This is the first volume of A Social and Economic History of the Theatre to 300 BC and focuses exclusively on the theatre festivals in the city of Athens. It presents and discusses in detail all the documentary and material evidence for the Dionysia in the city of Athens, the Lenaea and the Anthesteria. It is the first comprehensive reappraisal of the Athenian theatre festivals undertaken in over seventy years and the first ever to attempt a history of the Athenian theatre as an institution which recognises the social and economic forces that underpinned it. All texts are translated and made accessible to non-specialists and specialists alike. The volume will be a fundamental work of reference for all classicists and theatre historians interested in ancient theatre and its wider historical contexts.

The expansion of the theatre industry resulted in fierce competition for writers and performers. After the mid fourth century BCE, the Athenian Dionysia took steps to prevent damage to its competition from shortages and no-shows. In tandem with economic competition, Greek cities competed for prestige by promulgating histories of theatre that claimed credit for the invention of its genres. The Athenian response was largely orchestrated by Phanodemus, Athenian politician, religious historian, and propagandist of the time of Lycurgus. Phanodemus capped all claims by writing a history of Dionysus' visits to Attica in remote antiquity, each accompanied by gifts that resulted in the invention and refinement of choral music itself. Three important visits established different cults: Dionysus Icarius, Dionysus of the Marshes, and Dionysus Eleuthereus. Phanodemus' propaganda served as ideological tools for Lycurgus expansion of the Athenian festival programme. The histories of the beginning of music and drama are mainly mythical inventions, often motivated by patriotism. In this chapter I wish to examine a flurry of mythhistories related to Dionysian music and drama that were generated in the 340s to 320s BCE,1 and one historian in particular, Phanodemus of Athens, who is the ultimate source of some of what later antiquity tells about the origins of music (including drama). We will explore in turn: the circumstances that gave rise to the particular flurry of invention at this time; the relevant fragments of Phanodemus and others who followed his work; and finally their implications for theatre history.

No AccessLachares and Menander: a Theatre-Historical Look at POxy 1235, col iii, 103–112Eric CsapoEric Csapohttps://doi.org/10.13109/9783946317999.49SectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail About Previous chapter Next chapter FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Download book coverStudia ComicaVolume 11 1st editionISBN: 978-3-946317-26-5 eISBN: 978-3-946317-99-9HistoryPublished online:February 2021 PDF download

The competitive spirit has long been singled out as a distinctive feature of ancient Greek civilization. The external and public orientation of consciousness and identity is another. It is not surprising, therefore, that scholarship has taken a keen interest in the rituals of public recognition for athletic victories. Surprisingly little attention, however, has been directed to victory rituals for musical and dramatic competitions. Scholars are content to guess that victory rituals for choral and dramatic victors were much the same as for athletic victors even in the case of the relatively well-attested Athenian dramatic festivals. No one has yet collected and sifted through all the evidence. In doing so, I hope to clarify common misconceptions about the time and place at which both official and unofficial rituals for theatrical victories in classical Athens took place. Specifically, I will demonstrate that the official crowning of victors in the theatre was followed (probably immediately as the victor moved to celebrate the epinikia in the main precinct of the Sanctuary of Dionysus) by three of the rituals also attested for athletes: the carrying of the winners on their friends' shoulders (periagermos); the showering of the victors with flowers and garlands (phyllobolia); and the tying of ribbons on the victors' heads, arms, and legs (tainiosis).

This is the second volume of A Social and Economic History of the Theatre to 300 BC and focuses exclusively on theatre culture in Attica (Rural Dionysia) and the rest of the Greek world. It presents and discusses in detail all the documentary and material evidence for theatre culture and dramatic production from the first two centuries of theatre history, namely the period c.500 to c.300 BC. The traditional assumption is laid to rest that theatre was an exclusively or primarily Athenian institution, with the inclusion of all sources of information for theatrical performances in twenty-two deme sites and over one hundred and twenty independent Greek (and some non-Greek) cities. All texts are translated and made accessible to non-specialists and specialists alike. The volume will be a fundamental work of reference for all classicists and theatre historians interested in ancient theatre and its wider historical contexts.

GREEK TRAGEDY: CHANGE AND CONTINUITY - (E.) Stewart Greek Tragedy on the Move. The Birth of a Panhellenic Art Form c. 500–300 bc. Pp. xviii + 261. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Cased, £65, US$95. ISBN: 978-0-19-874726-0. - Volume 68 Issue 2

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This chapter surveys evidence for the spread, in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, of drama and theatrical culture around the eastern Mediterranean from Sicily to Babylon and from the Black Sea to Cyrene. 116 sites are examined with some attention given to the chronological, social, political and festival context of the reception of theater and, where specifically attested, of drama.