The Great Festivals of Athens.
198. The Frequent Festivals at Athens.—Surely our “Day in Athens” has
been spent from morn till night several times over, so much there is to
see and tell. Yet he would be remiss who left the city of Athena before
witnessing at least several of the great public festivals which are the
city’s noble pride. There are a prodigious number of religious
festivals in Athens.[*] They take the place of the later “Christian
Sabbath” and probably create a somewhat equal number of rest days
during the year, although at more irregular intervals. They are far
from being “Scotch Sundays,” however. On them the semi-riotous “joy of
life” which is part of the Greek nature finds its fullest, ofttimes its
wildest, expression. They are days of merriment, athletic sports, great
civic spectacles, chorals, public dances.[+] To complete our picture of
Athens we must tarry for a swift cursory glance upon at least three of
these fête days of the city of Pericles, Sophocles, and Phidias.
[*] In Gulick (_Life of the Ancient Greeks_, pp. 304-310) there is a
valuable list of Attic festivals. The Athenians had over thirty
important religious festivals, several of them, _e.g._, the
Thesmorphoria (celebrated by the women in honor of Demeter), extending
over a number of days.
[+] It is needless to point out that to the Greeks, as to many other
ancient peoples,—for example, the Hebrews,—_dancing_ often had a
religious significance and might be a regular part of the worship of
the gods.
199. The Eleusinia.—Our first festival is the Eleusinia, the festival
of the Eleusinian mysteries. It is September, the “19th of
Boēdromiōn,” the Athenians will say. Four days have been spent by the
“initiates” and the “candidates” in symbolic sacrifices and
purifications.[*] On one of these days the arch priest, the
“Hierophant,” has preached a manner of sermon at the Painted Porch in
the Agora setting forth the awfulness and spiritual efficacy of these
Mysteries, sacred to Demeter the Earth Mother, to her daughter
Persephone, and also to the young Iacchus, one of the many incarnations
of Dionysus, and who is always associated at Elusis with the divine
“Mother and Daughter.” The great cry has gone forth to the
Initiates—“To the Sea, ye Mystæ!” and the whole vast multitude has gone
down to bathe in the purifying brine.
[*] Not all Athenians were among the “initiated,” but it does not seem
to have been hard to be admitted to the oaths and examination which
gave one participation in the mysteries. About all a candidate had to
prove was blameless character. Women could be initiated as well as
men.
Now on this fifth day comes the sacred procession from Athens across
the mountain pass to Eleusis. The participates, by thousands, of both
sexes and of all ages, are drawn up in the Agora ere starting. The
Hierophant, the “Torchbearer,” the “Sacred Herald,” and the other
priests wear long flowing raiment and high mitres like Orientals. They
also, as well as the company, wear myrtle and ivy chaplets and bear
ears of corn and reapers’ sickles. The holy image of Iacchus is borne
in a car, the high priests marching beside it; and forth with pealing
shout and chant they go,—down the Ceramicus, through the Dipylon gate,
and over the hill to Eleusis, twelve miles away.
200. The Holy Procession to Eleusis.—Very sacred is the procession,
but not silent and reverential. It is an hour when the untamed animal
spirits of the Greeks, who after all are a young race and who are
gripped fast by natural instinct, seem uncurbed. Loud rings the
“orgiastic” cry, “_Iacchë! Iacchë! evoë!_”
There are wild shouts, dances, jests, songs,[*] postures. As the
marchers pass the several sanctuaries along the road there are halts
for symbolic sacrifices. So the multitude slowly mounts the long
heights of Mount Ægaleos, until—close to the temple of Aphrodite near
the summit of the pass—the view opens of the broad blue bay of Eleusis,
shut in by the isle of Salamis, while to the northward are seen the
green Thrasian plain, with the white houses of Eleusis town[+] near the
center, and the long line of outer hills stretching away to Megara and
Bœotia.
[*] We do not possess the official chant of the Mystæ used on their
march to Eleusia. Very possibly it was of a swift riotous nature like
the Bacchinals’ song in Euripides’s _Bacchinals_ (well translated by
Way or by Murray).
[+] This was about the only considerable town in Attica outside of
Athens.
The evening shadows are falling, while the peaceful army sweeps over
the mountain wall and into Eleusis. Every marcher produces a torch,
and bears it blazing aloft as he nears his destination. Seen in the
dark from Eleusis, the long procession of innumerable torches must
convey an effect most magical.
201. The Mysteries of Eleusis.—What follows at Eleusis? The
“mysteries” are “mysteries” still; we cannot claim initiation and
reveal them. There seem to be manifold sacrifices of a symbolic
significance, the tasting of sacred “portions” of food and drink—a dim
foreshadowing of the Christian sacrament of the Eucharist; especially
in the great hall of the Temple of the Mystæ in Eleusis there take
place a manner of symbolic spectacles, dramas perhaps one may call
them, revealing the origins of Iacchus, the mystical union of
Persephone and Zeus, and the final joy of Demeter.
This certainly we can say of these ceremonies. They seem to have
afforded to spiritually minded men a sense of remission of personal sin
which the regular religion could never give; they seem also to have
conveyed a fair hope of immortality, such as most Greeks doubted.
Sophocles tells thus the story: “Thrice blessed are they who behold
these mystical rites, ere passing to Hades’ realm. They alone have
life there. For the rest all things below are evil.”[*] And in face of
imminent death, perhaps in hours of shipwreck, men are wont to ask one
another, “Have you been initiated at Eleusis?”
[*] Sophocles, _Frag._ 719.
202. The Greater Dionysia and the Drama.—Again we are in Athens in the
springtime: “The eleventh of Elapheboliön” [March]. It is the third day
of the Greater Dionysia. The city has been in high festival; all the
booths in the Agora hum with redoubled life; strangers have flocked in
from outlying parts of Hellas to trade, admire, and recreate; under
pretext of honoring the wine god, inordinate quantities of wine are
drunk with less than the prudent mixture of water. There is boisterous
frolicking, singing, and jesting everywhere. It is early blossom time.
All whom you meet wear huge flower crowns, and pelt you with the
fragrant petals of spring.[*]
[*] Pindar (_Frag._ 75) says thus of the joy and beauty of this fête:
“[Lo!] this festival is due when the chamber of the red-robed Hours is
opened and odorous plants wake to the fragrant spring. then we scatter
on undying earth the violet, like lovely tresses, and twine roses in
our hair; then sound the voice of song, the flute keeps time, and
dancing choirs resound the praise of Semele.”
So for two days the city has made merry, and now on the third, very
early, “to the theater” is the word on every lip. Magistrates in their
purple robes of office, ambassadors from foreign states, the priests
and religious dignitaries, are all going to the front seats of honor.
Ladies of gentle family, carefully veiled but eager and fluttering, are
going with their maids, if the productions of the day are to be
tragedies not comedies.[*] All the citizens are going, rich and poor,
for here again we meet “Athenian democracy”; and the judgment and
interest of the tatter-clad fishermen seeking the general “two-obol”
seats may be almost as correct and keen as that of the lordly Alcmænoid
in his gala himation.
[*] It seems probable (on our uncertain information) that Athenian
ladies attended the moral and proper tragedies. It was impossible for
them to attend the often very coarse comedies. Possibly at the
tragedies they sat in a special and decently secluded part of the
theater.
203. The Theater of Dionysus.—Early dawn it is when the crowds pour
through the barriers around the Theater of Dionysus upon the southern
slope of the Acropolis. They sit (full 15,000 or more) wedged close
together upon rough wooden benches set upon the hill slopes.[*] At the
foot of their wide semicircle is a circular space of ground, beaten
hard, and ringed by a low stone barrier. It is some ninety feet in
diameter. This is the _orchestra_, the “dancing place,” wherein the
chorus may disport itself and execute its elaborate figures. Behind the
orchestra stretches a kind of tent or booth, the _skenë_. Within this
the actors may retire to change their costumes, and the side nearest to
the audience is provided with a very simple scene,—some kind of
elementary scenery painted to represent the front of a temple or
palace, or the rocks, or the open country. This is nearly the entire
setting.[+] If there are any slight changes of this screen, they must
be made in the sight of the entire audience. The Athenian theater has
the blue dome of heaven above it, the red Acropolis rock behind it.
Beyond the “skenë” one can look far away to the country and the hills.
The keen Attic imagination will take the place of the thousand arts of
the later stage-setter. Sophocles and his rivals, even as Shakespeare
in Elizabeth’s England, can sound the very depths and scale the
loftiest heights of human passion, with only a simulacrum of the
scenery, properties, and mechanical artifices which will trick out a
very mean twentieth century theater.
[*] These benches (before the stone theater was built in 340 B.C.) may
be imagined as set up much like the “bleachers” at a modern baseball
park. We know that ancient audiences wedged in very close.
[+] I think it is fairly certain that the classical Attic theater was
without any stage, and that the actors appeared on the same level as
the chorus. As to the extreme simplicity of all the scenery and
properties there is not the least doubt.
[Illustration: Comic Actors dressed as Ostriches]
204. The production of a Play.—The crowds are hushed and expectant.
The herald, ere the play begins, proclaims the award of a golden crown
to some civic benefactor: a moment of ineffable joy to the recipient;
for when is a true Greek happier than when held up for public
glorification? Then comes the summons to the first competing poet.
“Lead on your chorus.”[*] The intellectual feast of the Dionysia has
begun.
[*] In the fourth century B.C. when the creation of original tragedies
was in decline, a considerable part of the Dionysia productions seem to
have been devoted to the works of the earlier masters, Æschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides.
To analyze the Attic drama is the task of the philosopher and the
literary expert. We observe only the superficialities. There are
never more than _three_ speaking actors before the audience at once.
They wear huge masques, shaped to fit their parts. The wide
mouthpieces make the trained elocution carry to the most remote parts
of the theater. The actors wear long trailing robes and are mounted on
high shoes to give them sufficient stature before the distant audience.
When a new part is needed in the play, an actor retires to the booth,
and soon comes forth with a changed masque and costume—an entirely new
character. In such a costume and masque, play of feature and easy
gesture is impossible; but the actors carry themselves with a stately
dignity and recite their often ponderous lines with a grace which
redeems them from all bombast. An essential part of the play is the
chorus; indeed the chorus was once the main feature of the drama, the
actors insignificant innovations. With fifteen members for the
tragedy, twenty-four for the comedy,[*] old men of Thebes, Trojan
dames, Athenian charcoal burners, as the case may demand—they
sympathize with the hard-pressed hero, sing lusty choral odes, and
occupy the time with song and dance while the actors are changing
costume.
[*] In the “Middle” and “Later” comedy, so called, the chorus entirely
disappears. The actors do everything.
[Illustration: Actor in Costume as a Fury]
The audience follows all the philosophic reasoning of the tragedies,
the often subtle wit of the comedies, with that same shrewd alertness
displayed at the jury courts of the Pnyx. “_Authis! Authis!_” (again!
again!) is the frequent shout, if approving. Date stones and pebbles as
well as hootings are the reward of silly lines or bad acting. At noon
there is an interlude to snatch a hasty luncheon (perhaps without
leaving one’s seat). Only when the evening shadows are falling does the
chorus of the last play approach the altar in the center of the
orchestra for the final sacrifice. A whole round of tragedies have been
given.[*] The five public judges announce their decision: an ivy wreath
to the victorious poet; to his _choregus_ (the rich man who has
provided his chorus and who shares his glory) the right to set up a
monument in honor of the victory. Home goes the multitude,—to quarrel
over the result, to praise or blame the acting, to analyze the
remarkable acuteness the poet’s handling of religious, ethical, or
social questions.
[*] Comedies, although given at this Dionysia, were more especially
favored at the Lenæa, an earlier winter festival.
The theater, like the dicasteries and the Pnyx, is one of the great
public schools of Athens.
205. The Great Panathenaic Procession.—Then for the last time let us
visit Athens, at the fête which in its major form comes only once in
four years. It is the 28th of Metageitniön (August), and the eighth day
of the Greater Panathenæa, the most notable of all Athenian festivals.
By it is celebrated the union of all Attica by Theseus, as one happy
united country under the benign sway of mighty Athena,—an ever
fortunate union, which saved the land from the sorrowful feuds of
hostile hamlets such as have plagued so many Hellenic countries. On the
earlier days of the feast there have been musical contests and
gymnastic games much after the manner of the Olympic games, although
the contestants have been drawn from Attica only. There has been a
public recital of Homer. Before a great audience probably at the Pnyx
or the Theater a rhapsodist of noble presence—clad in purple and with a
golden crown—has made the Trojan War live again, as with his
well-trained voice he held the multitude spellbound by the music of the
stately hexameters.
Now we are at the eighth day. All Athens will march in its glory to the
Acropolis, to bear to the shrine of Athena the sacred “peplos”—a robe
specially woven by the noble women of Athens to adorn the image of the
guardian goddess.[*] The houses have opened; the wives, maids, and
mothers of gentle family have come forth to march in the procession,
all elegantly wreathed and clad in their best, bearing the sacred
vessels and other proper offerings. The daughters of the “metics,” the
resident foreigners, go as attendants of honor with them. The young men
and the old, the priests, the civil magistrates, the generals, all have
their places. Proudest of all are the wealthy and high-born youths of
the cavalry, who now dash to and fro in their clattering pride. The
procession is formed in the outer Ceramicus. Amid cheers, chants,
chorals, and incense smoke it sweeps through the Agora, and slowly
mounts the Acropolis. Center of all the marchers is the glittering
peplos, raised like a sail upon a wheeled barge of state—“the ship of
Athena.” Upon the Acropolis, while the old peplos is piously withdrawn
from the image and the new one substituted, there is a prodigious
sacrifice. A mighty flame roars heavenward from the “great altar”;
while enough bullocks[+] and kine[&] have been slaughtered to enable
every citizen—however poor—to bear away a goodly mess of roasted meat
that night.
[*] Note that this robe was for the revered ancient and wooden image of
Athena Polias, not for the far less venerable statue of Athena
Parthenos.
206. The View from the Temple of Wingless Victory.—We will not wait
for the feasting but rather will take our way to the Temple of Wingless
Victory, looking forth to the west of the Acropolis Rock. So many
things we see which we would fain print on the memory. Behind us we
have just left the glittering Parthenon, and the less august but hardly
less beautiful Erechtheum, with its “Porch of the Maidens.” To our
right is the wide expanse of the roofs of the city and beyond the dark
olive groves of Colonus, and the slopes of Ægaleos. In the near
foreground, are the red crags of Areopagus and the gray hill of the
Pnyx. But the eye will wander farther. It is led away across the
plainland to the bay of Phaleron, the castellated hill of Munychia, the
thin stretch of blue water and the brown island seen across it—Salamis
and its strait of the victory. Across the sparkling vista of the sea
rise the headlands of Ægina and of lesser isles; farther yet rise the
lordly peaks of Argolis. Or we can look to the southward. Our gaze
rounds down the mountainous Attic coast full thirty miles to where
Sunium thrusts out its haughty cape into the Ægean and points the way
across the island-studded sea.
Evening is creeping on. Behind us sounds the great pæan, the solemn
chant to Athena, bestower of good to men. As the sun goes down over
the distant Argolic hills his rays spread a clear pathway of gold
across the waters. Islands, seas, mountains far and near, are touched
now with shifting hues,—saffron, violet, and rose,—beryl, topaz,
sapphire, amethyst. There will never be another landscape like unto
this in all the world. Gladly we sum up our thoughts in the cry of a
son of Athens, Aristophanes, master of song, who loved her with that
love which the land of Athena can ever inspire in all its children,
whether its own by adoption or by birth:—
“_Oh, thou, our Athens! Violet-crowned, brilliant, most enviable of
cities!_”