316 TESTUDO. TERU'NCIUS. [As.] TESSERA (kúẞoç), a square or cube; a die; a token. The dice used in games of chance werc tesserae, small squares or cubes, and were commonly made of ivory, bone, or wood. They were numbered on all the six sides, like the dice still in use; and in this respect as well as in their form they differed from the tali. [TALUS.] Whilst four tali were used in playing, only three tesserae were anciently employed. Objects of the same materials with dice, and either formed like them, or of an oblong shape, were used as tokens for different purposes. The tessera hospitalis was the token of mutual hospitality, and is spoken of under HOSPITIUM. This token was probably in many cases of earthenware, having the head of Jupiter Hospitalis stamped upon it. Tesserac frumentariae and nummariae were tokens given at certain times by the Roman magistrates to the poor, in exchange for which they received a fixed amount of corn or money. From the application of this term to tokens of various kinds, it was transferred to the word used as a token among soldiers. This was the tessera militaris, the ovvonua of the Greeks. Before joining battle it was given out and passed through the ranks, as a method by which the soldiers might be able to distinguish friends from foes. TESTU ́DO (xɛλúvŋ), a tortoise, was the name given to several other objects. 1. To the Lyra, because it was sometimes made of a tortoise-shell. 2. To an arched or vaulted roof. 3. To a military machine moving upon wheels and roofed over, used in besieging cities, under which the soldiers worked in undermining the walls or otherwise destroying them. It was usually covered with raw hides, or other materials which could not easily be set on fire. The battering-ram [ARIES] was frequently placed under a testudo of this kind, which was then called Testudo Arietaria. 4. The name of testudo was also applied to the covering made by a close body of soldiers who placed their shields over their heads to secure themselves against the darts of the enemy. The shields fitted so closely together as to present one unbroken surface without any interstices between them, and were also so firm that men could walk upon them, and even horses and chariots be driven over them. A testudo was formed (testudinem facere) either in battle to ward off the arrows and other missiles of the enemy, or, which was more frequently the case, to form a protection to TETRARCHES. the soldiers when they advanced to the walls or gates of a town for the purpose of attacking them. Sometimes the shields were disposed in such a way as to make the testudo slope. The soldiers in the first line stood upright, those in the second stooped a little, and each line successively was a little lower than the preceding down to the last, where the soldiers rested on one knee. Such a disposition of the shields was called fastigata testudo, on account of their sloping like the roof of a building. The advantages of this plan were obvious: the stones and missiles thrown upon the shields rolled off them like water from a roof; besides which, other soldiers frequently advanced upon them to attack the enemy upon the walls. The Romans were accustomed to form this kind of testudo, as an exercise, in the games of the circus. Testudo. TETRARCHES or TETRARCHA (TETpápxns). This word was originally used, according to its etymological meaning, to signify the governor of the fourth part of a country (τετραρχία οι τετραδαρχία). We have an example in the ancient division of Thessaly into four tetrarchies, which was revived by Philip. Each of the three Gallic tribes which settled in Galatia was divided into four tetrarchies, each ruled by a tetrach. Some of the tribes of Syria were ruled by tetrarchs, and several of the princes of the house of Herod ruled in Palestine with this | new Athenian theatre was built on a very title. In the later period of the republic and under the empire, the Romans seem to have used the title (as also those of ethnarch and phylarch) to designate those tributary princes who were not of sufficient importance to be called kings. THARGE'LIA (Oapynλra), a festival celebrated at Athens on the 6th and 7th of Thargelion, in honour of Apollo and Diana. large scale, and appears to have been constructed with great skill in regard to its acoustic and perspective arrangements. Subsequently theatres were erected in all parts of Greece and Asia Minor, although Athens was the centre of the Greek drama, and the only place which produced great masterworks in this department of literature. All the theatres however which were constructed in Greece were probably built after the model of that of Athens, and with slight deviations and modifications they all resembled one another in the main points, as is seen in the The real festival, or the Thargelia in a narrower sense of the word, appears to have taken place on the 7th; and on the preceding day, the city of Athens, or rather its inhab-numerous ruins of theatres in various parts itants, were purified. The manner in which this purification was effected is very extraordinary, and is certainly a remnant of very ancient rites, for two persons were put to death on that day, and the one died on behalf of the men, and the other on behalf of the women of Athens. The name by which these victims were designated was pharmaci (papuaKoí). It appears probable, however, that this sacrifice did not take place annually, but only in case of a heavy calamity having befallen the city, such as the plague, a famine, &c. The victims appear to have been criminals sentenced to death. The second day of the thargelia was solemnized with a procession and an agon, which consisted of a cyclic chorus, performed by men at the expense of a choragus. The prize of the victor in this agon was a tripod, which he had to dedicate in the temple of Apollo which had been built by Pisistratus. On this day it was customary for persons who were adopted into a family to be solemnly registered and received into the genos and the phratria of the adoptive parents. This solemnity was the same as that of registering one's own children at the Apaturia. THEATRUM (Béarpov), a theatre. The Athenians before the time of Aeschylus had only a wooden scaffolding on which their dramas were performed. Such a wooden theatre was only erected for the time of the Dionysiac festivals, and was afterwards pulled down. The first drama that Aeschylus brought upon the stage was performed upon such a wooden scaffold, and it is recorded as a singular and ominous coincidence that on that occasion (500 B. C.) the scaffolding broke down. To prevent the recurrence of such an accident, the building of a stone theatre was forthwith commenced on the south-eastern descent of the Acropolis, in the Lenaea; for it should be observed, that throughout Greece theatres were always built upon eminences, or on the sloping side of a hill. The of Greece, Asia Minor, and Sicily. The Attic theatre was, like all the Greek theatres, placed in such a manner that the place for the spectators formed the upper or northwestern, and the stage with all that belonged to it the south-eastern part, and between these two parts lay the orchestra. The annexed plan has been made from the remains of Greek theatres still extant, and from a careful examination of the passages in ancient writers which describe the whole or parts of a theatre. 1. The place for the spectators was in a narrower sense of the word called theatrum. The seats for the spectators, which were in most cases cut out of the rock, consisted of rows of benches rising one above another; the rows themselves (a) formed parts (nearly three-fourths) of concentric circles, and were at intervals divided into compartments by one or more broad passages (b) running between them, and parallel with the benches. These passages were called διαζώματα, οι κατατομαί, Lat. praecinctiones, and when the concourse of people was very great in a theatre, many persons might stand in them. Across the rows of benches ran stairs, by which persons might ascend from the lowest to the highest. But these stairs ran in straight lines only from one praecinctio to another; and the stairs in the next series of rows were just between the two stairs of the lower series of benches. By this course of the stairs the seats were divided into a number of compartments, resembling cones from which the tops are cut off; hence, they were termed kƐρKidƐg, and in Latin cunei. The whole of the place for the spectators (0ɛúтpov) was sometimes designated by the name κoi2ov, Latin cavea, it being in most cases a real excavation of the rock. Above the highest row of benches there rose a covered portico (c), which of course far exceeded in height the opposite buildings by which the stage was surrounded, and appears to have also contributed to increase the acoustic effect. The entrances to the seats of the spectators were partly underground, and led to the lowest rows of benches, while the upper rows must have been accessible from above. 2. The orchestra (opyńσrpa) was a circular level space extending in front of the spectators, and somewhat below the lowest row of benches. But it was not a complete circle, one segment of it being appropriated to the stage. The orchestra was the place for the chorus, where it performed its evolutions and dances, for which purpose it was covered with boards. As the chorus was the element out of which the drama arose, so the orchestra was originally the most important part of a theatre: it formed the centre around which all the other parts of the building were grouped. In the centre of the circle of the orchestra was the thymele (Ovμćλn), that is, the altar of Bacchus (d), which was of course nearer to the stage than to the seats of the spectators, the distance from which was precisely the length of a radius of the circle. In a wider sense the orchestra also comprised the broad passages (πápodoɩ, e) on each side, between the projecting wings of the stage and the seats of the spectators, through which the chorus entered the orchestra. The chorus generally arranged itself in the space between the thymele and the stage. The thymele itself was of a square form, and was used for various purposes, according to the nature of the different plays, such as a funeral monument, an altar, &c. It was made of boards, and surrounded on all sides with steps. It thus stood upon a raised platform, which was sometimes occupied by the leader of the chorus, the flute-player, and the rhabdophori. The orchestra, as well as the theatrum, lay under the open sky; a roof is nowhere mentioned. 3. The stage. Steps led from each side of the orchestra to the stage, and by them the chorus probably ascended the stage whenever it took a real part in the action itself. The back side of the stage was closed by a wall called the scena (okηvý), from which on each side a wing projected which was called the parascenium (Tараσкýνιov). The whole depth of the stage was not very great, as it only comprised a segment of the circle of the or THEATRUM. 319 chestra. The whole space from the scena | appears to have always represented a woody to the orchestra was termed the proscenium district with hills and grottos; in comedy the (πpoσkývɩov), and was what we would call scena represented, at least in later times, the the real stage. That part of it which was fronts of private dwellings or the habitations nearest to the orchestra, and where the actors of slaves. The art of scene-painting must stood when they spoke, was the logeium (20- have been applied long before the time of yɛčov), also called ocribas (ỏкpíßaç), in Latin Sophocles, although Aristotle ascribes its inpulpitum, which was of course raised above troduction to him. the orchestra and probably on a level with The whole of the cavea in the Attic theathe thymele. The scena was, as we have tre must have contained about 50,000 spectaalready stated, the wall which closed the tors. The places for generals, the archons, stage (proscenium and logeium) from behind. priests, foreign ambassadors, and other disIt represented a suitable background, or the tinguished persons, were in the lowest rows locality in which the action was going on. of benches, and nearest to the orchestra, and Before the play began it was covered with a they appear to have been sometimes covered curtain (παραπέτασμα, προσκήνιον, αὐλαῖαι), with a sort of canopy. The rows of benches Latin aulaea or siparium. When the play above these were occupied by the senate of began this curtain was let down, and was 500, those next in succession by the ephebi, rolled up on a roller underneath the stage. and the rest by the people of Athens. But it The proscenium and logeium were never would seem that they did not sit indiscrimiconcealed from the spectators. As regards nately, but that the better places were let at the scenery represented on the scena, it was a higher price than the others, and that no different for tragedy, comedy, and the satyricone had a right to take a place for which he drama, and for each of these kinds of poetry had not paid. The usual fee for a place was the scenery must have been capable of va- two obols, which was subsequently given to rious modifications, according to the charac- the poorer classes by a law of Pericles. [THEter of each individual play; at least that this ORICA.] Women were allowed to be present was the case with the various tragedies, is during the performance of tragedies, but not evident from the scenes described in the tra- of comedies. gedies still extant. In the latter however The Romans must have become acquainted the back-ground (scena) in most cases repre- with the theatres of the Italian Greeks at an sented the front of a palace with a door in early period, whence they erected their own the centre (i) which was called the royal door. theatres in similar positions upon the sides This palace generally consisted of two stories, of hills. This is still clear from the ruins of and upon its flat roof there appears to have very ancient theatres at Tusculum and Faebeen some elevated place from which persons sulae. The Romans themselves, however, might observe what was going on at a dis- did not possess a regular stone theatre until tance. The palace presented on each side a a very late period; and although dramatic projecting wing, each of which had its sepa- representations were very popular in earlier rate entrance. These wings generally repre- times, it appears that a wooden stage was sented the habitations of guests and visitors. erected when necessary, and was afterwards All the three doors must have been visible pulled down again, and the plays of Plautus to the spectators. The protagonistes always and Terence were performed on such tempoentered the stage through the middle or royal rary scaffoldings. In the mean while, many door, the deuteragonistes and tritagonistes of the neighbouring towns of Rome had their through those on the right and left wings. In stone theatres, as the introduction of Greek tragedies like the Prometheus, the Persians, customs and manners was less strongly opPhiloctetes, Oedipus in Colonus, and others, posed in them than in the city of Rome itself. the back-ground did not represent a palace. Wooden theatres, adorned with the most proThere are other pieces again in which the fuse magnificence, were erected at Rome scena must have been changed in the course even during the last period of the republic. of the performance, as in the Eumenides of In B. c. 55 Cn. Pompey built the first stone Aeschylus and the Ajax of Sophocles. The theatre at Rome, near the Campus Martius. dramas of Euripides required a great variety It was of great beauty, and is said to have of scenery; and if in addition to this we re-been built after the model of that of Mytilene; collect that several pieces were played in one it contained 40,000 spectators. day, it is manifest that the mechanical parts of stage performance, at least in the days of Euripides, must have been brought to great perfection. The scena in the satyric drama The construction of a Roman theatre resembled, on the whole, that of a Greek one. The principal differences are, that the seats of the spectators, which rose in the form of was necessary to recommence the procession, and for one of the attendant boys to let go the thong, or to stumble, was profanation. The only gods distinctly named as carried in tensae are Jupiter and Minerva, though others appear to have had the same honour paid them. THENSAE or TENSAE, highly orna- | the driver took the reins in his left hand, it mented sacred vehicles, which, in the solemn pomp of the Circensian games, conveyed the statues of certain deities with all their decorations to the pulvinaria, and after the sports were over bore them back to their shrines. We are ignorant of their precise form. We know that they were drawn by horses, and escorted (deducere) by the chief senators in robes of state, who, along with pueri patrimi [PATRIMI], laid hold of the bridles and traces, or perhaps assisted to drag the carriage by means of thongs attached for the purpose (and hence the proposed derivation from tendo). So sacred was this duty considered, that Augustus, when labouring under sickness, deem- THEOʻRICA (Pɛwρiká). Under this name ed it necessary to accompany the tensae in a at Athens were comprised the moneys expendlitter. If one of the horses knocked up, ored on festivals, sacrifices, and public enter THEOPHANIA (θεοφάνια), a festival celebrated at Delphi, on the occasion of Which the Delphians filled the huge silver crater which had been presented to the Delphic god by Croesus. THEO'RIA. [THEORI.] |