§ 3 The City Dionysia
The City Dionysia, the feast of Dionysus Eleuthereus,16 was the most famous and magnificent of all the Bacchic festivals, and was therefore also called the Great Dionysia, or simply the Dionysia, without any further epithet.17 It was held from the first inside the city, at the sacred enclosure of Eleuthereus18 on the south of the Acropolis. Hence the name City Dionysia, to distinguish it from the Anthesteria and the Lenaea, which, at any rate in early times, were celebrated outside the walls. A poet who brought out his plays at this festival was said to exhibit them ‘in the city’; if successful, he was said to have won ‘a city victory’.19 The feast lasted for at least five days, and possibly for six. It took place in the month Elaphebolion, at a date corresponding to the end of March.20 The spring was then just beginning, and the sea had again become navigable.21 Consequently the city was crowded with visitors from all parts of Greece. It was at this season that the allies came to Athens to pay the annual tribute. Ambassadors from foreign states often chose this time for the transaction of diplomatic business. Large numbers of strangers were attracted by mere pleasure, and the celebrity of the festival. Aeschines, in his rhetorical language, describes the audience in the theatre at the City Dionysia as consisting of the ‘whole Greek nation’.22 The presence of so many strangers gave a lively appearance to the streets, in marked contrast to the quietness which prevailed at the winter festival of the Lenaea.23 The Athenians gladly seized this opportunity of displaying before foreign Greeks the glories of their city. The various spectacles provided, the religious ceremonial, the trains of sacrificial victims, the choral songs and dances, the tragedies and comedies exhibited before countless multitudes in the vast open-air theatre, were all calculated to impress strangers with the wealth, public spirit, and artistic supremacy of Athens.
The first day of the festival was devoted to a grand religious procession, in which the ancient image of Dionysus Eleuthereus, preserved in one of his temples at the foot of the Acropolis, played a prominent part.24 There was a tradition that this statue, together with the cult of the deity, had been originally brought to Athens from Eleutherae, a border town between Attica and Boeotia. The procession was instituted to commemorate this sacred event. The statue was taken out of its shrine, and carried along the road to Eleutherae as far as a certain temple near the Academy. It was then brought back again, following on its return the actual route traversed on its first entrance into Athens.25 As a spectacle, this procession was the most magnificent part of the whole festival. Athenians of every class, men, women, and even girls, came out to witness or take part in it. The casual encounters which took place on these occasions might serve as a foundation for the plots of the New Comedy.26 The members of the procession were dressed in brilliantly coloured garments. Some of them wore ornaments of gold, and had masks upon their faces. The rich drove in chariots; the poorer classes walked on foot.27 In front came the archon, the manager of the festival, attended by various magistrates and priests. The ephebi, equipped with shields and spears, acted as escort to the sacred image.28 A long train of victims followed, partly provided by the State, partly offered by individuals, or by different classes of the population.29 The canephori, young virgins bearing upon their heads the baskets containing the sacrificial implements, formed one of the most picturesque features in the show. The choregi were also there, attended by their respective choruses, all dressed in striking costume. When Demosthenes served as choregus to his tribe, he had a gold crown and embroidered mantle made specially for use at the procession. Alcibiades on a similar occasion was dressed in purple, and excited much admiration by his beauty.30 From these few details, which happen to have been recorded, we may form some notion of the general splendour of the spectacle. The route followed by the procession was as follows. On leaving the Temple of Dionysus it came first to the market-place, where a halt was made, and a chorus danced and sang before the statues of the twelve gods.31 It then marched out through the city gates along the road to Eleutherae. When it reached the Academy the statue of the god was placed on a pedestal, and the different victims were sacrificed. The rest of the day was spent in feasting and merriment.32 At nightfall they returned to Athens by torchlight. But the sacred image, instead of being restored to its shrine, was carried to the theatre by the ephebi, and set up in the orchestra, so as to be present at the entertainments given on the following days.33
These entertainments were of two kinds. There were the dramatic contests, in tragedy, comedy, and satyric drama; and there were the lyrical contests, at which dithyrambs were performed.34 The dithyramb was a hymn in honour of Dionysus, sung to the accompaniment of the flute by a chorus of fifty members. The chorus stood in a circular form round the altar, and was therefore called a ‘cyclic’ chorus. At the City Dionysia there were two of these lyrical contests, one between five choruses of boys, and the other between five choruses of men.35 The first contest of men took place in B.C. 509-508, in the Archonship of Lysagoras, though the system of choregia was probably not introduced till a few years later.36 Each chorus was provided by one of the ten Attic tribes. Hence all ten tribes took part in one or other of the two competitions.37 The contest was essentially a tribal one. The members of each chorus, together with the choregus, were selected exclusively from the tribe which they represented.38 The victory of the chorus was a victory for the tribe. The prize of victory, the tripod, though given to the choregus, and erected in some public place at his expense, was regarded as equally the property of the tribe.39 In the records of dithyrambic competitions the name of the victorious tribe was always placed in the most prominent position. The dramatic contests, on the other hand, had no connexion with the tribes. Actors, choruses, and choregi were chosen indiscriminately from the whole population.40 The performers competed in their own interest solely, and not as representatives of any other body. The records of dramatic victories give merely the names of the choregus, the poet, and the principal actor.41 It is important to keep this difference between the two kinds of contest clearly in view, since many mistakes have been caused by attributing to the dramatic kind features which belong exclusively to the dithyrambic.