The slopes of the Acropolis are crowded with the remains of miscellaneous monuments and shrines from many periods. The south slope is dominated by two theaters. The best preserved lies on the west, the Odeion of Herodes Atticus, built during the Roman Empire in the mid-second century AD. Of greater significance is the Theater of Dionysos, to the east. Although the structure itself dates from the fourth century BC with many later remodelings, it was on this site that the Athenian tradition of theatrical representations first began, with a great flowering in the fifth century BC.
Like athletics, theater developed as a religious celebration, but always in honor of the god Dionysos. Performances included dances and processions, music and chanting, all taking place on a low flat ground, the orchestra, with spectators seated on higher ground, the theatron. Behind the
Figure 16.11 Lysikrates Monument, Athens
Orchestra might be a flimsy backdrop, the skene, a word which originally meant “tent” or “hut.” Such simple arrangements evidently sufficed for the fifth century BC, the golden age of Athenian drama. In the following centuries all these components would be built in permanent materials and laid out in certain proportions, with the Romans adapting in due course this Greek architectural form to their needs. The Greek theater will be examined more closely in the next chapter, when we visit the well-preserved theaters at Epidauros and Priene.
Theatrical performances were presented in competition, with well-to-do citizens, or choregoi, financing the productions. The winners received tripods, and habitually erected monuments to display their trophies around the Theater of Dionysos and along a street that ran to the east, the Street of the Tripods. One of these choregic monuments is virtually intact, the elaborate Monument of Lysikrates, erected in 335—334 BC (Figure 16.11). In addition to its fine preservation, this small building holds a special place in the development of Greek architecture because it marks the earliest use of Corinthian capitals on the exterior of a building (the fifth century BC Temple of Apollo at Bassae had at least one on the interior).
The Lysikrates Monument consists of a cylindrical structure standing on a square base. It is decorated with columns with Corinthian capitals; screen walls of stone connecting the columns, thereby closing the colonnade; an Ionic frieze that shows Dionysos chased by pirates, who turn into dolphins when they are thrown into the sea; and on its rooftop, a base for the victory tripod (the tripod no longer exists). Corinthian capitals are carved in the form of acanthus leaves arranged around vestigial volutes. Round in shape, they have the advantage over the rectangular Ionic capital of looking the same from all sides. Corinthian capitals did not bring a new order of architecture to rival Doric and Ionic, but instead were grafted onto the Ionic order as an alternative to the standard Ionic volute capital. Immensely popular, they would become a staple of Hellenistic Greek and Roman architecture.
World History
