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II.—Excavations at Sparta. 1906: § 10.—The Theatre

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 October 2013

Extract

The narratives of the travellers, who have visited the theatre at: Sparta, are for the most part too short and too vague to prove of much real service to the excavator. Leroy, who visited Sparta in 1770, mentions the seats of greyish-white marble and the retaining-walls of fine rusticated stone, and shows in his illustration the Byzantine fortress-wall, which runs southwards from the theatre, with two columns standing outside it. The plans and drawings of the French Expedition sixty years later show the same wall and columns without any trace of the stage-buildings mentioned by Leake (1805) and Dodwell (1819) among previous visitors, and by Curtius in 1852. Neither Clark, nor Wyse, nor Bursian saw remains of a proscenium, so that it appears likely that Curtius at any rate, if not his predecessors, mistook the Byzantine remains in front of the theatre for Roman stage-buildings. It was principally on the evidence of these remains that Leake, Dodwell, and Bory de St. Vincent based their supposition that the theatre was of Roman date.

Type
Laconia
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1906

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References

page 394 note 1 Leroy, , Les Ruines des plus beaux Monuments de la Grèce, Paris, 1770, p. 33, Pl. XIII.Google Scholar

page 394 note 2 Expédition scientifique de Morée, Paris, 1831, ii. Pl. 47.

page 394 note 3 Leake, , Travels in the Morea, i. pp. 154–6.Google Scholar

page 394 note 4 Dodwell, , Tour through Greece, ii. p. 403.Google Scholar

page 394 note 5 Curtius, , Peloponnesos, ii. p. 220.Google Scholar

page 394 note 6 Clark, W. G., Peloponnesus, p. 161.Google Scholar

page 394 note 7 SirWyse, T., Excursion in the Peloponnese, i. p. 91.Google Scholar

page 394 note 8 Bursian, , Geographie von Griechenland, ii. p. 121.Google Scholar

page 394 note 9 Expéd. scient. de Morée, Relation de Bory de Saint-Vincent, Paris, 1836, p. 420.

page 395 note 1 SirGell, W., Narrative, p. 328.Google Scholar

page 397 note 1 Total length 6·26 m., the single blocks from the left: measuring ·68 m., 1·53 m., ·68 m., ·60 m., ·59 m., 1·09 m., 1·09 m. Height 1·27m. The design of the left three blocks taken together is a scheme of three bull's heads, with festoons between, and bosses above the semicircles of the festoons. Only half the outside bucranium is preserved, as the rest has been chiselled away. Nos. 6 and 7 may belong together, in which case they come from a different scheme of design, as the swing of the festoons is much shorter. Nos. 4 and 5 may be similar blocks cut down. Traces of a bull's head are also visible on the outside corner of No. 7, which is also, therefore, a corner block.

page 398 note 1 P. 434.

page 398 note 2 The road found outside the Stoa on the east of the Byzantine wall shows a similar construction; cf. p. 432. Also the road near the so-called tomb of Leonidas; cf. p. 435.

page 400 note 1 P. 457.

page 400 note 2 Cf. Expéd. scient, ii. Pl. 47; Leroy, op. cit. Pl. 13.

page 400 note 3 Skeletons facing east under tiles were found (1) between the levels of the poros foundations and the road-surface, (2) opposite the third step of the retaining-wall.

page 402 note 1 Examples of the tangent extension exist in the theatres of Athens, the Piraeus, Eretria, Assos, Segesta, Priene, and the larger theatre at Pompeii. The curved extension is found at Sikyon, Epidaurus, Megalopolis, Delos, Magnesia, Mantineia, and in most of the Greek theatres of Asia Minor.

page 403 note 1 vi. 67.

page 403 note 2 This feature appears in the theatres of the Piraeus, Oropos, Eretria, Sikyon, Epidaurus, Megalopolis, Delos, Assos, Magnesia, Priene, and the larger theatre at Pompeii.

page 403 note 3 E.g. Mantineia, Pergamon, Adria, Gabala, Bostra, Aspendus, the Odeum of Herodes Atticus, Rhiniassa, Dramyssos, and all the theatres of Sicily and the West with the exception of Pompeii.

page 404 note 1 Cf. S.M.C. (Tod and Wace) p. 26 and nos. 76, 535, 535A, and 712. The presence of a Skanotheka in Sparta goes a long way to show that the original stage-buildings, at any rate, were only temporary. The parallel instance is Megalopolis, where the Skanotheka was undoubtedly intended as a receptacle for the temporary wooden constructions used as stage (or background). We may infer that the Spartan building was used in the same way. When the theatre was required for the Gymnopaidia or other festivals, the space in front of it would be left free; when there were dramatic representations, the temporary building would be brought out and erected. At Megalopolis, had the Skene been permanent, the entry to the Thersileion would have been blocked. When the later Skene was erected, the Thersileion had ceased to be important.

page 404 note 2 Cf. S.M.C. No. 205.

page 405 note 1 Pp. 445 ff.