Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/257

GREEK PLAYS IN GENERAL. 235 of C. 0. Miiller and Sommerbrodt^ have allowed themselves to be misled hj the confused descriptions of the grammarians, wli© suppose that the j;rtr<75cc;Ha were entrances to the stage rather than to the orchestra, and buildings behind the scene itself, and not those behind the lateral projections only^^ That the irapaaKrjvia were separate from the scene and beside it, is clear from the form of the word^, from the definition given by Theophrastus '^j and from the phraseology of Aristeides^. And that the doors from them led to the orchestra and not to the stage, and were used by the chorus and not by the actors, is proved by the passage in Demosthenes, where he charores Meidias with barricadino: and nailing up the irapaaKi'-jvia^; in order, as Ulpian justly remarks, that the chorus might be obliged to go round by the outer entrance, instead of passing at once thvougli the TrapoSo^; to the orchestra. The VTTOdKrjviov has generally been understood as indicating the front of the stage itself, and the chambers below the stage®. 1 Miiller {Randh. d. Arch. § 289, 5) understands the irapacrK-qvLa. as the vcrsurcB procurrentes; and Sommerbrodt {(le jEsch. re Seen. p. 23) says distincth' : " Demos- thenis relate irapaaK-qvia sedificia fuisse in utroque scense latere exstructa, per quae chorus posset in orchestram intrare." 2 See the passages quoted by Meiueke, Fragni. Com. Gr. Vol. IV. Epimetrum vir. pp. 722 sqq. ; Schonborn, Scene d. Hellenen, pp. 98, 99. ^ This may be inferred from the proper sense of the preposition Trapd, which we also find in the word Trdpodos, and with a like signification. For the actors were said eiaUvaL, and their entrances were called efcroSot ; but the entrance of the chorus was a TTctpoSos (Jul. Poll. IV. 108: Kol T] fxkv ctiToSos Tov x°P°^ 7rdpo8os KaXelrai, i) 5e Kara XP^'i-o-v i^odos, cjs ttoXlv ehiovTuiv /xerdcrracris' i] 5e /j.€t' avrrju etcrodos iw nrdpodos' 7] 5^ reXeta ?^o5os dcpodos), and Ulpian calls the vapacTK-qvLa — rds ewl rrjs aKrjurjs (not iiri TTjv aKTjirqv) elaohovs, which indicates that they were not on the stage, but only toivards the stage (Donalds. Gr. Gr. 483), ■* Har|:)Ocrat. s. v. : loi/ce irapaaK-qvLo. Kokdadai, cIjs 6 Qe6(ppacrT0S ev eiKoaTiS vS/muv VTToaijfJiaivei, 6 irepl ttjv (tk-tjut^v dirohedei'yfj.evQS rdiros tols iv tov dyCova TrapacKevals. 6 5e Ai8vfj.oi TOLS eKaTep(j}dev r-^s 6pxv<^Tpas eicroSovs ovtoj cprjal KoKeladai.. ^ IL p, 397, 3: (TV T7)v (TKrjvrjv davfid^wv ra TrapacrKTjvia -^Tid^o} Kal tovs yovs dipels er-qpeis to. Trapa<pd€y/xaTa' ovtu iroppoj tov vofiov ^aiveLS. ® Mid. p. 520, 18: to. TrapaaKTjuia (ppdTTCJv, vpoar]u:v. ^ Schol. ad Dem. Tom. ix. p. 547, Dind. : TovTeaTtv dvocppdTTuu tcls iirl r^s (TKTjvrjs elaodovs, tva 6 xopos dvayKd^rjrac irepuevaL oid ttjs i^wOov elcrodov, Kal ovtoj ^pahvvovTos eKeivov avpL^aivrj KaTayeXaadaL tov Arjiiioa-devTjv. Kolster supposes that Meidias nailed up the perlacti, and barricaded what remained of the space after the withdrawal of the height of the right-angled triangle in the circle, i.e. a quarter of the diameter (Sophokleische Studicn, p. 37). This presumes, with Overbeck (Pompeii, pp. 1 19— 130), that the periacti were the versurce of Yitruvius. But he says distincth'-, V. 7, after having mentioned the three middle doors: "Secundum autem ea (i.e. hos- pitalia) (sunt) spatia ad ornatus comparata (quse loca Graeci irepidKTovs vocant;'" and then follows an explanation of the irepiaKTOL), " secundum ea loca versurae sunt pro- currentes, quffi efl&ciens una a foro, altera a peregre aditus in seen am." From which it is quite clear that the versurce were the TrapaaKrjvca and not the irepiaKToi. ^ This view is taken by Sommerbrodt, de jEsch. re Seen. p. 25; Geppert, Altgr. Biihne, p. 100; Strack, Alfgr. Theat. p. 4; Streglitz, Beilr. zur Gesck. d. Bank. i.