A HISTORY OF THEATRE
PART I
Ancient Theatre - Roots
Introduction
When the first human being dropped out of a tree or woke up in Eden, looked around and saw another human being, at that moment theatre was born. The urge to communicate to others, to share an experience and to stimulate a reaction in others, all these basic urges lie at the heart of theatre.
Humans tried to bring order and gain empowerment over their lives and their environment in the face of a seemingly chaotic universe filled with awesome powers. By taking on the appearance of other beings and forces, by moving their movements and sounding their sounds, the human could understand another being by becoming one. This process of becoming another being gave them a sense of power and a belief that they understood the being they became.
Gradually groups of people banded together into tribes. Tribes coalesced into peoples. Slowly, and with great difficulty, they came to understand agriculture and husbandry. They discovered the possibilities of shaping and manipulating wood, rock and metals. They come to know fire and how it could change mud into pottery and sand into glass.
Finally, they discovered the secrets of a heat so great that lumps of metallic rock could be transformed into metals. With metal, heat, and a great deal of effort, all sorts of useful and beautiful things could be made, swords, ploughshares and statues. With this knowledge and these skills, peoples became nations and began to build cities and establish what we now call civilizations.
As civilizations come into being it became necessary for the rulers and priests to communicate to their people. Kings need to share their dreams of conquest and desires for prosperity and order with their subjects. Priests need to stimulate their flocks to obedience and worship the awesome power of their gods. Theatre provides the obvious means to accomplish these goals.
The theatre might have been lost in the mists of time and distance were it not for one other passionate people, the Romans. After the decline in prosperity and influence of Greece, the Macedonion General Alexander plants theaters and Greek plays from India to Spain. The breakup of Alexander's empire leaves Rome to pick up the pieces. Rome carries Greek ideas and Greek theatre from Africa to England and from Spain to Germany. The Romans plant theatre so widely and so deeply in the territory they conquer, that it is able to survive the long Dark Ages of social disintegration and economic dissolution. In the Middle Ages, the theatre remerges under the protection of the Church, gradually moving out on its own. Finally, theatre will rise again in all its many forms with the rise of humanism. It will again escape the hands of kings and priests and belong to the people.
CHAPTER ONE...Before the Ionians [sample chapter - ChapOne]
CHAPTER TWO...The Greeks Theatre Is Born In Athens - Chapter Two CHAPTER THREE...The Hellenistic World Through Alexander, Theatre Spreads Throughout The Known World - chap3
CHAPTER FOUR...The Romans From Greek Imitations Through Technical Innovation - chap4
CHAPTER FIVE...After The Fall The Dark Ages and Why They Aren't So Dark chap5
CHAPTER SIX...Into The Middle Ages chap6
next Chapter One or PartTwo back Theatre History
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CHAPTER ONE
Before the Ionians
Introduction
Long before the first appearance of the human activity we call theatre, there was the development of theatrical elements. These elements seem to be central to the human experience. The primary theatrical element is difficult to describe, but it involves the awareness of a power beyond the visible world and the invoking, embodying and manipulating of that power. For convenience we can call this element "magic."
The other elements are easy to understand. Everyone, regardless of the society they grow up in, plays at being someone else, seeks out and wears costumes, loves masks and disguises, practices and does special gestures, movements and dance. Everyone enjoys activities that make use of these elements, especially when they are done with a group.
As human history emerged from the mists of pre-recorded history and into recorded time we find any number of places where theatrical elements are coming together and becoming more sophisticated and organized. While there are undoubtedly many occasions when these come together among the common people, at their celebrations and festivals, written records deal only with those that involve rulers and priests. The most extensive records we know of at this time come to us from Egypt.
While these ancient civilizations left extensive records, written and drawn in great detail, other Mediterranean societies were developing, flourishing and changing. These other societies left very little in the way of written records, but their characteristics, gods, heroes and myths came down to the Greeks who would develop the theatre we know.
The Tap Root: Play
PLAY IS MORE THAN " SHOW AND TELL" As a number of people have said, play is older than culture and whatever else theatre may be, it is certainly a play activity.
Play brings order out of chaos. There is nothing ordinary or "real" about play. It is a voluntary and conscious stepping outside chaotic and uncertain real life into a very special world of order with rules all its own. Although play doesn't put food on the table or a roof over your head it does seem to be a human necessity. In some way play makes real life meaningful. Through play a society expresses and affirms its identity, values, ideals and ways of doing things because all play means something. In this way play contributes to the well-being of the society or the group. It establishes and reaffirms the identity of the society. In this way it is essential and more important to the group than food, shelter or survival.
Play can only be understood as a totality with its own rules, its own time and space. Every kind of play has its own playing field and a definite beginning and end to the play activity. Inside the activity there is a very special and absolute order which creates a limited perfection. To be able to play, the players must play by the rules and this creates tension. In play the courage, tenacity, resources, and, above all, the player's sense of fairness are tested to the limits.
Playing isn't just "pretend" but an exciting, absorbing, rapturous and intense involvement in something meaningful and satisfying. Players believe in their play. That is the basic law of play. It requires unquestioning belief. In playing, the laws and customs of everyday life don't count. The players are different than they are in real life, and they do things differently.
The differentness of the player is obvious in "dressing up," masks and disguises. A disguised or masked individual plays another part. They become another being. Often this being is more terrible or more beautiful, and more powerful, than any human could be. The player uses their imagination, makes an image and identifies with that image. Something invisible takes form. Playing involves actions. The meaning of the play can be found in the acting out of the intentions and interactions of the players within the rules of the game. The actions make a complete and meaningful pattern. When the pattern is complete, the activity is over.
Magic
A human being experiences the real world as a chaotic and confusing place. There are powerful forces at work every where. Sun, wind, storm, tides, volcanoes, earthquakes, all the forces of nature happen without visible cause. Plants, animals and human beings are born, grow and die, without visible cause. Edible plants, animals to hunt, appear and disappear with no discernible cause. In order to survive, humans had to learn about cause and effect where that was possible. They also had to come up with some way of dealing with all the forces which seemed to have no visible cause.
One way of dealing with these mysterious forces was through play. Wherever these forces came from, they were not "here" in this real world, but, through play, they could be imagined, made into an image and brought into the play world. If you wanted a herd of antelope to come near enough to be hunted you could disguise yourself as an antelope, move like an antelope, become an antelope. By becoming an antelope the player could come to understand the forces that moved the antelope and work to bring that quarry near. In becoming another being, the player had to temporarily give up their own identity, their own personhood which existed outside the play, and permit themselves to be taken over. The player is "seized," by the force or the spirit of the being they had to become. Other players believe that the force has appeared among them. They witness the force acting upon themselves and upon other beings. They have witnessed power and they have made magic together. In this way the playing has served the group and the society. They will carry their knowledge and confidence into the real world and the real hunt.
More Than Hunting
Most of what we know about early societies is about hunting and gathering food. Not only do we have cave paintings and hunting tools from thousands of years ago, we also have a few societies in New Guinea, South America and Australia where we can see people who are still engaged in these activities. We can also see the play activities, the rites and rituals, which these societies perform in relation to acquiring food.
We can visit the Hopi or Zuni Indians in Arizona and witness the Kachina dances, but our society is so different from theirs that we can understand very little of the real meaning in these performances. We cannot witness these, we can only see them. To truly be a witness requires that we also be a player, and that we know the rules and understand the real meaning of what we see and hear.
Rites and rituals relating to human fertility are even farther from our understanding. Today we know too much about the technical details of cause and effect to understand the point of view of people thousands of years ago. We have found thousands of "fertility" statues and dolls which were made at different times and in different places all over the world. We know nothing of what they meant or how they related to the societies that produced them. It is generally agreed that they have some relation to what is generally called the "Mother" religion, but we know nothing of the rites and rituals which these numerous societies performed. Being human ourselves, we can imagine they were concerned with invoking forces and powers to ensure that the women of that society gave birth to many healthy babies and that the health and well being of all the members of the society was promoted and protected. Other rites and rituals dealt with the mystery of death. We find this much easier to understand because we still have our own rites and rituals concerning death.
The Hero
One of the interesting aspects of early rituals dealing with death leads down through thousands of years and into recorded history. It also directly affects the development of theatre. This aspect concerns the notion of what we have come to call the hero. There have been any number of books and articles written on the subject of the hero. This, alone, tells us the subject is regarded as important. There are, however, a few things that can be said as a starting point.
A hero is defined by the society in which it occurs. The gender of a hero is determined by the characteristics the society wants to embody. It is only later that we begin to use the term "heroine" to identify a female hero and often "heroine" is used simply to identify the female with whom the hero is involved. Consequently, it will be less confusing if the term hero is understood to apply to a female, a male, a god or any other creature who embodies the characteristics which a particular society regards as important and central to their value system. The characteristics which define a hero come from two sources.
First, the hero is the central figure in the action. As we noted earlier, the player who becomes the dominant force, or embodies the particular power which is central to the play action, is the key to understanding the meaning of the action. No doubt, in prehistory, the member of society who played this hero role was the high priest or shaman. Naturally the spiritual leader of a society was more likely to be in closer touch with the invisible world than someone else. Later, when society was more highly organized, the ruler (King, Pharaoh, whatever the title) would be the hero of those activities which concerned governing, ruling, and even military matters.
which that person's deeds were reproduced. This would provide an understanding of why and how those deeds were important. Sometimes that person would be the central figure in activities that dealt with new challenges that faced the society. In these the character of the hero would provide insights into how society might deal with such challenges.
Quite distinct from these two sources of the hero was the development of the comic hero. This figure appeared in other rituals concerning social manners, mores and common matters of the community. There were two kinds of comic hero. The most popular one was the "bad guy" who got his just deserts. This kind would embody the society's view of those characteristics which were unpopular and unacceptable behavior. These heroes would engage in actions rejected by the society and would meet with terrible and funny consequences.
The other comic hero was the typical citizen who encountered the typical range of misfortune and disaster and made the typical mistakes in everything they did. This comic hero always managed to bounce back from every catastrophe and, usually by good luck rather than skill, come out on top at the end. We know almost nothing of the historical development of the comic heroes and their actions. When we reach historical times and recorded events, they appear fully developed in many cultures. We will meet they later under the name of farces in Ancient Greece and Etrusca. What is most relevant about heroes, comic and serious, is how they embody the primary concerns of the society in which they appear. When these concerns are shared by other societies in other times and places, these heroes will be used again.
The TIMELINE for pre-history:
ca. 9,000 BCE the earliest evidence of the city of Catal Huyuk ca. 6,250 to 5,000 BCE the city of Catal Huyuk flourishes 8,350 - 7,350 BCE the city of Jericho flourishes
7,000 BCE early copper
6,000 BCE first known pottery and woolen textiles 5,000 BCE to 4,000 BCE sophisticated copper work [traditional date of creation for Creationists falls in here] 4,000 BCE Bronze casting and first use of plough
3,500 BCE Megalith tombs in British Isles, Brittany, Iberian peninsula invention of wheel, plough and sail (Near East)
3100 BCE pictograph writing
3000 BCE development of major cities in Near East
Historical Times
The emergence of the first civilizations marks a new phase of world history. They arose almost simultaneously in four different areas of the world, apparently unconnected with each other. Two of these areas, the Indus valley on the Indian subcontinent and the Yellow River in China, are not directly relevant here since they had no known connection with, or influence on, the development of theatre in the west. The other two, in the lower Tigris and Euphrates valleys and the valley of the Nile, are relevant. These cradles of civilization and the many societies that grew up in and around them directly affected the rise of theatre and the society that gave it birth. The characteristic feature of these civilizations was the city.
Interestingly enough, the earliest cities we know anything about (Jericho in Palestine and Catal Huyuk on the Anatolian plain of Turkey) are not located in either of these cradles of civilization. These two cities are relics of civilizations we know very little about and are useful here only as reference points in time which reveal human society in command of metal working, highly organized, with wide spread commerce and a social organization capable of building extensive cities. It is only after the development of writing that we are able to discover details about Egypt and the Middle East, as well as other societies that rose and fell throughout these centers and around the Mediterranean.
The city became an increasingly dominant social form of organizing people. A city meant a complex division of labor, a literate priesthood to keep track of things, monumental public buildings, political and religious hierarchies, a divine kingship and some sort of an empire to supply the needs of the city.
There are two important thing we know about these societies: first, none of them developed theatre; second, as time passed all of them developed the full range of theatrical elements needed for the birth of theatre. Knowing something about the societies in which theatre does not develop enables us to better understand what theatre is and how it relates to those other societies in which it does appear.
The most obvious characteristic of these civilizations, that seems to preclude the development of theatre, is religion. If the ruler is descended from the gods and only the priesthood is literate then these two segments of the society have a monopoly on direct access to the supernatural powers and to communication with them. In order to maintain their power and authority they will tend to be ruthless and their gods will demand strict obedience and great sacrifice from the rest of the population. The municipal buildings will be primarily temples and residences of the king and the priesthood.
These highly structured societies use rituals to demonstrate and confirm the power of the king and priests to the population. They develop elaborate costumes, use masks and make-up, carry symbols of authority ("props"), appear in, and in front of, spectacular architecture and decorations (scenery), engage in complex rites and rituals (plots) involving significant actions that reveal the awesomeness of their power.
Memphite Sacred Drama
ca. 3100 BCE Memphite Drama (Coronation Festival Play)
The text contains a "presenter"'s narrative and a libretto, or sequence of dialog, of a sacred drama. The drama opens with a fight, combat or "contest", between two Egyptian gods, Horus and Set, followed by Horus' accession to the Kingship of the Upper and Lower Egypt, which is followed by the death and resurrection of another god, Osiris. The drama is followed in the text by a hymn to the prime god of the city Memphis, Ptah.
This text was apparently used at the annual festival on the first day of spring. The festival celebrated the seasonal cycle of death and rebirth (death in winter and rebirth in spring). It put special emphasis on the death and resurrection of Osiris and on the coronation of the king as the symbol of the regenerated community. The king was identified with the god Horus and was descended from him. At another Egyptian city, Edfu, the festival drama was known as the "New Year of Horus". Both dramas featured combat between two teams.
The combat between Horus and Set is the typical ritual combat between all of the opposites: the old year and the new, summer and winter, life and death, rain and drought, etc. The death and rebirth of Osiris reinstates the king for another year. The plot or pattern of action is typical of many sacred dramas and can be useful here as a plot outline to compare with later real plays.
ACT ONE: COMBAT There is a fight between Horus and Set. The Holy Family of the Nine Great Gods persuades Geb, the god of the earth, to stop the fight. Geb makes Set king of Upper Egypt and Horus king of Lower Egypt.
ACT TWO: UNIFICATION AND CORONATION Geb resents Set and makes his own son, Horus, king of both, uniting the two Egypts. The king is coronated as the embodiment of Horus and "sole inheritor" of the united land.
ACT THREE: DEATH AND REBIRTH Set attacks Osiris and he lies in the reeds, by the water's edge, on the point of death. His wife, Isis, son Horus and Nephthys rescue him and bring him back to life.
ACT FOUR: THE KING IS INSTALLED IN A NEWLY CONSTRUCTED PALACE This involves a procession to the new palace and the installation of the king.
ACT FIVE: THE DISSENSIONS IN THE LAND ARE RESOLVED AND ORDER IS ESTABLISHED Set is reconciled with Horus. All strife ceases. Continued prosperity is established. Everybody apparently shakes hands and makes up. the last line is "...wipe away the tear from every face..."*
ACT SIX: PROCESSION INTO THE CITY The text of this is lost but it seems to praise the city and confirm the rule of the king over the city.
EPILOG: A HYMN TO PTAH A hymn of praise to the patron god of the city of Memphis. It emphasizes the connections between the gods and between the gods and the king. It praises the city as being the special care of Ptah.
performed for a very long time, because ca. 1868 BCE, we hear about an actor, I-Kher-nefret, who plays the leading role in Abydos.
Wrapup
By this point in time we have all the theatrical elements needed to create real theatre. The plot which centers on conflict and ends with a resolution of all major conflicts, dialog, characters, thought, scenery, props, masks or make-up and architecture for a public assembly. We also have well organized societies with large populations, good prosperity and large buildings. The only thing missing is a desire on the part of the society for theatrical activities apart from their political and religious dramas. This is a situation which will reccur much later, in Medieval times.
The Mediterranean World That The Ionions Came Into
The Mediterranean world was a busy place with all sorts of folks coming and going. People (ethnic and linguistic groups) were constantly moving into the built up parts, settled in unoccupied places, fighting each other, conquering or being conquered, taking captives for slaves or being enslaved and generally keeping the whole eastern end of the Mediterranean humming.
Meanwhile there were adventurous merchant types who sailed all over the Sea, and probably ventured out into the Atlantic, buying goods in one place and selling them in others. A recent shipwreck found off the coast of Turkey dates from around 4000 BCE and was filled with goods imported from around the coast from Egypt to Greece.
Changing copper into bronze by adding a little tin had greatly improved the metals market by 3000 BCE. and a small multinational area blossomed in and around the Mediterranean sea. Trade came from as far away as India. One of the societies central to this vigorous trade was the Minoans.
The Minoans
Beginning about 3000 BCE
In the eastern end of the Mediterranean a civilization began to develop centered on the island of Crete. It's only recently that we've found out enough about these people, the Minoans, to learn something of their place in the development of the later cultures of Greece.
The mountainous island of Crete lies at the southern edge of the Aegean Islands, a chain of islands linking Greece with the Turkish mainland. South of Crete there is nothing but sea until you reach the African coast. At this point in time, when most sailing vessels hugged the coast, Crete was fairly remote from Egypt, the nearest civilized power.
regarded them as visiting foreigners (rather than vassal states) to the Egyptian court. This is at a time when Egypt has a tendency to conquer any prosperous civilization it could reach. The Minoans developed their own form of writing, were renowned all over the Mediterranean for their craftsmanship in pottery, all kinds of metal work, carpentry, weaving and all varieties of manufactured goods. They exported perfume, olive oil and grain. They were famous as a center of worship of the Mother goddess and for their athletic bull dancing.
The symbol of the bull, the strange athletic activity of bull-leaping and the myth of the monster bull in the palace maze, all may owe something to the prevalence of earthquakes in the area. One of the most prominent archeologists on Crete, Sir Arthur Evans, describes the sound of an earthquake he experienced there as being like the muffled roar of an angry bull*. Of the more than ninety cities on Crete, the capital, Knossos was the most beautiful and extensive. Even the plumbing was exceptional.
A number of aspects of the Minoan culture would be transmitted down to the Greeks. The Minoan version of the Mother goddess seems to have migrated to Greece Two familiar myths of the Greeks tell of this civilization. The first concerns the king of the Greek gods, Zeus, who was supposedly born on Crete's Mount Ida and had his tomb there on Mount Juktas. Zeus, in the shape of a bull, pursued the beautiful girl, Europa, and carried her on his back to Crete. There he seduced her and she gave birth to three sons, one of whom, Minos, became the king of Crete.
The second legend concerns the Greek hero Theseus. Athens sent seven youths and seven maidens as tribute to King Minos every nine years. These were given to the monster, part bull, part man, which King Minos kept in the labyrinth of his palace. One year Theseus chose to go as one of the youths. Ariadne, daughter of Minos, fell in love with Theseus and gave him a ball of thread to unravel as he went into the labyrinth. He killed the monster and fled with the girl. Later plays of the classical Greek period include stories of Theseus and his later wife, Phaedra. These myths and many of the splendid products of the Minoan culture made their way to Greece by way of another obscure group of people, the Mycenaeans.
The Mycenaeans
Mycenae 1600-1100 BCE
Direct Predecessors And Source Of Heroes And Plots
Outside Athens there is evidence of an early fortified town that dates back to at least 2000 BCE. Other Mycenaean towns are even older. Between 2000 and 1700 BCE the mainland of Greece was invaded by waves of the first Greek-speaking peoples. They came, apparently, from Anatolia and conquered Troy at the same time, settling there about 1950 BCE. These immigrants came under the influence of the Minoans of Crete.
We have no written record of Mycenae but they had, as did many other cultures, a strong oral tradition. Oral tradition rested in a special class who were trained from early youth to memorize very long passages of history, legends and tales of heroes. These Bards would recite or sing passages at special events and for the entertainment of the king and the people. We know a great deal about the work and tradition of the Bard from other cultures: the Celts, particularly the Irish; and the Scandanavian, especially the Norse.
The Mycenaeans seem to have been in a close trading relationship with Crete and apparently worshiped the Cretan Mother goddess. What we know about this culture comes from archeological study and the later Greek writings when the main body of their oral traditions were written down.
We do know that there were two massive natural disasters that completely changed the cultures of Minoa and Mycaena. The first, and earliest, directly affected the Minoans. Somewhere between 1500 and 1450 BCE there was a cataclysmic volcanic eruption and accompanying earthquakes which almost completely obliterated the island of Thera sending clouds of volcanic ash into the atmosphere to circle the globe for years.
Thera was some miles due north of Crete and was the religious center of the worship of the Mother goddess. Most of the buildings on Crete were destroyed by this event although the main palace at Knossos survived to be burned at a later date. Much later the Greeks would attribute this kind of event to Poseiden the "earth-shaker". The Minoan civilization limped along for another few hundred years but mainly in the hands of new immigrants and invaders. The glory that was Crete at the height of its powers was gone as * ca. 1450 BCE marks the end of Minoan civilization. This left a power vacuum in the Aegean sea and the Mycenaeans rapidly moved in to fill it.
Everything we know about the people and events of the Mycenaean period come from later writings in classical Greece. The accuracy of these accounts, five hundred to a thousand years after the people lived and events transpired, is fantastically accurate. The faithfulness of the bards is uncanny. Rooms, furniture, shield and armor have been found in places and dated to times that match exactly the stories. It was, in fact, these stories which led men to search in the right places, dig, and recover all of the archeological material we know of today.
The Mycenaean society resembled the despotic kingdoms of the Near East much more than it did the later Greek city-states. There are records from Crete under the Mycenaean rule that tell a great deal about the economy and commerce of these people. There are lists of the king's possessions, women engaged in weaving and supplies brought in for the manufacture of perfumed oil.
Greek Mythology of Gods and original creation - CHAOS - primeval state of confusion and shapelessness GE or GAEA - mother earth, who emerged from Chaos, nourishes all life, receives all in death, mother of numerous offspring
First Generation of Gods: URANUS, heaven, son of Gaea, rules with her, he ruled heaven, she ruled earth - they produced a large number of offspring - the most important were the TITANS, these were exceptionally strong and personified natural forces. OCEANUS (a river encircling earth) RHEA (agriculture) CRONUS (cyclical agricultural time) IAPETUS (volcanoes) PROMETHEUS fore-thinker ATLAS strength
Here, too, we find all the great heroes, the royal houses and the mighty and tragic events that make up the body of Greek legend and form the basis for almost all the great Greek tragedies. Many of these are to be found in the stories about the greatest Mycenaean event, the Trojan War Others dealt with Kings and events from an earlier period. Theseus, for example, mentioned above in relation to the Minos Bull monster, become king of Athens on the death of his father Aegeus. There are a number of legends about this family.
Oedipus and his relatives come to us from this period. The major players of the Trojan war who ruled the various parts of Mycenae provide a number of plots and characters. The leader of the Greek host, Agamemnon, shows up as the starting point of the great Aeschylean trilogy, the Oresteia.
It is very unclear what happened to wipe out this culture that had taken over the rich trade of the Minoans and enlarged it. There are several factors we do know about which must have contributed to their decline.
First was the Trojan War which definitely seems to have taken place, although we are not quite sure when. Troy, on the northwestern coast of Turkey, had moved in to fill the power vacuum left by the collapse of the Hittite kingdom. Placed, as it was, on the crossroads of trade from the north and trade from the east, it had grown fat and led a confederacy to rival the Mycenaeans. There was extensive trade between them. The abduction of Helen, wife of the Mycenaean Menelaeus (brother of Agamemnon) may or may not have actually occurred. If so, it was probably a useful pretext to launch a war of plunder on a city renowned for its gold. There is a suspiciously similar story from an earlier date in Canaanite literature.
However it began, the Trojan War debilitated the victors as well as destroying Troy At roughly the same time a strange bunch known simply as the Sea Peoples invaded the Syrian coast and cut off much of the Mycenaean trade with Asia. This no doubt led to an even greater economic depression. And, if this wasn't enough, a really rugged group of barbarians know as the Dorians, also Greek speaking, began overrunning Greece from the north around 1150 BCE
moved north and began to inundate the Hungarian plain. The Mediterranean storm track bumped up against the mountain spine of Greece and dropped all its moisture on the western slopes. The main area of Myceanae went into a severe drought, along with all of the Aegean, Macedonia and Turkey. The drought would last for almost a hundred years and the Mycenaeans disappeared without a trace.
Briefly, let's recap the timeline of current events: ca.1200 BCE there is a big change in the weather invasions of "Sea Peoples" into Mediterranean disruption of tin trade and a switch from bronze to IRON beginning of Jewish Religion collapse of Hittite Empire Mycenean civilization collapses c.1100 BCE Final destruction of Mycenae and the appearance of early city-states ruled by kings accompanies the Dorian move down through Greece into the Peloponnese
At the end of the Bronze Age a bunch of barbarous peoples overrun the Mycenaean and Hittite civilizations. The Mycenaean refugees escaped over seas.
The entire Aegean plunges into a Dark Age. Migrations increase and we finally see the appearance of the really bright wing of the Greek speaking people, the Ionians, who start migrations into Asia Minor between 1100 and 1000 BCE Somehow the history and the oral tradition of the Mycenaeans survive through the bards, and both the Dorians and the Ionians really take it to heart as their own. After all, it is in Greek.
1100 to 1000 BCE The Ionian Greeks migrate south and west, to Ionia. The people who will be known as the Etruscans arrive in Italy. The Phonecians spread throughout Mediterranean. c.1100 - c.800 BCE DARK AGE Finally, the weather in eastern Greece, the Aegean and Asia Minor returns to normal rainfall. The art of writing has been lost among the Greeks and when writing reemerges it is a diffrent form, recognizable as ancient Greek. 900 BCE Dorian Greek migrations to Aegean islands and Asia Minor
Homer
All of which leads to a rather misty character called Homer. Misty because no one is really sure that there was such a person. It may be that there were a number of writers, or there really may have been such a man. Whatever the case, sometime around 800 and 700 BCE, Homer composes the world's two greatest epics about the Trojan War, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The works are obviously Ionian and infinitely superior in literary value to anything else that survives from the whole period. Western literature begins with Homer. He lived on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor, probably in Smyrna or Chios. He was said to be blind. Epics are long narrative poems written in a dignified style about really important and majestic themes. They concern the doings of the culture's heroes from early times. Usually they deal with that part of the legendary past that the people want to remember and want as a model for society now. Of course, they include a lot about the influence of the gods.
HESTIA (fire of the hearth) HADES (underworld) DEMETER (grain and agriculture) POSEIDON (sea and horses) HERA (patron of marriage) ZEUS (intelligence, sky and storms). Greek Mythology of Gods the Third Generation Another rebellion led by Zeus results in a battle between Titans and Gods, between intelligence and brute strength. Zeus and his generation win and reorganize running the universe. The result is that Cronus is banished along with all but three of the Titans. These are:
Atlas who is assigned to hold up the heavens, Oceanus who has been neutral Prometheus who sided with Zeus (and who approves intelligence and opposes force and brings fire to mankind.) The victors divide up the universe. Of the twelve leaders, Zeus gets the sky, Poseidon the sea, Hades the underworld, and all take an interest in earth. This newest group is called the "Olympian gods," after Mount Olympus where they supposedly dwell. They each have particular spheres of power. The Twelve Olympians ZEUS king of gods HERA patron of marriage HESTIA domestic life DEMETER grain, agriculture POSEIDON sea, horses HEPHAESTUS fire, smith of gods ARES offensive war APHRODITE love beauty, fertility ATHENA wisdom, defensive war, HERMES cunning, messenger of gods, god of thieves, etc. APPOLO sun, music, prophecy, archery, medicine ARTEMIS hunting, wild animals, moon, childbirth
The Iliad
This epic deals with events personalities and gods on the Greek side involved in forty-seven days in the tenth year of the Trojan War. It is necessary to be familiar with who the characters are, who the gods are, and what has happened to start the war and for the past ten years. All that is a bit much to cover here, but since the Greek period is based on the doings of many of these episodes we will take a quick look at the major players.
TROY (Ilium) - Ruled by King Priam, his wife Hecuba, their sons Paris and Hector, his wife Andromache, their infant son Astyanax; Priam's son-in-law Aeneas, Priam's daughter Cassandra, a priestess of Apollo and a prophetess. These were the main players on the Trojan side. The allies of Troy in this war were Pandarus, Sarpedon and Glaucus from Lycia. The ACHAEANS (Greeks) - This group was more complicated since it was made up of leaders and heroes from a number of places, a sort of United Nations force from all over Greece. They weren't too happy working together, but reluctantly agreed to let Agamemnon (King of Mycenae) lead the coalition. He was regarded as the best general. The other prominent leaders were Menelaus, his brother, King of Sparta and husband of the abducted Helen (the one blamed for the whole thing); Achilles (the one with the vulnerable heel) the greatest hero, from Thessaly, accompanied by his friends and relations; his cousin, Ajax (a terrific fighter but short on brains) from Salamis; Achilles friends Antilochus and Patroclus; then there were the contingent from other Greek societies Diomedes, son of the King of Argos; Idomeneus, from Crete; Nestor, son of the King of Pylos; and finally, Odysseus King of Ithaca (more about him later as the hero of the Odyssey).
Briefly - The Trojan War
goes to Aphrodite. This does not sit well with the other two contestants, Hera and Athene. The bribe he took was the promise that he should have the most beautiful woman in the world. Now everyone knew that Helen (currently married to Menelaus), was the most beautiful woman around. In fact, all the men who had tried to win her had taken a great oath. They swore they would fight for the man who became her husband if he had any problems because of his marriage. And he was about to have some terrific troubles.
Aphrodite takes Paris to visit the happy couple. The husband goes off on a trip to Crete and Paris hops a ship with the fair Helen and sails home to Troy. When Menelaus gets home and finds his wife missing the call goes out for a war party. Not everyone answers the draft call right away. Odysseus doesn't want to leave his wife and son to fight for a cheating woman. Achilles's mother doesn't want to send her boy to war because she knew he was going to die there, so she puts him in women's clothes. But both heroes are tracked down and join the war party.
Everybody met on the coast at Aulis where a thousand ships waited to carry the host of Greek warriors over the sea. But the wind kept blowing the wrong way. The soothsayer Calchas figured out that the only way to fix the wind was to sacrifice Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon. As a father he wasn't too happy about this, but as Commander in Chief he didn't see much choice. It was either kill her or his reputation and ambition to conquer Troy. Ambition won out she had been sacrificed. The wind changed and they were off to Troy. The ships landed, the battle began and all the heroes did their best for home and glory. This went on for nine years and nobody gained an inch. Then the gods began to fight too. Agamemnon had made off with a priest's daughter and that made Apollo mad. He began to help the Trojans and spread disease among the Greeks. The girl had to be returned but Agamemnon took Achilles' girl as a replacement. This made Achilles mad and he stayed in his tent and sulked. By now the war had reached Olympus, what with each side praying for help the other gods began to take sides.
The gods on the side of the Greeks were: Athena and Hera (because they lost the beauty contest), Poseidon (because they were sea people), Hephaestus, Thetis (Achilles' mother and a sea nymph) The gods pulling for Troy were: Aphrodite (on the side of Paris), Ares (always sided with her), Apollo, Artemis (sided with her brother), Zeus (sometimes, because he was caught between Hera and Thetis). There followed a series of meddling and interference by the gods, now one way, now the other. There were spectacular fights between heroes from both sides and one by one they die. The Iliad ends with the funeral of Hector.
The Odyssey
The Last Pieces
ENTERTAINERS -
Homer gives us a marvelous look at a full range of entertainers as he proceeds through his epics. He shows us acrobats, dancers, musicians, singers and story tellers. There seem to be performers of all kinds and all skills in the society he knows. More importantly, they seem to be professional performers. They do this for their livelihood. This shows us a pool of trained and talented people who will be available for theatre when it occurs. As we move through the years between Homer's writings and the rise of Athens as a center of Greek culture we spend the time ca. 800 BCE through ca. 600 BCE with increasing kinds of entertainment.
PATTERN OF ANCIENT COMIC PLAY:
PROLOGUE which gives the exposition telling what you need to know -
ENTRANCE OF CHORUS (Parodos) - the major character representing the whole society but with a definite character and point of view -
CONTEST (agon) between representatives of the two parties or principles which begins with a quarrel, goes on to a fight, may include a trial and ends in the complete defeat of the bad guy- (Parabasis) a break dividing the first part from last part in which the players talk to the audience (like a stand-up comedian)
SACRIFICE AND FEAST - even the audience shares the feast
A FESTIVAL PROCESSION AND MARRIAGE - binds the community to the winner A BIG CELEBRATION (Komos) - usually lots of dancing and singing
EXODUS - everybody leaves
We also know that somewhere in the background, being performed for celebrations, market days and who knows what, was what is best described as "vulgar comedy". This seems to be part mime, part burlesque, part farce. It could best be compared to the clown acts at the circus. There are very few solid facts about this activity, but it obviously existed. It seemed to be found all over. There are a number of references to the Megaran farces and mimes and to the masks and other peculiarities that were common in a burlesque form of drama found in Megara, the Peloponnese and in Magna Graecia, in other words all over the Greek peninsula. The Megaran farces were made fun of later as really dull and obvious.
such "heroes" as Herakles (Hercules) and Achilles, who will appear as big burly strong men disguised as women because they are afraid of getting hurt.
The basic action is part of Fertility Rituals but it puts the emphasis on society rather than on the king or leader. Famine, disease, anti-social behavior, death, all these are beaten, chopped up, hung, buried, burned and otherwise disposed of to get rid of the evil. Health, wealth, good times and life are brought in to take their place. The contest is a battle between two opposites, summer and winter, good and evil, the old king and the new. The fertility theme of death and resurrection emphasizes the renewal of the Spirit of Life. The life of the society goes on while individual human lives come and go. For this reason the chorus is as active a character as the other characters. It is not a witness but a participant.
Here, again, there are performers, this time of a sort of street theatre in the whole of Greece. The Dorian Megaran may have been better suited to local yokels in the kind of humor it used, but it will feed into the mainstream later and blend with comedy from many parts of Greece to give rise to the comedy of the Golden Age of Greece.
Afterword
All the pieces are available now: the source of great plots in all the magnificent myths, legends and heroes; the spectacular elements of costume, masks and scenery; the pattern of great municipal architecture for the assembly of the people; the music and dance to embellish the work; performers with all the entertainment skills; even lowly comedy hiding in the background. Now that the elements are here, the only thing lacking is a society that wants and needs theatre. That is the next great movement of human history.
NOTES:
The description of the characteristics of play are drawn from: Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1955).
The discussion of the Memphite Creation Play is drawn from Theodore H. Gaster, Thespis, (New York, Doubleday, 1961).
Drawn in part from The Horizon Book of Lost Worlds, Narrative by Leonard Cottrell, New York, American Heritage, 1962.
Lost Worlds, page 261.
Drawn in part from The Horizon Book of Lost Worlds, Narrative by Leonard Cottrell, New York, American Heritage, 1962.
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CHAPTER TWO
The Greeks
Theatre Is Born In Athens
Introduction -
We begin with a continuation of the migrations of various people. When the Dorians move into Greece, and the drought comes, a large number of Greeks leave the mainland. The Aeolians* migrate to east Asia Minor. The Dorians* keep to the westerns side of the Greek mountains where there is rainfall, and spread south into the Peloponnese*. Later they continue south, into the islands of Crete* and Rhodes* and the southern part of the Asia Minor* coast. The Ionians* move east to Ionia* where they settle on the islands and the Aegean coast of Asia Minor (now Turkey). There the Ionians* begin to develop the culture which will later come to be the glory of Greece. Once the weather improves and their society develops, this Ionian* culture spreads back to those who had remained on the mainland. There it finds a happy home, especially in Athens. The sixth century (the 500's BCE) sees the blossoming of arts all over the Greek world and, in Athens, the founding of a theatre festival, the development of laws and constitutions, and finally, the world's first democracy. The fifth century (the 400's BCE) opens with the first Persian* invasion of Greece and the appearance of the first tragic writer who's work survives to the present. This marks the beginning of the Classical period which includes the work of all the famous Greek playwrights whose whork is extant. The Classical Greek period ends with the Peloponnesian War* in which the dominant city-states challenge each other for supreme leadership of Greece and her colonies and the whole Greek society begins to fall apart.
A Society Forms
*The mainland of Greece has never been a particularly good agricultural land. It has no navigable rivers, water is available primarily from springs and good crop land for grain is slim to none. There are mountains, stony ground, lots of rock and a rocky sea coast all the way around. The whole place is the opposite of the fertile Nile and Tigris and Euphrates river valleys where the weather is basically dependable and irrigation of crops is easy.
ARCHAIC PERIOD by 900 BCE DORIANS* centered in Sparta*, Corinth* and Argos* spread through southern Peloponnese*, islands of Crete* and Rhodes*, and Halicarnassus* on coast of Asia Minor*
c.800-c.500 - the Greeks begin to establish better relations with each other 800 BCE in Italy -height of Etruscan* power [see next chapter] c.800 - c.700 BCE Homer* [possibly in Ionia] composes the Iliad* and Odyssey*
* Things aren't much better in Ionia, but these people are a hardy, pioneering lot, hard-headed and practical. They find islands and coastlines with narrow strips of land, backed by mountains that block the way inland. So, they settle down to make the best of a bad bargain. In small, walled towns they grow olive trees and grape vines. They turn merchants and take to the sea for a living, peddling their olive oil and wine for other trade goods. These intrepid merchants turn their boats into floating supermarkets. They begin to travel all over their eastern part of the Mediterranean trading and selling as they go.
The Ionians* immediately discover two great empires in their neighborhood, the Babylonian and the Egyptian. The Ionians' view of things couldn't have been more different.
SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IONIAN* BABYLONIAN* AND EGYPTIAN*
small towns scattered over islands large cities and coast Theocratic No theocratic tradition, loosely (king descended from god and possessed of organized with a wide range of magical powers) gods, demigods, supernatural a simple mythical explanation of Creation beings, all not related to leaders which, they felt, happened quite recently. not very interested in Creation Dependable physical environment with which happened long ago. abundant crops to feed a large city Undependable physical environment population. with poor land, little water and a Rigid social structure based on the need to need to find other ways to make a build and maintain vast irrigation systems, living besides farming. in which only the priests are permitted to Had rejected kings and royal read, write, study and descendents long ago and had a practice mathematics and astronomy free wheeling social structure little need for scientific or technological where anyone could better experiments: themselves if they could only find a way. enough astronomy to meet immediate They went in for a sort of practical needs (like helping the priests republican city-state system where make magic predictions) a small number of wealthy men ruled by mutual consent. enough geometry to measure land and build Very interested in finding out pyramids everything possible about the real world, astronomy. geometry, mathematics to measure the volume of water mathematics, and biology, etc. reservoirs
the first great natural philosopher, Thales* of Miletus*. They take geometry, expand and develop it and use it as a basic instrument for measuring everything. They begin an intense and ongoing study of nature that will continue for hundreds of years. They notice that nature is made up of opposites, hot and cold, wet and dry, etc. and they use this notion of everything having an opposite in many ways. In their settlements, political decisions are made by the group. They find the members of this group often have opposite points of view. So, they argue these views out publicly to arrive at community decisions. Their main occupation as traders may have helped them realize the importance of compromise.
They put their observations and deductions about nature together with the notion of a world filled with opposites. They do not see the world as something mystical or magical and understood only by priests. They view the world as something you could observe, understand and make practical use of. This realistic view of nature combines with their ideas about political and economic structures. This combination produces a society that will provide the dominant intellectual structure in Western civilization.
One of the most useful and important things the Ionians do is to develop their own laws and legal codes. The older theocracies of Egypt and Babylonia, as well as even earlier civilizations, established their laws from the top down. [One of the most famous and influential earlier legal codes is that of Hammurabi* of Babylonia* (around 1700s BCE).] A good legal system is the only way a society can bring order out of chaos. To have successful commerce you have to be able to count on things people agree to, and have some legal remedy if you don't get what you thought you're due. So, they start building a legal system. The Ionians aren't about to let anyone tell them what their laws should be, so they discuss it, argue about it, and end up with a legal system that embodies all their compromises.
As the Ionians* develop their ideas they also extend their trading and expand it all over the Mediterranean. From about 750 to 550 they found colonies from the Black Sea to Sicily* and trade in everything from silk to salt, as far north as the Russian steppes, south to Nubia* and west to the Atlantic. Their geometry and astronomy enable them to produce the first maps to aid them in their voyages. Gradually all this knowledge and commerce is shared with the Ionians* in Greece and their city-states began to flourish there.
LATE ARCHAIC PERIOD
776 BCE is the traditional date of first Olympic game, *Panhellenic(all Greeks) games begin to be referred to. The most prominent are the Delian* and the Olympian* . There are also: the Isthmian* and the Pythian*.
750 to 550 - Age of colonization by city-states - DORIANS*: Sparta* and Corinth*;
IONIANS* - Attica, Euboea, all centered on the rest of the Greek islands, Ionia from Smyrna* south to Halicarnassus*, Athens* and cities of Asia Minor with colonies from Black Sea to Africa, coast of France and Spain; greatest on Sicily* and southern Italy
NORTH-WEST GREEKS - north west Greece including Delphi* and Olympia* on the north west Peloponnese
AEOLIANS* - Thessaly* and Boeotia*
ARCADIANS* - center of the Peloponnese*, the island of Lesbos*, coast of Asia Minor north of Ionia*
On the Greek mainland and around the Aegean* Sea there are five basic Greek dialects that identify the five different Greek speaking peoples who settled the area. They each have distinctive social characteristics, but the two that stand out are the Spartans* (primarily Dorians* who live in the Peloponnese*) and the Athenians* (Ionians* who have Athens* as their headquarters). No matter how diverse the Greeks, they have a lot in common besides their language and their center in Greece. One of the primary things is their religion and how they relate to it.
This "religion" is very difficult for us to understand, after two thousand years (or more) of monotheistic (one god) experience. We call them "pantheistic", that is, they have many gods and almost everything has a god concerned and connected with it. They take their gods very seriously, but in a different way than we do. Their entire social structure is related to their gods but not dominated by them. One of the easiest ways to begin to understand this is to look at how important contests are to them.
The Greek Notion Of Contest
We think of theatre as something quite different from a boxing match or a pentathlon. The Greeks don't. To them every kind of a contest is equally important, necessary and central to who they are. So if we want to understand the birth of theatre we need to understand the Greek notion of contest. [In Greek, contest is agon*.]
The greatest of the early contests is the Olympic games, held at Olympia*, a city on the river Alpheus in the far wester part of the Peloponneus. It is the chief site of the cult of Zeus*. There these quadrennial (every fourth year) games are held in his honor. The Olympic games* will continue, without interruption, into the fourth century A.D.
The Greeks love to spend their public money on building. These buildings are thought of as serving the whole society. The stadiums, gymnasiums, (and later theatres) are places of assembly for everyone. The events which take place in these buildings, the games, festivals (and later the performances) are not regarded as recreation. Instead, they are exercises full of ethical and religious meaning. These events are essentially public education. Education of the whole public and not just the privileged few.
Everyone has a part to play in all these contests, and they participate as a community in a cultural experience. The Greek notion of amicable competition is the way in which individuals are able to prove their societal worth.
story, in myth and legend, about the hero Heracles* (the Romans will call him Hercules* ) who is thought to be the founder of sports and the first "athlete". Consequently, all Greeks regard physical training as a very important part of the education of all the people.
Sparta* puts a different emphasis on the contest because they are a militaristic bunch who don't think the mind is too important. The other Greek cities think pretty much as Athens does, that the mind is as important as the body.
The public buildings at Olympia* and at Delphi* (for the Pythian* games, a quadrennial event at Delphi in honor of Apollo*) are the most extensive and elaborate. These centers of worship and culture could be thought of as shrines of sports pilgrimage as well as other forms of worship. Visitors from all over Greece and the Greek Mediterranean come as performers or spectators to worship and witness spectacles and parades, and enjoy the fairground atmosphere. Souvenirs, local goods and foreign products are hawked all over the area around the sacred precincts. It is Mardi Gras, Wimbledon, the Super Bowl, the World Series, and Easter in Rome, all wrapped up together.
Slightly smaller but still important festival sports complexes are almost as busy in two other locations. One of the oldest is on the island of Delos* (the Delian* games, in honor of Apollo* on his sacred island). The second is the Isthmian* games (a biennial event, centered in Cornith* and held in honor of Poseidon*).
These festivals and their games are vitally important to the Greeks. When the time of the Olympics* approaches, they send heralds out to every town and through the countryside to announce it. If any of the city-states are fighting each other (as they usually are) a general truce is proclaimed so that every eligible man can compete and attend and people can travel to attend. Soon, theatre will be a vital part of these festival contests, but, before we go deeper into this, we need several other societal elements that are still developing.
753 BCE - Rome* founded c.700 BCE - Hesiod* writes the Theogony (story of the creation and gods)
Meanwhile Things Progress
By 700 BCE the entire peninsula of Attica is organized under Athens*s as a city-state. They are finally into coming up with legal codes (not just a few laws) and the first code of laws in Athens is in 621 BCE, Draco's Code* (from which we get the term "Draconian", meaning harsh or severe laws).
c.636 - c.546 BCE Thales* of Miltetus, founder of Ionian school of natural philosophy 621 BCE - Draco's* code of law in Athens c.600 BCE - coinage introduced
By the end of the seventh century the Greek colonies are booming. Magna Graecia* (the Greek colonies in Italy* and Sicily*) is among the most prosperous. Many philosophers, doctors, musicians, poets and playwrights come, and will come, from these colonies. These places will be on the major touring circuit when we get theatre rolling.
The raw materials stream back to Greece and make it possible for more and more people in Greece to turn from farming to manufacturing. Slowly but surely a working capitalistic system develops. There is already a stable currency and soon there are banks, wholesalers, retailers, warehouses and factories. Corinth,* in particular, becomes a major "mother city" (meaning that she has colonies,) a metropolis. Corinth* has a unique geographical position on the Greek isthmus and is famous for its shipbuilding and shipping.
While there are a number of strong Greek city-states (particularly Corinth* , Sparta* and Thebes* from among the almost fifteen hundred self-governing states) which, together, make up the Hellenic world, we are only concerned here with the Ionian* Athenians*. They are the ones who create theatre and who set the cultural pattern for Western Civilization.
The Mystery Religions
Eleusinian Mysteries* - are supposedly established by Demeter* in a small Attic town (Eleusis*) on the west coast where she had stayed during her search for her kidnaped daughter, Persephone*. After this stay she went forth to spread the knowledge of agriculture over the world.
The mysteries are famous through the Greek (and later Graeco-Roman) world. They are a very well-kept secret and so we know very little about them. They certainly involved long training, and some kind of revelation which probably included a dramatization. It dealt with the death and resurrection theme. It may have exerted some influence on the rise of theatre. Orphic Religion*- concerned the poet-musician Orpheus* and became attached to the Dionysus* cult. It involved a combination of poetry and ritual. Dionysian Mysteries* - These are established in relation to the worship of Dionysus and are widespread. They involve exclusively women. SIXTH CENTURY - The period that establishes the character of Athens includes the worship of the Eleusinian Mysteries at great temple at Eleusis, a small town near Athens and countryside festivals in honor of Dionysus.
The vital facts about this strange god, which interest us here, are those which relate to his place as patron of the theatre. Unfortunately some of them are not facts, but suppositions, assumptions and mostly intelligent guess work. The best source of Dionysus*' story is Euripides*' play The Bacchae*, where we are shown Dionysus*' return to the city of his mother, the opposition against him, and the way in which the women of the town are inspired to run to the hilltops for worship and revel. Men are prohibited from even watching this and peeping Toms are torn apart. The women, in a divine state of ecstasy and madness don't even know what they have done. DIONYSUS* is associated with a number of attendants and symbols. His main symbol is:
Thyrsus* a staff wound with vine leaves, ivy, and a pine cone on top.
Silenus* a horse demon of the Ionian woodlands, the leader of the satyrs and foster father of Dionysus*. He is shown as a fat, old, snub-nosed, big-bellied drunkard riding a donkey
Satyrs* demons of the woodlands with horses' tails, legs.
Maenads* (literally "madwomen") female followers of Dionysus, possessed by the spirit of the god, inspired by music of tambourine and flute. They always danced with great abandon, loose and flowing hair, wore ivy wreaths and carried the thyrsus*.
The Athenian Polis
The term polis* refers to the city-state and its people, a community that acts together to govern itself. Public affairs are regarded as the business of all the citizens. This idea of a self-regulating, self-governing community begins to take off. In the sixth century the distinctive Athenian character becomes established. At this time Athens* is ruled by five archons* who are elected annually by lot from among the citizens. The senior archon is head of this citizen state.
A "citizen" is any property owner who does not work for someone else and is born a Greek of the city-state. Only citizens are allowed to vote and hold public office. A citizen is an all-round man, educated by private schooling, tutors and a grammar school until the age of fourteen. There is no vocational schooling and trades are learned through apprenticeship. Manners are to be learned at home. The wealthy can afford additional training in the private schools. Citizens make up perhaps one percent of the total population. The rest are slaves, women and children, foreigners, and those who work for a living. The real criteria for being a citizen is being free from the need to work so that they can devote themselves totally to the welfare of the community.
The legal system concerned mainly of feudal landlord laws designed to protect the land owners. In Attica there is a rising protest from poor farmers, tenants and small shop owners against the oppression of these big land barons. The Greek ideal of the virtues of community life and dedication to the service of the polis don't bring them any benefits. A class struggle began that would turn into a social revolution. There is a basic belief that every citizen should play some direct part in the governing of the state. This is based on a belief in the rule of law.
At this time, in 594 BCE, a man named Solon* is elected archon and given extraordinary powers to revise the legal code. The very name "Solon" would come to mean "lawgiver". He passed a series of laws which reduced the power of the landlords and set up a system in which the poor can get protection from the rich. He also comes up with a scheme to develop manufacturing. There aren't enough craftsmen in Athens to do this so Solon offered full citizenship to foreign craftsmen if they would immigrate. This is a real milestone in economic growth. He does not, however, do much to change the political institutions. He adds one element, the Council of Four Hundred. This provid some equal representation for each of the four tribes of free Ionian* citizens. More sweeping changes would be left for a later leader. But the foundations of democracy are being laid.
560s to CULTURAL GROWTH IN ATHENS - Athenian society under tyrants Pisistratus* 530s brings annual festival to Dionysus from Eleuthrae (a town northwest) into Athens [NOTE: Eleutheria are "festivals of freedom" Eleutherios means "the deliverer"] 566 institutes religious Panathenaic* (all Athenian) festival of games
The Birth Of Theatre
The birth of the theatre is finally here with the arrival on the scene in 560 BCE of the tyrant (a self-appointed despot who claimed to rule in the people's interest) Pisistratus* who launched the cultural revolution. He turned Athens into the spiritual center of the Attic* communes. He establishes the first religious Panathenaic games* and brings the annual festivals of Dionysus* to Athens. It is in connection with these Dionysian* festivals that the first public contest for a tragic play is set up in Athens. *
546 BCE Persian conquest of Greek Asia Minor
This sudden influx of talent and local interest in both Dionysus and theatre may have had a boost from events to the east. In 546 BCE the Persians* move in on the Ionian settlements in Asia Minor* and conquer Lydia which includes all the cultural centers of Ionia*. It's likely that a number of the artists and artisans take up the promise of full citizenship offered earlier by Solon* and move into Athens* and Attica.
At any rate, we do know that Solon* has seen the actor Thespis* on his travels because he writes about the experience. Thespis* apparently has a terrific reputation and he is the one Pisistratus* chooses to launch the drama contest in Athens.
c.534 BCE the first contest in tragedy with traveling players - Thespis
