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Prometheus Vinctus on the Athenian Stage1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

John Davidson
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Extract

We know very little for certain about the staging of plays in the Theatre of Dionysus at Athens in the fifth century B.C. The evidence of archaeological remains and contemporary vase painting is difficult to interpret with confidence, the reliability of ancient post-classical commentators is questionable, and the texts of the surviving plays, our chief source of evidence, often raise more problems than they solve. Among the plays which have occasioned most controversy in modern scholarship is the Prometheus Vinctus. What was the ‘rock’ to which the hero was bound? In what part of the theatre space was it positioned? How and where did the chorus of Oceanids make their entry? How was the ending of the play staged? Questions such as these continue to perplex students of the play who also have to face the vexed question of its date and indeed authorship.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , April 1994 , pp. 33 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1994

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References

Notes

2. Recent studies which offer useful points of entry into the immense bibliography of modern scholarship on the subject include Rehm, Rush, ‘The Staging of Suppliant Plays’, GRBS 29 (1988), 263–307Google Scholar, Poe, Joe Park, ‘The Altar in the Fifth-Century Theater’, Classical Antiquity 8 (1989), 116–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Mastronarde, Donald J., ‘Actors on High: the Skene Roof, the Crane, and the Gods in Attic Drama’, Classical Antiquity 9 (1990), 247–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. ‘The Conditions of Dramatic Production to the Death of Aeschylus’, GRBS 13 (1972), 387–450Google Scholar, and ‘More on Conditions of Production to the Death of Aeschylus’, GRBS 29 (1988), 5–33Google Scholar.

4. Cf. Garvie, A. F. (ed.), Aeschylus, Choephori (Oxford, 1986), p. xlivGoogle Scholar, and Rehm (above n. 2), 270 n. 34.

5. See, e.g., Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens (Oxford, 1946), p. 38Google Scholar, Arnott, Peter, Greek Scenic Conventions in the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford, 1962), pp. 96–8Google Scholar, Conacher, D.J., Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound: a Literary Commentary (Toronto, 1980), p. 181Google Scholar.

6. See, e.g., Dworacki, S., ‘Notes on the Staging of the “Prometheus Bound”’, Eos 71 (1983), 159–65Google Scholar. Webster, T. B. L., Greek Theatre Production 2 (London, 1970), p. 18, imagines Prometheus on the ekkyklemaGoogle Scholar. Joerden, K., ‘Zur Bedeutung des Ausser- und Hinterszenischen’ in Jens, W. (ed.), Die Bauformen der Griechischen Tragödie (Munich, 1971), p. 408, places him on the roof of the skeneGoogle Scholar.

7. The same problem applies, of course, if the Prometheus figure is located at the rear of the acting space in a theatre which as yet does not possess a skene.

8. So, e.g., Pickard-Cambridge (above n. 5), pp. 39–40, Arnott (above n. 5), p. 76, Webster (above n. 6), p. 12, Conacher (above n. 5), p. 183, Mastronarde (above n. 2), 267, Griffiths, Mark (ed.), Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound (Cambridge, 1983), note on 11. 128–92Google Scholar.

9. Taplin, Oliver, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford, 1977), pp. 255–6Google Scholar.

10. Taplin (above n. 9), pp. 256–7.

11. See, e.g., Blume, Horst-Dieter, Einführung in das Antike Theaterwesen (Darmstadt, 1978), pp. 70–1Google Scholar. West, M. L., ‘The Prometheus Trilogy’, JHS 99 (1979), 130–48, in particular 136–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, unconvincingly suggests the use of multiple cranes. Fraenkel, E., ‘Der Einzung des Chors im Prometheus’, Kleine Beiträge I (Rome, 1964), pp. 389–406Google Scholar, imagines the Oceanids suspended individually from ropes. Taplin (above n. 9), pp. 252–60, tends to favour the use of some form of flying apparatus as the least objectionable option, but his discussion of the subject is driven by his belief that the play as we have it is not worthy of Aeschylus and that the manner of the choral entry is motivated by the desire, indeed the need, of an inferior playwright for gratuitous spectacle.

12. Pollux 4, 123.

13. Pickard-Cambridge (above n. 5), pp. 9, 34 n. 2, 131–2, Arnott (above n. 5), pp. 43–5, Hammond 1972 (above n. 3), 397.

14. Pickard-Cambridge (above n. 5), pp. 9 and 132.

15. Hammond 1972 (above n. 3), 421, suggests its possible use by the herald in Aeschylus' Supplices and messengers in other plays.

16. A point well made by Rehm (above n. 2), 271.

17. Rehm (above n. 2), 264 ff., argues strongly against the idea. Cf. also Blume (above n. 11), p. 73.

18. Rehm (above n, 2). Relevant in this context may be the column krater (Basel BS 415) showing young men in pairs with outstretched arms beside what appears to be a stepped altar with a suppliant figure on the top.

19. Taplin (above n. 9), p. 266.

20. Ewens, Michael and Ley, Graham, ‘The Orchestra as Acting Area in Greek Tragedy’, Ramus 14 (1985), 75–84Google Scholar.

21. See Rehm, 278–83, for his arguments in general against the existence of a stage area separate from the orchestra in the fifth century B.C.

22. Thomson, George (ed.), Aeschylus, The Prometheus Bound (Cambridge, 1932), note at line 130Google Scholar.

23. We don't have to go along with all the details of Thomson's theory, such as the idea that the Oceanids are to be imagined as flying on sea horses.

24. As, for example, Taplin (above n. 9), p. 255, claims.

25. Thus West (above n. 11), 136.

26. The belief that a Greek audience might accept mimetic representation of aerial manoeuvres and flying machines is not, of course, inconsistent with the belief that they wouldn't accept an actor's statement that he couldn't see the chorus when they could see he could. Their probable intolerance of the latter type of situation appears to be confirmed by Aristotle's mention of an apparently famous dramaturgical lapse by Carcinus for which he was ‘punished’ by the audience (Poetics 1455a).

27. Hammond, and Moon, Warren G., ‘Illustrations of Early Tragedy at Athens’, AJA 82 (1978), 371–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in particular 375–7, discuss vase illustrations of winged cars of a type which they believe could have featured in the P.V.

28. Thus Griffiths (above n. 8), note at 11. 284–396. Opinions in fact vary greatly. West (above n 11), 138–9, assumes a mechane entrance for Oceanus, even suggesting the possibility that he might have been used as a counterweight to a pair of Oceanids. Webster (above n. 6), p. 12, considers mechane use for Oceanus possible but not necessary. Arnott (above n. 5), p. 78, rules it out, opting for a stage-level arrival for Oceanus as preferable to a roof-top one. Conacher (above n. 5), p. 183, thinks that the crane might have been used but that a roof-top entry is more likely (and preferable to one at stage-level). And so on.

29. Taplin (above n. 9), pp. 260–2, argues that Oceanus is one of the strongest claimants for the use of the mechane in surviving tragedy. But alternative solutions to the ‘griffin’ problem do not inevitably mean ‘some unsatisfactory compromise’. Taplin pushes the use of the mechane by Oceanus, of course, because this increases the chances that the play is post-Aeschylean.

30. The entry of Oceanus is certainly unexpected after Prometheus' words at 272–6 and the chorus' response at 277–83, but this may well have been a calculated dramatic move all along. For a classic statement of the view that the Oceanus scene is, in fact, a botched insertion, see West (above n. 11), 138.

31. Taplin (above n. 9), pp. 257–9.

32. Oceanus' entry is accompanied by 14 lines of anapaests (284–97) to which Prometheus responds with an initial exclamation of surprise.

33. This is the conclusion of Taplin (above n. 9) in the course of a useful discussion on pp. 270–5. Conacher (above n. 5), pp. 187–9, is substantially in agreement.

34. See, e.g., Sutton, D. F., ‘The Date of Prometheus Bound’, GRBS 24 (1983), 289–94Google Scholar, Hammond 1988 (above n. 3), 13–16, Hubbard, Thomas K., ‘Recitative Anapests and the Authenticity of Prometheus Bound’, AJPh 112 (1991), 439–60 and the references on 439 n. 2Google Scholar. For a recent book-length defence of authenticity, see Pattoni, M. P., L'autenticità del Prometeo incatenato di Eschilo (Pisa, 1987)Google Scholar. Stoessl, F., Der Prometheus des Aischylos als geistesgeschichtliches und theatergeschichtliches Phänomen (Stuttgart, 1988), assumes Aeschylean authorshipGoogle Scholar. On the other side, West, , Studies in Aeschylus (Stuttgart, 1990), pp. 51–72, sticks defiantly to his guns of inauthenticityCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Though this is not the place to examine the issues in detail, one point may perhaps be made. In order to explain why the authenticity of the Prometheus trilogy was not questioned in antiquity, West asserts that it must have been written by Euphorion and produced in the name of his late father. But if such a fraud had been perpetrated, it seems reasonable to assume that the Athenians themselves would have been at least as well qualified to see through it as West apparently is.

35. Griffith, Mark, The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound (Cambridge, 1977)Google Scholar.

36. There are, of course, still many dissenting voices. See, e.g., Hamilton, R., ‘Cries within and the Tragic Skene’, AJPh 108 (1987), 585–99Google Scholar.

37. See, e.g., Brown, A. L., PCPhS 30 (1984), 1–17, in particular p. 13Google Scholar.

38. See Rehm (above n. 2), 276–8, with further references given there. Hammond 1988 (above n. 3), 8–9, however, still argues strongly for the circular arrangement. Poe (above n. 2), 119 n. 11, finds the rectilinear theory even more speculative than the circular one. And it must be admitted that apart from any other consideration the dithyrambic κύκλιοι χόροι make more sense in a circular orchestra.