Dionysia

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Dionysia

The Dionysia was a large religious festival in ancient Athens

Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
in honor of the god Dionysus

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos , is the God of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, among whom Greek mythology treated Dionysus as a late arrival....
, the central event of which was the performance of tragedies

Tragedy

Tragedy is a form of The arts based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific Poetic tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western culture....
and, since 487 BC, comedies. It was the second-most important festival after the Panathenaia. The Dionysia actually comprised two related festivals, the Rural Dionysia and the City Dionysia, which took place in different parts of the year. They were also an essential part of the Dionysian Mysteries

Dionysian Mysteries

The Dionysian Mysteries probably began as an ancient initiation society, or family of similar societies, centred on a primeval nature god , apparently associated with horned animals, serpents and solitary predators , later known to the Greeks in the eclectic figure of Dionysus....
.

Dionysia was originally a rural festival in Eleutherae

Eleutherae

Eleutherae is a city in the northern part of Attica, bordering the territory of Boeotia. One of the best preserved fortresses of the Ancient Greece stands now on the spot of Ancient Eleutherae with walls of very fine masonry that average 2.6m thick....
, Attica

Attica

Attica is a Peripheries of Greece in Greece, containing Athens, the capital of Greece. Attica is subdivided into the prefectures of Greece of Athens Prefecture, Piraeus Prefecture, East Attica and West Attica....
(Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: Dionysia ta kat' agrous - "?????s?a t? ?at' ??????"), probably celebrating the cultivation of vine

Vine

A vine is any plant of genus Grape or, by extension, any similar climbing or trailing plant. The word, derived from Latin vinea, referred to the grape-bearing variety....
s.

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The Dionysia was a large religious festival in ancient Athens

Athens

Dionysus

Tragedy

Dionysian Mysteries

Rural Dionysia

The Dionysia was originally a rural festival in Eleutherae

Eleutherae

Attica

Greek language

Vine

A vine is any plant of genus Grape or, by extension, any similar climbing or trailing plant. The word, derived from Latin vinea, referred to the grape-bearing variety....
s. It was probably a very ancient festival perhaps not originally associated with Dionysus. This "rural Dionysia" was held during the winter in the month of Poseideon

Attic calendar

The Attic calendar is the calendar that was in use in ancient Attica, the ancestral territory of the ancient Athens polis. This article focuses on the 5th century BC and 4th century BC, the classical period that produced some of the most significant works of ancient Greek literature....
(roughly corresponding to December). The central event was the pompe - p?µp?, the procession, in which phalloi
Phallus

Phallus can refer to a penis, or to an object shaped like a penis. The word comes from Vulgar Latin "phallus", from Ancient Greek "fa????" phallos, penis....
- fa???? were carried by phallophoroi - fa???f????. Also participating in the pompe were kanephoroi
Kanephoros

The Kanephoros was an honorific office given to unmarried young women in ancient Greece, which involved the privilege of leading the procession to sacrifice at festivals; the highest honour was to lead the pompe at the Panathenaic Festival....
- ?a??f???? (young girls carrying baskets), obeliaphoroi - ?ße??af???? (who carried long loaves of bread), skaphephoroi - s?af?f???? (who carried other offerings), hydriaphoroi - ?d??af???? (who carried jars of water), and askophoroi - ?s??f???? (who carried jars of wine).

After the pompe, there were contests of dancing and singing, and choruses

Greek chorus

The Greek chorus is a group of twelve or fifteen minor actors in tragedy and twenty-four in Ancient Greek comedy plays of classical Athens....
(led by a choregos
Choregos (ancient Greece)

In the theatre of ancient Greece, chor?gos was an honorary title for a wealthy Classical Athens citizen who assumed the public duty of financing and paying the expenses of the preparation of the Greek chorus and other aspects of dramatic production that were not covered by the Polis....
) would perform dithyramb

Dithyramb

The dithyramb was originally an Ancient Greece hymn sung to the god Dionysus and was also a term used as an epithet of the god.. Its wild and ecstatic character was contrasted by Plutarch with that of the paean....
s. Some festivals may have included dramatic performances, possibly of the tragedies and comedies that had been produced at the City Dionysia the previous year. This was more common in the larger towns such as Piraeus

Piraeus

Piraeus is a city in the periphery of Attica, Greece, and a municipality within Athens urban area, located 10 km southwest of its center....
and Eleusis.

Because the various towns in Attica held their festivals on different days, it was possible for spectators to visit more than one festival per season. It was also an opportunity for Athenian citizens to travel outside the city if they did not have the opportunity to do so during the rest of the year. This also allowed travelling companies of actors to perform in more than one town during the period of the festival.

The comic playwright Aristophanes

Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a prolific and much acclaimed comedy playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays have come down to us virtually complete....
parodied the Rural Dionysia in his play The Acharnians
The Acharnians

The Acharnians is the third play - and the earliest of the eleven surviving plays - by the great Athenian playwright Aristophanes. It was produced in 425 BCE on behalf of the young dramatist by an associate, Callistratus, and it won first place at the Lenaia festival....
.

City Dionysia

Origins

The City Dionysia (Dionysia ta en Astei - ?????s?a t? ?? ?ste?, also known as the Great Dionysia, Dionysia ta Megala - ?????s?a t? ?e???a) was the urban part of the festival, possibly established during the tyranny of Pisistratus

Peisistratos (Athens)

Peisistratus was a tyrant of Athens from 546 to 527/8 BCE. His legacy lies primarily in his institution of the Panathenaic Festival and the consequent first attempt at producing a definitive version for Homeric epics....
in the 6th century BC. This festival was held about three months after the rural Dionysia, during the month of Elaphebolion

Attic calendar

Eleutherae

Boeotia

Boeotia, Beotia, or B?otia , formerly Cadmeis, was a region of ancient Greece, north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It was bounded on the south by Megaris and the Kithairon mountain range that forms a natural barrier with Attica, on the north by Opuntian Locris and the Euripus Strait at the Gulf of Euboea, and on the...
, chose to become part of Attica. The Eleuthereans brought a statue of Dionysus to Athens, which was initially rejected by the Athenians. Dionysus then punished the Athenians with a plague affecting the male genitalia that was cured when the Athenians accepted the cult of Dionysus. This was recalled each year by a procession of citizens carrying 'phalloi'.

The urban festival was a relatively recent invention, and fell under the auspices of the eponymous archon rather than the basileus

Basileus

Basileus , signifies "Monarch" or "king". It is perhaps best known in English language as a title used by Byzantine Empire emperors, but also has a longer history of use for persons of authority in ancient Greece, as well as for the kings of modern Greece....
, to whom religious festivals were given when the office of archon was created in the 7th century BC.

Pompe and Proagon

The archon prepared for the City Dionysia as soon as he was elected, by choosing two paredroi and ten epimeletai to help organize the festival. On the first day of the festival the pompe was held, in which citizens, metic

Metic

In ancient Greece, the term metic meant resident alien, a person who did not have citizen rights in their Greek city-state of residence.Metic comes from the Greek language ??t?????, metoikos, where the second element is derived from ?????, oikos, "house; inhabit." The preceding element meta could here either carry the notio...
s, and representatives from Athenian colonies marched to the Theatre of Dionysus

Theatre of Dionysus

Acropolis

Acropolis literally means city on the edge . For purposes of defense, early settlers naturally chose elevated ground, frequently a hill with precipitous sides....
, carrying the wooden statue of Dionysus Eleutherus (the "leading" or the eisagoge). As with the Rural Dionysia, they also carried phalloi, made out of wood or bronze, and a cart pulled a much larger phallus. Basket-carriers and water- and wine-carriers participated in the pompe here as in the Rural Dionysia.

During the height of the Athenian Empire in the mid-5th century BC, various gifts and weapons showcasing Athens' strength were carried as well. Also included in the procession were bulls to be sacrificed in the theatre. The most conspicuous members of the procession were the choregoi, who were dressed in the most expensive and ornate clothing. After the pompe the choregoi - (???????) led their choruses in the dithyrambic competitions. These were extremely competitive, and the best flute players and poets (such as Simonides

Simonides of Ceos

Simonides of Ceos , Greek Lyric poetry poet, was born at Ioulis on Kea . He was included, along with Sappho and Pindar, in the canonical list of nine lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria....
and Pindar

Pindar

Pindar , was an Ancient Greek Lyric poetry poet.Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, Pindar is the one whose work is by far the best preserved, and critics in antiquity tended to regard him as the greatest....
) offered their musical and lyrical services. After these competitions, the bulls were sacrificed, and a feast was held for all the citizens of Athens. A second procession, the komos
Komos

The Komos was a ritualistic drunken procession performed by revelers in ancient Greece, whose participants were known as komasts. Its precise nature has been difficult to reconstruct from the diverse literary sources and evidence derived from vase painting....
(??µ??), occurred afterwards, which was most likely a drunken revelry through the streets.

The next day, the playwrights announced the titles of the plays to be performed, and judges were selected by lot (the proagon - p??????). It is unknown where the proagon originally took place, but after the mid-5th century BC it was held in the Odeon of Pericles

Pericles

Pericles was a prominent and influential statesman, orator, and general of History of Athens during the city's Age of Pericles?specifically, the time between the Greco-Persian Wars and Peloponnesian War wars....
on the Acropolis. The proagon was also used to give praise to notable citizens, or often foreigners, who had served Athens in some beneficial way during the year. During the Peloponnesian War

Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War which lasted from 431-404BC was an Ancient Greece military conflict, fought by Athens and its Athenian empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta....
, orphaned children of those who had been killed in battle were also paraded in the Odeon, possibly to honour their fathers. The proagon could be used for other announcements as well; in 406 BC the death of the playwright Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
was announced there.

Dramatic performances

During the pompe, the Theatre of Dionysus

Theatre of Dionysus

Pig

Pigs, also called hogs or swine, are a genus of even-toed ungulates within the Family Suidae. The name pig, hog, or swine most commonly refers to the Domestic pig in everyday parlance, but technically encompasses several distinct species, including the Wild Boar....
. According to tradition, the first performance of tragedy at the Dionysia was by the playwright and actor Thespis

Thespis

Thespis of Icaria is claimed to be the first person ever to appear on stage as an actor in a Play , although the reality is undoubtedly more complex....
(from whom we have the word "thespian") in 534 BC. His prize was a goat

Goat

The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep: both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae....
, a common symbol of Dionysus, and possibly the origin of the word "tragedy" (which perhaps means "goat-song").

The next three days of the festival were devoted to the tragic plays. Three playwrights performed three tragedies and one satyr play

Satyr play

Satyr plays were an Ancient Greece form of tragicomedy, similar to the modern-day burlesque style. They always featured a chorus of satyrs and were based in Greek mythology and contained themes of, among other things, drinking, overt sexuality , pranks and general merriment....
each, one set of plays per day. Most of the extant Greek tragedies, including those of Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus was an Ancient Greece playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedy whose Play survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides....
, Euripides

Euripides

Sophocles

Sophocles was the second of the three classical Greece tragedy whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides....
, were performed at the Theatre of Dionysus

Theatre of Dionysus

The Theatre of Dionysus was a major Theatre of ancient Greece in ancient Greece, built at the foot of the Athens Acropolis, Athens and forming part of the temenos of "Dionysus Eleuthereus" ....
. The archons, epimeletai, and judges (agonothetai - ???????ta?) watched from the front row.

Comic poets were officially allowed at the contests (agon

Agon

Agon is an ancient Greek word with several meanings:*In one sense, it meant a contest, competition, or challenge that was held in connection with religious festivals....
s) held during the City Dionysia, only since 487/86 BCE. On the sixth day of the festival, five comedies (such as those of Aristophanes) were performed. Comedies were of secondary importance at the Dionysia, and were instead more important to the Lenaia

Lenaia

The Lenaia was an annual festival with a dramatic competition but one of the lesser festivals of Athens and Ionia in ancient Greece. The Lenaia took place in the month of Gamelion, roughly corresponding to January....
festival earlier in the year. Nevertheless, it was considered a greater honour to win the comedic prize at the Dionysia.

After the classical period

Classical Greece

Classical Greece was a culture that was highly advanced and which heavilly influenced the cultures of Ancient Rome and much of the Western World....
in the 5th century BC, older plays could be performed again. It seems that audiences may have preferred this to the production of new plays of inferior quality. The number of plays performed also fluctuated; during the Peloponnesian War, there were usually only three comedies, and comedies were omitted altogether by the 2nd century BC. There do not seem to have been any new tragedies after the 2nd century AD, older plays being exclusively performed by that point.

Another procession and celebration was held on the final day, when the judges chose the winners of the tragedy and comedy performances. The winning playwrights won a wreath of ivy

Ivy

Hedera is a genus of 15 species of climbing or ground-creeping evergreen woody plants in the family Araliaceae, native to the Macaronesia, western, central and southern Europe, northwestern Africa and across central-southern Asia east to Japan....
, although, when old plays were performed, the producer was awarded the prize rather than the long-dead playwright.

Significance

Dionysus was often seen as the god of everything uncivilized, of the innate wildness of humanity that the Athenians had tried to control. The Dionysia was probably a time to let out their inhibitions through highly emotional tragedies or irreverent comedies. During the pompe there was also an element of role-reversal - lower-class citizens could mock and jeer the upper classes, or women could insult their male relatives. This was known as aischrologia - a?s???????a or tothasmos, a concept also found in the Eleusinian Mysteries

Eleusinian Mysteries

The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiation ceremony held every year for the Cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece. Of all the mysteries celebrated in ancient times, these were held to be the ones of greatest importance....
.

The plays themselves could highlight ideas that would not normally be spoken or shared in everyday life. Aeschylus' The Persians
The Persians

The Persians is an Classical Athens tragedy by the Classical Greece playwright Aeschylus. First produced in 472 BCE, it is the oldest surviving play in the history of theatre....
, for example, while patriotic to Athens, showed sympathy towards the Persians, which may have been politically unwise under normal circumstances. The parodies of Aristophanes mocked the politicians and other celebrities of Athens, even going so far as producing an anti-war play (Lysistrata
Lysistrata

Lysistrata is one of the few surviving plays written by the master of Aristophanes#Aristophanes and Old Comedy, Aristophanes. Originally performed in Classical Athens in 411 BC, it is a comic account of one woman's extraordinary mission to end The Peloponnesian War....
) at the height of the Peloponnesian War

Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War which lasted from 431-404BC was an Ancient Greece military conflict, fought by Athens and its Athenian empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta....
. The circumstances of the Dionysia allowed him to get away with criticisms he would not normally be allowed to voice.

Notable winners of the City Dionysia

Tragedy

484 BC - Aeschylus
Aeschylus

Aeschylus was an Ancient Greece playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedy whose Play survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides....
472 BC - Aeschylus (The Persians
The Persians

The Persians is an Classical Athens tragedy by the Classical Greece playwright Aeschylus. First produced in 472 BCE, it is the oldest surviving play in the history of theatre....
)
471 BC - Polyphrasmon
468 BC - Sophocles
Sophocles

Sophocles was the second of the three classical Greece tragedy whose work has survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus and earlier than those of Euripides....
(Triptolemus)
467 BC - Aeschylus (Seven Against Thebes
Seven Against Thebes

The Seven against Thebes is a mythic narrative whose classic statement is found in the play by Aeschylus concerning the battle between the Seven led by Polynices, traditional Theban enemies, and the army of Thebes, Greece headed by Eteocles and his supporters....
)
463 BC - Aeschylus (The Suppliants
The Suppliants (Aeschylus)

The Suppliants is a play by Aeschylus. It was probably first performed sometime after 470 BC as the first play in a trilogy which included the lost plays The Egyptians and The Daughters of Danaus....
)
458 BC - Aeschylus (The Oresteia
The Oresteia

The Oresteia is a trilogy of Theatre of ancient Greece tragedy written by Aeschylus which concerns the end of the curse on the House of Atreus....
)
449 BC - Herakleides
441 BC - Euripides
Euripides

Euripides was the last of the three great tragedy of classical Athens . Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias....
441 BC - Sophocles (Antigone)
431 BC - Euphorion, son of Aeschylus, Sophocles took 2nd place, Euripides took 3rd with Medea
Medea (play)

Medea is an Ancient Greece tragedy play written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BC. The Plot largely centers on the protagonist in her struggle with the world, and the revenge she brings about against her husband Jason who has betrayed her for another woman, the princess Glauce....
428 BC - Euripides (Hippolytus
Hippolytus (play)

Hippolytus is an Ancient Greek drama tragedy by Euripides, based on the myth of Hippolytus , son of Theseus. The play was first produced for the City Dionysia of Athens in 428 BC and won first prize as part of a trilogy....
)
427 BC - Philocles, nephew of Aeshyclus, Sophocles took 2nd place
415 BC - Xenocles
Xenocles

Xenocles or Zenocles was an Ancient Greece tragedian.There were two Athenian tragic poets of this name, one the grandfather of the other....
409 BC - Sophocles (Philoctetes
Philoctetes (Sophocles)

Philoctetes is a play by Sophocles . It was first performed at the Festival of Dionysus in 409 BC, where it won first prize. The story takes place during the Trojan War ....
)
406 BC - Euripides (The Bacchae
The Bacchae

The Bacchae is an Classical Greece tragedy by the Classical Athens playwright Euripides. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BCE as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigeneia at Aulis, and which Euripides' son or nephew probably directed....
)
372 BC - Astydamas

Comedy

486 BC - Chionides
Chionides

Chionides an Athenian Ancient Greek comedy of the 5th century BC, contemporary of Magnes .Titles of his Comedies:*???e? Heroes*?t???? Ptochoi The Poor,Beggars...
472 BC - Magnes
Magnes (comic poet)

Magnes an Athenian Ancient Greek comedy of the 5th century BC,contemporary of Chionides.Magnes along with Chionides are the earliest comic poets of whom we find any victories recorded...
458 BC - Euphonius
450 BC - Crates
446 BC - Callias
437 BC - Pherecrates
Pherecrates

Pherecrates, was an Ancient Greece poet of Athenian Old Comedy, and a rough contemporary of Cratinus, Crates and Aristophanes. He was victorious at least once at the City Dionysia, first probably in the mid-440s , and twice at the Lenaia, first probably in the mid- to late 430s ....
435 BC - Hermippus
Hermippus

Hermippus was the one-eyed Athenian writer of the Old Comedy who flourished during the Peloponnesian War. He was said to have written forty plays, of which the titles and fragments of nine are preserved....
422 BC - Cantharus
421 BC - Aristophanes (Peace
Peace (play)

Peace is an Athenian Old Comedy written and produced by the Greek playwright Aristophanes. It was staged in 421 BC and was awarded second prize at the City Dionysia festival....
(2nd prize))
414 BC - Ameipsias (The Revellers)
402 BC - Cephisodoros
290 BC - Poseidippus
Poseidippus of Cassandreia

Poseidippus of Cassandreia or Posidippus son of Cyniscus, a ancient Macedonians who lived in Athens, was a celebrated comic poet of the Greek comedy#New_Comedy....
278 BC - Philemon
Philemon (poet)

Philemon was an Athenian Democracy poet and playwright of the New Comedy. He was born either at Soli in Cilicia or at Syracuse, Italy in Sicily but moved to Athens some time before 330 BC, when he is known to have been producing plays....
185 BC - Laines
183 BC - Philemon
154 BC - Chairion

Sources

Aristophanes, The Acharnians.
Simon Goldhill, The Great Dionysia and Civic Ideology, in Nothing to Do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in Its Social Context, eds. John J. Winkler and Froma I. Zeitlin. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-691-06814-3
Susan Guettel Cole, Procession and Celebration at the Dionysia, in Theater and Society in the Classical World, ed. Ruth Scodel. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993. ISBN 0-472-10281-8
Jeffrey M. Hurwit. The Athenian Acropolis: History, Mythology, and Archaeology From the Neolithic Era to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. ISBN 0521428343
Sir Arthur Pickard-Cambridge. The Dramatic Festivals of Athens. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953 (2nd ed. 1968). ISBN 0-19-814258-7
Robert Parker. Athenian religion: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-19-814979-4
Carl A. P. Ruck. IG II 2323: The List of the Victors in Comedies at the Dionysia. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967.

Dionysia

Rural Dionysia

City Dionysia

Origins

Pompe and Proagon

Dramatic performances

Significance

Notable winners of the City Dionysia

Tragedy

Comedy

See also

Sources