The miser grinn'd whilst avarice was drawn, Nor thought the faithful likeness was his own; His own dear self no imaged fool could find, But saw a thousand other fops design'd.

This may properly be called fine comedy, and is that of Menander. Of one hundred and eighty, or rather eighty plays, according to Suidas, composed by him, all of which Terence is said to have translated, there remain only a few fragments. We may form a judgment of the merits of the originals from the excellence of the copy. Quintilian, in speaking of Menander, is not afraid to say,* that with the beauty of his works, and the height of his reputation, he obscured, or rather obliterated, the fame of all other writers in the same way. observes, in another passage, that his own times were not so just to his merit as they ought to have been, which has been the fate of many others; but that he was sufficiently made amends by the favourable opinion of posterity. And indeed Philemon, a comic poet, who flourished about the same period, though older than Menander, was preferred before him.

The Theatre of the Ancients described.

He

I HAVE already observed, that Eschylus was the first founder of a fixed and durable theatre adorned with suitable decorations. It was at first, as well as the amphitheatres, composed of wooden planks, the seats in which rose one above another; but those having one day broke down, by having too great a weight upon them, the Athenians, excessively enamoured of dramatic representations, were induced by that accident to erect those superb structures, which were imitated afterwards with so much splendor by the Roman magnificence. What I

* Atque ille quidem omnibus ejusdem operis auctoribus abstulit nomen, et fulgore quodam suæ claritatis tenebras obduxit. Quintil. lib. x. c. 1.

+ Quidam, sicut Menander, justiora posterorum, quàm suÆ ætatis, judicia sunt consecuti. Quintil. lib. iii. c. 6.

shall say of them, has almost as much relation to the Roman as the Athenian theatres; and is extracted entirely from M. Boindin's learned dissertation the theatre of the ancients, who has upon treated the subject in its fullest extent.

e

The theatre of the ancients was divided into three principal parts; each of which had its peculiar appellation. The division for the actors was called in general the scene, or stage; that for the spectators was particularly termed the theatre, which must have been of vast extent, f as at Athens it was capable of containing above thirty thousand persons; and the orchestra, which amongst the Greeks was the place assigned for the pantomimes and dancers, though at Rome it was appropriated to the senators and vestal virgins.

The theatre was of a semicircular form on one side, and square on the other. The space contained within the semicircle, was allotted to the spectators, and had seats placed one above another to the top of the building. The square part in the front of it, was appropriated to the actors; and in the interval, between both, was the orchestra.

The great theatres had three rows of porticoes, raised one upon another, which formed the body of the edifice, and at the same time three different stories for the seats. From the highest of those porticoes the women saw the representation, sheltered from the weather. The rest of the theatre was uncovered, and all the business of the stage was performed in the open air.

Each of these stories consisted of nine rows of seats, including the landing-place, which divided them from each other, and served as a passage from side to side. But as this landing-place and passage took up the space of two benches, there were only seven to sit upon, and consequently in

e Memoirs of the Acad. of Inscript. &c. vol. I. p. 136, &c. f Strab. 1. ix. p. 395. Herod. 1. viii. c. 65.

each story there were seven rows of seats. They were from fifteen to eighteen inches in height, and twice as much in breadth; so that the spectators had room to sit at their ease, and without being incommoded by the legs of the people above them, no foot-boards being provided for them.

Each of these stories of benches were divided in two different manners; in their height by the landing-places, called by the Romans Præcinctiones, and in their circumferences by several stair-cases, peculiar to each story, which intersecting them in right lines, tending towards the centre of the theatre, gave the form of wedges to the quantity of seats between them, from whence they were called Cunei.

Behind these stories of seats were covered galleries, through which the people thronged into the theatre by great square openings, contrived for that purpose in the walls next the seats. Those Those openings were called Vomitoria, from the multitude of people crowding through them into their places.

As the actors could not be heard to the extremity of the theatre, the Greeks contrived a means to supply that defect, and to augment the force of the voice, and make it more distinct and articulate. For that purpose they invented a kind of large vessels of copper, which were disposed under the seats of the theatre, in such a manner, as made all sounds strike upon the ear with more force and distinctness.

The orchestra being situated, as I have observed, between the two other parts of the theatre, of which one was circular and the other square, it participated of the form of each, and occupied the space between both. It was divided into three parts.

The first and most considerable was more particularly called the orchestra, from a Greek word that signifies to dance. It was appropriated to the

§ Ὀρχεῖσθαι.

pantomimes and dancers, and to all such subaltern actors as played between the acts, and at the end of the representations.

The second was named Ouμian, from its being square, in the form of an altar. Here the chorus was generally placed.

And in the third the Greeks disposed their band of music. They called it inovov, from its being situate at the bottom of the principal part of the theatre, to which they gave the general name of the scene.

I shall describe here this third part of the theatre, called the scene; which was also subdivided into three different parts.

The first and most considerable was properly called the scene, and gave its name to this whole division. It occupied the whole front of the building from side to side, and was the place allotted for the decorations. This front had two small wings at its extremity, from which hung a large curtain, that was let down to open the scene, and drawn up between the acts, when any thing in th representation made it necessary.

The second, called by the Greeks indifferently προσκήνιον, and λογεῖον and by the Romans Proscenium, and Pulpitum, was a large open space in front of the scene, in which the actors performed their parts, and which by the help of the decorations, represented either a public square or forum, a common street, or the country; but the place so represented was always in the open air.

The third division was a part reserved behind the scenes, and called by the Greeks wapaσnvov. παρασκήνιον. Here the actors dressed themselves, and the decorations were locked up. In the same place were also kept the machines, of which the ancients had abundance in their theatres.

As only the porticoes and the building of the scene were roofed, it was necessary to draw sails, fastened with cords to masts, over the rest of the

theatre, to screen the audience from the heat of the sun. But as this contrivance did not prevent the heat, occasioned by the perspiration and breath of so numerous an assembly, the ancients took care to allay it by a kind of rain; conveying the water for that use above the porticoes, which falling again in form of dew through an affinity of small pores concealed in the statues, with which the theatre abounded, did not only diffuse a grateful coolness all around, but the most fragrant exhalations along with it; for this dew was always perfumed. Whenever the representations were interrupted by storms, the spectators retired into the porticoes behind the seats of the theatre.

The fondness of the Athenians for representations of this kind cannot be expressed. Their eyes, their ears, their imagination, their understanding, all shared in the satisfaction. Nothing gave them so sensible a pleasure in dramatic performances, either tragic or comic, as the strokes which were aimed at the affairs of the public; whether pure chance occasioned the application, or the address of the poets, who knew how to reconcile the most remote subjects with the transactions of the republic. They entered by that means into the interests of the people, took occasion to soothe their passions, authorize their pretensions, justify, and sometimes condemn, their conduct, entertain them with agreeable hopes, instruct them in their duty in certain nice conjunctures; in consequence of which they often not only acquired the applauses of the spectators, but credit and influence in the public affairs and counsels: hence the theatre became so grateful, and so interesting to the people. It was in this manner, according to some authors, that Euripides artfully adapted his tragedy of Palamedes to the sentence passed against Socrates; and pointed out, by an illustrious example of anti

* It is not certain whether this piece was prior or posterior to the death of Socrates.