Agonistic: A Competition
 

• June: proposals are submitted, from which are selected
• 3 tragic "tetralogies" (collections of 3 tragedies and a satyr play), thus 3 tragic writers;
• 5 comedies
• the presiding official (the eponymous archon) would then allow each writer:
• a choregos, a wealthy sponsor who would pay for costumes, mask, props, 3 principal actors, musicians, chorus (3000 dr. or more, a huge sum!)
• rehearsal for 6 months (!), from September to March
• topics of the plays were secret until the first day of the festival, when they were announced by the playwright and the actors
• judgement deliberately complicated, to avoid corruption:
• 10 tribes each proposed 3-4 judges, from which 1 was chosen by lot
• each of the resulting 10 judges would rank the plays first-second-third
• of these 10 votes, 5 would be discarded by lot, the rest then would determine the winner
• Note how this agon (=competition) was very similar to the agon of a trial (before, remember, 100 to 1500 jurors!) or the agon of a political debate before the public assembly (of roughly 6000 citizens)-- and indeed the same word, agon, is used of a play competition, a trial, political debate before a public assembly: this is one aspect of the performance culture

Festival Setting: the City Dionysia

• In March: when winter storms were over, thus foreigners could come to visit for the festival, and yet before most of the spring military campaigns were underway
• The progress of the week-long festival:
• Day 0 (night before festival): evening procession: statue of Dionysus brought from outside the city to the temple of Dionysus: the statue of Dionysus then overlooks the performances
• Day 1: proagon: announcement of titles and topics for the plays; preparations for the grand procession
• Day 2: pompe: the grand procession (compare our "pomp and circumstance"): wineskins, phalloi, bulls to sacrifice (in 333 BC 240 were sacrificed!), women & children participated, also foreigners: revelry!
• Day 3: theater purified by sacrifice of piglet; display of tribute; citizen honors; manumission (freeing of slaves)
• Days 4-6: each day 3 tragedies + 1 satyr play by a given playwright (picture of satyrs, picture of Dionysus with satyrs)
• Day 7: 5 comedies (by 5 different playwrights; later in the fifth century only 3 comedies); voting and crowning of victors
• Importance of the setting:
• thiasos:
• that important feeling of belonging to a group, specifically:
1. an initiate in the mysteries of Dionysus
2. a spectator in the audience: someone in the theatron: group dynamics in watching a performance today, but imagine if only once or twice a year, and an enormous city-wide party
• popular aspect to the play productions
• sense of community identity, spirit of the city regenerated in the presence of the gods

Dionysus with satyrs on a boat: note the vines growing everywhere (since Dionysus is the god of wine), the oboe player at the far left, the lyre player (a satyr) second from the left, the dancers and general atmosphere of revelry