Ancient Greek drama flourished in Athens between 700 BC and 500 BC. Tragedies and comedies were performed as part of religious festivals honoring Dionysus. Plays involved singing and dancing by a chorus and were performed in open-air theaters with seating for thousands. The best-preserved theaters include those at Epidaurus, Syracuse, and Ephesus, demonstrating the importance of acoustics and the widespread influence of Greek drama on later Roman cultures.

1. ANCIENT GREEK DRAMA
AND THEATRE
BC21, LTTA Athens, 18-22/3/2019

2. The ancient Greek drama was a theatrical culture that
flourished in ancient Greece from 700 BC. The city-state
of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political,
and military power during this period, was its center,
where it was institutionalized as part of a festival called
the ‘Dionysia’, which honored the god Dionysus.

3. The classical Greeks valued the power of the spoken word, and it was their main
method of communication and storytelling. "To Greeks the spoken word was a living
thing and infinitely preferable to the dead symbols of a written language." Socrates
himself believed that once something had been written down, it lost its ability for
change and growth. For these reasons, among many others, oral storytelling
flourished in Greece.

4. Greek tragedy as
we know it, was
created in Athens
around the time of
532 BC
Theater of
Dionysus, Athens

5. The plays had a chorus from 12 to 15 people, who performed the plays in verse
accompanied by music, beginning in the morning and lasting until the evening. The
performance space was a simple circular space, the orchestra, where the chorus
danced and sang. The orchestra, which had an average diameter of 78 feet, was
situated on a flattened terrace at the foot of a hill, the slope of which produced a
natural ‘theatron’, literally "seeing place”.

6. Bronze statue of a Greek actor. The half-
mask over the eyes and nose identifies
the figure as an actor. He wears a man's
conical cap but female garments,
following the Greek custom of men playing
the roles of women

7. The theatres were originally built on a very large scale to accommodate the large
number of people on stage, as well as the large number of people in the audience,
up to fourteen thousand. Mathematics played a large role in the construction of
these theatres, as their designers had to be able to create acoustics in them so that
the actors' voices could be heard throughout the theatre, including the very top row
of seats.

9. Greek and Roman theatres

11. Delos

12. Epidauros

13. The Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus is considered to be the most perfect
ancient Greek theatre with regard to acoustics and aesthetics.

14. Dodoni

15. Thorikos

16. Messini

17. The Odeon of Herodes Atticus, cut into the southern slope of the Athenian Acropolis,
was built in 161 AD by Herodes Atticus in memory of his wife. The structure was
used as a theatre in ancient Athens for various plays and music concerts. It
originally had a wooden roof and could seat up to 5,000 people.

18. The Ancient Greek term for a mask is ‘prosopon’ (lit., "face"), and was a significant
element in the worship of Dionysus at Athens. Most of the evidence comes from
only a few vase paintings of the 5th century BC. Masks were also made for
members of the chorus, who play some part in the action and provide a
commentary on the events in which they are caught up. Although there are twelve or
fifteen members of the tragic chorus, they all wear the same mask because they are
considered to be representing one character.

20. Tragedy dealt with the big themes of love,
loss, pride, the abuse of power and the
fraught relationships between men and gods.
Typically the main protagonist of a tragedy
commits some terrible crime without realizing
how foolish and arrogant he has been. Then,
as he slowly realizes his error, the world
crumbles around him. The three great
playwrights of tragedy were Aeschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides.
Tragedy

21. Comedy: The first comedies were mainly satirical and mocked men in power for their
vanity and foolishness. The first master of comedy was the playwright Aristophanes.

22. Taormina was a Greek colony on the east coast of the island of Sicily. The theater of
Taormina was built by the Greeks in the 2nd century BC and restructured and
widened by the Romans.
Ancient Theatres of Greek Roman Antiquity outside Greece

23. Syracusa

24. The large theatre of Ephesus, which was capable of holding 25,000 spectators,
was used initially for drama, but during later Roman times it was also used for
gladiator fights.

25. Jerash is a popular archaeological site in Jordan. Jerash contains not one but
two Roman theatres. The north theatre, with a capacity of 1600, was built in
165 AD and was mainly used as the city council chamber. The larger south
theatre was built between 90-92 AD and could seat more than 3000
spectators.

26. Pergamum was an ancient city founded by Greek colonists on the Aegean
coast of Anatolia. The Pergamon theater was built in the 3rd century and
could seat 10,000 spectators. It is one of the steepest ancient theaters in the
world.

27. The Roman Theatre of Merida in present-day Spain was built in 16 BC by order of
Agrippa, a general and friend of the emperor Augustus. The ancient theatre could
house up to 6,000 spectators.

28. The Roman theatre of Lisbon was built in the first century BC by the Emperor
Augustus, then renovated in the time of Emperor Nero, 57 AD , such as to
accommodate some 5,000 spectators.

29. The Roman Theatre of Orange , France ( Théâtre antique d'Orange) built early in the
1st century AD, is the most well preserved Roman theatre in all Europe.