Upon the southern slope of the Acropolis, beneath the limestone
precipices and the great golden-brown walls above which the Parthenon
shows its white summit, are many ruins; among them the Theater of
Dionysus and the Odeum of Herodes Atticus, the rich Marathonian who
spent much of his money in the beautification of Athens, and who taught
rhetoric to two men who eventually became Roman emperors. The Theater
of Dionysus, in which Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides produced their
dramas, is of stone and silver-white marble. Many of the seats are
arm-chairs, and are so comfortable that it is no uncommon thing to see
weary travelers, who have just come down from the Acropolis, resting in
them with almost unsuitable airs of unbridled satisfaction.
It is evident to any one who examines this great theater carefully that
the Greeks considered it important for the body to be at ease while
the mind was at work; for not only are the seats perfectly adapted to
their purpose, but ample room is given for the feet of the spectators,
the distance between each tier and the tier above it being wide enough
to do away with all fear of crowding and inconvenience. The marble
arm-chairs were assigned to priests, whose names are carved upon them.
In the theater I saw one high arm-chair, like a throne, with lion’s
feet. This is Roman, and was the seat of a Roman general. The fronts
of the seats are pierced with small holes, which allow the rain-water
to escape. Below the stage there are some sculptured figures, most
of them headless. One which is not is a very striking and powerful,
though almost sinister, old man, in a crouching posture. His rather
round forehead resembles the very characteristic foreheads of the
Montenegrins.
Herodes Atticus restored this theater. Before his time it had been
embellished by Lycurgus of Athens, the orator, and disciple of Plato.
It is not one of the gloriously placed theaters of the Greeks, but
from the upper tiers of seats there is a view across part of the Attic
plain to the isolated grove of cypresses where the famous Schliemann is
buried, and beyond to gray Hymettus.
Standing near by is another theater, Roman-Greek, not Greek, the Odeum
of Herodes Atticus, said to have been built by him in memory of his
wife. This is not certain, and there are some authorities who think
that, like the beautiful arch near the Olympieion, this peculiar, very
picturesque structure was raised by the Emperor Hadrian, who was much
fonder of Athens than of Rome.
The contrast between the exterior, the immensely massive, three-storied
façade with Roman arches, and the interior, or, rather, what was once
the interior, of this formerly roofed-in building, is very strange.
They do not seem to belong to each other, to have any artistic
connection the one with the other.
[Illustration: From a photograph, copyright by Underwood & Underwood