’s excellence. At the very end of the first chapter, Xenophon suggests that contests and prizes be instituted by the commander in order to capitalize on the Athenian sense of philonikia (τοῦτο πάντας οἶμαι Ἀθηναίους γε μάλιστ’ ἂν προτρέπειν εἰς φιλονικίαν). His evidence to back up his claim is that many Athenian individuals undergo ‘many labours and heavy

οἷς ἂν μάλιστα φιλονικία ἐγγένηται, τούτων καὶ χοροὺς ἀξιακροατοτάτους γιγνομένους καὶ γυμνικοὺς ἀγῶνας ἀξιοθεατοτάτους. 17 τοῦτο γὰρ ποιήσας, σάφ’ ἴσθι, ὥσπερ χοροὺς τὰς τάξεις ἀεὶ τὰ προσήκοντα μελετώσας θεάσῃ. 16

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expenses’ for which they gain only ‘small prizes’ (Hipp.1.26.5).18 Here he is undoubtedly talking about the choregia and the choregoi who, for the love of victory, perform the onerous organizational and financial duties necessary to produce Athens’ annual choruses. The fact that both leader and led should feel, and should practise feeling, this desire for victory, is a coincidence that is both understandable and also highly significant. The correspondence of feeling between choral performer and their financier is just one element in a more pervasive understanding of how leader and led inform an impression of the other. Looking back to some of the previous examples, then, we might read into these that the spirit of philonikia is an ethos to be shared between leader and led, whether that be in a military, civic, or choral setting. Xenophon also looks to the image of the chorus as a setting for displaying and honing skills that we might more readily identify today as those of a manager.19 This is clearly on display in his imagined conversation between Socrates and an Athenian named Nicomachides, thoroughly disgruntled after being passed over in the recent elections for their generals. One of those who was selected, Antisthenes, has, Nicomachides points out, no military experience but was still chosen by the Athenians. Socrates is quick to point out that ‘Antisthenes is philonikos . . . Whenever he has been a choregos, his chorus has won every time, hasn’t it?’ (Mem.3.4.3). Nicomachides, unconvinced, pushes back, saying that ‘leading a chorus and leading a military campaign is not at all the same thing’. Xenophon’s Socrates points out that technical knowledge, whether it be in choral music and dance or military tactics and manoeuvres, are immaterial for someone as long as they are able to find and manage experts who do have that knowledge. He sums up by saying, ‘whoever is in charge, as long as they are someone who recognizes what is needed and is able to provide these things, that person will be a good leader (προστάτης), whether they’re leading a chorus, or a household, or a city, or a military campaign’.20 This last list—chorus, household, city, military campaign—exemplifies the place that the chorus had in Xenophon’s

18 δῆλον δὲ τοῦτο καὶ ἐν τοῖς χοροῖς, ὡς μικρῶν ἄθλων ἕνεκεν πολλοὶ μὲν πόνοι, μεγάλαι δὲ δαπάναι τελοῦνται. 19 Buxton 2016: 330 1. 20 On Nicomachides’ complaints being linked to Antisthenes’ ‘non elite’ status as a trader (ἔμπορος), see Wilson 2000: 81 2.

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mind as one of several microcosms in which the skills of a leader/ manager might be observed and deployed. It is typical of Xenophon’s coherent, yet variegated, model of leadership that this assertion regarding the management of a chorus is given an alternative spin elsewhere. Back in the fifth chapter of book three of the Memorabilia, Socrates is speaking once more about how a leader ensures the obedience of his followers. Here, as is true elsewhere, an emphasis is placed on ensuring one’s followers know of your expertise in whatever field you are working in. He says, ‘No one attempts to direct cithara-players or choral performers or dancers if they don’t know anything about it, or to give boxers pointers on how to box, do they? No, all leaders in their field are able to say where they learned their craft.’ (Mem.3.5.21).21 The problem, he says, with generals nowadays is that they make it up as they go along (αὐτο σχεδιάζουσιν). There are two quite different points to make in light of this passage. The first is that in this reference to choral training and the dynamics between leader and led we gain a rare glimpse of the reciprocity expected between choral performers and those that direct them, which in this instance we should understand to be their didaskaloi or chorodidaskaloi. Their obedience is earned by virtue of their leader’s skill, rather than enforced. This, no doubt, is an ideal picture of the dynamics of the choral training room, but it is not insignificant that this example in the Memorabilia is a revealing, albeit brief, gesture towards the agency and autonomy of choral performers. The second point to make is that in this passage we see how the notion of leader, and in particular a leader of a chorus, can take multiple forms in Xenophon. Quite understandably, he is interested in drawing immediate parallels that will elucidate the point at issue. When looking at Xenophon’s image of the chorus, created by several similes scattered through seven of his works, it is important to recognize that the all-important leader figure might be either didaskalos or choregos, two very different kinds of people, as noted in the previous chapter. This is wonderfully borne out in our last example of Xenophon’s use of the chorus. In the latter chapters of the Cyropaedia we hear of how Cyrus returns for the seventh time to Persia and performs the customary funeral rights for his parents, one of which 21 οὐχ ὁρᾷς ὅτι κιθαριστῶν μὲν καὶ χορευτῶν καὶ ὀρχηστῶν οὐδε εἷς ἐπιχειρεῖ ἄρχειν μὴ ἐπιστάμενος, οὐδὲ παλαιστῶν οὐδὲ παγκρατιαστῶν; ἀλλὰ πάντες οἱ τούτων ἄρχοντες ἔχουσι δεῖξαι ὁπόθεν ἔμαθον ταῦτα ἐφ’ οἷς ἐφεστᾶσι.

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consists of him ‘leading the Persians in a chorus’, a funerary chorus in all likelihood, and also distributes gifts to everyone (Cyr.8.7.1). In this example of a chorus—neither circular nor strictly civic—Cyrus occupies both kinds of leadership role, ‘performing’ with his people in the choral song and also taking on the benefactor role more akin to a choregos. Xenophon’s acknowledged preoccupation with leadership is one of the reasons he reaches as often as he does for a comparison to a chorus, being as it is something that nearly always has, and always needs, someone to direct its speech and action. Through his various references, Xenophon frames the chorus in a few different ways that are of use to him in his exposition. As a very familiar civic institution (to an Athenian readership, certainly) where training and obedience lead to awe-inspiring and effective manoeuvres, the chorus offers itself (in an idealized form, to be sure) as a helpful analogue, not least because of the likely previous experience of many soldiers, and of Xenophon’s readers, in those choruses. Even from a spectator’s point of view, the comparison between military and choral choreography is one that must have been immediately accessible. The chorus, as one of the many ways to compete on both an Athenian and Panhellenic stage, allows Xenophon to confirm the usefulness of competition for channelling a love of honour. This characteristic of philonikia, something that could cause tension and upset in a military camp or city alike, is identified as essential to ensure the best possible performance by one’s soldiers. It is also something that, however subtly, Xenophon envisages as being exercised amongst the Athenian elite, with similarly beneficial effects. Yet it is important to foreground, for the purposes of this study, that Xenophon’s highly mobile and malleable model of leadership and management means that he is able to pick and choose precisely what choral role he invokes, chorus–chorodidaskalos or chorus– choregos.22 As we shall see even more clearly in Plato, the lack of precision with regard to whom we imagine to be ‘leading’ the chorus has serious implications for how the chorus is presented. It is possible

22 Brock 2004: 252 raises a potential objection, in that chorodidaskalos and chor egos would seem to confuse any discussion of leadership using the chorus as an image. It is telling that this concern does not seem to be shared by Xenophon himself, suggesting that models of leader and led could be applied to the chorus with some flexibility.

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to state that the majority of references to choruses come about as a means of talking, in fact, about the leaders of that chorus. Who are these leaders, and what does the kind of chorus they lead tell us about them? It is in facing this question that the mutability of Xenophon’s leaders becomes significant, and a useful precursor to Plato’s picture of choral dynamics.

7.2. PLATO’S CHORUSES The chorus provided Xenophon with an arena, analogous to the state or military unit, in which to examine the successful working of a group and, more importantly for him, how to lead in such arenas. For Plato, the relationship between leader and led takes on various, microcosmic and macrocosmic, guises in his works and, to a greater extent than in Xenophon, the chorus provides a crucial (and, by the time we get to the Laws, fundamental) means of ensuring the desired dynamics between leader and led. Plato, more than any other author, as has already been noted, features prominently in scholarly discussions of the chorus and its cultural meaning in the Classical period. A third of his works contain references to the choral culture of Athens, Sparta, and beyond, as well as images of the chorus used as examples or illustrations. Despite what may be suggested in his dialogues about ideal philosophers holding themselves at a remove from contemporary political life,23 it is obvious that Plato, like Xenophon and Aristotle, was familiar with the living choral culture of his day, just as he was familiar with the city’s political and legislative processes.24 If we are to believe the contents of the spurious Seventh Letter, Plato even acted as a choregos in 365.25 A review of Plato’s numerous choral images very quickly reveals a variety in the types of chorus he refers to: a chorus in a comedy by Pherecrates, the chorus as a key means of communication with the gods, a chorus as representative of festival organization procedure, the abstract ‘choral dance’ of philosophical enquiry or of the stars.26 To a greater extent than in Xenophon’s use of choral 23

24 25 E.g. Theaetetus 173b d. Morrow 1960: 6. Ep.7.347b. Protagoras 327d4 e1, Symposium 197d1 3, Republic 386c1 5, Theaetetus 173b3 c5, and Timaeus 40c3 d5, respectively. 26

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imagery, Plato’s choral images transcend any strict generic (circular, dramatic, pyrrhic, etc.), geographical (Spartan, Cretan, Athenian, Sicilian) or conceptual (mortal, divine, abstract) boundaries. It is important to emphasize this last point. There is a tendency in some modern scholarship to link, either implicitly or explicitly, the discussions of choral performance in Plato to a particular genre (often tragedy) or strand of debate (frequently that concerning Plato’s attitudes towards ‘art’ and/or mimesis). By virtue of the definition of tragedy (and, to a lesser extent, comedy and satyr play) as a ‘choral genre’, an easy equation can often be made between choreia and dramatic art. And yet, there are only five instances, out of around seventy references to the chorus in his works, where Plato makes explicit a link between choral performance and the performance of drama.27 Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi has recently shown in some detail how Plato in his Laws, far from treating tragedy, comedy, satyr play, and dithyramb as ‘choral genres’, considers the performance of the chorus and of poetry in very different ways.28 There is much discussion in the Laws of the need for correctly composed poetry, but the choruses that will fill the calendar of the colony of Magnesia are located in non-specific (albeit competitive) festival contexts. When we consider the rest of the Platonic corpus, it is worth noting that the vast majority of references to the chorus are, in fact, located in neutral, abstract contexts or an actual but nonspecific festival context.29 It may be obvious to some, but nonetheless it will be worth emphasizing, that Plato’s use of the chorus is not confined to his interest in the problems of poetic creation.30

27

The celebration of the tragic/satyric chorus with its poet in Symposium 173a5 7; the comic chorus of misanthropes in a play by Pherecrates in Protagoras 327d4 e1 and an allusion to a different comic chorus (see p. 114 n. 3 above) at 315b2 8 of the same dialogue; Republic 475d5 8, the famous passage where the ‘theatre lovers’ (philotheamones) tour the deme Dionysia to hear the choruses, which seem to have been predominantly dramatic; choral performance and dithyrambic lyric are equated in Gorgias 501e8 502a1. There are also two uses of the formulaic phrase ‘to grant a chorus’ (Republic 383c1 5 and Laws 817d4 8), a weaker instance of a connection between chorus and drama, but a very familiar one in the fourth century. 28 Peponi 2013b: 221. The circular, dithyrambic chorus is sometimes treated as a dramatic genre, e.g. by Nagy 2013: 227 n.1. See also Scullion 2002: 102 37 and esp. 126 31 on the strain of applying Plato’s statements to fifth century drama. 29 References to Bacchic and Corybantic initiation rites in conjunction with a choral element: Euthydemus 277d6 e3, Laws 672b3 7 and 790d2 e4. 30 For the interlacing of choreia with dramatic genres, see Folch 2015.

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In the past few years, Plato’s presentation choreia, particularly in the Laws has been the subject of no fewer than three book-length studies.31 We are, as these recent authors all note, only just beginning to unpick the massy and messy articulation in the Laws of Plato’s ideas about culture, society, citizenship, performance, and its psychosocial effect/affect, and many, many related issues besides. Here, I pursue a particular line of enquiry that takes as its focus the dynamics between leader and led in choral contexts, as presented by Plato. These dynamics form the basis of Plato’s presentation of the chorus as a medium for performance, as opposed to an aesthetic object itself.32 The dynamics outlined below are also of fundamental importance in allowing him, particularly in his final work, to construe choreia’s role in the formation of, if not an ideal, then a ‘second-best’ society. A much fuller discussion of the strategy Plato uses in the Laws would be possible, particularly in light of the provocations in some of the recent characterizations of Plato’s choral project.33 Focusing, for now, on what I might add to the existing treatments of choreia in the Laws, I pursue the following line of enquiry; to place the presentation of the internal dynamics between leader and led in the Laws in the broader context of Plato’s use of the choral image throughout his works. In considering his prior interactions with and uses of

31 Peponi’s edited volume (2013a) provides a series of reflections on Plato’s presen tation of cultural matters; Prauscello 2014 explores how choral performance is used to facilitate iterative acts of citizenship in Magnesia; Folch 2015 focuses his discussion on the varied role of performance (of mousike, mimesis, dramatic, and non dramatic genres) in the Laws. All these became available to me after the submission of the thesis on which this monograph is based. It is a testament to the richness of all three books, and the complexity of discussion and issues at stake, that integrating these works fully into what follows has proved impossible; to do so would mean completely re orientating and re writing the majority of the chapter. Nevertheless, as it stands, I believe my argument contributes a further strand to the conversations which will continue to develop in the coming years. 32 On the ‘de aestheticization’ of the chorus in Laws, see Peponi 2013b. 33 For example, Prauscello 2014 contends that Plato constructs a thoroughly inclusive society in Magnesia, where even children or metics represent essential components for training in civic excellence, and the emphasis on personal volition and desire to be the best citizen allows for agency among these citizens: ‘The educational programme of the second best city remains indeed strictly prescriptive and hierarchical. Yet, the very fact that every age of life is represented as having its own input in learning to become a “perfect citizen”, advertises a more inclusive and relational view of what it means to be a citizen, than that officially promoted by Athenian society’ (2014: 234). It will become clear I see something more sinister at play in the ‘educational programme’ of Magnesia’s citizens.

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contemporary choral culture, and maintaining a focus on how leader and led are imagined to interact, we see another way in which the very fundamentals of Plato’s chorus-filled city of Magnesia rely on a peculiar, and distorted, presentation of ancient Greek choreia. I begin by setting out what we can identify about the development of Plato’s choral thought across his works, a provisional exercise but one that informs how we can read the stunning departure in terms of the use of the chorus in what was probably his last work, the Laws. We then turn to Plato’s use of the chorus as an image and metaphor, and observe how the dynamic between leader and led picks up and develops something already glimpsed briefly in Xenophon’s habit of choral reference, namely the sharing of a particular ethos between the leader-figure and those who follow. In a final section, we observe how the metaphorical images of the chorus turn into practical paradigms for the creation of an ideal city in the Laws, and the peculiarities in Plato’s choral model that justify the central place of choral performance in the city of Magnesia.

7.2.1. The Development of Plato’s Choral Thought It is generally acknowledged that any strict chronology of Plato’s works, even once the sophisticated techniques of stylistic analysis are applied, is impossible. And yet, by drawing on what consensus there is about the relative dates of Plato’s dialogues it is possible to trace an intriguing development in the way in which he used the chorus.34 Given the longstanding debate between those espousing ‘developmentalist’ and ‘unitarian’ ways of reading Plato, I should note here that my own position is able to accommodate observations about coherency in Plato’s use of the chorus, as well as noting the shifts that follow a chronological trend. Without positing straightforward change (with previous uses of the chorus being supplanted by 34 Irwin 2008: 75 79, who provides one possible and relative chronology, dividing the corpus into seven groups (dialogues with references to choruses are underlined): (1) Apology, Laches, Charmides, Lysis, Euthyphro, Hippias Minor, Ion and Crito; (2) Protagoras, Gorgias and Euthydemus; (3) Meno, Cratylus, Hippias Major, Phaedo and Symposium; (4) Republic, and Phaedrus; (5) Parmenides and Theaetetus; (6) Sophist, Politicus, and Timaeus; (7) Philebus and Laws. I include the Alcibiades I in this discussion also, and on the understanding that it is an early work. For discussion of the authenticity and date of the Alcibiades I, see Denyer 2001: 14 26.

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others), it appears that Plato looked to the chorus as a means of elucidating his ideas in increasingly complex and concrete ways as his career and teaching develops. Early Platonic works hardly mention the chorus. There is one brief image in the Ion, where choral performers and their teachers are imagined as magnetized metal rings, hanging from each other (in order of importance, it is understood) and gaining their magnetic/ poetic strength via this chain and ultimately from the Muse.35 If we place the Alcibiades I early in Plato’s corpus, we may add a further, similarly brief, image of the chorus, once again as a representative of the hierarchical relations between performer, aulos-player, and chorodidaskalos.36 In the second group of early–middle dialogues, the Euthydemus, Gorgias, Protagoras, and Symposium (generally agreed to have been written around the time of his first trip to Sicily in the 360s), all the references are to performing choruses such as would have been seen in festivals and in the competitions of the author’s contemporary world. It is among these dialogues that we find the greatest density of references to dramatic and circular choral performance. It is only when we get to the ‘middle’ period of Plato’s thinking37 that the image of the chorus is mobilized in a more metaphorical way, and applied to abstract or imagined choruses: a chorus of cicadas, a chorus of evils, a chorus ‘led’ by the god Wealth, the choreia of the divinities on a cosmic plane.38 Such choral images mark a shift from practicalities to the more ideal and idealized associations of the chorus in performance. Furthermore, it is among these more complex images that we begin to find clear signs of a peculiarity in Plato’s presentation of the chorus. As shall be seen, the images in Republic, Phaedrus, and Theaetetus place a subtle but substantial emphasis on the leader-figure of the chorus and simultaneously play down the agency of the choral dancers themselves. It is tempting to note that it is also in this middle period that certain other shifts in Plato’s thought were occurring, most notably his articulation of the theory of Forms. Even if, along with those who question a straightforward development of Plato’s thought,39 we reject the idea

35

36 Ion 535e7 536d3. Alcibiades I 125d1 4. On this so called ‘middle’ period, see Annas 2002: 1 23. 38 Phaedrus 230c3, Republic 490c3 8, Republic 554b5, Theaetetus 173b3 c5, and Timaeus 40c3 d5. 39 See Annas 2002: 1 23 for careful critique of the developmentalist approach. 37

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that Plato was substantially altering his philosophical approach during this time, there is something to be drawn from the fact that his choral images, at least, become ever more complex and disassociated from the strictly social context of contemporary choral performance here. We might contrast this approach to using choral imagery with that of Aristotle who, in general, adheres strictly to the practicalities of choral rehearsal or casting, even in his metaphors.40 In one of Plato’s last works, the Laws, we see how the metaphorical images of the chorus, and the model developed in this more abstract arena, are put into practice. Rather than appealing to the chorus as an illustration, Plato puts the chorus (as he constructs it) to work in a new ideal city, complete with a distinct emphasis on the important role of the leader-figure. This chronological sketch is necessarily provisional, but is provocative in highlighting the different ways Plato’s choruses are constructed. We see how Plato initially sought to engage his audience by appealing to the familiar choral component of festivals, but was increasingly able to build on and expand some universally held assumptions about the chorus in his use of abstract choral constructs. The clear break in tactic between the Laws and the rest of the dialogues is helpful for prompting caution in approaching that text as a straightforward source for common assumptions about contemporary choral culture. The fact that there is a back-story to the presentation of the chorus in the Laws and, what is more, signs of clear preference or tendency in the way that Plato had been constructing and using the chorus as image previously, means that we are right to probe further into how he uses the chorus in his works.

7.2.2. Leading and Being Led: Plato’s Choral Metaphors In approaching Plato as a source for fourth-century Athenian choral culture, what he says about the chorus may be fairly familiar.41 A rundown of the information rendered to us about the chorus in Plato does not seem essential here, if only because many of the ‘facts’ we take for granted about choral culture in antiquity are drawn from Plato’s writings. More revealing are the questions of how and why he refers 40

E.g. Arist. Met.1018b26 29, Pol.1276b40 77a12 or 1284b12 13. Summaries of Plato’s picture of choral performance in the Laws are in Morrow 1960: 302 18, 352 77, Stalley 1983: 124 127, and Lonsdale 1993: 21 33. See, too, Prauscello 2014: 105 91. 41

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to the chorus when he does; these are the questions that will guide the analysis of Plato’s presentation of the chorus in what follows. It is possible to identify quite quickly that, like Xenophon, Plato is interested in using the chorus to explore how a leader defines the performance of those who follow, whether that be in a city or a philosophical discussion. The way that Plato configures the dynamics between the two, however, (and in particular the way he portrays the agency of those who follow) goes much further than the relationship sketched out by Xenophon. While the Xenophontic leaders must work to earn trust and obedience from those who follow, Plato’s leaders are represented as having a much greater and more automatic influence over the character and action of those they lead. In the choral images used to elucidate and confirm this dynamic, Plato’s choral performers are, in my reading, denied agency and the opportunity for rational persuasion in any real sense, and the leader becomes the sole focus. A sensitivity to the overarching concern of Plato throughout his works to talk about, delineate, and prescribe the nature of the leader (good or bad) through use of the chorus and a choral framework produces some rewarding insights. It also has a significant impact on how the chorus, as a part of Hellenic culture, is represented by this first architect of ‘choral theory’. * In book six of the Republic, following the famous parable of the ship of state, Socrates turns to describing the nature of the truly philosophic man and potential guardian: ‘Well, then. Will someone like this share in any love of dishonesty or will they hate it entirely?’ ‘They’ll hate it’, he said. ‘And if truth was leading the way, we’d never say, would we, that a chorus of evils could follow behind it.’ ‘How could it?’ ‘No, but a healthy and just disposition, with moderation in attendance.’ ‘Right.’ ‘Well then, why do we need to set out what must be the case, from the beginning, yet again, as regards the other chorus made up of those of a wisdom loving nature? We remember, don’t we, that courage, high mindedness, ease of learning, and a good memory are all fitting for that?’42 Republic 490b9 c11 42 Τί οὖν; τούτῳ τι μετέσται ψεῦδος ἀγαπᾶν ἢ πᾶν τοὐναντίον μισεῖν; Μισεῖν, ἔφη. Ἡγουμένης δὴ ἀληθείας οὐκ ἄν ποτε οἶμαι φαμὲν αὐτῇ χορὸν κακῶν ἀκολουθῆσαι. Πῶς γάρ; Ἀλλ’ ὑγιές τε καὶ δίκαιον ἦθος, ᾧ καὶ σωφροσύνην ἕπεσθαι. Ὀρθῶς, ἔφη. Καὶ δὴ τὸν

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In this passage we see Socrates construct a figurative chorus with truth, ἀλήθεια, as its leader and good people (or rather, definitely not κακοί) as followers, such as the young man just described. The portrayal of this potential guardian as a choral performer is prepared for around twenty lines earlier, when truth is said to lead him—ἡγεῖτο δ’ αὐτῷ, εἰ νῷ ἔχεις, πρῶτον μὲν ἀλήθεια, ἣν διώκειν αὐτὸν πάντως καὶ πάντῃ ἔδει, ‘And, if you remember, Truth, above all, leads him. He had to pursue Truth entirely and in every way’ (490a1–3). As well as perhaps drawing on a well-known choral trope where a particular divinity (here ‘truth’) is honoured and celebrated by a chorus, Plato alludes to a close relationship between a leader and those who follow by implying that only a particular kind of character (ἦθος) could follow this leader. In effect, the leader is presented as defining the character of those that follow. We see a very similar kind of presentation a little later in the Republic. Adeimantus and Socrates are analysing oligarchy and its analogue, the oligarchic man. The man and the constitution resemble each other first of all in their prioritizing of money as the greatest good (554a3–4). Socrates notes that the reason for such ‘drone-like appetites’ is the fact that this man has not come into contact with παιδεία (554b6–c1), to which Adeimantus adds the following image of a chorus led by the god Wealth: Οὐ δοκῶ, ἔφη· οὐ γὰρ ἂν τυφλὸν ἡγεμόνα τοῦ χοροῦ ἐστήσατο καὶ ἐτίμα μάλιστα, ‘Not in my view; if he did, he wouldn’t have chosen a blind leader [Wealth] for his chorus and honoured him above all others.’ Just as before, we see here that the nature of the man (his drone-like appetites) is connected to the leader of his chorus (οὐ γὰρ ἂν τυφλὸν ἡγεμόνα τοῦ χοροῦ ἐστήσατο). And, just as in the previous example where the man is believed to pursue Truth in every way ( . . . ἣν διώκειν αὐτὸν πάντως), the man here appears to be choosing his leader, if we are right to read the verb ἐστήσατο as connoting a conscious choice. And yet in both these passages the agency of the choral performer is downplayed and the ‘leader’ of the chorus determines the character and action of the one who follows.43 ἄλλον τῆς φιλοσόφου φύσεως χορὸν τί δεῖ πάλιν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἀναγκάζοντα τάττειν; μέμνησαι γάρ που ὅτι συνέβη προσῆκον τούτοις ἀνδρεία, μεγαλοπρέπεια, εὐμάθεια, μνήμη. 43 Cf. Laws 870a6 b2 for the same link between a desire for wealth and lack of παιδεία.

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The idea of the nature, ἦθος, of a choral performer being discussed and analysed through the prism of his chorus’ leader is something of a departure, resting as it does on an essential assumption that there is absolute identification between choral dancer and choral leader. Nor are these isolated instances in Plato’s works of a chorus leader acting as a defining principle for those who follow. In the Phaedrus, Plato contrasts the followers (variously ὀπαδός, θεραπευτής, and χορευτής) of different gods: Someone who is a follower of Zeus, when seized by love, is able to bear a weightier burden of the winged god. But those who attend on Ares and do the rounds with him, whenever they’re overcome with Love and think they’ve been in some way slighted by their beloved, turn murder ous and will sacrifice themselves and their young lovers at the drop of a hat. So it is with each god, and each person who performs in that god’s chorus, that they live as much as possible honouring and emulating their chosen divinity . . .44 Phaedrus 252c3 d2

Once more we see how the character of the follower is very much defined by the god he is led by. And while it may be perfectly reasonable to suppose that a chorus would display a certain style under the leadership of one or another chorus-teacher, chorus-leader, or poet, it seems significant that Plato is presenting that top-down influence to a much greater degree, even (or perhaps especially) in a highly figurative context.45 The frequency of this particular emphasis on a leader in choral metaphor in the later works of Plato (from the Republic onwards) does not appear from nothing. Looking back at some choral images from his earlier works we are able to identify a similar emphasis in the presentation of the chorus, albeit a more subtle one. *

44 Τῶν μὲν οὖν Διὸς ὀπαδῶν ὁ ληφθεὶς ἐμβριθέστερον δύναται φέρειν τὸ τοῦ πτερωνύμου ἄχθος· ὅσοι δὲ Ἄρεώς τε θεραπευταὶ καὶ μετ’ ἐκείνου περιεπόλουν, ὅταν ὑπ’ Ἔρωτος ἁλῶσι καί τι οἰηθῶσιν ἀδικεῖσθαι ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐρωμένου, φονικοὶ καὶ ἕτοιμοι καθιερεύειν αὑτούς τε καὶ τὰ παιδικά. καὶ οὕτω καθ’ ἕκαστον θεόν, οὗ ἕκαστος ἦν χορευτής, ἐκεῖνον τιμῶν τε καὶ μιμούμενος εἰς τὸ δυνατὸν ζῇ . . . 45 See also Theaetetus 173c6 8 for another instance of the leader being the focus of the inquiry, while those who dance in the ‘chorus’ of philosophy are described as doing so ‘ordinarily’ (φαύλως).

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Our first example, from the Protagoras, is a particularly rich and suggestive place to start. Socrates describes his first impression of the renowned sophist, Protagoras, observing him as he walks around the courtyard of the house of Callias with two groups following behind him (314e3–5). Having listed the names of everyone he knows in these groups, he notes the presence of some unknown xenoi also following behind. He goes on with his description, framing the whole group as a chorus: There were also some locals in the chorus. I was so taken with this ‘chorus’ when I saw them. So beautifully did they ensure never to get under Protagoras’ feet. But when he changed direction, and them all with him, those listening somehow split themselves perfectly into two orderly groups on this side and that and, circling around him, organized themselves behind him once more. Just beautiful!46 Protagoras 315b2 8

As readers, we have been prepared for our ‘first meeting’ with Protagoras. Before Socrates and Hippocrates arrive at Callias’ house, Socrates has questioned his friend about why he is so eager to see Protagoras and warns him of the dangers of ‘buying’ learning from people like him (311a8–314b4). And, indeed, the whole opening scene in Callias’ house is meant to provoke the reader and ready them for enquiry concerning the subject of teaching and the nature of knowledge. There are two further groups in the courtyard of Callias’ house, both surrounding other celebrated sophists, Hippias and Prodicus (315c1–316a2). Amongst these groups and their audiences are future oligarchs, exiles (implicated in sacrilege of the herms of 415), poets and musicians, not to mention Alcibiades, one of the most brilliant and duplicitous figures in Classical Athenian history. We see Eryximachus, a doctor implicated in the sacrilege of 415; Phaedrus, exiled having been implicated in the sacrilege of 415; Andron, a member of the oligarchic government of 411; Agathon, the poet, as a young man; Adeimantus, also implicated in the sacrilege of 415 and later accused of treachery in 404; Agathocles and Pythocleides the musicians and music teachers. We might guess that Plato’s readership would already be attuned to see these individuals as misguided in ἦσαν δέ τινες καὶ τῶν ἐπιχωρίων ἐν τῷ χορῷ. τοῦτον τὸν χορὸν μάλιστα ἔγωγε ἰδὼν ἥσθην, ὡς καλῶς ηὐλαβοῦντο μηδέποτε ἐμποδὼν ἐν τῷ πρόσθεν εἶναι Πρωταγόρου, ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ αὐτὸς ἀναστρέφοι καὶ οἱ μετ’ ἐκείνου, εὖ πως καὶ ἐν κόσμῳ περιεσχίζοντο οὗτοι οἱ ἐπήκοοι ἔνθεν καὶ ἔνθεν, καὶ ἐν κύκλῳ περιιόντες ἀεὶ εἰς τὸ ὄπισθεν καθίσταντο κάλλιστα. 46

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their teaching and learning, if only because they would know of their respective failures and falls from political favour.47 It is clear that Plato means for us to judge those in the scene as negative exempla, both of ἀρετή but also of its so-called teaching. By describing our first sight of Protagoras in a choral setting, Plato allows several (non mutually exclusive) readings of the characters described. In the same way that he invites a kind of moral outrage at choruses ‘vomiting’ up their songs onto the holy altars in the Laws,48 here he taps into the irony of pairing something that is potentially sacred with something that is not worthy of such an association. The precise description of the choreography of this chorus has led some to see here a sly allusion to a comedy that had featured Protagoras as a character.49 However, with an awareness of Plato’s penchant for significant delineation of the leader and his ethos as intrinsically related to that of his followers, we might add one further way of reading this image. The fact that we are told this chorus is made up mostly of foreigners (πολὺ ξένοι ἐφαίνοντο, 315a7) mixed in with a few Athenians might indicate, based on the connection we have seen between the ethos of the leader and his chorus, that we are meant to use this information in our response to Protagoras himself. As we know, in Athens it was a common (although not universal) requirement for choruses to be made up of citizens and so the incongruity of foreigners within this framework may have struck Plato’s more elite and snobbish readers as disconcerting. Perhaps further influencing our impression of Protagoras, Plato tells us there is also present in the chorus a man who is studying to become a sophist himself (ὅσπερ εὐδοκιμεῖ μάλιστα τῶν Πρωταγόρου μαθητῶν καὶ ἐπὶ τέχνῃ μανθάνει, ὡς σοφιστὴς ἐσόμενος, 315a4–5), a desire that Hippocrates himself has said is something he would be ashamed to admit (312a). We can understand these details about the composition of the chorus as designed to affect our perception of Protagoras, illustrating the indiscriminate inclusion of all kinds of teaching in his practice and a lack of scruples in terms of who he teaches and where his teachings might lead. Here, then, we see how we can read more from Plato’s choral images by suggesting that the emphasis on leaders affects how we might read (or are meant to read)

47 49

Denyer 2008: 80 1. See p. 114 n. 3 above.

48

See pp. 174 5 above.

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those images. The choral body is used as a reflecting surface ‘up’ onto the choral leader. Similarly, in the Ion, believed to be one of Plato’s early dialogues, we can see how the ability of a leader-figure to influence those who are (here, literally) dependent on him, is prefigured. Once again, we might note, no reciprocal exchange is made from lower to higher rank. You know then that this spectator is the most distant ring of those which I said get their power from each other and, ultimately, from the Heraclian stone [a magnet]? The middle ring is you, the rhapsode or actor, and the first is the poet himself . . . And just as if hanging from that stone, a whole great chain of choral performers and teachers and assistant teachers stretches out off to the side of the rings that hang down from the Muse50 Ion 535e7 536a7

The picture of hierarchy, envisaged on the magnetized rings that hang from the Heraclian stone, alludes to a quality that is most strong in the highest ring, ultimately a divinity, and is then passed down via the poet and chorus-teacher to the choral performers themselves. Although there is no explicit leader in this image, the idea that a chorus would take on the quality of those responsible for it with no reciprocal exchange, feeds into the series of other images found in Plato’s works and discussed above. This kind of interaction, with someone of a higher rank imparting a particular quality to those of a lower rank, will become even more significant for the discussion of how Plato envisages ‘education’ in choruses. It is possible to build on this recognition of Plato’s unique view of a leader’s definitive capability within his choral images and indeed use it to solve interpretative issues. One of the more puzzling references to the chorus in Plato is found in the Euthydemus. Socrates is beginning to question his interlocutor, the young Cleinias, on how to prosper (εὖ πράττειν) in life (278e2ff). He points to the generally held opinion that to fare well one needs to have many good things (πολλὰ κἀγαθά). Among the goods they list together are 50 Οἶσθα οὖν ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ θεατὴς τῶν δακτυλίων ὁ ἔσχατος, ὧν ἐγὼ ἔλεγον ὑπὸ τῆς Ἡρακλειώτιδος λίθου ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων τὴν δύναμιν λαμβάνειν; ὁ δὲ μέσος σὺ ὁ ῥαψῳδὸς καὶ ὑποκριτής, ὁ δὲ πρῶτος αὐτὸς ὁ ποιητής· ὁ δὲ θεὸς διὰ πάντων τούτων ἕλκει τὴν ψυχὴν ὅποι ἂν βούληται τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἀνακρεμαννὺς ἐξ ἀλλήλων τὴν δύναμιν. καὶ ὥσπερ ἐκ τῆς λίθου ἐκείνης ὁρμαθὸς πάμπολυς ἐξήρτηται χορευτῶν τε καὶ διδασκάλων καὶ ὑποδιδασκάλων, ἐκ πλαγίου ἐξηρτημένων τῶν τῆς Μούσης ἐκκρεμαμένων δακτυλίων.

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wealth, health, beauty, good birth, power, honour in one’s city, temperance, justice, and courage. ‘Well then’, continues Socrates, ‘where in the chorus shall we place wisdom? Among the goods? What do you say?’ (τὴν δὲ σοφίαν ποῦ χοροῦ τάξομεν; ἐν τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς, ἢ πῶς λέγεις; 279c1–2). The language surrounding the question highlights that this is a crucial point in the dialogue. Just prior, Socrates presses Cleinias to be sure that he would consider, as most do, that these things are indeed good, and he suggests that it is possible some may disagree with their conclusions so far (279b4–8). Just after Cleinias assents to Socrates’ suggestion that they place wisdom among the goods, there is another pause while the questioner asks Cleinias once more if he’s forgotten anything (‘take heed that we do not pass over any of the goods that may deserve mention’, 279c2–4). These are dramatic pauses in the flow of questioning which signal that the point about wisdom is a crucial one for Socrates. This is confirmed as the elenchus continues and it is shown that none of the listed goods can provide any benefit without wisdom (279d6–281e1). How to understand the question τὴν δὲ σοφίαν ποῦ χοροῦ τάξομεν initially appears to be straightforward. The question ‘where’ points to the arrangement of the chorus with its best performers more prominently placed.51 In this sense, Socrates is asking what value Cleinias places on wisdom in relation to other things, i.e. whether it is a worthy companion for the allegedly good things already mentioned. The image is complicated, however, by the follow-up question, ἐν τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς; ‘among the goods?’ Socrates appears to be asking ‘Shall we place wisdom among the good bit of the chorus [of all things], along with those goods that we’ve just listed, i.e. temperance, courage, wealth?’ etc. To extrapolate further meaning along these lines would mean positing that Socrates is applying the image of a chorus to the class of things that either cause one to fare well or fare badly. They have been concentrating on the goods and hence their focus is on the

51

This is attested in Aristotle (Met.1018b26 29) and a fragment of Menander (fr.130 with Pickard Cambridge et al. 1968: 241 2) for the chorusmen themselves and not just a division of leader figure and the rest of the chorus. Together with the likely considerations of aesthetics (i.e. producing the best looking chorus), we can be fairly sure that this practice was commonly accepted and need not rely on the often quoted passage in Aelius Aristides (On behalf of the Four (III) 154), written almost five hundred years later.

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‘good’ part of the chorus, in which wisdom is now to have a part. Yet this idea of virtues and vices all making up one ‘chorus’—although a suitable allegory for the human soul,52 filled as it is with all kinds of vice and virtues all vying with each other with respect to their concomitant appetites—is not picked up again by Plato, nor is it developed further in this dialogue. To understand the purpose of this choral image in the first question (together with its modifying second question), it is necessary to alter slightly our reading of the question—‘shall we place it among the goods?’ What emerges later in the dialogue is that wisdom, far from being one of many goods, is in fact the good without which all other qualities of courage, beauty, or health can serve no purpose for someone who has them (281d2–e1). Applying what we have seen about Plato’s construction of the leader in choral situations, wisdom appears best placed to take that role, defining as it does all the other alleged goods listed by Socrates and Cleinias and conferring on them an aspect of goodness. Returning to the choral image with this later outcome in mind, the question, ‘where in the chorus do we place wisdom?’ seems to be slightly misleading. Wisdom, in being essential for the correct use of all those elements that are counted among good things (health, wealth, etc.), should not be placed within a chorus but should be understood, perhaps, as one would a leader, as performing the function of a central point which all other ‘goods’ are to look towards. The role of wisdom within this so-called chorus is shown to be essential and definitive for all those other goods that make up the chorus (281d2–e1), and so seems to be identifiable with the leader-figure that has emerged from other choral metaphors in Plato’s works. Therefore, it seems that we are to read the second question not as ‘among the goods?’ (as opposed to among the bad things), but as ‘among the goods?’ as opposed to placing wisdom over and above the other virtues. The fact that there are no explicit verbal pointers to this emphasis on ἐν as opposed to the ἀγαθοί should not be troubling since, on first reading, we readers are, with Cleinias, meant to misunderstand. Indeed, this is the kind of subtle crafting of

52 For a comparison of chorus and soul, see Gorgias 482b7 10. For the chorus as a practical place to resolve and harmonize internal tension between music and gym nastics see Republic 412b3 6. For a metaphor equating the chorus and the govern ment (again, we might assume, on account of their multiple ‘moving’ parts) see Republic 580b5 7.

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word and image that Plato regularly employs and was no doubt designed to benefit the re-reader of Plato.

7.2.3. The Chorus in Action From the choral images we have seen here, we are able to discern certain qualities in Plato’s presentation of the chorus in metaphor (and traces of these qualities can be found earlier). First of all, we can note that, while Plato focuses the reader on the leader-figure in these choral metaphors, the performing chorus, familiar to all inhabitants of Greece from an early age, would have commanded the primary attention of the viewer (even when the choral body slips between identities or builds up layers of identities: the poet, a fictional character or the ‘community’). Choral performers of all kinds, when in performance, provide an immediate, if intuitively understood, alternative presentation of the chorus where the performers are viewed as primary movers/agents, and the leader-figure (be it a poet, trainer or choregos) as a secondary and only partially visible agent of action and performance. Is this an inevitable and inexorable difficulty when talking about choral performance? Their plurality prevents spontaneous or individually motivated speech, song, dance, or action if they are to maintain that paradigmatic unity (or unity and co-ordination between two or three choral groups). The way that Plato so thoroughly directs agency away from followers/choral performers is noteworthy, and this is most clearly seen when his metaphorical chorus comes to life and, after extensive and repeated justification, is put to practical use in the Laws. The choral images seen so far can be read as illustrations, aids to clarify an aspect of the topic of conversation, drawing on the familiarity of the chorus as a part of festival celebration or as a microcosm of leaders and followers in society more generally. In sharp contrast, what we find in the Laws is a sustained picture of the actual and practical role choral culture might play in an ideal city.53 In this work there are very few 53

The city created in books 4 12 of the Laws (Cleinias does not mention that he is one of ten Cretans charged with founding a new colony until 702bB Dd) is famously described by the Athenian Stranger as the ‘second best’ city (739e). The first three books are a kind of preparation for the particular focus of founding the colony, but many of the concepts discussed there are transferred directly into the Cretan colony of Magnesia, one of these being the basic three tier structure of choral song and dance in the city. The practical benefits of choreia are briefly recognized in Republic (412b).

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choral images and no choral metaphors used, in sharp contrast to his use of choral imagery in previous works. This clear shift in practice may be connected to the shift from theoretical discussion to a more practical application of previous philosophical discussion, but it nevertheless places Plato’s chorus within the realm of effective social structures as opposed to affective choral images.54 As part of Plato’s justification for so prominent and politically loaded a choral culture in Magnesia, the qualities specific to choral performance are explored and set out as theoretically and philosophically justifiable rationales, predominantly in books two and seven. It is striking, but not surprising, that a quality we identified above as unusual in Plato’s presentation of the chorus in metaphor and image—the overwhelmingly one-way influence from leader to follower—is essential in this discussion of the practicalities of choral culture. As shall be seen, in the Laws we are presented with a picture of choral culture, which has been developed in the choral images and metaphors of previous dialogues, put into the context of practical politics. The following section shows how the importance accorded to the leader-figure within a choral framework is set out in the Laws and why we are justified in qualifying many of the statements found in that work (the oft-cited ἀπαίδευτος ἀχόρευτος among them) in light of the decidedly counter-cultural construction of choral culture.

7.2.4. The Chorus in Action Part I: Choral Dance and the Irrational The first quality that has a significant part to play in the choral culture of the Laws, already identified in Plato’s metaphorical choruses, is the peculiar receptivity or passivity of the choral body itself. As the choral experience is described and theorized at some length in the Laws, its lack of agency (intrinsic, if we take up Plato’s cues) becomes clear. Despite the focus in this work on the psycho-social experience of the choral performer, the picture of a chorus entirely dependent on its leader is not altered. It is strengthened rather, as we see the Athenian’s justifications for presenting the chorus as particularly malleable, and

54 For the similar shift from theory into practice in a range of other aspects of Plato’s philosophy see Brisson and Scolnicov 2003.

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choral performance as a forum for creating a perfectly responsive and receptive group that requires a knowledgeable leader to guide its action. In the theoretical discussion touching on the chorus and related genres in books two and seven, we are able to trace a pattern of associations that help shape the reader’s perception of the chorus’ role in the city, as well as our understanding of the nature of the choral body in Plato’s construction of choral culture. Through subtle allusion, or tellingly revealing but unconscious slippages, Plato presents a picture of the choral body that is underpinned by two analogic states of being: the state of childhood, and the state of ritual frenzy or drunkenness. Through repeatedly associating the choral experience with these two states of mind, Plato presents the choral performer as without rational thought and entirely dependent on the sensations of pleasure and pain.55 The significance of this shall be seen towards the end of this section when we consider upon whom the singing, dancing population of Magnesia is to rely for the benefits of choral dance, as defined in this way. The tracing of associations between childhood and choral dance begins with the initial adumbration of the sociological origin and function of the chorus in an ideal society. It follows on from the expanded definition of παιδεία as the right training (ὀρθῶς τρεφεῖν) of pleasures and pains, first mentioned in book one. ATHENIAN:

Concerning this matter of correct upbringing, namely the train ing of pleasures and pains, it gradually relaxes its hold over people and is all but entirely lost over the course of a lifetime; but, taking pity on the human race, born as it is to suffer, the gods prescribed festivals to act as a counterbalance and provide some respite from troubles. They also gave them the Muses, Apollo the leader of the Muses, and Dionysus as fellow celebrants, so that they might return to the habits they were brought up with through associating with the gods at these festivals. What we need to consider, then, is whether the argument that people harp on56 about nowadays is true to nature or something else; the argument being that nearly every young thing is unable to keep quiet, whether vocally or physically, but is always straining to move and make

55 See Belfiore 2006: 207 11 on the related passage in the Phaedrus 246a 257b. Regarding rational persuasion in the Laws (and hence individual agency) see Laks 2007: 130 52 and 2010: 217 31, Bobonich 1991: 365 88 and 1996: 249 82, and Bravo 2003: 103 15. 56 For this sense of the verb ὑμνέω being preferable to ‘hymned’ in a Platonic context see Protagoras 317a, Republic 329b, 364a and 549e, Theaetetus 174e.

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themselves heard, jumping and bounding about the place, loving to dance and play games, and making all sorts of noises. Now other living things don’t perceive of order or disorder (what we call rhythm and harmony) in their movements. But for us, those same gods who we said we had been given as fellow dancers in the choruses also have given us the perception and appreciation of rhythm and harmony. Through this they move us and lead our choruses, establishing connections each other through song and dance. They’ve given this activity the name of ‘chorus’ from the ‘cheer’ that’s at its core. Will we, first of all, accept this account and say that education begins with the Muses and Apollo? KLEINIAS: Yes, let’s. ATHENIAN: Well then, will we say that the uneducated individual is one who has not danced in a chorus? And should we say that the educated individual has had sufficient choral experience? 57 KLEINIAS: Absolutely. Laws, 653c7 654b2

It is surprising how obliquely the chorus is introduced into the discussion, especially considering the key role it will have to play in the colony of Magnesia. Indeed, the whole passage appears logically lacunose. Kurke recognizes that this is a ‘sneaky’ passage.58 In the first half there is no mention of choral dance, only the ‘training’ (τροφή) that children receive and the discipline that may be regained at festivals. Only after the natural state of the young (τὸ νέος) is described as one of perpetual movement and making noise does the description of the gods shift from ‘fellow-celebrants’ (ξυνεορτασταί) to ‘fellow dancers’ (συγχορευταί ); this is the first explicit mention of choral dance in book two. The perception of rhythm and harmony (which, we presume, facilitates a kind of training of the movements of the young)59 is linked to mankind’s desire to set up choruses, and this in turn is meant to explain how the relevant gods—the Muses, Apollo, and Dionysus—might be described as responsible for paideia.60 We are not told why choral dance in particular (as opposed to solo song and dance, perhaps) is picked up as the means by which both the young and adults are able to train or retrain their pleasures and pains. 57

For further elucidation of this passage see Prauscello 2014: 128 35. Kurke 2013: 130 1. See Timaeus 47d2 e2 for rhythm and harmony as means for creating harmony within the soul. 60 For Apollo’s traditional connection to the Muses, and the Muses’ connection to Dionysus, see Schöpsdau 1994: 259 60. 58 59

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We are left to infer that the ability to perceive harmony and rhythm enables children to harness their natural energy and provides a suitable activity for the training of their pleasures and pains (παιδεία),61 while the re-enactment of this kind of movement in later life at festivals allows men to remember the training they received as children—but these conclusions are left for the reader to draw.62 It is likely that Plato is able to sketch this rough aetiology of the chorus in the way he does because he is drawing together things (festival, paideia, choral dance, and divine companionship at festival) that were already familiar and closely associated in the minds of his audience. But even if Plato’s audience did not have as much difficulty in tracing how the logic of the passage proceeds as we do, this should not obscure the fact that the associations made between childhood (the inability to cease from moving and making noise) and choral dance, and the apparent return to childhood, inherent in festival celebrations, have an important impact on our understanding of the choral experience. Further passages confirm that this association between childhood and choral dance is essential for Plato’s own construction of choral culture in the ideal city, and acts as one of a number of associations that encourage our impression of a particularly receptive choral body. We find a less equivocal fusion of states of childhood and choreia, in addition to further associations with Bacchic frenzy and a lack of reason, in the conclusion to the argument for the social and educational benefit of wine and drinking institutions—now newly christened ‘the chorus of Dionysus’. At the same time, there is a story and report that rumbles on that Dionysus was robbed of his soul’s compass by his stepmother Hera, and because of that he imposes his bacchic rites and all the manic dancing that goes with that as his revenge. This, too, was why he gave us wine. This I leave to those who think it safe to tell such stories about the gods. But this much I do know, that every living thing that will grow to have a mind of its own, these are never born with that self same faculty. Scholars have been happy to fill in the gaps, e.g. Lonsdale (1993: 24) who compares the process described here with Bourdieu’s description of social habituation (habitus). For a philosophically focused treatment see Kamtekar 2008: 27 48. 62 See Schöpsdau 1994: 259 on 653d1 2 for festival as a time to relax from the travails of life being a conventional thought, citing Thuc. 2.38.1 and Arist. Eth.Nic.1160a24 5. We will see later in the Laws that the citizens will not have to work (806d, 835d e, 846d) and so this justification does not apply in quite the same way, as Schöpsdau points out. 61

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Rather, during the period when they have not yet attained their matur ity of mind, every such thing rants and raves, cries indiscriminately, and as soon as they are able to hold themselves upright, leaps around like a mad thing. We should remember how we said that such cries and leaps were the beginnings of cultural and physical education.63 Laws, 672b3 c6

The importance of the myth is highlighted by the Athenian’s professed ignorance of its truth (ἐγὼ δὲ τὰ μὲν τοιαῦτα τοῖς ἀσφαλὲς ἡγουμένοις εἶναι λέγειν περὶ θεῶν ἀφίημι λέγειν—but if he thought the myth irrelevant, why include it?). It is in this myth of Dionysus’ vengeance that we find the connection between Bacchic frenzy (possibly inspired by wine) and the loss of one’s rational capacities. We can infer this from the fact that the rites are introduced as appropriate vengeance for Hera’s robbing Dionysus of his own soul’s judgement (τῆς ψυχῆς ἡ γνώμη). The gift of wine, Bacchic rites, and choreia are all linked in this initial myth. The Athenian then goes on to strengthen those connections, first between the state of childhood and lack of reason (πᾶν ζῷον, ὅσον αὐτῷ προσήκει νοῦν ἔχειν τελεωθέντι, τοῦτον καὶ τοσοῦτον οὐδὲν ἔχον ποτὲ φύεται) and then this reasonless state of childhood with the frenzy and physical movement found in Bacchic rites (ἐν τούτῳ δὴ τῷ χρόνῳ ἐν ᾧ μήπω κέκτηται τὴν οἰκείαν φρόνησιν, πᾶν μαίνεταί τε καὶ βοᾷ ἀτάκτως). The final reminder of the previous discussion of the origins of music and gymnastics (including choral performance)64 carries the echo of the association, established there too, of childhood and choreia (653d7–654a5). Although not specifically tied to choreia, we see elsewhere the effect of wine described as making one feel younger and at the same time making the drinker more malleable: ‘when this happens, the souls of the drinkers become red-hot and, like iron, become softer Λόγος τις ἅμα καὶ φήμη ὑπορρεῖ πως ὡς ὁ θεὸς οὗτος ὑπὸ τῆς μητρυᾶς Ἥρας διεφορήθη τῆς ψυχῆς τὴν γνώμην, διὸ τάς τε βακχείας καὶ πᾶσαν τὴν μανικὴν ἐμβάλλει χορείαν τιμωρούμενος· ὅθεν καὶ τὸν οἶνον ἐπὶ τοῦτ’ αὐτὸ δεδώρηται. ἐγὼ δὲ τὰ μὲν τοιαῦτα τοῖς ἀσφαλὲς ἡγουμένοις εἶναι λέγειν περὶ θεῶν ἀφίημι λέγειν, τὸ δὲ τοσόνδε οἶδα, ὅτι πᾶν ζῷον, ὅσον αὐτῷ προσήκει νοῦν ἔχειν τελεωθέντι, τοῦτον καὶ τοσοῦτον οὐδὲν ἔχον ποτὲ φύεται· ἐν τούτῳ δὴ τῷ χρόνῳ ἐν ᾧ μήπω κέκτηται τὴν οἰκείαν φρόνησιν, πᾶν μαίνεταί τε καὶ βοᾷ ἀτάκτως, καὶ ὅταν ἀκταινώσῃ ἑαυτὸ τάχιστα, ἀτάκτως αὖ πηδᾷ. ἀναμνησθῶμεν δὲ ὅτι μουσικῆς τε καὶ γυμναστικῆς ἔφαμεν ἀρχὰς ταύτας εἶναι. 64 See 672e5 673a10 and also Republic 412a b where choreia is included as one of a number of modes to employ both music and gymnastics to produce harmonious souls. 63

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and younger, the result being that, just as they were when they were young, they become easy to lead for someone who can and knows how to educate and mould them’ (ὅταν γίγνηται ταῦτα, καθάπερ τινὰ σίδηρον τὰς ψυχὰς τῶν πινόντων διαπύρους γιγνομένας μαλ θακωτέρας γίγνεσθαι καὶ νεωτέρας, ὥστε εὐαγώγους συμβαίνειν τῷ δυναμένῳ τε καὶ ἐπισταμένῳ παιδεύειν τε καὶ πλάττειν, καθάπερ ὅτ’ ἦσαν νέαι; 671b8–c2).65 Wine then simulates in the old what comes naturally to those who are young, namely, a kind of malleability. This ductile quality may be added to the matrix of analogous states that touch on or are introduced around the presentation of choral performance. Later in book seven we find a similar description of these analogous states of being in the early stages of the Athenian’s prescriptions for early childcare. You know how when mothers want to get wakeful children to sleep, they don’t keep them still, but the opposite, moving around, always rocking them in their arms, and not in silence but singing some tune or other, just as if they were piping to sleep those suffering from Bacchic frenzy, utilizing the cure of movement in dance and music.66 Laws, 790d5 e4

Once more, the Athenian blends the state of childhood (here very young children) and Bacchic67 frenzy, and shows how choreia might act as a medium to affect their agitated state. It is significant that we are reminded in this way (at the beginning of book seven where the systematic programme for choral training and paideia is to be set out) of the potential vulnerability of those in states of mind analogous to that of choral performance. We can note the effect of featuring the child-like state so prominently in the passages cited above, in that it allows, even encourages, a dynamic between the chorus and any potential leader-figure as that of a child and parent/teacher. The childlike energy and engagement of

65

See also 666b2 c2. ἡνίκα γὰρ ἄν που βουληθῶσιν κατακοιμίζειν τὰ δυσυπνοῦντα τῶν παιδίων αἱ μητέρες, οὐχ ἡσυχίαν αὐτοῖς προσφέρουσιν ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον κίνησιν, ἐν ταῖς ἀγκάλαις ἀεὶ σείουσαι, καὶ οὐ σιγὴν ἀλλά τινα μελῳδίαν, καὶ ἀτεχνῶς οἷον καταυλοῦσι τῶν παιδίων, καθάπερ ἡ τῶν ἐκφρόνων βακχειῶν ἰάσεις, ταύτῃ τῇ τῆς κινήσεως ἅμα χορείᾳ καὶ μούσῃ χρώμεναι. 67 And/or Corybantic frenzy. See Linforth 1946: 129 33 on the potential differ ences and similarities between the two rites. 66

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emotion during choral dance is essential for choral performance to function as a paideutic68 tool (as shall be demonstrated more fully below), but such a childlike state also opens the choral performer up to particularly strong influence from the content of the choral piece or the leader-figure of the performance. Similarly suggestible is the state of Bacchic frenzy and drunkenness. By adducing these analogous states in the initial description of choral culture in an ideal city and firmly associating that choral state with a kind of vulnerability to suggestion, the receptivity and malleability of the choral body is emphasized. To dance in the chorus, then, is to return to childhood, to lose one’s sense (νοῦς or γνώμη), to enter an initiation and to give oneself up to emotion. The highly emotional and reason-less state of mind of the choral dancer seems to deny the ability of the choral dancer to reason for herself or gain any agency within choral performances in the ideal city.

7.2.5. The Chorus in Action Part II: the ‘Benefits’ of Choral Malleability The state of mind any choral dancer will find themselves in is of particular value to the Athenian. Paideia is emphasized in book one as a key concern and a prerequisite for any discussion of a city’s laws (641d7–9). And, indeed, it is for the purposes of paideia that the choral experience is courted by the Athenian and placed at the very core of the ideal city. The connection between choral malleability and paideia is principally worked out in the Athenian’s explicit analysis of the function of choral dance in book two. Very early on it is made clear that the emotional engagement of the individual within a choral performance is not just inevitable, but vital for the best kind of training in choreia and mousike. But what of believing the good things to be good, and the bad things bad, and treating them accordingly? Will we consider someone the 68 What is promoted by choral dance, as presented by Plato, is a kind of homeo static process, where the values of a society are repeated and thereby reinforced within that society, see Lonsdale 1993: 19. On the differences between the paideia in the Republic and the Laws, see Cleary 2003: 165 73. For the importance of ‘play’ in this kind of paideia, see Jouet Pastré 2000: 71 84 and 2006 passim. For the difference between theories of ‘education’ in Republic and the Laws see Mouze 2000: 57 69.

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better person who has been educated in dance and culture and is able, on any given occasion, to give an adequate performance, using his body and his voice, of what he conceives to be good, but does not feel happy about good things, nor loathe things that are not good? Or someone who is not entirely competent in using his voice and body correctly, or in considering some issue, but is absolutely right in feeling pleasure and pain, welcoming what is good and feeling disgust at what is not good?69 Laws, 654c3 d3

The potential for a choral performer to sing and dance perfectly well and yet not feel the necessary emotions of pleasure and pain at what he is enacting is recognized and shown to be of less value (for Plato) than someone who may be less physically or vocally skilled, yet responds emotionally to the things that he should feel pleasure and pain towards. This is not to say that outward appearance and inward emotion are entirely separate in Plato’s conception of the choral experience. A little later, the Athenian points us towards the connection between a cowardly soul and the postures attached to that state of being, or a courageous soul and its concomitant postures (654e9–655b6, 815e4–816a3). Nevertheless, the emotional response to the choral song and dance is clearly of central importance in this presentation of the chorus. The Athenian therefore sees the ideal choral performance as being useful for paideia primarily via the stirring up of correct emotion in the performer. Within the choral performance, pleasure and pain are not to be inevitable by-products of a particular state of mind, but are rather utilized to shape the individual choral performer. However, the benefit of this kind of stirring up and training of emotion within choral dance is dependent on the correct guidance of those emotions. What is important in this part of the Athenian’s argument is the opening sentence, which puts the emotional engagement of the choral dancer under the condition of knowing what are τὰ καλά and what are τὰ αἰσχρά. And as the Athenian is quick to point out, many people differ in their opinions of what is good (with respect to choral dance, here) and what is bad (655b9–c8). 69 Τί δ’ ἂν τὰ καλά τε ἡγούμενος εἶναι καλὰ καὶ τὰ αἰσχρὰ αἰσχρὰ οὕτως αὐτοῖς χρῆται; βέλτιον ὁ τοιοῦτος πεπαιδευμένος ἡμῖν ἔσται τὴν χορείαν τε καὶ μουσικὴν ἢ ὃς ἂν τῷ μὲν σώματι καὶ τῇ φωνῇ τὸ διανοηθὲν εἶναι καλὸν ἱκανῶς ὑπηρετεῖν δυνηθῇ ἑκάστοτε, χαίρῃ δὲ μὴ τοῖς καλοῖς μηδὲ μισῇ τὰ μὴ καλά; ἢ ‘κεῖνος ὃς ἂν τῇ μὲν φωνῇ καὶ τῷ σώματι μὴ πάνυ δυνατὸς ᾖ κατορθοῦν, ἢ διανοεῖσθαι, τῇ δὲ ἡδονῇ καὶ λύπῃ κατορθοῖ, τὰ μὲν ἀσπαζόμενος, ὅσα καλά, τὰ δὲ δυσχεραίνων, ὁπόσα μὴ καλά;

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Consequently, the possible criteria that people might use for judging what is bad and what is good is explored. Most people are shown to use pleasure as their prime motivator for calling anything (choral or otherwise) good or bad (657d–659d, 667b–671a), but this is shown to be deficient, and the Athenian points to the example of the theatres in Sicily and Italy as evidence of this (659b–c). Instead, the Athenian entrusts knowledge of what makes a good or bad choral dance to those in the ideal society with the most experience and hence wisdom on the subject (657d–659d, 664e–665d, 668d–671a). Indeed, the Athenian flatly denies that expertise in the matters of good and bad choral dances may be found in more than a few members of society. In no uncertain terms, the choral dancers are said to be acting in utter ignorance: It is ludicrous (γελοῖος) that the masses consider themselves capable of recognizing what is harmonious and rhythmical and what is not. These are the people who have been simply drilled (διηναγκασμένοι) in singing to the pipe and marching in step it goes completely over their heads that they do all these things without the slightest understanding of them.70 Laws, 670b8 c2

At the same time, the Athenian adduces the reasons why the choral dancer cannot know what is good and bad in the dance. There is, of course, the statement earlier on that the process of training pleasures and pains in children is necessary because they cannot grasp logic (653b1–c4). But the Athenian also cites the mimetic quality of choral performance as a reason for a partial judgement of the content on the part of the performer. Choral performances are representations of character, in every kind of action and circumstance. Each of the performers performs their roles drawing on both their own characteristics and on the imitation of others. When people deem what is said, or sung, or any part of the performance, to be ‘appropriate’, either because of their innate charac ter, their acquired characteristics, or both, of course they are delighted, applaud it, and proclaim it excellent. But when they find it goes against

Γελοῖος γὰρ ὅ γε πολὺς ὄχλος ἡγούμενος ἱκανῶς γιγνώσκειν τό τε εὐάρμοστον καὶ εὔρυθμον καὶ μή, ὅσοι προσᾴδειν αὐτῶν καὶ βαίνειν ἐν ῥυθμῷ γεγόνασι διηναγκασμένοι, ὅτι δὲ δρῶσιν ταῦτα ἀγνοοῦντες αὐτῶν ἕκαστα, οὐ συλλογίζονται. This passage is not discussed by Prauscello 2014. 70

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their innate character, taste, or what they are used to, they cannot take pleasure in it or applaud it, and call it ‘bad’.71 Laws, 655d5 e5

In choral performance, the performer’s opinion of the goodness or badness of the piece will depend upon their own nature (φύσις) and their habits (ἔθος). If the performance imitates their own opinions, sprung from natural inclinations or the habits acquired over the years, then the performer will approve of the piece whereas a performance that requires them to imitate someone or something that represents values contrary to their natural or habitual inclination, will incur their disapproval. The Athenian goes on to point out that sometimes the φύσις and ἔθος can be at odds with one another, and in this case correct emotional engagement is impossible on account of one inclination undermining the other (655e5–656a5). Presented in this way, it seems very difficult for the choral performer to approve correctly of a performance, especially since both their natural inclination (φύσις) and their habits (ἔθος) must, apparently, be in harmony in their judgement. If this is not the case, it would not matter if their natural inclination regarding what was good or not was correct since the judgement they acquired by habit would undermine that inclination, we assume, making the emotional involvement of the performer somewhat less than whole-hearted and therefore deficient. In addition to preventing impartial judgement on the content of choral performance, the imitative nature of choral performance has a more active function in its power to affect that habitual inclination of the performer.72 If the content is not, in fact, good, the performer will suffer a kind of incorrect training, since the mimetic nature of choral performance serves to assimilate the performer with what is performed. The Athenian persuades his interlocutors of this by means of a comparison to a man living with the bad habits of wicked men (τις πονηροῖς ἤθεσιν συνὼν κακῶν ἀνθρώπων, 656b2). There, even if a man is vaguely aware that he should be ashamed to be 71 Ἐπειδὴ μιμήματα τρόπων ἐστὶ τὰ περὶ τὰς χορείας, ἐν πράξεσί τε παντοδαπαῖς γιγνόμενα καὶ τύχαις, καὶ ἤθεσι καὶ μιμήσεσι διεξιόντων ἑκάστων, οἷς μὲν ἂν πρὸς τρόπου τὰ ῥηθέντα ἢ μελῳδηθέντα ἢ καὶ ὁπωσοῦν χορευθέντα, ἢ κατὰ φύσιν ἢ κατὰ ἔθος ἢ κατ’ ἀμφότερα, τούτους μὲν καὶ τούτοις χαίρειν τε καὶ ἐπαινεῖν αὐτὰ καὶ προσαγορεύειν καλὰ ἀναγκαῖον, οἷς δ’ ἂν παρὰ φύσιν ἢ τρόπον ἤ τινα συνήθειαν, οὔτε χαίρειν δυνατὸν οὔτε ἐπαινεῖν αἰσχρά τε προσαγορεύειν. 72 See Stalley 1983: 127 9 for a summary of the various kinds of mimesis referred to in Republic and what bearing they have on the mimetic aspect of choral performance as described in the Laws.

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associated with such habits, by a process of assimilation over time, he will grow to approve of these habits (656b1–7). We see, here, the power of choral performance to shape the opinion of the performer once more, summed up in riddling style when the Athenian identifies the use (χρεία) of choral performance in the following way: ‘we celebrate whenever we think we are doing well, and whenever we celebrate we think we are doing well, and so it goes’ (χαίρομεν ὅταν οἰώμεθα εὖ πράττειν, καὶ ὁπόταν χαίρωμεν, οἰόμεθα εὖ πράττειν αὖ; 657c5–6). The relationship between action and the effect on the person performing the action is seen as mutually reinforcing. And indeed this potential for choral performance by virtue of its mimetic quality to improve the performer (and audience too) is shown (659c, 664b–c). Later in books eight and twelve we will see how this choral capability for positively reinforcing opinions through action is used for the benefit of society with regards to training for war (830c–831a and 942d2–e1). In the construction of the choral experience and its function within society as essentially dependent on the content of choral performance, rather than the performers themselves, Plato needs to present us with a particularly receptive choral body. What we have not yet considered is who is to determine the content of choral performance, and it is to this pivotal topic that we now turn.

7.2.6. The Chorus in Action Part III: Plato’s Choral ‘Leaders’ Who is the leader of the chorus in the ideal city of the Laws? There are numerous candidates for this role in the broader choral culture of Classical Greece, dependent on both the genre of the chorus and, perhaps, the requirements or exigencies of the context. What characterizes the leader-figure in lyric and tragedy is some form of superiority: aesthetic superiority (beauty, luxurious adornment, wealth, nobility), ‘cosmic’ superiority (compared to cult figures, deities or celestial bodies, hierarchy within a group) and a privileged position spatially (either at the centre of a group or holding a ritual object/performing a ritual task).73 The Louvre Partheneion (PMG fr. 1) famously

73

Calame 1997: 43 73 and Murnaghan 2013: 155 63.

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invokes two individuals as leaders (χοραγοί ). Aristotle is the first to use the term coryphaeus for a leader in a choral performance, but this figure will have a slightly separate set of associations to the ideologically charged leader-figure of lyric in particular. There are the rich citizen choregoi responsible for funding and housing the festival chorus in Athens. An aulete could be said to ‘have a chorus’ according to the fourth-century historian Callisthenes,74 and in Against Meidias it is the aulete that ends up being responsible for training the chorus. Also invoked as leader-figures are the didaskalos and/or chorodidaskalos when these roles were not performed by the poet himself (although the image in Plato’s Ion distinguishes choral performers, choral teachers, assistant choral teachers, and the poets, 535e7–536a7). In the Laws Plato sidesteps all these potential leaders and reduces the choregos, poet, aulete, and chorus-trainer to technical functionaries.75 Instead, full responsibility for the correct performances of choruses will lie with the city’s leaders—the archons or, in the earlier books of the Laws, a group of experienced elders (τοῖς νεωτέροις ἡγεμόνες 670d9–e1) who will control the content of choral song and dance, and judge the performances in competition. The preparation for presenting the leader-figure of choruses, and indeed all institutions, as significant is made in book one of the Laws, and I would argue that this early discussion provides an important frame for the rest of the Laws. The Spartan Megillus has just been criticizing the practice of holding symposia in Athens, whereupon the Athenian stranger suggests that the unseemly behaviour often seen during and after symposia should not be a reason for criticizing the institution itself, but rather a reflection on the leader (ἄρχων) of the symposium in question (636e4–639e3). Having gained agreement from his two interlocutors that one would be unjustified in criticizing the members of a group if the leader is ignorant or non-existent, the Athenian stranger expands this method to judging institutions (κοινωνιαί) in general (639c1–6). Although accepting this new method of evaluating institutions (i.e. evaluating them by their

74

FGrH 124 F5(3). E.g. ταὐτὸν δὴ καὶ τὸν ποιητικὸν ὁ ὀρθὸς νομοθέτης ἐν τοῖς καλοῖς ῥήμασι καὶ ἐπαινετοῖς πείσει τε, καὶ ἀναγκάσει μὴ πείθων, τὰ τῶν σωφρόνων τε καὶ ἀνδρείων καὶ πάντως ἀγαθῶν ἀνδρῶν ἔν τε ῥυθμοῖς σχήματα καὶ ἐν ἁρμονίαισιν μέλη ποιοῦντα ὀρθῶς ποιεῖν, Laws 660a3 8. See also 656c1 7, 670e4 71a3, and 802b1 c4. 75

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leaders), Cleinias questions what difference a well-ruled institution makes if it is, of itself, not a beneficial institution to the city. That being granted, tell us, what possible benefit might there be for us in the traditional drinking parties, if they were organized correctly? To take the example of what we were just talking about, if an army had the right leadership, its soldiers would win in war no small benefit and so it would be with our other examples. But what does the city or do private individuals gain from a symposium being moderated correctly?76 Laws, 641a3 b2

By focusing on the element of benefit to society (introduced at 639c2), Cleinias turns the conversation in a new direction. Up until this point in the discussion, the word for ruler has predominantly been ἄρχων or its cognates. In this speech of Cleinias’, however, there is a shift in terminology. Instead of ἄρχων we find ἡγεμονία and the verb παιδαγωγέω. ἡγεμονία is suited to political or military leadership but παιδαγωγέω connotes the ability to educate, train, or manage a child, which obviously is somewhat different to the responsibilities of a military commander or political leader, or the leaders that have been considered in the discussion up until this point. In reply to this question the Athenian stranger (significantly) picks up on the connotations of the verb παιδαγωγέω and abandons, for now, the archon. Well, what huge benefit would we say does the city gain when a single child, or even a single chorus, is appropriately trained? Put like that, we might reply that there is very little benefit to the city from just one. But if you ask in general what great benefit there is in the paideia of the educated, the answer is not difficult. Educated well, men become good, and being good they do well in other ways they even prevail over their enemies in battle.77 [Laws, 641b2 c2] 76 τοὐπὶ τῷδε δ’ ἡμῖν λέγε, τί ποτε, ἂν γίγνηται τοῦτο ὀρθὸν τὸ περὶ τὰς πόσεις νόμιμον, ἀγαθὸν ἂν δράσειεν ἡμᾶς; οἷον, ὃ νυνδὴ ἐλέγομεν, εἰ στράτευμα ὀρθῆς ἡγεμονίας τυγχάνοι, νίκη πολέμου τοῖς ἑπομένοις ἂν γίγνοιτο, οὐ σμικρὸν ἀγαθόν, καὶ τἆλλ’ οὕτω· συμποσίου δὲ ὀρθῶς παιδαγωγηθέντος τί μέγα ἰδιώταις ἢ τῇ πόλει γίγνοιτ’ ἄν; Schöpsdau notes that there might be some derogatory undertone in Cleinias’ use of παιδαγωγηθέντος, but is not convinced: 1994: 216 on 641b1. 77 Τί δέ; παιδὸς ἑνὸς ἢ καὶ χοροῦ παιδαγωγηθέντος κατὰ τρόπον ἑνός, τί μέγα τῇ πόλει φαῖμεν ἂν γίγνεσθαι; ἢ τοῦτο οὕτως ἐρωτηθέντες εἴποιμεν ἂν ὡς ἑνὸς μὲν βραχύ τι τῇ πόλει γίγνοιτ’ ἂν ὄφελος, εἰ δ’ ὅλως ἐρωτᾷς παιδείαν τῶν παιδευθέντων τί μέγα τὴν πόλιν ὀνίνησιν, οὐ χαλεπὸν εἰπεῖν ὅτι παιδευθέντες μὲν εὖ γίγνοιντ’ ἂν ἄνδρες ἀγαθοί,

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What occurs in these two passages is a subtle shift in, or rather assimilation of, terminology: to rule over people is the same as training them as one would a child. It is, therefore, by virtue of being ruled (well), and therefore being subject to good paideia, that an institution is beneficial to society, as the Athenian stranger argues, and it is the ruler who is absolutely responsible for that ruling/paideia. The mention of a chorus just at this crucial point in the assimilation of ruling and educating is suggestive, perhaps acting as a way to illustrate for the reader what the leader/paideutic figure might look like in the context of a city’s institutions. This initial argument for a justified focus on the leader of institutions proves to be a vital frame for the discussion of founding cities, establishing early on the essential and defining role played by the ruler or rulers and asserting, furthermore, that it is the wisdom of the rulers that justifies their position (639c). These ideal leaders are shown to be essential for the correct functioning of choral culture in the city, ensuring as they do that the performers first are trained with the correct responses to the good and the ignoble, and second can improve themselves by performing good tunes and postures with the correct emotional engagement with those good postures. We should note, however, that the chorus leaders in metaphor and image, no matter how abstract they may have been (e.g. ‘truth’) were imagined as performing their role in close proximity to those that followed. The leader-figures for choruses in Magnesia, however, have very little to do with the performance itself, but rather are responsible for the content of the city’s choral song.78 The leader-figures of the choruses in Magnesia, as defined by the initial discussion of what it is to be a ruler in book one, are not practically involved in choral production but rather are embodiments of ‘right rule’. We must assume that it is on the basis of the higher education that they gain this knowledge of what is noble or ignoble, but this is a practicality that does not concern Plato in this dialogue (as opposed to the Republic, say, where the acquisition of knowledge is one of the central γενόμενοι δὲ τοιοῦτοι τά τε ἄλλα πράττοιεν καλῶς, ἔτι δὲ κἂν νικῷεν τοὺς πολεμίους μαχόμενοι. 78 At first, it will be the responsibility of the eldest of the three choruses, the chorus of Dionysus, to regulate choral song and dance 665d1 5, 670b1 4. See also 671a3 5, 802a6 c4. Later, once a more formal structuring of the choral culture has been initiated, there will be official archons (764c5 e3) charged with the organization and moderation of the various choruses.

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questions discussed).79 The fact that this central element in the correct functioning of choral culture in Magnesia, the leader-figure, is left as an abstract concept or an ideal (however realistic the processes for electing the individual—765a4–b5) may have a bearing on how we interpret the presentation of the chorus in this dialogue as a source for actual functioning choral cultures. This, then, is the dynamic between choruses and their leaders that we are presented with in Plato. The chorus, when engaged in choral song and dance, is given over to emotional response and is particularly susceptible or malleable in this state, just as a child or someone in a bacchic frenzy is suggestible. The leader, one who has attained knowledge (a quality explicitly denied to the ‘mass of citizens’—the πολὺς ὄχλος), is entirely responsible for eliciting the correct emotional responses from the chorus and shaping their ongoing, lifelong, choral paideia.80 The ethos of the leader, in Plato, utterly subsumes those who follow.

7.3. THE CHORUS IN THE FOURTH-CENTURY IMAGINATION Two questions were posed at the beginning of Chapter 6. The first asked what it was about the chorus that caught the attention of the fourth-century imagination. What has become very apparent is how important the visual impact of the chorus was—something that we have only a partial glimpse of in the few iconographic representations of their dance and movement. The orderliness was paradigmatic in the minds of many. In practice, it is likely there were upsets and mistakes in performance that meant falling short of these high standards. Nevertheless, the visual spectacle of the chorus, something we sadly lack access to, was a supremely important part of seeing and 79 See Cleary 2003: 165 73 and Saunders 1992: 464 492, esp. 468 9: ‘Plato for mulates [in the Laws] a set of proposals in such a manner as he feels sure, from a combination of experience and philosophical reflection, he would have to formulate them, if only he did in fact have a full understanding of the Forms. The Laws, on this view, is a work written on the basis of an incomplete understanding . . . [it] is not a work that suggests its author is confident about everything.’ 80 The rhetoric of the noble few against the unruly many is not unusual in Plato, see, e.g. Gorgias 474a, Symposium 216b, Phaedo 65a.

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experiencing fourth-century choral culture. Related to this, perhaps, was the importance of the plurality of a chorus. An intrinsic part of the wonder of choral performance was its presentation of multiple moving bodies. The plurality also came into play for those wealthy individuals, the choregoi, eager to demonstrate the magnitude of their beneficence, albeit with false modesty. Significant, too, is the happy and august heritage of choral song and dance, something that was still made use of by writers throughout the fourth century. These associations made the chorus ripe for literary exploitation. The second question posed was how can we tease apart fourthcentury ideas about the chorus and the historical choruses apparent in our sources? Something to be underlined is how fourth-century literature, and the pictures of the chorus created in it, cannot be pressed universally into a connection with dramatic choruses. Numerous practical details about training and personnel, diet, or performance venue abound in these authors, and there can be no question that the historical ‘lived reality’ of choral culture informed their literary representations. Just as it is important to note how infrequently the dramatic chorus is commented on, the concurrent preference in our sources is for discussion of the circular chorus, a genre of choral performance with its own, sometimes quite specific, associations. A greater sensitivity to the particularity of each kind of chorus will allow us to gain a more precise view of the fourth-century chorus in its various contexts. Finally, we can note a tendency in the material considered to guide our attention to the leader-figure in choral situations. Highlighting this tendency not only explains why it has been difficult to grasp the nature and presence of the fourthcentury chorus itself, but also can help us separate leader from led, as well as historical from ideal.

Conclusions The story told in this book is of the dramatic chorus’ continued variety and creativity in performance throughout the Classical period (c.500–323). A review and discussion of the material evidence for dramatic choral performances in Chapter 1 set the stage for this new narrative of variety and creativity, undermining from the start the usual, and still frequently invoked by scholars, narrative of choral decline. Skilled performers and teachers were increasingly recognized within the workings of Attica’s performance calendar and its many opportunities for dramatic choral performance. The numbers required to perform beyond Attica and throughout the length and breadth of the Mediterranean were a further spur for establishing processes for prolonged ‘touring’, paving the way for the more formal organizations of theatre artists that came into being in the final decades of the fourth century. But support for the theatre industry, including the industry of dramatic choral performance also came from the networks in place well before the beginning of the fourth century; networks of professionals, of chorus trainers, aulos players, poets, and actors all of whom might variously have a say in how choruses were selected and trained; civic networks, whereby possible choral performers would be known to choregoi or elected officials and recruited for the city’s choruses that way; and metic networks, too, particularly active in festivals such as the Peiraieus Dionysia where metic involvement was central. Nor should we believe the professionalization and spread of theatre spelled the end for the dramatic chorus. To argue this is to deploy a peculiar logic, assuming that audience attention is zero-sum and that increased adulation of actors like Aristodemus and Neoptolemus leaves no room for the chorus’ contribution to the power and spectacle of Attic drama. But even in The Chorus of Drama in the Fourth Century BCE: Presence and Representation. Lucy C. M. M. Jackson, Oxford University Press (2020). © Lucy C. M. M. Jackson. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198844532.001.0001

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the fifth century, the importance and centrality of the chorus in drama lay in its mediating power and its ability to act as a counterweight to the extraordinary individuals that trafficked the stage. Actors were undoubtedly the rock stars of their day, but the industry of theatre still invested heavily in drama’s choral counterpoint. The best witnesses, however, for this creativity in dramatic choruses are the dramatic texts themselves. The Rhesus provides us with a complete fourth-century tragedy, and a chorus that deploys inventive choral techniques whilst maintaining the lyric quality and structures that are also found in fifth-century choruses, as discussed in Chapter 2. The fragments of fourth-century tragic choral speech point towards the continued use of varied lyric metres, choral interaction in speech and action with named characters on stage, and, in at least one case, the use of the chorus for literary allusion and/or generic interaction with comedy. This should be no surprise in light of non-dramatic lyric’s continued engagement in literary competition (something we observed in the consideration of fourth-century lyric poetry in Chapter 2). The testimonia concerning fourth-century playwrights also give a good sense of the varied identities tragic choruses in new plays took on. Taking a slightly different approach to the gathering of fourth-century dramatic texts, in Chapter 3 we reframed the choral text added after the first performances of fifth-century plays (usually described as ‘interpolation’) as creative inventions, and ones that built on the inherently creative process of reviving ‘old’ plays. The divided chorus and divided choral exit at the end of Seven Against Thebes is a truly stunning reshaping of the play’s themes, extending the calamity of inter-familial bloodshed from the royal family alone to the population of the city itself. A fourth-century date for these altered performance texts is as good a prospect as any, but regardless of this, we can see how the continued stage life of choruses from fifth-century plays both fostered and was subject to the creative energies of fourth-century theatre makers. Turning to fourth-century comedy and its chorus, we observed the literary and political sophistication of the choruses in Assemblywomen and Wealth, and the opportunities for virtuosic turns by choral performers in their song and performance—perhaps most clearly in the act of double transvestism in Assemblywomen. Although the fragments of fourth-century comic choruses have been discussed in scholarship far more frequently than the two other dramatic genres, the variety of identity, lyric metre, and dramatic function gains a greater lustre and import when set firmly amongst so many other

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examples of choral creativity during this period. That poets were actively pushing the boundaries of what a dramatic chorus might do seems likely when we acknowledge, as discussed in Chapter 5, the strong reaction against those experiments. In looking at Aristotle’s testimony in the Poetics, it is possible to identify how the chorus was, at the time he was teaching and writing in the 330s, still able to provoke strong reactions in terms of how well or ill the chorus was handled by dramatic poets. For all the ambiguity in Aristotle’s words in the Poetics, his exaggerated criticism of contemporary choral practice in drama (1456a30–1) reveals his disdain for those diverging from his ideal (though opaque to us) Sophoclean model. Needless to say, in light of all this the notion of an inconsequential chorus in the drama of the fourth century or of the chorus as a dramatic component in decline, cannot be maintained in any seriousness. But there is much more that has been achieved in this study of the fourth-century dramatic chorus than providing an alternative narrative to that of choral decline, or than examining an understudied aspect of theatre history. Much that has been discussed here has a direct relevance to the Classical period more generally, and to the interpretation of the fifth-century dramatic texts that we do have. Putting firmly to one side the idea of a watershed moment in 404, a continuity of practice in terms of drama and dramatic choral performance is given the chance to emerge. It is after all commonplace to assume a continuity of attitudes to choruses and drama when it comes to using fourth-century writers like Aristotle and Isocrates to contextualize and understand fifth-century drama. The same continuity of attitudes has not, however, been thought to obtain when it comes to those producing drama in the fourth century. In this book I have confined myself to examining mainly fourth-century evidence for fourth-century drama, but this is more to address a gap in scholarship than to claim there is something unique to fourth-century theatre and its choruses; quite the opposite. Rather I suggest that the variety and creativity that has been recognized here in fourth-century dramatic choruses is absolutely connected to and resonant with the choral techniques that are identifiable and appreciated in our fifthcentury dramatic texts. In light of all the evidence gathered here, continuity of practice and attitudes certainly makes a lot of sense. We do gain something particular, however, through this somewhat artificial fourth-century focus. As mentioned in the Introduction, the study of fragmentary plays and the work of other dramatic authors

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has expanded and enriched our appreciation for the creativity of the Classical theatre (that is, fifth- and fourth-century theatre) more generally. Looking at what we can discern about fourth-century choruses can, likewise, expand and enrich our models for understanding that defining element of Attic drama, the chorus. The observations made, then, about the fourth-century dramatic chorus can (and I would argue, should) be included in broader discussions about Classical theatre. Recognizing the unusual aspects of the Rhesus chorus only to dismiss them as indicative of a later, different, ‘postclassical’ theatrical era is to miss an opportunity. The fact that the chorus in that play is of such an active, independent, rambunctious nature reminds us that the choral conventions we may hold in our heads are the products of a narrow sample of tragedies and in no way indicative of the dramaturgical possibilities on the Attic stages of the Classical era. By relaxing some of these ideas about choral convention, the creativity of fifth-century playwrights, too, becomes all the more apparent. Choices made were not constrained by a set of conventions (defined for us purely by the haphazard accident of textual transmission) and the more variant the models of choral activity and indeed dramatic practice that can be included in discussions of Classical drama, the better and more informed our understanding of drama then will be. A second, broader conclusion gained from this study concerns how we view the dramatic chorus as connected to the wider choral landscape of Athens, Attica, and the Greek-speaking world more generally. It goes without saying that the power of the dramatic chorus lies in its close connection to choral traditions that exist outside of drama. This is just one reason why the discussions in Chapters 6 and 7 are an essential part of the study, even though their focus there is not exclusively on the dramatic chorus; they provide an essential backdrop to an investigation into the dramatic chorus. In these chapters we can see more vividly the potential resonances and nuances of dramatic choral performance during the fourth century. The performance of citizenship enacted by the chorus of Assemblywomen draws on the immediate civic resonances of the tribally-organized circular chorus, the civic currency of which is manifest in Demosthenes’ Against Meidias. We have seen depicted in these sources the ways dramatic choruses might have built on the extra-dramatic choral themes of festival, of lament, of ritual divine worship, of myth-making and remaking, of bacchic celebration and

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altered mental states, of manly vigour or the vulnerability and beauty of the maiden chorus, of shared experience and identity. The last two chapters of the book make a contribution in their own right to our understanding of how the idea of the chorus, or the choral ‘imaginary’, was given life in at least some Hellenic minds, although this is certainly an area that deserves greater attention and study. The sheer frequency of the images of and references to the chorus underline how essential this medium of performance was to the lived reality of authors and artists in the fourth century. The appreciation of the general, non-dramatic choral culture, gained in Chapters 6 and 7, together with the evidence gathered and re-evaluated in Chapter 1, also allows us to clarify some of the particularities of the dramatic chorus in contradistinction to other choruses. The state of evidence for constructing a picture of choral activity in the Classical period has often necessitated an inclusive approach when it comes to choral genre. What has been revealed in this study is that paying closer attention to the differences is equally rewarding and, now, necessary. This is particularly the case when it comes to the use of evidence concerning the circular chorus and a scholarly tendency to extrapolate a little too straightforwardly with regard to the dramatic chorus. The two kinds of chorus are significantly different. The calendar of choral performances provides one helpful way of viewing the separation of dramatic and circular choral productions, with dramatic choruses training and performing in roughly the first half of the year, and circular choruses in the second, with the City Dionysia festival in March acting as a linchpin featuring both choral genres. And beyond the obvious difference in terms of size, the different requirements in terms of skill and stamina are considerable: dramatic choruses in a trilogy must have performed in mask and costume for around four hours; circular choral performances lasted approximately twenty minutes. The most important observation made in Chapter 1 in terms of recent scholarly understanding of Classical drama is the fact that the choral performers in drama did not necessarily have to be citizens. Nor was citizen identity part of the dramatic choral performance in the way that has routinely been stated in discussions of fifth-century drama’s political significance. The prevalence of opportunities for metics to take part in many of the dramatic festivals is fundamental to this assertion. So, too, is a close reading of the evidence suggesting the existence of a law excluding foreigners from taking part in the

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city’s choruses, which is, in fact, mostly used with reference to the circular choruses of the City Dionysia. The fact that non-citizens were prevented from participating in the majority of circular choruses by virtue of the organization of these choruses by tribe (membership to which was reserved for Athenian citizens) also steers us to view dramatic choruses as markedly untrammelled by tribal identity and therefore more ‘open’. The absence of a strong ‘civic’ identity for dramatic choruses in the eyes of fourth-century audiences is also suggested by what we see in the prose texts of the time. It is significant that, familiar as they were with Attic drama (and Aeschines is a particularly interesting author in this respect since he had been an actor), these writers and thinkers in the fourth century generally eschew references to dramatic choruses in particular, opting, when they do specify a choral genre, for the more political and widely-resonant experience of watching and taking part in circular choruses instead. Plato and Xenophon, Demosthenes and Isocrates could rely on the some-time or full-time Athenian residents amongst their readerships and audiences having some experience of the larger, tribal choruses and they shaped their choral references accordingly. It seems that, in comparison to this, the dramatic chorus occupied a less overtly citizen/civic space, and therefore was less rich for exploitation in the way that the circular choruses so clearly are. To fully appreciate the impact of such a shift in understanding the political import of the dramatic chorus, a return to fifth-century drama and a re-evaluation of the tragic choral contribution is necessary, something that falls beyond the scope of the current study. But at the very least, we can imagine in place of the amateur citizen performing his choral duty, the less romantic but perhaps more realistic picture of performers amply trained in the skills required to do the choruses of these spectacular pieces of theatre justice. A final conclusion can be drawn from the evidence and discussions in the last two chapters in particular. There we identified a preoccupation amongst authors with the relationship, ideal or otherwise, between someone who ‘leads’ and those who are ‘led’ in many of the choral images. The beautifully vivid description of Protagoras, trailed by a well-behaved chorus, stands out amongst the many depictions, iconographic as well as textual, of leader and led. In this image, and so many others, it has become clear that for many fourthcentury authors, the use in referring to a chorus is, in fact, its ability to magnify something about individuals. Whether appealing to the

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chorus as a means of demonstrating and amplifying either choregic prowess, military virtue, or the moral character of any civic leader, much of the fourth-century non-dramatic evidence encourages us to view choruses as embodying the presence or virtue of different individuals. Consequently, we modern readers of these fourthcentury authors and artists have, perhaps, been actually encouraged not to see the chorus itself in the fourth century, but rather construe it as a kind of metonym for the individual who (however nominally) ‘leads’ it. In the case of the figure of the choregos examined in Chapter 6 it is possible to tease apart ‘choral’ from ‘choregic’ imagery in prose and the monuments that commemorated these individuals. But in general, the individual and chorus are blurred and deliberately so by authors in deploying this strategy. The way that we use the valuable testimony of those who lived during the fourth century and were exposed to the choruses, dramatic and otherwise, that filled the yearly calendar, must be careful, sensitive, and attentive to the habits of those responsible for creating this choral imaginary, where the chorus itself is so frequently elided. This propensity to collapse the many into one is supported by a common practice in the writing of history more generally, where narratives are carried forward by charting the actions of prominent individuals. But it may also be worth noting that support for eliding the chorus as a group of performers comes, too, from current ideas about performance and theatre, at least, in the English-speaking world. Theatrical training today rests on the building of individual characters, skilled professionals are always aiming for individual opportunities to be distinct, while being in ‘the chorus’ carries with it still the negative associations of a more junior or less successful performer. It would be strange if these modern attitudes didn’t affect how we read and read about the Classical chorus. When one actually sees a chorus in action, it is less easy to avoid. Likewise where we have the actual texts of the plays, the temptation to let our eyes slide past the chorus is mitigated; their words are there and cannot be explained away or denied. For fourth-century drama, where there is so little choral text, the chorus has a limited capability to assert itself, to insist on being seen. This is nowhere more clear than when choral absence has been inscribed into the textualization of performance visible to us on papyri through the use of the χοροῦ mark. A final contribution this book hopes to have made is a demonstration of how such absences and silences might, nevertheless, be read.

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Index of Passages Cited Aelian De Natura Animalium 11 (= Hecataeus fr.12): 42n.105 Varia Historia 2.13.41 5: 19n.17 Aelius Aristides On Behalf of the Four III 154: 44n.115, 224n.51 Aeschines 1.11: 183n.48 1.40 53: 187 1.54: 187 1.54.2 and 6: 187n.68 1.98.8: 27n.52 1.157: 19n.15, 134n.72, 172n.16 2.163: 170 3.43: 201 3.51 2: 188n.72 3.232: 173 3.240: 186n.65 3.323: 194 Aeschylus Agamemnon 22 4: 64 783 5: 61 975 83: 74 1313: 101n.88 1481 4: 108n.112 1532: 108n.112 1565 6: 108n.112 Prometheus Bound 397 453: 108n.111 1063 70: 110n.116 Seven Against Thebes 230 63: 107 417 21 = 452 6: 65 481 5 = 521 5: 65 563 7 = 626 30: 65 848: 110n.114 853 5: 105 861 74: 104, 105 7, 111 875 960: 108 900 2: 108

915 21: 108 994 5: 108 1054 78: 104, 107 11 1062 3: 110n.114 1066 78: 56n.19 fr.47a.821 32: 56n.17 fr.78a: 56n.17 Vita 12: 84n.6, 102n.92 18: 83n.4 Alciphron 3.12.1 2: 102n.92 Alexis fr.42: 132 fr.112: 133 fr.209: 136 fr.239: 135n.78, 136 Anacreon fr.75.1: 180n.40 Anaxandrides fr.10: 136n.80 Anaxilas fr.12: 132, 135n.78 fr.13: 132, 135n.78, 144 [Andocides] 4.20: 29 Antidotus fr.2: 134 Antiphanes fr.2.18: 185 fr.55: 180n.41 frr.108 9: 132 frr.197 9: 132 fr.199: 132n.58 Antiphon 6: 25 6 6.11: 26 Aristophanes Acharnians 9 11: 102n.91 204: 115n.7 504 5: 32 507 8: 32 609 12: 120n.25

276

Index of Passages Cited

Aristophanes (cont.) 628 58: 75n.57 1231ff: 115n.10 Σ.10: 84n.6, 102n.92 Assemblywomen 30: 114 5 30 72: 121 3 41 56: 59 46 7: 116 54 6: 124 60 77: 118 87 97: 119 118 19: 118 121: 118 124 7: 118 149 50: 118 153 9: 119 163 8: 119 189: 122n.32 189 91: 119 204: 122n.32 213: 122n.32 241 2: 122n.32 246 7: 122n.32 263 7: 119 268 79: 118 285 310:118 289 310: 116 293 4: 119 294 5: 116 301 10: 115 322: 117n.18 491: 115n.8 496 9: 120 500: 115n.8 501 3: 120 506 9: 120 509: 124 516: 115n.8 571 82: 115 646 8: 128n.47 727: 124 729/30: 115n.11 809: 27n.50 876/7: 115n.11 1155 62: 115, 121, 124 1163 83: 115 1169 75: 118, 120 Birds 268ff: 121 Σ.297: 17n.6 Clouds 1510ff: 115n.10

Frogs 71 2: 6n.25 209 68: 127n.45 334 7: 128n.48 727 33: 36n.84 865 9: 103n.95 868: 102n.91 1053 6: 75n.58 Hypothesis 29 32: 84n.7 Σ.868: 102 ν.92 Lysistrata 254: 115n.7, 120n.25 321: 115n.7 430 66: 127n.45 1316ff: 115n.10 Peace 301: 115n.7 741 3: 100n.82 Wasps 230: 115n.7 230 4: 119 1030 1: 100n.82 1060 2: 204 5n.5 1516: 115n.10 Wealth 27: 129 32 8: 130 49 50: 129 95 6: 130 97: 130 147 8: 130n.53 190 2: 129 219: 130 252: 130n.52 252 3: 146 254: 130 257 89: 124 290 321: 124, 125 9 288 9: 125 322: 131 487 8: 131 627: 131 760 1: 7 8n.34, 142 771: 142 802: 131 953: 43n.110 959: 131 1209: 7 8n.34 Σ.954: 32 Women at the Thesmophoria 99 100: 161n.72 267 8: 116n.15

Index of Passages Cited 1060: 152n.38, 155 Σ.100: 161n.72 frr. 8 and 10: 135n.78, 140 1 fr.9: 144 Aristotle [Athenian Constitution] 42.4: 205n.7 54.7 8: 33n.77 54.8: 40n.97 56.3: 31, 39n.94 57.1: 39 Metaphysics 1018b26 9: 43nn.110 and 114, 60, 123n.35, 224n.51 Nicomachean Ethics 1123a19 24: 25n.45, 172n.16, 186 1123a23: 150n.34 1160a24 5: 230n.62 Poetics 1447b21: 78n.66 1449a15 18: 155 1449b2: 37n.88 1450a3 5: 158 1450a15: 150, 158 1450b8: 157 1450b15 19: 149 1450b19 20: 149n.33 1450b25 7: 154 1451a30 5: 154 1451b24: 157n.57 1452b14 18: 154 1453a18: 157n.57 1455a6 8: 79n.67 1455b9 12: 79n.67 1456a15 19: 160, 161n.70 1456a18 19: 155 1456a25 32: 3 4, 6, 9, 12, 132, 147, 149n.33, 150 65 1456a27 9: 7n.34 1456a27 32: 8n.37 1456a30 1: 245 1456b15: 153 1460b23 61a9: 150n.35 1461a35: 153 1461b29 32: 43n.110, 164n.80, 204n.2 1461b31 2: 128 Politics 1276b4: 37n.89, 204n.2 1276b40 1277a12: 43n.110, 123n.35, 204n.2 1284b11: 27n.55 1284b12 13: 42n.105, 204n.2

277

1309a15 21: 150 1340b20 41b18: 162n.75 1341b19 42b34: 162 1340b23 5: 171n.13 1340b33 7: 182n.47 1342a16 28: 163n.76, 165 Prior Analytics I.23.21 46: 153n.41 [Problems] 19.22.45: 42n.106 Rhetoric 1385a9: 70n.47 1403b33: 85n.12, 90n.41 1405a23: 27n.56 Arrian Anabasis 1.8.4: 64n.31 5.13.4: 64n.31 Astydamas fr.1 col.2: 73 5, 76, 140 fr.4: 75, 76, 136 Athenaeus 21d 22a: 27n.48 254d: 38 542c f: 78n.62 617b c: 36 7n.87 628f3 4: 205n.6 697f: 42n.105 Aulus Gellius 6.5: 87n.25, 91n.44 Autocrates fr.1: 132, 144 Bacchylides Dithyramb 17: 176nn.27 and 28 Callisthenes fr.5: 238n.74 Chaeremon fr.9a 11: 78n.66 Chamaeleon fr.41: 27n.48 Cicero Letters to his Brother Quintus 3.1.24: 159n.63 Clearchus fr.15: 42n.105 Cratinus fr.87: 180n.40 Demochares fr.6a: 27n.51 Demosthenes 4.35: 49n.128 9.60: 186n.65 18.180: 19n.14, 87nn.22 and 24 18.242: 19n.14, 87n.22 18.267: 87n.23 18.318: 173 19.199 200: 186n.65

278

Index of Passages Cited

Demosthenes (cont.) 19.216: 186n.65 19.246: 87n.21 19.281 2: 186 7 19.282: 184, 193n.81 21.1 8: 188 21.2: 188 21.8: 189 21.16: 191 21.17: 28 9, 42, 202 21.26: 192 21.51 2: 190 21.52 3: 170n.8 21.54 5: 190 21.56: 29 21.58: 27 21.58 9: 30, 191 21.60: 43, 191 21.63: 202n.103 21.77 101: 188 21.126: 192 21.193 4: 37 8 39.23: 36n.85 39.28: 192 [43].66: 170n.8 59.46: 157n.56 Dinarchus Against Timocrates: 193n.83 Dio Chrysostom 19.15: 90n.43 Diodorus Siculus 15.73 4: 33 Diogenes Laertius 3.28: 132n.59 5.22 7: 149 Diphilus fr.43.1 3: 205 Duris fr.10: 176n.25 Epicrates fr.8: 133 fr.9: 180n.40 Eubulus fr.2: 134, 170 fr.75.4 13: 179 80 fr.102: 135n.78, 144 fr.103: 134 5 and n.78, 144 fr.111: 135n.78 fr.137: 135n.78, 144 Eupolis fr.112: 160n.66 fr.157: 114n.3 fr.239: 193

Euripides Alcestis 77 111: 56n.19 Bacchae 64 166: 98n.74 Electra 988 97: 61n.26, 100 Hecuba 142: 180n.40 Hippolytus 362 72 = 668 79: 66 546: 180n.40 Ion 184 218: 56n.19 Iphigenia at Aulis 164 231: 96, 97 231 302: 95, 96, 97, 111 590 7: 95, 96, 99 100, 111 598 606: 92n.50, 95, 99 773 80: 95, 96, 100 1, 111 785 9: 100 1467 9: 101 1510 31: 95, 96, 101 2 1613 14: 95 1619 20: 95 1627 8: 95 Iphigenia in Tauris 168 9: 86 179 81: 86 1068 9: 86 1143 52: 64 1284 304: 86 Madness of Heracles 815 21: 56n.19 Medea 131 7: 63 Orestes 147 8: 86 960 1012: 86 Phoenician Women 202 60: 98n.74 638 89: 97 784 833: 97 8 1018 66: 65n.32 [Rhesus] 1 3: 64 23 51: 68n.43 49 51: 63 131 6 = 195 201: 66, 68 131 6: 61, 66 132: 63

Index of Passages Cited 137: 61, 69 149: 59 204 23: 64 224 63: 60 327 39: 61 339: 61 339 41: 64 343 79: 60 1 360 9: 63 380: 67 380 7: 61 454 66 = 820 31: 66 7, 68 455 66: 60 1 538 41: 56n.16, 63 538 43: 57 8 540: 57, 58, 59, 68 556 61: 56n.16, 62 559: 58 560 1: 63 562 4: 63 675 82: 56n.18 683 9: 68 692 727: 55 7 704 9: 55 7 706: 57 708: 57 722 3: 63 722 7: 56 724: 57 726: 57 808 19: 64 950 1: 63 Suppliant Women 598 633: 56n.19 Trojan Women 153 89: 56n.19 FGrH 239.54 5: 21n.28 Hecataeus fr.12 (= Aelian De Natura Animalium 11) Heniochus fr.5: 132 Herodotus 1.32 and 2.4: 160 3.82.12: 43n.110 3.159.5: 43n.110 6.21: 83n.3 6.23.24: 43n.110 6.27: 46n.124 6.98.11: 43n.110 Homer Hymn to Aphrodite 117 20: 176

279

Hymn to Demeter 1 14: 180n.40 Iliad 7.238 41: 204 5n.5 16.179 83: 176 19.301: 10 24.261: 204 5n.5 24.707 15: 106n.106 24.719 24: 106 Odyssey 6.15 16: 177n.32 IG I3 254: 22n.29, 26 I3 254.16 17: 16 17n.3 I3 254.3: 31n.68 I3 258 bis: 22n.35 I3 969: 2 3n.13, 16 17n.3, 21n.25, 31n.70, 183n.49 I3 970: 21n.26 II2 358: 160n.66 II2 458: 160n.66 II2 471: 160n.66 II2 1138: 185n.59 II2 1178: 22n.29 II2 1183: 22n.33 II2 1183.36 7: 40n.98 II2 1202: 20n.23 II2 2318.201 3 fr. d: 17n.7, 28n.59, 84n.8 II2 2318.316 18 frr. g+h: 17n.7 II2 2319 Col. I.3: 18n.10 II2 2319 Col. III.5 8, 12 15: 17n.9 II2 2320 Col. II.22 30: 17n.4 II2 2320.2 3: 86n.16 II2 2320.20 1: 86n.16 II2 2320.20 2: 1n.6 II2 2324.158: 132n.61 II2 3025: 185n.59 II2 3042: 184n.57 II2 3091: 20n.24 II2 3092 + SEG 45.250: 21n.29 II2 3095: 22n.29 II2 3096: 22n.34 II2 3097: 20n.21 II2 3098: 22n.29 II2 3101: 201n.102 II2 3108: 22n.30 II2 3109: 22n.30 XII 9, 207: 46n.126 XII Supplement p.178: 46n.126 XIV 1098a (IGUR 215): 84n.5

280

Index of Passages Cited

Isaeus 5.35: 193n.81 5.35 6: 184 5.36: 194n.85 5.41: 184 7.40: 184n.53 Isocrates 7.53 4: 186 7.54: 202n.104 9.1: 170, 204n.2 9.4: 186n.64 12.39: 167n.1 16.35: 184n.52 17.34: 189 19.36: 184 Lysias 7.30: 193n.81 21.1 6: 183n.51 21.4: 195n.89 Menander Andria 15 19: 159n.64 Aspis 245 6: 133n.63 287: 136n.81 391 428: 136n.81 Dyskolos 229 32: 133n.63 432: 136n.81 Epitrepontes 168 71: 133n.63 483 90: 177 8 1117 22: 177n.31 Perikeiromene 261 6: 133n.63 Phasma 93 104: 177n.31 Sicyonians 150: 136n.81 fr.130: 224n.51 Papyri P. Ash. inv.89B/31, 33: 145 P. Berlin 9767 = CGFPR 159: 146 P. Berol. 1171: 135n.76 P.Colon. 4 inv. 5031 = CGFPR 159: 146 P. Köln 243: 133n.68 P. Köln 20270 9: 145 P. Köln 20546: 133 P. Oxy. 2746: 71

P. Sorb. 2252: 141 2 P. Strasb. WG 304 7: 144 Pausanias 5.25.2 5: 46n.124 Philochorus fr. 15.7: 170 Philostratus Vita Apollonii 6.11.128 32: 102n.92 Plato Alcibiades I 125d1 4: 216n.36 Epistle 7 347b: 212n.25 Euthydemus 277d e: 175n.23 277d6 e3: 170, 213n.29 278e2ff: 223 6 279b4 8: 224 279c1 2: 43 4, 224 279c2 4: 224 279d6 281e1: 224 281d2 e1: 225 Gorgias 474a: 241n.80 482b7 10: 225n.52 501e8 502a1: 213n.27 Ion 535e7 536d3: 216n.35, 223, 238 Laches 183a b: 85n.13, 91n.46 Laws 636e4 639e3: 238 639c: 240 639c1 6: 238 641a3 b2: 239 40 641b2 c2: 239 40 641d7 9: 233 653b1 c4: 235 653c7 654b2: 229 30 653d7 654a5: 231 654b3 7: 7n.32 654e9 655b6: 234 655a8: 27n.54 655b9 c8: 234 655d5 e5: 235 6 655e5 656a5: 236 656b1 7: 236 7 656b2: 236 656c1 7: 238n.75 657c5 6: 237 657d 659d: 235

Index of Passages Cited 659b c: 235 659c: 237 660a3 8: 238n.75 664b c: 237 664e 665d: 235 665b2 6: 40n.101 665d1 5: 240n.78 665e6 7: 41 666b2 c2: 232n.65 667b 671a: 235 668d 671a: 235 670b1 4: 240n.78 670b8 c2: 235 670d9 e1: 238 670e4 71a3: 238n.75 671a3 5: 240n.78 671b8 c2: 232 672b3 7: 170, 213n.29 672b3 c6: 231 672e5 673a10: 231n.64 700d 701a: 167 8, 173 700d3 701a3: 163n.76 702b d: 226n.53 739e: 226n.53 764c5 e3: 240n.78 765a4 b5: 241 790d2 e4: 170, 213n.29 796c2 4: 204 5n.5 800b8 c3: 175 800c5 d4: 174 5 802a6 c4: 240n.78 802b1 c4: 238n.75 806d: 230n.62 812e11: 27n.54 815e4 816a3: 234 817a d: 44 817d4 8: 172n.15, 213n.27 830c 831a: 237 835d e: 230n.62 846d: 230n.62 870a6 b2: 219n.43 942d2 e1: 237 Phaedo 65a: 241n.80 Phaedrus 230c3: 216n.38 246e6 247a7: 205 250b c: 175bn.23 252c3 d2: 220 Protagoras 311a8 314b4: 221 314e3 5: 221

315a4 5: 222 315a7: 222 315b2 8: 113 14, 172, 213n.27, 221 3 315c1 316a2: 221 327d4 e1: 114n.4, 172, 212n.26, 213n.27 Republic 327a: 19n.16 383c1 5: 172n.15, 213n.27 386c1 5: 212n.26 412a b: 231n.64 412 b: 226n.53 412b3 6: 225n.52 475d5 8: 18n.11, 172, 213n.27 490a1 3: 219 490b9 c11: 218 9 490c3 8: 216n.38 554a3 4: 219 554b5: 216n.38 554b6 c1: 219 559e2 561a5: 175 560d8 e4: 175 580b5 7: 225n.52 Symposium 173a5 7: 171 2, 213n.27 175e: 32 197d1 3: 170, 212n.26 210a: 175n.23 216b: 241n.80 Theaetetus 173b d: 212n.23 173b3 c5: 212n.26, 216n.38 173c: 43n.110 173c6 8: 220n.45 Timaeus 40c3 d5: 212n.26, 216n.38 47d2 e2: 229n.59 Plato Comicus fr.96: 144 fr.167: 135n.78 Platonius On the Difference of Comedies 27 8: 140 1 35 8: 140 1 79 81: 141n.3 Plutarch Moralia 841f: 1n.6, 94n.57 842a: 10n.43, 30, 34n.79

281

282

Index of Passages Cited

Plutarch (cont.) Phocion 30.3: 29n.63 PCG (K A) K A adesp. 1032: 135 K A adesp. 1147: 133 PMG 1: 179 80, 237 8 1.39 40: 120n.25 1.54 9: 177n.32 1.77: 180n.40 3.57 9: 180n.40 3.68: 177n.32 815 24: 124n.36 816: 126n.41 819: 78n.66, 126 820: 126 824: 78n.66 845 (= Athen.12.542c f ): 78n.62, 176n.25 1023 (= TrGF adesp.692): 76 Pollux 4.108 9: 206n.12 Posidippus fr.10: 133 fr.28: 133 Quintilian Institutes of Oratory 10.1.66: 102n.92 SEG 22 117: 22n.29 26 203: 18n.10 32 239: 33n.73 34 107: 22n.35 34 896: 46n.126 36 186: 20n.23 36 187: 20n.22 40 128: 22n.35 43 1186: 24n.42 46 153: 22n.32 48 129: 22n.31 56 200: 22n.35 Sophocles Ajax 136 40: 61 185 6: 61n.27 254 6: 61n.27 344 5: 61n.27 362 3: 61n.27 377 8: 61n.27 386: 61n.27

483 4: 61n.27 866 78: 56n.17 981 5: 58 Oedipus at Colonus 228 34: 120 Oedipus the King 1480ff: 105 Philoctetes 148 9: 61 391 402: 61 507 25: 61 522 3: 61 974: 61 1072 3: 61 1173 85: 58 Trackers 100 23: 56n.17 176 202: 120n.25 Women of Trachis 863 70: 56n.19 Theophrastus On Flattery fr.83 (= Athen.6.254d): 38 Theopompus fr.14: 185 6 Thucydides 5.109: 152n.38, 155n.48 2.38.1: 230n.62 Timocles fr. 27: 121, 132 frr. 27 8: 132 TGrF I 39 T19 20: 161n.72 I 84 T1: 27n.53 adesp. 127: 76, 144 adesp. 129: 144 adesp. 130: 144 adesp. 375: 144 adesp. 415a: 144 adesp. 482: 144 adesp. 483: 76 adesp. 499: 76, 144 adesp. 625: 142 adesp. 649: 71 3, 74, 76 adesp. 657: 76 adesp. 662: 70n.48 adesp. 664: 70n.48 adesp. 686: 76 adesp. 690: 76 adesp. 692 (= PMG 1023): 76

Index of Passages Cited Xenophon Anabasis 5.6.12.3 18: 206n.12 [Athenaion Politeia] 1.13: 36n.87 Cynegeticus 10.2: 43n.110 Cyropaedia 1.6.1 44: 208 1.6.18: 188n.71, 208 3.3.58: 206n.10 3.3.70: 206 4.5.49: 152n.38, 155n.48 8.7.1: 170, 210 11 Hellenica 2.4.20.4: 205 6.4.2: 174n.20 6.4.16.1 8: 173 4, 206n.10 Hiero 9.11: 40n.100 Hipparchicus 1.26.5: 188n.71, 208 9

3.2: 170 3.2.5 6: 206n.10 Memorabilia 3.3.12: 188n.71 3.3.13: 207 3.3.14: 207 8 3.4.1 6: 188n.71 3.4.3: 183, 209 10 3.4.4: 28n.57 3.5.5 7: 207 3.5.18: 207 3.5.21: 28n.58, 210 4.4.16: 173 Oeconomicus 8.3: 171 8.3.3 4: 206n.11 8.20: 171 8.20 1: 206n.11 De Republica Lacedaemoniorum 4.2.2: 188n.71, 208

283

General Index Acharnai, deme Dionysia 21 actors emerging from the chorus 59 60, 122 interaction with chorus, see chorus, interaction with actors power of 1, 85, 89, 90, 243 recruiting/training choral performers 21 additions (‘interpolations’) of choral parts 91 111 as creative practice 92 dramatic purpose 95, 98 9, 100, 102, 111 how to date 93 5, 103 how to identify 91n.47, 94 7, 100 2, 104 5 indicative of play’s popularity 91 2 Aeschines 27, 84, 134, 186 7 Against Ctesiphon 173, 194, 201 2 Against Timarchus 19, 52, 183n.48, 187 8 as actor 19, 248 participation in spontaneous paean 170 Aeschylus (tragic poet) Agamemnon 56 7, 61 Edonians 88, 89n.34 Eumenides 88, 89n.37, 107, 121 Libation Bearers 88, 89n.35 Net haulers (Diktuoulkoi) 56n.17 Niobe 88, 89n.34 Oresteia 88 Phrygians 88, 89n.34 Prometheus Released 88, 89n.37 Seven Against Thebes 56n.19, 102 11 suspected passages 104 5 Theoroi 56n.17 absence in Aristotle 155 6 as chorodidaskalos 27n.48 object of emulation 98n.75, 99n.78 plays subject to ‘correction’ 107 popularity outside Athens 88 on pottery 42n.107

responsible for reducing the choral component 156n.50 revivals of his plays 84, 88n.29, 91n.45, 102 3 in Sicily 83 4 Theban tetralogy 103 4 Agathon (tragic poet), originator of embolima 158 Agriculture 34 5, 39 40 Aigilia, deme Dionysia 22 Aixone, deme Dionysia 20 Alexis (comic poet) Galatea 124n.36 Gunaikokratia 132 Kouris 133 Trophonios 135n.78 parabasis in the plays of 136 refers to a chorodidaskalos 27 Anagyrous, deme Dionysia 20 1, 31 2 Anaxandrides (comic poet) Gerontomania, parabasis in 136n.80 Anaxilas (comic poet) Circe 132, 135n.78 ridicules Plato 132n.59 Andros, drama on 24 Antidotus (comic poet) Protochoros 134 antilabe between chorus and actors 58 9, 71 2 intra choral 57 9, 68 Antiphanes (comic poet) Cyclops 124n.36 Knights 132 Meleager 70 Scythians 132 Soldier or Tychon 185 sexual undertones in 180n.41 Antiphon On the Choreut 25 6, 36 7n.87, 182 3 Apharaeus (tragic poet) Peliades 70 Apollodorus (tragic poet) Greeks 70 Suppliants 70

General Index Aristonous (lyric poet) 81 Aristophanes (comic poet) Acharnians 32, 103 Aiolosikon 132, 135n.78, 140 1 Assemblywomen 27, 59, 114 24 Birds 57n.21, 121 Frogs 84, 103n.93 Knights 126 Lysistrata 103n.93 Wasps 119 Wealth 124 31 Women at the Thesmophoria 158 choruses in 114 15 choral odes excised 5n.20, 142 mockery of Euripides 96n.66 performed at deme Dionysia 21n.26 quoting himself 100n.82 textual transmission 124 Aristotle Poetics 148 65 Politics 162 3, 165 and actors 85, 90 and auletes 128, 182n.47 and choral performance 27, 37, 41 2, 43, 60, 123, 148 50, 171n.13, 182n.47, 217, 224n.51, 238 and the choregia 150, 155, 186 and the chorus 3 4, 148 65, 204n.2 as fourth century lyric poet 10, 78, 79 impact of Poetics 1456a25 32 4n.16, 6, 12, 89n.38, 132, 140, 144n.12, 147 8 attitudes towards mousikê 162 3 Artists of Dionysus (Technitae) 27, 44n.116 Astydamas (tragic poet) 52n.3, 71 6 Epigonoi 70 Hector 71 5 Herakles Plays the Satyr, parabasis 75 6, 136 statue in the theatre of Dionysus 52 ‘Atarbos’ monument 185n.59, 198 9 auletes 36 7n.87, 38, 182n.47, 184 as recruiters and trainers of choral performers 28 9, 238 Autocrates (comic poet) Tympanistai 132, 144 ‘Benaki Chous’ 40n.102, 200 Boeotian drama 1, 23n.37

285

Chaeremon (tragic poet) Centaur 78n.66 Minyan Women 70 Callimachus (chorodidaskalos) 27 choral genres need to reassert differences between tragedy and comedy 4, 39, 147 need to reassert differences between dramatic and non dramatic/ circular 13, 15, 26, 27, 29 30, 34 5, 36 7n.87, 42, 49, 171 2, 242, 246 7 choral images and metaphors in Plato 216 17, 218 26 significance 168 choral performance as context for rape 176 80 association with the divine 150, 170, 173 6, 189 92, 199, 230 association with festival 170 1, 173 6, 180 1, 230 associations with happiness ironized 173 8, 222 female 170n.7 association with military activity 204 9, 211 and initiation 175 6, 230 1, 232 3 paradigmatic of good order (eutaxia) 206 visual impact 171, 226, 241 2 choral performers agency in Plato 218, 226 7 availability for rehearsal 34 5 bonds between 205 6 casting (or recruitment) 25 38 citizen status 29 34, 46, 48 9, 247 8 conflated with choregoi 15 16, 33 elite status? 36 7, 39, 48 9 hierarchy among 43 4 laws concerning 29 31 military exemption 35n.83 names of 21 number of opportunities for performance 16 25, esp. 23n.36, 37 number in tragic chorus 16 17n.3 payment 36 7 psychology of 227 37 recruited ‘locally’? 44 8 representations on choregic monuments 195 201 risks for 202

286

General Index

choral performers (cont.) specialists see professional choral specialists suspicion of 37 8 training centres for 28 outside of Athens 33 physically demanding 38 9, 40 2 virtuosity 116, 118, 120 choregia 2, 15, 181 202 association with wealth and status 182, 183 8, 201 quasi religious office 189 synchoregia 21 choregic monuments 184 5 choregos as non performer 183 held to ransom by the demos 185 6 role 182 4 in ‘casting’ 25 6 in training 28 ‘Choregos’ vase 85 chorodidaskalos 27 8, 41 2, 43, 48, 210, 211, 216, 238 as coryphaeus 43 chorou melos 139 48 appearance in tragedy and comedy 140 as indicator of ode excised 141 3 interpretations of 4, 140 1, 142, 148 relationship to embolima 147 8 varieties of meaning 73 5, 142, 145 7 chorus in Aristotle’s works 148 50 as analogue for society 203 4, 209 10 costs of 183n.51 Euripides’ and Sophocles’ use of 155 7 in fourth century drama autonomy 62 5, 107, 110 collectivity vs plurality 54 5, 69, 119 costume 24 5, 42, 45, 118 19 division of 56 7, 109 10 dramatic capabilities 53 4, 60, 67, 68 9, 71 3, 76, 86, 92, 95, 106 7, 110 11, 121 2, 124 5, 128 30 dramatic impact 98 9, 110n.115, 115 16, 120 1, 123 4, 133 4 fictional identities 9, 69 70, 89, 97, 99 100, 108, 132 4

individualised speaking roles 42 3, 54 60 individuation and hierarchy 119 20, 122 3 interaction (verbal and physical) with actors 7n.28, 8, 42, 71 3, 76, 86, 122, 124, 124 31, 134 5 later organisation by tribe 31, 45n.120 metatheatre 116 19, 136n.81, 137 movement and choreography 40 1, 86, 110nn.114 15 opinions from antiquity 3 4 parodos 118 20, 124 relationship with individual characters 60 5, 127 30 representation on monuments/ in iconography 40 1, 88n.30 in revivals 85 90 secondary choruses 17, 99 100 structuring the play, separated strophic pairs 65 8 tone 58 9, 97 8, 100 unison 41 2 fourth century evidence for 2 5 as a gift to the demos 192 4 ‘irrelevance’ 8 9 non dramatic 13, 79 81, 170 in Plato 171 2, 213, 216 circular choruses 25 6, 29 31, 34 6, 45, 49, 79, 120 1, 123, 167, 171 3, 181, 184, 194, 198 90, 246 8 competitive context for 30 at the deme Dionysia 18n.12, 21 prominence in society 171 3, 242 associations 130, 137, 172 3, 192, 246 City Dionysia ideology of 32 number of plays (and choruses) at 16 17 rehearsal time required for 38 9 Cleaenetus (chorodidaskalos) 27 Cleonymus (choral performer) 38 Cleophon (tragic poet) Bacchae 70 comedy political in the fourth century 141n.5 problematic division into ‘Old’, ‘Middle’, ‘New’ 10n.46, 114n.6, 128

General Index continuity as an interpretative frame 6, 10, 78, 137, 245 coryphaeus 43, 153 4, 238 Cyrene, tragic choruses performed in 24 ‘decline’ as an interpretative frame 6 7, 47 8, 51, 141, 144, 162 3 narrative challenged 51 2, 243 5 problems with the narrative 7 9, 10 11 Demades (choregos) 29 demarch 26 deme Dionysia character 18 19 number of plays (and choruses) at 18 23 rehearsal time required 40 significance of 22 3 Demosthenes Against Meidias 28 9, 30, 37 8, 43, 188 92, 202, 246 On the Crown 19, 173 On the False Embassy 184, 186 7 choregos for a boys’ circular chorus 28 9, 42, 188 92, 202 taunts Aeschines for his acting 19 Dicaeogenes (tragic poet) Cyprians 70 didaskaloi see chorodidaskaloi Dionysius of Syracuse The Ransom of Hector 33 as lyric poet 78 dithyramb 2, 124, 126 8 see also circular choruses drama coexistence of diverse approaches to 10n.46, 52, 68, 131 non Attic 23n.37 Eleusis deme Dionysia 21 high metic population 34 embolima 3 4, 140, 147 51 meaning 148, 158 62 Epicrates (comic poet) Chorus 133 Eubulus (comic poet) Ankulion 134 Stephanopolides 134 5 parody of a partheneion in Orthannes 179 80

287

Euonymon, deme Dionysia 19 20 Euphorion (tragic poet) 93n.54 Euripides (tragic poet) Andromache 64n.30, 89, 156n.51 Andromeda 89n.34 Antiope 89 Bacchae 8n.35, 46 Children of Heracles 89 Cresphontes 87, 89n.36 Electra 100 Ion 156n.51 Iphigenia at Aulis 8n.35, 95 102, 156n.52 parodos 96 9 suspected passages 95 6 Iphigenia in Tauris 78 9, 85 6, 89n.35 Hecuba 87, 89n.34 Heracles alternative parodos preserved on papyrus 94n.61 Hippolytus 66, 89, 89n.34, 100, 141 Medea 63, 89 n.34 Melanippe the Wise 89 Oeneus 142 Orestes 8n.35, 86, 87 8, 89n.34 Peliades 70 Phoenician Women 46, 65, 87 8, 96, 97 8, 144, 156n.52 [Rhesus] 5, 8n.35, 52 69 date 53n.7 and mystic/Orphic cult 53n.8 Suppliant Women 121, 156n.52 Telephus 89 choral involvement in the plot 156n.51 choral ‘irrelevance’ 8, 156n.54, 163 n.77, 163 4 disapproved of by Aristotle 3, 151, 152, 155 6, 164 in Macedon 83n.4 mocked by Aristophanes 96n.66 and New Music 156 7, 163 4 plays at deme Dionysia 19, 21n.25 revivals at City Dionysia 85 6n.16 unexpected choral identities 156n.52 fifth century drama 5, 10 11 fourth century sources for 5n.23 fourth century reception of fifth century plays 84 8, 113 14 in performance 85, 87, 91 2, 103

288

General Index

fragments choral 69 77, 92, 131 6 methodological challenges 2, 70 1, 131n.54 genres of performance, literary interaction between 53n.8, 75, 78 9, 120, 123, 124 9, 167 9 Halai Aixonides, deme Dionysia 20 Halai Araphenides, deme Dionysia 22 Heniochus (comic poet) Cities 132 Heraclea Pontica, drama in 24 Ikarion, deme Dionysia 21 2 interludes see embolima intermezzo see embolima Isocrates Aegineticus 184 Areopagiticus 186, 202 Trapeziticus 189 Isyllos (lyric poet) 79 Kollytos deme Dionysia 19 high metic population 34 leader figures 237 41 defining those who follow 223 6, 227, 238, 240 mutable 210, 211 12 superior qualities 176 7 leader/led dynamics between 204, 210, 214 15, 218, 241, 248 9 shared ethos 208 9, 218 26 Lenaea metic involvement in 32 3, 49 number of plays (and choruses) at 17 18, 20 1n.24, 23, 87n.26 rehearsal time required 39 Leucas, drama on 24 lyric (melic) poetry in the fourth century 9, 10, 77 81, 101 political 79 81 Macedonia, theatrical productions in 1, 24n.39 Megara, comic choruses in 25 Megarian drama 23n.37

Menander The Apparition (Phasma) 177nn.30 and 31 The Arbitration (Epitrepontes) 177 8n.30 The Bad tempered Old Man (Dyskolos) 133 4n.65, 136n.81 The Carthaginian 146 The Farmer (Georgos) 177n.30 The Girl from Samos (Samia) 177n.30 The Hero 133, 177n.30 The Lyre player (Citharistes) 146 The Necklace (Plokion) 177n.30 The Shield (Aspis) 136n.81 Sicyonians 136n.81 Twice Deceived (Dis Exapaton) 133 choruses in 131 4 metics as choral performers 31 2, 34, 49 as choregoi 31, 243, 247 metre aeolics 76, 96, 101 aeolo choriambics 79 80 anapaests 57 8, 105 10 dochmiacs 76, 86 eupolideans 75 galliambics 74 lyric iambics 55 6, 125 6 military choruses 61 2 mimesis 213, 236 7 Myrrhinous, deme Dionysia 22, 40 Nausicrates (comic poet) 27 New Music 78, 125 9, 156 7, 162 5 nomes 126 7 Olbia, drama in 24 paeans 2, 79 81, 101 2, 106 Paiania, deme Dionysia 20 Panathenaea choral training for 34 5 circular choruses at 171 parabasis 75, 100n.82, 136 paragraphos/ê marks 4, 73n.52, 109n.113 parastates 43, 60, 123 4 partheneion 179 80 Peiraieus, deme Dionysia 19, 33 4 performance, relationship to text 147 periodization, problems with 5, 71, 94 Philodamus (lyric poet) Paean to Dionysus 79 81

General Index Philoxenus (lyric poet) Cyclops or Galatea 124, 126 8 Phrynichus (tragic poet) Sack of Miletus 83n.3 Plato Euthydemus 43 4, 223 6 Ion 223, 238 Laws 167 8, 173, 174 5, 226 41 Phaedrus 205, 220 Protagoras chorus of followers image 113 14, 221 3 Republic 172, 175 6, 218 9 Symposium 32, 170, 171 2 and the chorus 212 42 chronology of works 215 16 Platonius On the Difference of Comedies 140 1, 144 Plautus, choruses in 135n.77 poets, role in choral recruitment and training 27 Posidippus (comic poet) Builders 133 Women Choreuts 133 Priene, drama in 24 professional choral specialists 2 n.13, 11, 28, 30, 37 8, 47 9, 60 protochorus 26, 134n.73 pyrrhic chorus military character of 204 semi dramatic 172n.18 victory monuments for 184, 185n.59, 195, 198 9 rehearsal, texts used for 145 reperformance see revivals revivals 9, 11, 83 111 of Aeschylus 84, 102 3 at City Dionysia 17, 84, 85 6, 91 of comedy 17n.7, 113 14 competitive context 91n.45 of Euripides 85 7 ‘extract’ theory 89 90 in the fifth century 83 4 as new performances 90 1 practicalities 90 1, 93 rather than reperformances 17n.7 role of the producer 90 1, 95, 102, 110 11 of Sophocles 19, 87

289

Rhamnous, deme Dionysia 22 Rural Dionsyia see deme Dionysia Sannion (chorodidaskalos) 27, 30, 191 satyr play 7, 9, 17, 75 6 Schlegelian ‘ideal spectator’ 122n.31 Sicilian drama 23n.37 Sicily, theatrical productions in 1, 24n.39 Sophocles (tragic poet) Achilles 145n.17 Ajax 62, 156n.51 Antigone 8, 87, 88, 89nn.34 and 35, 107, 109 11 Electra 87, 88, 90 1, 156n.51 Lakainai 111n.18 Oedipus at Colonus 5, 8n.35, 88, 89n.34, 120 Oedipus the King 88, 89n.36, 105 Oenomaeus 87 Philoctetes 58, 156n.51 Telepheia (Sons of Aleus, Mysians, Eurypylus) 20 1n.24, 87, 89n.34 Trackers 56, 120n.25 choral intervention in 156n.51 a ‘new musician’ 164n.78 performed at deme Dionysia 21n.26 preferred by Aristotle 150 1, 152, 154, 155 6, 164, 245 Sphettos, deme Dionysia 20 stage action 69n.46, 71 3, 74, 86, 110n.114, 115 16, 117n.18, 122 3 stage space 69n.46, 73, 122n.31 structuralist approaches to choreia 169 Tarentum, choral performer commemorated here 24 5 Technitae see Artists of Dionysus Telekleides (comic poet) Sterroi 83 Telephanes (aulete), as chorodidaskalos 28 9 Tenos, drama on 24 textual transmission ‘book’ texts and performance texts 90, 91 2, 103 by means of performance 84 5, 94n.60 of choral odes 143 5 role of anthology papyri 89 90

290

General Index

textual transmission (cont.) of tragedy 91 4 vagaries of 92 3, 105, 105n.103, 143 4 Thargelia circular choral performances at 25, 34, 36, 171 theatre buildings in Euonymon 19 20 statues in 1, 52 theatre history using later practice to interpret earlier 7n.31, 42, 43, 89 90, 93, 159 60, 249 theatre industry finance see choregia professionalization 11, 30 spread of 1n.2, 23 4, 44 8, 84 vitality in the fourth century 1nn.1, 3, 4, 5, 51 2, 85, 243 theoria 2n.10, 45, 46 Thorikos, deme Dionysia 22 Timocles (comic poet) Orestautokleides 121, 132

Timotheus (didaskalos) 20n.24 Timotheus (lyric poet) Persians 77 8 Scylla 128 object of parody 126, 129 30 object of Aristotle’s distate 128, 164n.80 touring, practicalities of 11, 44 8, 91n.46 tritostates 43, 60, 123 4 Xenophon Anabasis 206 Cavalry Commander 170, 208 9 Constitution of the Lacedaemonians 208 Cyropaedia 206, 208, 210 11 Hellenica 173 4, 191, 205 On Hunting 43n.110 Memorabilia 28, 173, 207 8, 209, 210 Oeconomicus 171, 206 use of choral imagery and metaphor 203 12