1 00:00:02,220 --> 00:00:06,100 In 405 BC, a new play by the tragedian Euripides 2 00:00:06,100 --> 00:00:09,420 won first prize at a festival in Athens. 3 00:00:09,420 --> 00:00:11,180 It was called The Bacchae 4 00:00:11,180 --> 00:00:15,700 and it is one of the most powerful and disturbing plays ever written. 5 00:00:17,940 --> 00:00:23,140 It tells the story of the chaos wrought by the god of theatre and revelry, Dionysus. 6 00:00:23,140 --> 00:00:25,700 It tells of women lured to the mountains, 7 00:00:25,700 --> 00:00:27,940 where they sing and dance in a frenzy, 8 00:00:27,940 --> 00:00:31,180 and it follows the fate of an unfortunate young king, 9 00:00:31,180 --> 00:00:36,580 who is tricked into spying on them and is torn limb from limb. 10 00:00:36,580 --> 00:00:41,300 It's a play that suggests a changing world, dangerous and uncertain, 11 00:00:41,300 --> 00:00:44,500 where you never really know who or what to trust. 12 00:00:47,380 --> 00:00:51,020 Euripides himself did not live to see his victory. 13 00:00:51,020 --> 00:00:55,860 He died far away from Athens, having left the birthplace of drama behind. 14 00:00:57,900 --> 00:01:02,340 It is likely that Euripides composed The Bacchae here, in Macedon, 15 00:01:02,340 --> 00:01:04,580 on the northern fringes of the Greek world, 16 00:01:04,580 --> 00:01:07,460 an area thought by many of the ancient southern Greeks 17 00:01:07,460 --> 00:01:10,660 to be wild, unruly and unstable. 18 00:01:10,660 --> 00:01:13,460 And it was here that Euripides lived out his final days, 19 00:01:13,460 --> 00:01:18,780 not in the cradle of a democracy, but in the court of a king. 20 00:01:20,300 --> 00:01:22,500 Euripides' departure from Athens, 21 00:01:22,500 --> 00:01:25,660 and the turmoil and disorder of his play, The Bacchae, 22 00:01:25,660 --> 00:01:27,700 foreshadowed a new era. 23 00:01:27,700 --> 00:01:31,820 One marked by war, instability and chaos. 24 00:01:33,140 --> 00:01:36,140 In the next century, Athens would lose its influence, 25 00:01:36,140 --> 00:01:39,220 its significance and even its democracy. 26 00:01:41,300 --> 00:01:47,140 And the balance of power in Greece would shift from democrats to kings. 27 00:01:47,140 --> 00:01:51,940 But drama, that most Athenian of inventions, would thrive, 28 00:01:51,940 --> 00:01:55,700 spreading throughout the Greek world and beyond. 29 00:01:55,700 --> 00:01:59,180 This episode is the story of the dramatic decline of Athens, 30 00:01:59,180 --> 00:02:01,060 and the remarkable triumph 31 00:02:01,060 --> 00:02:03,580 and transformation of theatre. 32 00:02:16,140 --> 00:02:19,740 During the 5th century, Athens was the pre-eminent city in Greece - 33 00:02:19,740 --> 00:02:24,220 confident, powerful, and in control of a vast empire. 34 00:02:24,220 --> 00:02:30,460 It had given birth to two radical new ideas - democracy and theatre. 35 00:02:30,460 --> 00:02:33,500 And the dynamic relationship between these ideas 36 00:02:33,500 --> 00:02:35,420 had driven the city's rise to power. 37 00:02:37,500 --> 00:02:41,260 This was the time when the great tragedians, Sophocles and Euripides, 38 00:02:41,260 --> 00:02:45,500 were staging epic plays like Oedipus and Medea, 39 00:02:45,500 --> 00:02:47,340 and the comedian Aristophanes 40 00:02:47,340 --> 00:02:52,180 was composing bawdy and fantastical comedies like Birds. 41 00:02:52,180 --> 00:02:54,660 As well as being great works of art, 42 00:02:54,660 --> 00:02:56,700 these plays engaged directly 43 00:02:56,700 --> 00:02:59,700 with Athenian democracy and Athenian life. 44 00:03:04,020 --> 00:03:09,140 But by the late 5th century, all of this was at risk. 45 00:03:09,140 --> 00:03:12,620 Athens was also fighting a war, the Peloponnesian War, 46 00:03:12,620 --> 00:03:15,300 against the great land power of Sparta. 47 00:03:17,020 --> 00:03:20,860 In 415 BC, still supremely confident, 48 00:03:20,860 --> 00:03:23,780 Athens launched a new phase in this war. 49 00:03:23,780 --> 00:03:26,460 She sent an expedition to attack the city of Syracuse, 50 00:03:26,460 --> 00:03:28,780 on the island of Sicily, 51 00:03:28,780 --> 00:03:31,220 towards the western edges of a Greek world 52 00:03:31,220 --> 00:03:34,140 that spread from Marseille to the Black Sea coast. 53 00:03:34,140 --> 00:03:39,660 For two years, brutal fighting raged on the sea and land at Syracuse. 54 00:03:39,660 --> 00:03:43,300 Thucydides called it the greatest slaughter of the war. 55 00:03:43,300 --> 00:03:46,060 He wrote of bodies heaped on top of one another 56 00:03:46,060 --> 00:03:48,380 and of rivers clotted with blood. 57 00:03:51,900 --> 00:03:54,780 Finally, in 413 BC, 58 00:03:54,780 --> 00:03:58,940 the Athenians were decisively and disastrously defeated. 59 00:04:00,340 --> 00:04:03,500 Those who survived, some 7,000 of them, 60 00:04:03,500 --> 00:04:07,100 were imprisoned in these stone quarries. 61 00:04:07,100 --> 00:04:08,820 Amazingly, it is said 62 00:04:08,820 --> 00:04:12,780 that you can still see the marks from their chisels on the walls. 63 00:04:14,260 --> 00:04:16,820 Today, this is a famed tourist attraction, 64 00:04:16,820 --> 00:04:21,260 but the fun belies the horrific reality of this place in the ancient world. 65 00:04:21,260 --> 00:04:24,140 It was part of a much larger quarry 66 00:04:24,140 --> 00:04:26,540 where the Athenians, as prisoners of war, were brought 67 00:04:26,540 --> 00:04:28,420 as part of a labour camp. 68 00:04:28,420 --> 00:04:31,420 Can you imagine being forced to work here day in, day out 69 00:04:31,420 --> 00:04:34,340 undertaking the backbreaking work of quarrying these stones 70 00:04:34,340 --> 00:04:36,780 with no respite from the scorching sun? 71 00:04:38,020 --> 00:04:40,780 There was only one way to escape from this hell - 72 00:04:40,780 --> 00:04:44,460 the historian Plutarch tells us that some Athenians were freed 73 00:04:44,460 --> 00:04:48,460 when they were heard quoting lines from Euripides. 74 00:04:48,460 --> 00:04:52,260 Plutarch tells us that the Syracusans were absolutely mad for Euripides 75 00:04:52,260 --> 00:04:55,060 and the morsels of his plays that made their way over here 76 00:04:55,060 --> 00:04:57,700 and he says that the Athenians who did make it home 77 00:04:57,700 --> 00:05:02,540 went to Euripides himself to thank him for saving their lives 78 00:05:02,540 --> 00:05:05,420 because they'd been able to remember and recite 79 00:05:05,420 --> 00:05:08,340 some of the lines from his plays. 80 00:05:08,340 --> 00:05:12,500 It's amazing to think that knowing extracts from a play 81 00:05:12,500 --> 00:05:15,900 was enough to buy these prisoners their freedom. 82 00:05:15,900 --> 00:05:20,660 It's a sign that theatre was making an impact far beyond Athens. 83 00:05:20,660 --> 00:05:23,100 Such was the popularity of drama here in Sicily 84 00:05:23,100 --> 00:05:25,060 that, a few decades before, 85 00:05:25,060 --> 00:05:27,620 the great Aeschylus, the father of tragedy himself, 86 00:05:27,620 --> 00:05:30,660 had come here to produce his plays. 87 00:05:30,660 --> 00:05:33,140 And the message of one play in particular 88 00:05:33,140 --> 00:05:35,540 now looked to be coming home to roost. 89 00:05:35,540 --> 00:05:39,060 Aeschylus performed his play, The Persians, here in Syracuse. 90 00:05:39,060 --> 00:05:42,220 Now, that play had critiqued the Persian arrogance 91 00:05:42,220 --> 00:05:45,100 that foreshadowed their failed invasion of Greece, 92 00:05:45,100 --> 00:05:47,980 but it had also contained a wider warning for the Athenians - 93 00:05:47,980 --> 00:05:53,100 beware of hubris, if you over-reach, you too could fall. 94 00:05:53,100 --> 00:05:55,700 And in the wake of the failed Athenian expedition, 95 00:05:55,700 --> 00:05:57,260 here, at Syracuse, 96 00:05:57,260 --> 00:06:01,260 many Athenians began to believe that Aeschylus had been right 97 00:06:01,260 --> 00:06:04,380 and that THEIR moment of hubris had come. 98 00:06:06,500 --> 00:06:10,060 At first, the people of Athens couldn't believe the news - 99 00:06:10,060 --> 00:06:14,260 an army and an entire navy virtually wiped out. 100 00:06:14,260 --> 00:06:18,540 Many blamed the democracy for authorising such a foolish mission 101 00:06:18,540 --> 00:06:21,820 and the anger and tension even spilled into the streets, 102 00:06:21,820 --> 00:06:24,220 where some democrats were attacked. 103 00:06:24,220 --> 00:06:27,420 The great fear now was what would befall Athens 104 00:06:27,420 --> 00:06:29,660 in the wider war against Sparta. 105 00:06:31,020 --> 00:06:33,220 Serious issues like these 106 00:06:33,220 --> 00:06:35,820 were regularly addressed in the Athenian theatre 107 00:06:35,820 --> 00:06:37,660 and, in the midst of this chaos, 108 00:06:37,660 --> 00:06:40,700 the playwright Aristophanes was preparing a new comedy 109 00:06:40,700 --> 00:06:43,460 for performance at the theatrical festival. 110 00:06:44,820 --> 00:06:49,660 In 411 BC, Aristophanes put on a play called Lysistrata. 111 00:06:49,660 --> 00:06:53,460 It's one of his most well known, not least because of its unabashed rudeness. 112 00:06:53,460 --> 00:06:56,300 It was actually banned in Britain until 1957 113 00:06:56,300 --> 00:07:01,620 and even then, the first performance of it was called "savagely pornographic". 114 00:07:01,620 --> 00:07:05,620 But it's also one of his most popular because of its strong female protagonist, 115 00:07:05,620 --> 00:07:09,100 but also because its call for peace strikes a chord 116 00:07:09,100 --> 00:07:12,300 in our continuously conflict-ridden world. 117 00:07:14,260 --> 00:07:18,580 To put an end to the war, Lysistrata persuades women from all over Greece 118 00:07:18,580 --> 00:07:23,460 to go on a sex strike until the men agree to make peace. 119 00:07:23,460 --> 00:07:26,220 The women also seize control of the Acropolis, 120 00:07:26,220 --> 00:07:29,380 where the city's treasury is kept. 121 00:07:29,380 --> 00:07:31,100 When a magistrate, a proboulos, 122 00:07:31,100 --> 00:07:33,580 arrives to retrieve funds for the war, 123 00:07:33,580 --> 00:07:38,060 Lysistrata berates him about the losses that the women have been forced to bear. 124 00:07:47,820 --> 00:07:50,980 The women dress the magistrate up in their clothes 125 00:07:50,980 --> 00:07:53,580 and send him away humiliated. 126 00:07:53,580 --> 00:07:55,100 As the strike continues, 127 00:07:55,100 --> 00:07:59,380 the sex-starved men of Greece become increasingly desperate 128 00:07:59,380 --> 00:08:02,020 until, finally, they agree to make peace. 129 00:08:03,820 --> 00:08:06,020 So, Rosie, with a play like Lysistrata, 130 00:08:06,020 --> 00:08:10,260 can you give us a sense of just how bawdy, how grotesque 131 00:08:10,260 --> 00:08:12,660 the humour in Old Comedy really was? 132 00:08:12,660 --> 00:08:15,460 Well, it's the kind of thing that, for example, 133 00:08:15,460 --> 00:08:17,420 it's difficult to stage in schools now, 134 00:08:17,420 --> 00:08:22,980 because it's got men with strapped-on phalluses very visible 135 00:08:22,980 --> 00:08:25,460 and jokes, all the innuendos 136 00:08:25,460 --> 00:08:28,980 about whether or not they're going to get sex with their wives 137 00:08:28,980 --> 00:08:31,820 and just the general bawdiness of that. 138 00:08:31,820 --> 00:08:34,020 All the jokes on the women's side, of course, 139 00:08:34,020 --> 00:08:35,900 about what it's like being married, 140 00:08:35,900 --> 00:08:41,380 what tricks they get up to, you know, even references to sexual positions, 141 00:08:41,380 --> 00:08:43,380 the lion on the cheese grater. 142 00:08:43,380 --> 00:08:46,980 So if we look at this, this is from the Pronomos Vase, 143 00:08:46,980 --> 00:08:49,100 and it's actually from a satyr drama, 144 00:08:49,100 --> 00:08:51,740 which is a bit different from Old Comedy, 145 00:08:51,740 --> 00:08:55,020 but you get the idea from the costume, you can see... 146 00:08:55,020 --> 00:08:57,380 Of just how bawdy and in-your-face it is. 147 00:08:57,380 --> 00:08:59,500 Exactly, it's very explicit. Yeah. 148 00:08:59,500 --> 00:09:02,740 And, I mean, the kind of jokes that you can make around this - 149 00:09:02,740 --> 00:09:06,580 "Is that a messenger rod you're carrying?", for example. 150 00:09:06,580 --> 00:09:09,460 It's...it's easy humour. 151 00:09:09,460 --> 00:09:11,380 From our point of view, looking at this play, 152 00:09:11,380 --> 00:09:14,260 you can't believe that this is what they were seeing on stage. 153 00:09:14,260 --> 00:09:18,140 As part of an official festival within ancient Athenian democracy. 154 00:09:18,140 --> 00:09:19,660 Exactly. 155 00:09:19,660 --> 00:09:22,620 The plot is certainly outrageous, 156 00:09:22,620 --> 00:09:24,740 but it speaks to serious issues. 157 00:09:26,780 --> 00:09:29,940 The important thing about the Lysistrata is actually not the sex strike. 158 00:09:29,940 --> 00:09:33,460 The young women do have their sex strike, but we all know that's just a silly joke, 159 00:09:33,460 --> 00:09:35,980 cos all Athenian men could either have sex with each other, 160 00:09:35,980 --> 00:09:37,900 go to prostitutes, there wasn't a problem, 161 00:09:37,900 --> 00:09:40,140 they did not just have to have sex with their wives. 162 00:09:40,140 --> 00:09:42,180 The really important one is the older women 163 00:09:42,180 --> 00:09:46,340 who, with Lysistrata, take over the place where the keys were owned 164 00:09:46,340 --> 00:09:48,660 by the High Priestess of Athena, 165 00:09:48,660 --> 00:09:52,460 the inner sanctuary of the Acropolis where all the money was stored. 166 00:09:52,460 --> 00:09:56,300 But does the sort of radicalness of the solution in Lysistrata 167 00:09:56,300 --> 00:09:58,940 underline the seriousness of the problem? 168 00:09:58,940 --> 00:10:02,180 I think the city is in a state of extraordinary tension, 169 00:10:02,180 --> 00:10:03,820 there is not a family in the city 170 00:10:03,820 --> 00:10:08,060 that hasn't lost at least one man in the disaster in 413 in Sicily. 171 00:10:08,060 --> 00:10:10,740 We know that they had a huge crisis over the population 172 00:10:10,740 --> 00:10:13,020 because they freed a lot of slaves a few years later 173 00:10:13,020 --> 00:10:14,700 just to fill up the citizen numbers. 174 00:10:14,700 --> 00:10:17,100 I think one of the reasons, to me, why it's so interesting 175 00:10:17,100 --> 00:10:19,540 is that citizen women have an integral part to play 176 00:10:19,540 --> 00:10:21,220 within the polis in all sorts of ways, 177 00:10:21,220 --> 00:10:24,060 in religion and within the oikos and so on, 178 00:10:24,060 --> 00:10:27,100 and yet, they're not responsible in any way for what's been happening 179 00:10:27,100 --> 00:10:29,740 and one of the things I think I see in Lysistrata 180 00:10:29,740 --> 00:10:31,860 is a huge loss of political confidence. 181 00:10:31,860 --> 00:10:35,220 The assault on male power is through the figure of the proboulos, 182 00:10:35,220 --> 00:10:38,660 who is thoroughly feminised and ridiculed. 183 00:10:38,660 --> 00:10:41,180 I think you have to put it into its political context - 184 00:10:41,180 --> 00:10:45,340 a terrible defeat, Athenians loosing self-confidence, really, 185 00:10:45,340 --> 00:10:48,540 and, with some good reason, blaming the leaders 186 00:10:48,540 --> 00:10:51,020 for their bad advice, et cetera. 187 00:10:51,020 --> 00:10:53,980 On the other hand, the message overall, 188 00:10:53,980 --> 00:10:57,340 is should the Athenians make peace 189 00:10:57,340 --> 00:11:00,740 or should they continue to fight the Peloponnesian War 190 00:11:00,740 --> 00:11:04,700 and the outcome of the play is, of course, peace is great, 191 00:11:04,700 --> 00:11:08,300 because you have much more fun in peacetime than you do in wartime. 192 00:11:08,300 --> 00:11:12,140 You don't lose your husband or your brother or your lover in battle 193 00:11:12,140 --> 00:11:13,660 and so on and so on. 194 00:11:13,660 --> 00:11:16,780 So the actual big issue is internal politics, 195 00:11:16,780 --> 00:11:19,780 is Athens going to continue to be a democracy 196 00:11:19,780 --> 00:11:23,420 and, externally, should it or should it not make peace? 197 00:11:26,180 --> 00:11:30,860 Lysistrata is classic Aristophanes - he is using a ridiculous plot 198 00:11:30,860 --> 00:11:35,140 to throw light on the political dilemmas facing Athens. 199 00:11:35,140 --> 00:11:38,140 But, for me, it's the constant references 200 00:11:38,140 --> 00:11:42,020 to the harsh realities of war that really resonate. 201 00:11:42,020 --> 00:11:45,740 Athens was at war for most of Aristophanes' career 202 00:11:45,740 --> 00:11:47,580 and despite the bawdy jokes 203 00:11:47,580 --> 00:11:50,740 and the innuendos and the strap-on phalluses, 204 00:11:50,740 --> 00:11:54,500 it's that sense of the horrible nature of war 205 00:11:54,500 --> 00:11:56,780 that just constantly comes through. 206 00:11:56,780 --> 00:12:01,140 In fact, the bawdy backdrop, in a way, makes the point more strongly 207 00:12:01,140 --> 00:12:03,540 than tragedy ever could. 208 00:12:05,660 --> 00:12:08,020 Despite Lysistrata's message, 209 00:12:08,020 --> 00:12:10,540 Athens did not make peace, 210 00:12:10,540 --> 00:12:14,700 and the Peloponnesian War continued grinding down Athenian manpower 211 00:12:14,700 --> 00:12:18,220 and the Athenian economy for a further seven years, 212 00:12:18,220 --> 00:12:23,380 until, in 404 BC, Sparta finally proved victorious. 213 00:12:26,100 --> 00:12:28,380 Athens was humiliated. 214 00:12:28,380 --> 00:12:31,140 She lost her empire. She lost her navy. 215 00:12:31,140 --> 00:12:35,980 She lost her city walls and, worst of all, she lost her democracy. 216 00:12:38,420 --> 00:12:42,060 Here, on the Pnyx, the home of the Athenian assembly, 217 00:12:42,060 --> 00:12:44,380 the peace terms were worked out. 218 00:12:44,380 --> 00:12:46,700 And as the victorious Spartans looked on, 219 00:12:46,700 --> 00:12:49,900 some Athenians suggested that maybe democracy had had its day 220 00:12:49,900 --> 00:12:52,140 and that it was time for something different. 221 00:12:52,140 --> 00:12:54,740 The hardcore democrats walked out in disgust, 222 00:12:54,740 --> 00:12:59,220 and, in their absence, a motion was passed to do away with democracy 223 00:12:59,220 --> 00:13:03,020 and put Athens into the hands of 30 oligarchs. 224 00:13:04,620 --> 00:13:07,380 But democracy was not dead 225 00:13:07,380 --> 00:13:10,700 and the democrats were soon plotting their revenge. 226 00:13:12,220 --> 00:13:15,300 The democrats focussed their resistance 227 00:13:15,300 --> 00:13:17,820 at the port of Athens, the Piraeus. 228 00:13:17,820 --> 00:13:19,140 This area was the home 229 00:13:19,140 --> 00:13:22,220 of the Athenian trireme warships and their rowers - 230 00:13:22,220 --> 00:13:24,140 the poorest citizens of the polis, 231 00:13:24,140 --> 00:13:27,180 who were the bedrock of the democratic system. 232 00:13:29,100 --> 00:13:31,500 It was here, under the cover of darkness, 233 00:13:31,500 --> 00:13:33,140 that the democrats regrouped, 234 00:13:33,140 --> 00:13:36,580 determined to restore their democracy. 235 00:13:36,580 --> 00:13:39,500 The revolutionaries chose as their place of assembly 236 00:13:39,500 --> 00:13:41,300 the theatre in the Piraeus. 237 00:13:41,300 --> 00:13:43,340 Now, we can't visit that theatre today, 238 00:13:43,340 --> 00:13:46,220 because it's sadly underneath a couple of apartment blocks, 239 00:13:46,220 --> 00:13:48,100 but the Piraeuns were so theatre-crazy 240 00:13:48,100 --> 00:13:50,900 that they built themselves a second one, and here it is, 241 00:13:50,900 --> 00:13:53,740 this one dating from the mid-2nd century BC. 242 00:13:53,740 --> 00:13:57,940 It might seem odd to have chosen a theatre 243 00:13:57,940 --> 00:13:59,900 as a meeting point for a revolution, 244 00:13:59,900 --> 00:14:04,700 but don't forget that theatres had always been civic gathering spaces in ancient Greece 245 00:14:04,700 --> 00:14:06,340 and we know from the sources 246 00:14:06,340 --> 00:14:09,220 that armies, entire armies, used them as muster points 247 00:14:09,220 --> 00:14:12,940 and indeed the very same theatre in Piraeus had been used just a couple of years before 248 00:14:12,940 --> 00:14:15,420 as the rallying point for a revolution. 249 00:14:15,420 --> 00:14:19,340 So when these revolutionaries were choosing where to meet 250 00:14:19,340 --> 00:14:24,860 for a revolution whose very intention was the reinstatement of democracy, 251 00:14:24,860 --> 00:14:27,540 the theatre was the obvious choice. 252 00:14:28,620 --> 00:14:32,300 The armies of the democrats and the 30 oligarchs clashed in battle 253 00:14:32,300 --> 00:14:35,140 in the area surrounding the Piraeus theatre 254 00:14:35,140 --> 00:14:37,500 and the democrats eventually managed 255 00:14:37,500 --> 00:14:40,460 to force a reinstatement of their democracy. 256 00:14:40,460 --> 00:14:43,140 They were honoured with a victory march to the Acropolis 257 00:14:43,140 --> 00:14:45,980 and the Athenians agreed to move forward together, 258 00:14:45,980 --> 00:14:49,500 forgiving all crimes, save those of the 30 oligarchs. 259 00:14:53,580 --> 00:14:57,220 It looked like Athens was getting back on track. 260 00:14:57,220 --> 00:15:00,140 But the grand celebrations for the reinstatement of democracy 261 00:15:00,140 --> 00:15:04,980 masked the fact that Athens' days of complete supremacy were now in the past 262 00:15:04,980 --> 00:15:08,980 and things would never be quite the same again. 263 00:15:08,980 --> 00:15:13,500 Nowhere was this uncomfortable truth more obvious than on the stage. 264 00:15:16,500 --> 00:15:19,740 In 388 BC, Aristophanes staged a play called Plutus, 265 00:15:19,740 --> 00:15:21,580 or Wealth, in English. 266 00:15:21,580 --> 00:15:24,140 And it spoke to the age old conundrum - 267 00:15:24,140 --> 00:15:28,260 why is it that in the disparity between rich and poor, 268 00:15:28,260 --> 00:15:32,060 those who are deserving and hard-working normally come off the worst 269 00:15:32,060 --> 00:15:35,340 and those who are undeserving and cunning get rich? 270 00:15:36,940 --> 00:15:42,340 Chremylos is an honest, hard-working man disillusioned with the unfairness of life. 271 00:15:42,340 --> 00:15:44,900 Out on the road, one day he meets Wealth 272 00:15:44,900 --> 00:15:47,300 and realises that Wealth is blind 273 00:15:47,300 --> 00:15:50,940 and that is why he distributes his riches so unfairly. 274 00:15:52,500 --> 00:15:55,340 Chremylos takes Wealth to a healing sanctuary 275 00:15:55,340 --> 00:15:57,540 where his sight can be restored. 276 00:15:57,540 --> 00:16:01,300 The upshot is that the corrupt will be stripped of their riches, 277 00:16:01,300 --> 00:16:03,820 and the virtuous can finally prosper. 278 00:16:03,820 --> 00:16:05,660 But in a key moment in the play, 279 00:16:05,660 --> 00:16:08,180 Chremylos encounters the character of Poverty, 280 00:16:08,180 --> 00:16:11,780 who casts doubt on the entire scheme. 281 00:16:11,780 --> 00:16:14,500 Just supposing Wealth could get his sight back 282 00:16:14,500 --> 00:16:16,780 and distribute all in equal portions, 283 00:16:16,780 --> 00:16:19,420 no-one would develop any craft or expertise. 284 00:16:19,420 --> 00:16:22,140 Once there's no incentive, who is going to smelt the metal, 285 00:16:22,140 --> 00:16:23,900 build the ships or make the clothing, 286 00:16:23,900 --> 00:16:26,260 manufacture vehicles, stitch the footwear, 287 00:16:26,260 --> 00:16:29,420 brick the bricking, wash the washing, farm the farming? 288 00:16:32,260 --> 00:16:34,700 With this play, we're left with the feeling 289 00:16:34,700 --> 00:16:37,260 that despite the opening of Wealth's eyes, 290 00:16:37,260 --> 00:16:40,780 the world will remain a very unfair place. 291 00:16:40,780 --> 00:16:44,100 It's a thought that we can well relate to today, 292 00:16:44,100 --> 00:16:46,180 and is perhaps why Wealth is a play 293 00:16:46,180 --> 00:16:47,780 that still gets performed. 294 00:16:47,780 --> 00:16:49,340 HE SPEAKS IN GREEK 295 00:17:16,820 --> 00:17:21,860 Do you think there are particular historical circumstances surrounding its creation 296 00:17:21,860 --> 00:17:26,100 that help us understand why that play was written as it is? 297 00:18:24,860 --> 00:18:28,940 What's really striking about Wealth is how different it feels 298 00:18:28,940 --> 00:18:30,620 to a play like Lysistrata. 299 00:18:30,620 --> 00:18:33,340 Lysistrata was an inventive and vigorous heroine, 300 00:18:33,340 --> 00:18:36,980 whereas Chremylos is passive and tired. 301 00:18:36,980 --> 00:18:40,060 Aristophanes' comedy has lost its biting satire 302 00:18:40,060 --> 00:18:43,180 and its direct commentary on individuals in the audience. 303 00:18:43,180 --> 00:18:46,020 Instead, its themes are more universal - 304 00:18:46,020 --> 00:18:48,820 rich, poor, worthy, unworthy. 305 00:18:49,900 --> 00:18:53,340 It feels like comedy and theatre, more generally, 306 00:18:53,340 --> 00:18:55,220 has not only lost its edge, 307 00:18:55,220 --> 00:18:58,900 but lost its specific Athenian identity. 308 00:18:58,900 --> 00:19:01,820 It's become more general and, at the same time, 309 00:19:01,820 --> 00:19:07,860 left the Athenians looking back, nostalgic, for an era of lost glory. 310 00:19:11,020 --> 00:19:14,060 The decline of Athens marks a turning point, 311 00:19:14,060 --> 00:19:18,340 both in the history of Greece and in the history of theatre. 312 00:19:18,340 --> 00:19:20,300 Athens had invented drama, 313 00:19:20,300 --> 00:19:24,820 but how would this innovative and democratically-charged art form fare 314 00:19:24,820 --> 00:19:29,260 in the new world that followed Athens' defeat? 315 00:19:29,260 --> 00:19:31,100 This new world of the 4th century 316 00:19:31,100 --> 00:19:34,660 saw the different city-states of Greece jostling for control 317 00:19:34,660 --> 00:19:37,620 while coming under increasing pressure from new powers, 318 00:19:37,620 --> 00:19:40,140 many of them led by tyrants and kings. 319 00:19:41,660 --> 00:19:44,780 In truth, the 4th century reads as a depressing catalogue 320 00:19:44,780 --> 00:19:47,620 of battles, wars and fractured alliances, 321 00:19:47,620 --> 00:19:50,620 which played out in the plains of central Greece. 322 00:19:53,460 --> 00:19:56,180 In ancient times, this whole region was known 323 00:19:56,180 --> 00:20:00,100 as "the dancing floor of Ares", the god of war. 324 00:20:00,100 --> 00:20:03,780 It was here that the fate of Greece was decided on the battlefields 325 00:20:03,780 --> 00:20:05,540 time and time again. 326 00:20:09,460 --> 00:20:14,020 One conflict in particular symbolises the chaos of the period. 327 00:20:14,020 --> 00:20:16,500 In 371 BC, Sparta and Thebes 328 00:20:16,500 --> 00:20:19,460 fought an epic battle at Leuktra, 329 00:20:19,460 --> 00:20:22,580 at the heart of the dancing floor of Ares. 330 00:20:22,580 --> 00:20:26,300 Against all the odds, it was the Thebans who triumphed, 331 00:20:26,300 --> 00:20:29,180 due, in no small part, to the powerful attack 332 00:20:29,180 --> 00:20:31,860 of their elite fighting force - the Sacred Band. 333 00:20:33,300 --> 00:20:35,660 Thebes' shock-and-awe tactics worked brilliantly - 334 00:20:35,660 --> 00:20:37,860 the battle was over in less than an hour, 335 00:20:37,860 --> 00:20:42,380 and on this spot, where the Spartan king was supposedly struck down, 336 00:20:42,380 --> 00:20:44,380 Thebes erected a victory monument 337 00:20:44,380 --> 00:20:47,620 topped with Spartan shields taken in the battle. 338 00:20:47,620 --> 00:20:50,100 And to rub salt in the wound, 339 00:20:50,100 --> 00:20:52,780 the Thebans demanded that Sparta's allies 340 00:20:52,780 --> 00:20:55,020 cleared their dead from the battlefield first 341 00:20:55,020 --> 00:20:59,100 so that the scale of Sparta's loss could be humiliatingly on display. 342 00:21:00,740 --> 00:21:03,300 This monument marked a decisive change 343 00:21:03,300 --> 00:21:05,100 in the balance of power in Greece. 344 00:21:05,100 --> 00:21:07,300 But, more than that, Cicero later claimed 345 00:21:07,300 --> 00:21:10,180 that this was the first ever battlefield memorial 346 00:21:10,180 --> 00:21:12,420 to a Greek-on-Greek conflict. 347 00:21:12,420 --> 00:21:15,180 This kind of monument was to become a defining feature 348 00:21:15,180 --> 00:21:19,180 of the century that followed, as Greek states jostled for power 349 00:21:19,180 --> 00:21:23,780 and engaged in their favourite pastime - fighting one and other. 350 00:21:25,500 --> 00:21:27,820 It was a situation that Aristophanes 351 00:21:27,820 --> 00:21:30,860 had already warned against in Lysistrata - 352 00:21:30,860 --> 00:21:33,820 you worship at the selfsame holy altars, 353 00:21:33,820 --> 00:21:35,620 just as if you're a family - 354 00:21:35,620 --> 00:21:38,780 Olympia, Thermopylae, Delphi and elsewhere. 355 00:21:38,780 --> 00:21:42,780 Yet, with foreign armies at the ready to attack, what are you doing? 356 00:21:50,020 --> 00:21:52,100 This is hardly the kind of context 357 00:21:52,100 --> 00:21:55,020 in which you would expect drama to thrive. 358 00:21:55,020 --> 00:21:56,660 But what's really amazing 359 00:21:56,660 --> 00:21:59,620 is that, while Greece was tearing itself apart, 360 00:21:59,620 --> 00:22:01,980 theatre seems to have been flourishing. 361 00:22:01,980 --> 00:22:04,020 During the 4th century BC, 362 00:22:04,020 --> 00:22:07,300 theatres emerged all over the Greek world. 363 00:22:07,300 --> 00:22:11,620 But the irony is that, despite this explosion of theatre construction, 364 00:22:11,620 --> 00:22:15,580 we don't have a single complete tragedy surviving from this period. 365 00:22:15,580 --> 00:22:18,860 After the deaths of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, 366 00:22:18,860 --> 00:22:21,980 we are left with nothing but fragments. 367 00:22:21,980 --> 00:22:23,940 It is true the great spread happens 368 00:22:23,940 --> 00:22:26,140 in the first half of the 4th century, 369 00:22:26,140 --> 00:22:29,620 when every city that had cultural pretensions built a theatre. 370 00:22:29,620 --> 00:22:33,380 There seems to be a neat story - Sophocles and Euripides die, 371 00:22:33,380 --> 00:22:35,220 and within everybody's perception of it, 372 00:22:35,220 --> 00:22:39,380 Nietzsche says that Euripides and Sophocles killed tragedy. 373 00:22:39,380 --> 00:22:42,820 So the easy story would be important tragedy came to an end 374 00:22:42,820 --> 00:22:45,780 and mass entertainment spread throughout the Greek world 375 00:22:45,780 --> 00:22:47,780 in a rather superficial way. 376 00:22:47,780 --> 00:22:50,540 I think it's much more complicated than that. 377 00:22:50,540 --> 00:22:53,420 It's really what happens in later antiquity 378 00:22:53,420 --> 00:22:56,300 and the great three become educational set books 379 00:22:56,300 --> 00:22:58,220 and that's really why we have them. 380 00:22:58,220 --> 00:23:01,740 And it was those three who were most read, 381 00:23:01,740 --> 00:23:05,220 so texts of the other tragedians, 382 00:23:05,220 --> 00:23:08,220 they simply weren't copied enough times to survive. 383 00:23:08,220 --> 00:23:10,220 It doesn't mean they weren't any good. 384 00:23:10,220 --> 00:23:13,020 There were very famous tragedians in the 4th century, 385 00:23:13,020 --> 00:23:14,900 people who made a big mark 386 00:23:14,900 --> 00:23:18,340 and people and who were remembered in later centuries. 387 00:23:18,340 --> 00:23:23,180 The fragments of plays by these writers that have survived 388 00:23:23,180 --> 00:23:28,020 support the idea that this was an extremely active era. 389 00:23:28,020 --> 00:23:31,380 One Athenian playwright from this time was called Astydamas the Younger. 390 00:23:31,380 --> 00:23:33,860 He was a relative of the great Aeschylus 391 00:23:33,860 --> 00:23:38,220 and he's said to have composed 240 plays during his career, 392 00:23:38,220 --> 00:23:43,620 won many first prizes and even had a statue of himself put up by the Athenians. 393 00:23:43,620 --> 00:23:48,420 And what the surviving fragments also allow us is a unique window 394 00:23:48,420 --> 00:23:52,820 into how the subject matter of tragedy is changing during this period. 395 00:23:54,580 --> 00:23:57,220 Astydamas wrote a play called Antigone, 396 00:23:57,220 --> 00:24:00,420 just like Sophocles and Euripides had done in the 5th century. 397 00:24:00,420 --> 00:24:02,060 SHE CRIES 398 00:24:02,060 --> 00:24:05,660 It again told the story of how Antigone had broken the law 399 00:24:05,660 --> 00:24:07,860 by burying her rebel brother 400 00:24:07,860 --> 00:24:10,220 and is sentenced to death by King Creon 401 00:24:10,220 --> 00:24:14,540 against the wishes of his son Haemon, who is in love with her. 402 00:24:14,540 --> 00:24:18,140 In Sophocles' play, the key moment is the political debate 403 00:24:18,140 --> 00:24:21,700 between Creon and Haemon about leadership and justice, 404 00:24:21,700 --> 00:24:26,140 and the play ends with Antigone's and Haemon's suicide. 405 00:24:26,140 --> 00:24:27,780 In Astydamas' version, 406 00:24:27,780 --> 00:24:31,380 Haemon and Antigone run away and have a child together. 407 00:24:31,380 --> 00:24:33,380 They are both sentenced to death, 408 00:24:33,380 --> 00:24:36,780 but Heracles intervenes to try and save them. 409 00:24:36,780 --> 00:24:40,540 It's the same basic story, but the emphasis has shifted. 410 00:24:42,740 --> 00:24:45,820 Well, we've already got this sense in the 5th century of changing myth, 411 00:24:45,820 --> 00:24:48,700 where you might have one playwright 412 00:24:48,700 --> 00:24:51,740 that's already done an Antigone and say he wants to change it 413 00:24:51,740 --> 00:24:53,780 and make it your own as a playwright. 414 00:24:53,780 --> 00:24:56,980 You get that even more in the 4th century. 415 00:24:56,980 --> 00:25:00,180 If you imagine, they're using the same material, the same myths, 416 00:25:00,180 --> 00:25:02,980 but there's a taste for far more elaborate plots. 417 00:25:02,980 --> 00:25:06,980 You're still dealing with myth, but the interest has shifted, 418 00:25:06,980 --> 00:25:09,220 so, in that example of Antigone, 419 00:25:09,220 --> 00:25:14,260 you know, the focus there is what happens in that relationship. 420 00:25:14,260 --> 00:25:16,580 You hear hardly anything about that relationship 421 00:25:16,580 --> 00:25:18,060 in the 5th century version, 422 00:25:18,060 --> 00:25:21,140 but in the 4th century, that becomes the real focus. 423 00:25:21,140 --> 00:25:24,260 Is that to do with tragedy's broadening appeal in this period 424 00:25:24,260 --> 00:25:27,220 beyond the confines of democratic Athens? 425 00:25:27,220 --> 00:25:30,860 Well, I think the internationalisation is really important, 426 00:25:30,860 --> 00:25:33,340 because, after all, you want this to appeal. 427 00:25:33,340 --> 00:25:37,060 You now have playwrights from all over the Mediterranean 428 00:25:37,060 --> 00:25:38,580 coming to compete. 429 00:25:38,580 --> 00:25:40,980 And so, there's that shift 430 00:25:40,980 --> 00:25:45,540 and, of course, particular political circumstances 431 00:25:45,540 --> 00:25:48,100 are different in the different cities. 432 00:25:48,100 --> 00:25:51,780 So, I mean, a shift to the romantic themes, domestic, 433 00:25:51,780 --> 00:25:53,940 it has a broader appeal. 434 00:25:56,740 --> 00:26:00,180 Theatre was becoming more about spectacle and entertainment 435 00:26:00,180 --> 00:26:03,620 and less about political process and debate. 436 00:26:03,620 --> 00:26:06,340 And as Athens' power waned, 437 00:26:06,340 --> 00:26:10,540 the plots drifted away from Athens and from its democratic process 438 00:26:10,540 --> 00:26:14,980 to focus more on personal dilemmas and relationships - 439 00:26:14,980 --> 00:26:17,420 the kind of stuff that would be interesting 440 00:26:17,420 --> 00:26:20,980 and resonate with, well, pretty much anyone anywhere. 441 00:26:20,980 --> 00:26:25,020 Indeed tragedy was becoming very much more of what it is today. 442 00:26:27,340 --> 00:26:29,980 There's no better evidence for these trends 443 00:26:29,980 --> 00:26:32,260 than the ruins of a little-known city 444 00:26:32,260 --> 00:26:35,580 that was a product of the battle of Leuktra. 445 00:26:35,580 --> 00:26:37,340 After their victory in that battle, 446 00:26:37,340 --> 00:26:40,900 the city of Thebes surrounded their defeated Spartan enemies 447 00:26:40,900 --> 00:26:44,740 with a series of newly-established cities in the Peloponnese. 448 00:26:46,580 --> 00:26:50,700 I've come to this rather unpromising-looking industrial part of the Peloponnese 449 00:26:50,700 --> 00:26:53,420 in search of a city called Megalopolis - the great city. 450 00:26:53,420 --> 00:26:55,820 Now, I've read about this place lots in books 451 00:26:55,820 --> 00:26:57,980 and I've studied lots of floor plans, 452 00:26:57,980 --> 00:27:00,460 but I've never actually been here for real. 453 00:27:00,460 --> 00:27:03,460 And what I'm searching for, first of all, is the theatre, 454 00:27:03,460 --> 00:27:05,340 a theatre said by the ancient sources 455 00:27:05,340 --> 00:27:08,020 to be the biggest in the whole of mainland Greece. 456 00:27:12,900 --> 00:27:16,180 It held up to 20,000 people. 457 00:27:16,180 --> 00:27:19,900 And it is further evidence that, despite the turbulent times, 458 00:27:19,900 --> 00:27:22,060 theatre was growing in popularity. 459 00:27:24,900 --> 00:27:30,540 There's an extraordinary calm to this place, but what it symbolises 460 00:27:30,540 --> 00:27:34,820 is a place that's tried to put itself on the map out of nowhere. 461 00:27:34,820 --> 00:27:38,660 A sort of ancient version of Milton Keynes. 462 00:27:38,660 --> 00:27:41,820 When they built this place, they gave it everything a city should need - 463 00:27:41,820 --> 00:27:44,340 they gave it an assembly, they gave it an agora, 464 00:27:44,340 --> 00:27:45,980 they gave it a sports centre, 465 00:27:45,980 --> 00:27:50,020 and they gave it a theatre, a huge theatre. 466 00:27:50,020 --> 00:27:53,300 Theatre by this stage had become 467 00:27:53,300 --> 00:27:57,900 part of the dress code of what a Greek city should look like 468 00:27:57,900 --> 00:28:00,540 and, more important than that, 469 00:28:00,540 --> 00:28:06,260 a theatre had now become a symbol of Greekness itself. 470 00:28:07,980 --> 00:28:11,940 Theatre had become an essential part of any Greek community. 471 00:28:11,940 --> 00:28:16,220 But the role that it now played in that community was changing. 472 00:28:16,220 --> 00:28:22,340 And this transformation can be traced in the ruined remains of Megalopolis. 473 00:28:22,340 --> 00:28:24,500 When this theatre was built, 474 00:28:24,500 --> 00:28:29,540 it was placed directly facing the city's political assembly place. 475 00:28:29,540 --> 00:28:34,540 It's an extraordinary example of how these two facets of polis life 476 00:28:34,540 --> 00:28:39,740 politics and theatre, were once thought to be intimately connected. 477 00:28:39,740 --> 00:28:42,780 But, you know, there's an irony here. 478 00:28:42,780 --> 00:28:44,740 As Megalopolis was being built, 479 00:28:44,740 --> 00:28:47,300 as this city was being created out of nothing, 480 00:28:47,300 --> 00:28:52,180 the very institution of the Greek city, the polis, was beginning to falter. 481 00:28:52,180 --> 00:28:56,740 Now, we were in a very different world, a world of tyrants and kings, 482 00:28:56,740 --> 00:29:02,500 the very vitality and viability of the polis 483 00:29:02,500 --> 00:29:04,940 was beginning to be in doubt, 484 00:29:04,940 --> 00:29:09,940 and there's perhaps no better symbol of that gradual decay 485 00:29:09,940 --> 00:29:12,900 than here, at Megalopolis, and right here, in the theatre. 486 00:29:12,900 --> 00:29:15,300 Because in the mid-2nd century BC, 487 00:29:15,300 --> 00:29:18,660 the people of Megalopolis built this - 488 00:29:18,660 --> 00:29:21,740 a solid, high stone wall 489 00:29:21,740 --> 00:29:25,860 that cut off the theatre from the assembly place. 490 00:29:25,860 --> 00:29:28,740 The people of this great city 491 00:29:28,740 --> 00:29:31,060 themselves cut off the umbilical chord 492 00:29:31,060 --> 00:29:34,180 between theatre and politics. 493 00:29:40,180 --> 00:29:45,100 This gradual transformation in the role of theatre was aided by a crucial innovation 494 00:29:45,100 --> 00:29:48,660 which we know occurred in the early 4th century BC. 495 00:29:48,660 --> 00:29:50,060 The proof is here, 496 00:29:50,060 --> 00:29:52,900 in this inscription at the Epigraphic Museum. 497 00:29:52,900 --> 00:29:56,300 It says that, in exactly 386 BC - 498 00:29:56,300 --> 00:30:02,660 "Palaion drama proton paredidaxan." 499 00:30:02,660 --> 00:30:08,420 For the first time, an old drama was put on as an extra at the festival. 500 00:30:09,900 --> 00:30:13,100 The 4th century saw the start of revivals. 501 00:30:13,100 --> 00:30:17,380 This meant that old plays by the great tragedians of the 5th century - 502 00:30:17,380 --> 00:30:19,380 Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides - 503 00:30:19,380 --> 00:30:23,540 could be performed alongside current playwrights like Astydamas. 504 00:30:23,540 --> 00:30:26,740 It was the birth of a classic repertoire 505 00:30:26,740 --> 00:30:32,140 and it fuelled another of the most important theatrical shifts of the period. 506 00:30:32,140 --> 00:30:35,220 We're now 45 years later, in 341 BC, 507 00:30:35,220 --> 00:30:38,260 and this inscription lists the playwrights and the plays 508 00:30:38,260 --> 00:30:41,260 that were put on at the City Dionysia in Athens in that year. 509 00:30:41,260 --> 00:30:42,900 And here's our man, Astydamas, 510 00:30:42,900 --> 00:30:45,500 who actually won first prize this year and it tells us 511 00:30:45,500 --> 00:30:49,740 the names of his three tragedies, including Antigone, that he put on. 512 00:30:49,740 --> 00:30:52,460 But what's also fascinating about this inscription 513 00:30:52,460 --> 00:30:54,940 is the prominence it gives to the actors. 514 00:30:54,940 --> 00:30:58,860 Not only does it give us the name of the lead actor in each of the plays, 515 00:30:58,860 --> 00:31:00,860 but also, and here's the key line, 516 00:31:00,860 --> 00:31:04,140 tells us Neoptolemus, one of the actors, 517 00:31:04,140 --> 00:31:06,780 "enika", he won, he won the prize 518 00:31:06,780 --> 00:31:09,940 for the best actor at the festival as well. 519 00:31:09,940 --> 00:31:12,940 And indeed, Neoptolemus was a busy guy that year, 520 00:31:12,940 --> 00:31:16,020 because he was lead actor in more than one of the plays 521 00:31:16,020 --> 00:31:20,740 and it tells us that he was the producer for one of the old plays 522 00:31:20,740 --> 00:31:23,620 that was being re-performed as well. 523 00:31:23,620 --> 00:31:26,260 What this stone symbolises is this growing shift, 524 00:31:26,260 --> 00:31:28,020 during the course of the century, 525 00:31:28,020 --> 00:31:31,300 in importance from the tragedians, the playwrights, 526 00:31:31,300 --> 00:31:35,260 towards the actors as being the real kings of the theatre. 527 00:31:41,220 --> 00:31:43,460 They were the great entertainers of their day 528 00:31:43,460 --> 00:31:47,660 and they had magnificent physique, they had magnificent voices. 529 00:31:47,660 --> 00:31:51,460 Actually, the tragic actors and the comic actors, people didn't do both, 530 00:31:51,460 --> 00:31:54,220 that's rather interesting, you were one or the other. 531 00:31:54,220 --> 00:31:57,380 The tragic actors, they were very famous for their voices 532 00:31:57,380 --> 00:32:00,540 and some of them were even employed to go on diplomatic missions and so on, 533 00:32:00,540 --> 00:32:04,020 so you want to send an embassy, you hire an actor to go along 534 00:32:04,020 --> 00:32:07,300 and put the case as well as he possibly can on your behalf. 535 00:32:07,300 --> 00:32:09,900 And this is Neoptolemus we're talking about? 536 00:32:09,900 --> 00:32:12,300 Yes, well, and others as well. 537 00:32:12,300 --> 00:32:15,700 One thing that one has to bear in mind is that the cultural movement 538 00:32:15,700 --> 00:32:19,220 within ancient Greece doesn't seem to have obeyed military history. 539 00:32:19,220 --> 00:32:23,900 Generally speaking, artists, musicians, including actors, 540 00:32:23,900 --> 00:32:28,540 seem to have travelled across the boundaries of hostility 541 00:32:28,540 --> 00:32:32,820 and so, that meant that cities which might well be on very bad terms 542 00:32:32,820 --> 00:32:37,100 were all competing to set up their own cultural activities. 543 00:32:37,100 --> 00:32:41,340 Cities laid out large sums of money, built wonderful theatres, 544 00:32:41,340 --> 00:32:45,380 supplied wonderful facilities in order to attract the best actors 545 00:32:45,380 --> 00:32:48,020 to their city to put on performances. 546 00:32:48,020 --> 00:32:52,900 Theatre had become a sort of cultural currency. 547 00:32:52,900 --> 00:32:56,740 Competition for the best actors and playwrights was extremely fierce 548 00:32:56,740 --> 00:33:00,340 and fees soared, giving rich kings the upper hand. 549 00:33:00,340 --> 00:33:02,100 But theatre's transformation 550 00:33:02,100 --> 00:33:05,460 into a hugely popular and lucrative entertainment business 551 00:33:05,460 --> 00:33:08,140 raised questions about its value to society. 552 00:33:09,860 --> 00:33:13,540 Two different views of the value of theatre can be found in the works 553 00:33:13,540 --> 00:33:18,300 of two of the greatest thinkers of the age - Plato and Aristotle. 554 00:33:18,300 --> 00:33:21,020 Now, for Plato, in his ideal society, 555 00:33:21,020 --> 00:33:25,460 poetry and theatre are actually banned because they are just entertainment. 556 00:33:25,460 --> 00:33:29,220 Worse than that, they're imitation, not truth, 557 00:33:29,220 --> 00:33:34,300 yet they can seem like the truth and, as a result, they can lead people astray. 558 00:33:34,300 --> 00:33:36,860 But for Aristotle, it's a very different case - 559 00:33:36,860 --> 00:33:40,140 he sees a place for theatre in the ideal society 560 00:33:40,140 --> 00:33:46,220 because it is able to speak to universal emotions and ideals of humanity. 561 00:33:46,220 --> 00:33:50,620 And more than that, it gives the audience what he calls catharsis. 562 00:33:50,620 --> 00:33:53,780 And catharsis is a notoriously difficult world to translate, 563 00:33:53,780 --> 00:33:57,380 but it means something along the lines of purification, 564 00:33:57,380 --> 00:34:01,980 a purging of emotion that comes as a result of watching tragedy 565 00:34:01,980 --> 00:34:08,420 and, as a result, can give people the ability to better control their emotions. 566 00:34:08,420 --> 00:34:13,100 But the very fact that two such eminent thinkers are so vociferously arguing 567 00:34:13,100 --> 00:34:16,660 about the value of theatre at this time, in the 4th century, 568 00:34:16,660 --> 00:34:21,380 suggests that there really is something of a crisis of confidence 569 00:34:21,380 --> 00:34:26,780 about the value and role of theatre in Ancient Greek society itself. 570 00:34:26,780 --> 00:34:30,420 Theatre's role was made increasingly uncertain 571 00:34:30,420 --> 00:34:33,220 by the changing balance of power in Greece. 572 00:34:33,220 --> 00:34:36,220 By the mid-4th century, after years of conflict, 573 00:34:36,220 --> 00:34:39,460 the richest and most powerful figure in the Greek world 574 00:34:39,460 --> 00:34:43,900 was not a democrat but a king - Philip II of Macedon. 575 00:34:43,900 --> 00:34:47,980 At the site of the Macedonian Royal Tombs, at Aegae, 576 00:34:47,980 --> 00:34:51,140 archaeologists have discovered an extraordinary array of treasures 577 00:34:51,140 --> 00:34:55,020 testifying to the wealth and might of Philip's kingdom. 578 00:34:55,020 --> 00:34:58,660 Philip created a strong army and made canny alliances. 579 00:34:58,660 --> 00:35:01,500 He brought the best craftsmen to his kingdom 580 00:35:01,500 --> 00:35:04,580 and secured the greatest thinker of the age, Aristotle, 581 00:35:04,580 --> 00:35:06,780 as tutor for his son Alexander, 582 00:35:06,780 --> 00:35:10,220 the boy who would later become Alexander the Great. 583 00:35:10,220 --> 00:35:13,780 It's one of the more unfair characterisations of ancient history 584 00:35:13,780 --> 00:35:16,860 that Macedon was some kind of savage and uncultured place. 585 00:35:16,860 --> 00:35:20,620 Far from it - it was a hive of creativity and high culture, 586 00:35:20,620 --> 00:35:23,620 not just in terms of using precious metals for vessels 587 00:35:23,620 --> 00:35:27,620 or creating extraordinary armour, but also in terms of the theatre. 588 00:35:27,620 --> 00:35:32,100 Philip brought dramatists from across Greece to compete in his own dramatic competitions, 589 00:35:32,100 --> 00:35:34,020 poets followed him in his campaigns 590 00:35:34,020 --> 00:35:38,020 and actors came to live, work and reside in Macedon. 591 00:35:38,020 --> 00:35:41,860 Neoptolemus sold his place in Athens and moved north. 592 00:35:41,860 --> 00:35:46,420 And Philip used all of this as a crucial part of his campaign 593 00:35:46,420 --> 00:35:49,100 for political and cultural supremacy. 594 00:35:54,100 --> 00:35:58,140 He was the super patron, he was the Louis XIV of the day 595 00:35:58,140 --> 00:36:01,100 and so, if you wanted to get the best space, 596 00:36:01,100 --> 00:36:04,020 the best support, the biggest fees, 597 00:36:04,020 --> 00:36:08,620 and you are now becoming more professional, so actors move, 598 00:36:08,620 --> 00:36:11,660 they don't just perform as citizens in their own city. 599 00:36:11,660 --> 00:36:14,140 So Philip is there, it all comes together, 600 00:36:14,140 --> 00:36:16,300 he accelerates the process. 601 00:36:16,300 --> 00:36:18,260 Actors become far, far more important, 602 00:36:18,260 --> 00:36:20,220 they knew all these stories off by heart 603 00:36:20,220 --> 00:36:25,340 and we get superbly rich and famous actors like Neoptolemus or Theodoros, 604 00:36:25,340 --> 00:36:30,660 who's the Laurence Olivier of antiquity and fantastically rich. 605 00:36:30,660 --> 00:36:35,340 Philip II certainly invited famous actors to his court, 606 00:36:35,340 --> 00:36:38,820 he got famous actors going on diplomatic missions for him 607 00:36:38,820 --> 00:36:45,140 and he tried to use theatre one way or another to help affirm his power. 608 00:36:46,620 --> 00:36:52,180 Philip understood that having the best plays and performers would enhance his own greatness. 609 00:36:52,180 --> 00:36:56,780 He also understood that kingship is itself a form of theatre. 610 00:36:56,780 --> 00:36:59,820 And in befriending famous actors like Neoptolemus, 611 00:36:59,820 --> 00:37:04,220 he ensured that positive reports about his regime found their way back to Athens 612 00:37:04,220 --> 00:37:08,380 and into the political debates taking place on the Pnyx. 613 00:37:08,380 --> 00:37:10,020 It was here, in the assembly, 614 00:37:10,020 --> 00:37:13,580 that the Athenians debated the growing threat from Macedon 615 00:37:13,580 --> 00:37:18,340 and tried to decide whether Philip should be considered friend or foe. 616 00:37:18,340 --> 00:37:20,340 Heading the pro-Philip faction 617 00:37:20,340 --> 00:37:23,940 was an actor turned politician called Aeschines. 618 00:37:25,180 --> 00:37:28,700 Arguing against him was the politician and orator Demosthenes, 619 00:37:28,700 --> 00:37:32,740 who believed Athens had to oppose Philip, if necessary by force. 620 00:37:34,220 --> 00:37:37,540 Here, on the Pnyx, time and time again, 621 00:37:37,540 --> 00:37:43,020 Demosthenes and Aeschines clashed over the Philip question. 622 00:37:43,020 --> 00:37:46,020 Demosthenes' argument was that Aeschines 623 00:37:46,020 --> 00:37:49,500 had effectively taken bribes to work in the king's interest 624 00:37:49,500 --> 00:37:51,740 and not in those of his home city, 625 00:37:51,740 --> 00:37:55,460 but what's really interesting is the language he uses to make his case. 626 00:37:55,460 --> 00:37:59,460 He refers to Aeschines as "hypokrites", 627 00:37:59,460 --> 00:38:02,460 the Greek word for an actor. 628 00:38:02,460 --> 00:38:07,460 "You, Aeschines, are a hypokrites, a big player of parts, 629 00:38:07,460 --> 00:38:10,420 "while I am the one sitting in the audience. 630 00:38:10,420 --> 00:38:14,060 "You always served our enemy's interests in politics, 631 00:38:14,060 --> 00:38:16,420 "I those of our country." 632 00:38:17,620 --> 00:38:21,340 The Greek word for actor, hypokrites, 633 00:38:21,340 --> 00:38:23,980 is the root for our word hypocrite. 634 00:38:23,980 --> 00:38:26,780 So where did this uncertainty come from? 635 00:38:26,780 --> 00:38:31,500 Well, as Greece became more and more dominated by rich, powerful leaders, 636 00:38:31,500 --> 00:38:33,540 so the corrupting force of money 637 00:38:33,540 --> 00:38:36,820 and the fear of the corrupting force of money increased. 638 00:38:36,820 --> 00:38:39,540 Actors were, at the end of the day, like mercenary soldiers - 639 00:38:39,540 --> 00:38:41,660 they sold their services to the highest bidder 640 00:38:41,660 --> 00:38:46,140 and, more importantly, they had the ability to imitate and to deceive. 641 00:38:46,140 --> 00:38:48,540 So what everyone was worried about 642 00:38:48,540 --> 00:38:51,340 was that Philip was writing his own play 643 00:38:51,340 --> 00:38:54,380 and getting the public figures of Athens 644 00:38:54,380 --> 00:38:57,580 to star in it as his key actors. 645 00:38:57,580 --> 00:39:01,420 It was only a matter of time before Athens would have to decide 646 00:39:01,420 --> 00:39:04,020 one way or the other. 647 00:39:04,020 --> 00:39:07,860 In 338 BC, Demosthenes persuaded the assembly 648 00:39:07,860 --> 00:39:11,780 to vote in favour of meeting Philip in battle. 649 00:39:11,780 --> 00:39:16,420 This battle, Demosthenes versus Philip, democrats versus kings, 650 00:39:16,420 --> 00:39:20,580 would determine the future of Greece and the fortunes of theatre. 651 00:39:22,460 --> 00:39:25,780 Philip amassed his forces here, in the plains of Chaeronea, 652 00:39:25,780 --> 00:39:29,020 right at the heart of the dancing floor of Ares. 653 00:39:29,020 --> 00:39:31,380 The king himself led his army 654 00:39:31,380 --> 00:39:34,300 and leading the cavalry, his son, Alexander, 655 00:39:34,300 --> 00:39:37,980 who would become Alexander the Great, then just 18 years old. 656 00:39:37,980 --> 00:39:41,940 And facing up against them, the combined forces of Athens and Thebes 657 00:39:41,940 --> 00:39:45,700 and in the Athenian ranks, the orator Demosthenes. 658 00:39:49,980 --> 00:39:51,740 Philip was victorious, 659 00:39:51,740 --> 00:39:55,260 while Demosthenes, whose words had so inflamed the conflict, 660 00:39:55,260 --> 00:39:57,300 is said to have fled the scene. 661 00:39:58,940 --> 00:40:00,620 Two monuments to the battle remain visible to this day. 662 00:40:00,780 --> 00:40:02,740 Two monuments to the battle remain visible to this day. 663 00:40:02,740 --> 00:40:06,420 They stand for more than just the graves of the fallen, 664 00:40:06,420 --> 00:40:11,420 they stand for the end of the independent and free politics of Greek city-states. 665 00:40:11,420 --> 00:40:16,140 Beneath these trees lie the ashes of Philip's fallen warriors. 666 00:40:16,140 --> 00:40:21,260 Their bodies were burned on a grand funeral pyre decorated with weapons 667 00:40:21,260 --> 00:40:25,420 before being buried beneath a huge mound of earth. 668 00:40:25,420 --> 00:40:27,700 The second monument to the battle 669 00:40:27,700 --> 00:40:30,300 sits beside the modern town of Chaeronea. 670 00:40:33,420 --> 00:40:38,020 This is the Lion of Chaeronea, proudly facing the battlefield. 671 00:40:38,020 --> 00:40:40,060 Its origins are somewhat mysterious, 672 00:40:40,060 --> 00:40:42,900 but what's really crucial is what's underneath it - 673 00:40:42,900 --> 00:40:46,340 254 skeletons, laid out in seven rows, 674 00:40:46,340 --> 00:40:49,380 a mass grave belonging to, we think, 675 00:40:49,380 --> 00:40:53,300 members of the Theban Sacred Band who fell in the battle. 676 00:40:53,300 --> 00:40:56,620 And their skeletons testify to the ferocity of the clash - 677 00:40:56,620 --> 00:41:00,500 leg bones broken in two, skulls fractured. 678 00:41:00,500 --> 00:41:05,940 And today, the Greeks, as they do with all cemeteries, have lined it with cypress trees, 679 00:41:05,940 --> 00:41:10,180 forever marking the sanctity and importance of this place. 680 00:41:13,540 --> 00:41:18,700 I defy anyone to come here and not feel the importance of this place, 681 00:41:18,700 --> 00:41:23,100 this place where the fortunes of Greece changed forever. 682 00:41:29,340 --> 00:41:32,980 The world that had given birth to theatre was no longer governed 683 00:41:32,980 --> 00:41:35,500 by city-states or democrats - 684 00:41:35,500 --> 00:41:38,660 it was a world controlled by a king. 685 00:41:38,660 --> 00:41:42,940 But the story of the relationship between history and theatre 686 00:41:42,940 --> 00:41:46,220 would take a shocking and dramatic twist. 687 00:41:46,220 --> 00:41:49,580 Tragedy and real life were about to clash. 688 00:41:52,260 --> 00:41:54,940 In 336 BC, the famous actor Neoptolemus, 689 00:41:54,940 --> 00:41:56,980 now a resident of Macedon, 690 00:41:56,980 --> 00:42:01,940 was preparing an important performance for the king at the royal city of Aegae. 691 00:42:01,940 --> 00:42:06,460 He was to present pieces from his tragedy repertoire at a royal banquet 692 00:42:06,460 --> 00:42:10,140 on the eve of the celebration of Philip's daughter's marriage. 693 00:42:11,620 --> 00:42:14,380 We don't know the name of the tragedy he chose, 694 00:42:14,380 --> 00:42:17,260 but the historian Diodorus preserved the words. 695 00:42:30,220 --> 00:42:32,740 Philip was delighted with the performance 696 00:42:32,740 --> 00:42:35,820 and, after the banquet, the crowd raced to the theatre at Aegae 697 00:42:35,820 --> 00:42:38,980 where the festivities would continue at daybreak. 698 00:42:38,980 --> 00:42:42,140 This was the scene of the celebration. 699 00:42:42,140 --> 00:42:44,700 The spectators took their seats before dawn, 700 00:42:44,700 --> 00:42:50,260 every seat was filled and, as the curtain of darkness rose, the procession began. 701 00:42:50,260 --> 00:42:52,100 Here, in the theatre, 702 00:42:52,100 --> 00:42:57,260 carried amidst the procession were 13 lavishly adorned statues. 703 00:42:57,260 --> 00:43:00,100 12 of them represented the gods 704 00:43:00,100 --> 00:43:05,700 and the 13th representing Philip as their enthroned companion. 705 00:43:05,700 --> 00:43:09,540 And a little way behind the statues walked Phillip himself, 706 00:43:09,540 --> 00:43:12,700 clothed in white and without a bodyguard 707 00:43:12,700 --> 00:43:15,980 to demonstrate his omnipotence. 708 00:43:15,980 --> 00:43:21,740 And at that moment, one of his own soldiers rushed into the theatre 709 00:43:21,740 --> 00:43:23,780 and stabbed him to death. 710 00:43:25,500 --> 00:43:30,780 The sources suggest that Philip's attacker nursed a personal grudge against the king, 711 00:43:30,780 --> 00:43:33,060 but we'll never know the whole truth - 712 00:43:33,060 --> 00:43:37,100 the assassin was killed as he tried to flee the scene. 713 00:43:37,100 --> 00:43:41,500 The whole sequence of events was worthy of a tale by Euripides himself. 714 00:43:41,500 --> 00:43:46,180 And, in fact, later in life, the actor Neoptolemus was asked what was his favourite scene in tragedy. 715 00:43:46,180 --> 00:43:50,660 And he replied not one in any play, but one on a much greater stage - 716 00:43:50,660 --> 00:43:53,940 watching Philip enter as the 13th god 717 00:43:53,940 --> 00:43:57,060 and then being killed here, in the theatre. 718 00:44:01,940 --> 00:44:04,140 Philip's body was placed on a pyre 719 00:44:04,140 --> 00:44:07,180 and burned in traditional Macedonian fashion 720 00:44:07,180 --> 00:44:10,100 before his bones were wrapped in purple cloth, 721 00:44:10,100 --> 00:44:12,780 encased in an ossuary of hammered pure gold 722 00:44:12,780 --> 00:44:18,380 and buried here, in this tomb, alongside some of the riches of his kingdom. 723 00:44:18,380 --> 00:44:21,060 The findings here, at the Royal Tombs, 724 00:44:21,060 --> 00:44:23,620 reveal the extravagance of the funeral. 725 00:44:23,620 --> 00:44:29,740 This gold myrtle wreath is made up of 80 leaves and 112 flowers. 726 00:44:29,740 --> 00:44:33,340 Philip's luxurious funeral arrangements were organised 727 00:44:33,340 --> 00:44:37,260 by the new king - his son, Alexander. 728 00:44:37,260 --> 00:44:40,420 What happened next is the stuff of legend. 729 00:44:40,420 --> 00:44:41,980 By the age of 25, 730 00:44:41,980 --> 00:44:46,340 Alexander was no longer just king of Macedon and leader of the Greeks. 731 00:44:46,340 --> 00:44:49,660 He ruled an empire that comprised two million square miles 732 00:44:49,660 --> 00:44:52,300 and reached as far east as Afghanistan. 733 00:44:52,300 --> 00:44:54,900 And everywhere he went, he took theatre. 734 00:44:54,900 --> 00:44:57,660 Alexander could quote Euripides by heart, 735 00:44:57,660 --> 00:45:00,220 he read Greek tragedies on campaign 736 00:45:00,220 --> 00:45:03,940 and he held Greek festivals of drama. 737 00:45:03,940 --> 00:45:05,540 In just over a decade, 738 00:45:05,540 --> 00:45:10,020 Alexander single-handedly changed the nature of the ancient world. 739 00:45:10,020 --> 00:45:12,100 But as Alexander's horizons grew, 740 00:45:12,100 --> 00:45:14,500 Athens' were limited to her own borders 741 00:45:14,500 --> 00:45:16,980 and she had to adapt accordingly. 742 00:45:16,980 --> 00:45:21,060 One politician who came to define this era was called Lycurgus. 743 00:45:21,060 --> 00:45:24,260 He dealt with Athens' defeat by using the funds available 744 00:45:24,260 --> 00:45:27,140 to celebrate the glory days of theatre. 745 00:45:27,140 --> 00:45:32,460 The most lasting legacy of Lycurgus' time in office is actually here. 746 00:45:32,460 --> 00:45:38,220 In 330 BC, he commissioned the first permanent stone Theatre Of Dionysus, 747 00:45:38,220 --> 00:45:39,500 here, in Athens. 748 00:45:39,500 --> 00:45:41,260 Indeed, throughout the entire time 749 00:45:41,260 --> 00:45:43,940 of the glory period of Greek tragedy and comedy, 750 00:45:43,940 --> 00:45:47,220 it had been a temporary theatre here made of wooden stacks 751 00:45:47,220 --> 00:45:50,540 put up every year, year on year, with a few permanent seats below. 752 00:45:50,540 --> 00:45:54,220 Now, it was a glorious monument 753 00:45:54,220 --> 00:45:57,620 to the greatness of Athenian cultural glory. 754 00:45:59,300 --> 00:46:02,460 It doubled the size, the number of spectators that could be taken, 755 00:46:02,460 --> 00:46:06,300 now nearly 17,000 rather than the 10,000 before, 756 00:46:06,300 --> 00:46:08,620 and indeed the Athenians loved it so much 757 00:46:08,620 --> 00:46:10,300 that they started using this place 758 00:46:10,300 --> 00:46:13,460 as their official political assembly place more than the Pnyx, 759 00:46:13,460 --> 00:46:16,100 the place where it had been during the 5th century. 760 00:46:16,100 --> 00:46:18,860 And perhaps the most interesting bit is actually here, 761 00:46:18,860 --> 00:46:21,860 or at least it was here once upon a time. 762 00:46:21,860 --> 00:46:26,700 A monument was set up with three towering bronze statues 763 00:46:26,700 --> 00:46:31,300 to none other than Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides - 764 00:46:31,300 --> 00:46:33,260 the great tragedians. 765 00:46:36,740 --> 00:46:39,740 In addition, Lycurgus ordered that copies be made 766 00:46:39,740 --> 00:46:43,500 of all of their plays, which were preserved in the public archives. 767 00:46:43,500 --> 00:46:46,140 Their works were now classics. 768 00:46:46,140 --> 00:46:52,220 Lycurgus ensured that, although Athens may have lost everything else, she still had theatre. 769 00:46:54,060 --> 00:46:56,740 The Lycurgun era, if you call it that, 770 00:46:56,740 --> 00:47:00,100 was a consequent upon a disastrous defeat, 771 00:47:00,100 --> 00:47:03,940 which is almost equivalent of the defeat by the Spartans in 404, 772 00:47:03,940 --> 00:47:06,620 so Lycurgus made a big point, 773 00:47:06,620 --> 00:47:09,940 a big thing about back to the future. 774 00:47:09,940 --> 00:47:13,260 The way we go forward, guys, is by consolidating, 775 00:47:13,260 --> 00:47:16,580 by going back to what we were really good at before 776 00:47:16,580 --> 00:47:20,740 and part of that is literally setting in stone three tragedians 777 00:47:20,740 --> 00:47:24,180 with, you know, all these other hundreds 778 00:47:24,180 --> 00:47:26,740 getting forgotten as a result. 779 00:47:26,740 --> 00:47:30,180 Paul's absolutely right that the crisis of the defeat 780 00:47:30,180 --> 00:47:35,100 that brought about the whole Lycurgun culture was terrible 781 00:47:35,100 --> 00:47:37,380 and Athens did go back to the future, 782 00:47:37,380 --> 00:47:40,820 but they knew they could no longer try for political power, 783 00:47:40,820 --> 00:47:43,620 this was obviously hopeless under the new regime, 784 00:47:43,620 --> 00:47:47,980 but what they could do was claim that they had invented theatre 785 00:47:47,980 --> 00:47:52,020 and that they'd invented philosophy, which is very much true. 786 00:47:52,020 --> 00:47:55,940 It's very much about celebrating the great theatrical past, 787 00:47:55,940 --> 00:47:59,900 it's very self-consciously building on the repertoire. 788 00:47:59,900 --> 00:48:02,660 One of the things going back slightly before Lycurgus 789 00:48:02,660 --> 00:48:04,980 is the export market, for both tragedy and comedy, 790 00:48:04,980 --> 00:48:06,540 has boomed in the 4th century 791 00:48:06,540 --> 00:48:11,300 and it's difficult to say whether that has a sort of feedback effect 792 00:48:11,300 --> 00:48:13,700 into the kind of dramas being produced in Athens 793 00:48:13,700 --> 00:48:15,740 and whether the kind of forms of drama 794 00:48:15,740 --> 00:48:18,500 that proliferate in the 4th century are due to the demands 795 00:48:18,500 --> 00:48:20,460 of the export market as well. 796 00:48:20,460 --> 00:48:23,380 I mean, if you look at the plays of Aristophanes that seem to have had 797 00:48:23,380 --> 00:48:25,100 some life outside of Greece, 798 00:48:25,100 --> 00:48:28,260 they're the ones that had hardly any political references. 799 00:48:30,260 --> 00:48:33,260 It's clear that theatre was still central to Athens, 800 00:48:33,260 --> 00:48:36,820 but the reasons why people came here had changed. 801 00:48:36,820 --> 00:48:40,420 Whereas once they had come here to connect and to be challenged, 802 00:48:40,420 --> 00:48:42,900 now they came here to be comforted. 803 00:48:42,900 --> 00:48:45,820 There was certainly much here to be proud of, 804 00:48:45,820 --> 00:48:49,700 but it's hard to shake the feeling that, behind this new splendour, 805 00:48:49,700 --> 00:48:52,220 something significant had been lost. 806 00:48:54,300 --> 00:48:57,980 These changes were reflected on the Athenian stage itself 807 00:48:57,980 --> 00:48:59,620 in a new kind of drama, 808 00:48:59,620 --> 00:49:02,180 one that focused on more mundane affairs - 809 00:49:02,180 --> 00:49:04,460 everyday people and everyday life. 810 00:49:04,460 --> 00:49:09,220 Inspiration for this new kind of drama came from a scholar called Theophrastus. 811 00:49:09,220 --> 00:49:13,020 His most important works were his studies in botany. 812 00:49:13,020 --> 00:49:15,220 But when he wasn't categorising plants, 813 00:49:15,220 --> 00:49:20,260 Theophrastus turned his expert powers of observation to people-watching. 814 00:49:20,260 --> 00:49:23,380 This is a copy of Theophrastus' Characters. 815 00:49:23,380 --> 00:49:25,980 Now, "character" comes from the Greek word to etch, 816 00:49:25,980 --> 00:49:27,780 to make permanent, to imprint. 817 00:49:27,780 --> 00:49:30,740 And Theophrastus applies it here not to things, 818 00:49:30,740 --> 00:49:34,020 but to us and to the inner nature of human beings themselves. 819 00:49:34,020 --> 00:49:37,020 It's a brilliant piece of acute observation. 820 00:49:37,020 --> 00:49:40,780 Theophrastus says there are 30 character types out there - 821 00:49:40,780 --> 00:49:44,540 the flatterer, the boring person, 822 00:49:44,540 --> 00:49:47,180 the person who's always got bad timing, 823 00:49:47,180 --> 00:49:51,820 the person who's got bad taste and the person who's got petty ambition. 824 00:49:51,820 --> 00:49:56,180 And the thing is these character types don't just give us a fantastic window 825 00:49:56,180 --> 00:49:59,220 onto the people of ancient Athens, 826 00:49:59,220 --> 00:50:03,940 they can be applied to any city, anywhere in the world at any time. 827 00:50:06,060 --> 00:50:09,940 "The mean man - he examines his boundary marks every day 828 00:50:09,940 --> 00:50:12,740 "to see that they have not been touched. 829 00:50:12,740 --> 00:50:14,820 "He forbids his wife to lend salt, 830 00:50:14,820 --> 00:50:19,180 "observing that these trifles make a large sum in the course of a year. 831 00:50:19,180 --> 00:50:23,100 "The garrulous man - your garrulous man is one who sits beside a stranger 832 00:50:23,100 --> 00:50:25,300 "and tells the dream he had last night, 833 00:50:25,300 --> 00:50:29,380 "everything he ate for supper, how the present age is sadly degenerate, 834 00:50:29,380 --> 00:50:31,780 "that wheat is selling very low 835 00:50:31,780 --> 00:50:34,980 "and that hosts of strangers are in town. 836 00:50:34,980 --> 00:50:38,380 "The exquisite man - he has his hair cut frequently, 837 00:50:38,380 --> 00:50:40,780 "his teeth are always pearly white, 838 00:50:40,780 --> 00:50:43,980 "while his old suit is still good, he gets himself a new one, 839 00:50:43,980 --> 00:50:47,580 "and he anoints himself with the choicest perfumes." 840 00:50:47,580 --> 00:50:50,900 Every-day character types like these provided moulds 841 00:50:50,900 --> 00:50:53,980 for writers of what we now call New Comedy 842 00:50:53,980 --> 00:50:56,540 and the most famous of the New Comedy playwrights 843 00:50:56,540 --> 00:50:59,860 was one of Theophrastus' students - Menander. 844 00:50:59,860 --> 00:51:03,940 Sadly, hardly any examples of this new style have survived - 845 00:51:03,940 --> 00:51:07,740 we have lots of names and titles, but only one complete play. 846 00:51:07,740 --> 00:51:11,940 It was only revealed in 1957 after being discovered in Egypt, 847 00:51:11,940 --> 00:51:13,820 buried in a sealed jar. 848 00:51:13,820 --> 00:51:15,460 And it was by Menander. 849 00:51:17,940 --> 00:51:20,940 But from this one surviving play, and a number of other fragments, 850 00:51:20,940 --> 00:51:24,060 we can get a pretty good idea of what New Comedy was really like. 851 00:51:24,060 --> 00:51:28,660 And, in fact, many of Menander's titles could have come from Theophrastus' characters. 852 00:51:28,660 --> 00:51:31,740 He has plays called The Flatterer, The Woman-Hater 853 00:51:31,740 --> 00:51:33,660 or The Superstitious Man. 854 00:51:33,660 --> 00:51:36,740 But the key thing is here that, just like Theophrastus, 855 00:51:36,740 --> 00:51:38,780 the titles are of ordinary people. 856 00:51:38,780 --> 00:51:41,340 No mythical heroes, no political leaders, 857 00:51:41,340 --> 00:51:43,780 just people, like you and me. 858 00:51:46,820 --> 00:51:49,740 The importance of these stock characters types for New Comedy 859 00:51:49,740 --> 00:51:51,580 is also demonstrated by the fact 860 00:51:51,580 --> 00:51:54,460 that there are lots of stock character masks surviving 861 00:51:54,460 --> 00:51:56,460 that would have been used on the stage, 862 00:51:56,460 --> 00:51:59,380 so we have, for example, the ruler-slave 863 00:51:59,380 --> 00:52:00,940 or the courtesan 864 00:52:00,940 --> 00:52:03,580 or, my personal favourite, the first old man. 865 00:52:03,580 --> 00:52:06,420 And a number of these can be found 866 00:52:06,420 --> 00:52:10,860 in Menander's sole surviving complete play - The Grouch. 867 00:52:10,860 --> 00:52:13,460 The Grouch is a man named Knemon. 868 00:52:13,460 --> 00:52:17,820 He hates the outside world and wants to shut himself away from life. 869 00:52:17,820 --> 00:52:20,660 He shouts at servants, insults his neighbours 870 00:52:20,660 --> 00:52:22,900 and pelts visitors with stones. 871 00:52:22,900 --> 00:52:27,220 But Knemon's seclusion is threatened when a wealthy young man, Sostratos, 872 00:52:27,220 --> 00:52:30,580 falls in love with his daughter and wants to marry her. 873 00:52:30,580 --> 00:52:33,060 Knemon is having none of it. 874 00:52:33,060 --> 00:52:37,140 That is until he falls down a well and is only able to escape 875 00:52:37,140 --> 00:52:42,340 with the help of his stepson and the lovelorn Sostratos. 876 00:52:42,340 --> 00:52:47,580 This ordeal forces Knemon to realise that no man is an island. 877 00:52:47,580 --> 00:52:51,100 "I admit I may have made one error - that was..." 878 00:52:57,900 --> 00:53:00,300 New Comedy is far less bawdy. 879 00:53:00,300 --> 00:53:01,980 You still have some slapstick, 880 00:53:01,980 --> 00:53:05,300 you still have a little bit of innuendo here and there, 881 00:53:05,300 --> 00:53:09,780 but for the main part, you know, the strap-on phalluses are gone, 882 00:53:09,780 --> 00:53:13,100 a lot of the jokes about bodily functions are gone. 883 00:53:13,100 --> 00:53:16,900 There's a shift to concerns about the domestic 884 00:53:16,900 --> 00:53:20,100 and, well, you get the emergence of stock characters. 885 00:53:20,100 --> 00:53:22,300 In the example of The Grouch, 886 00:53:22,300 --> 00:53:25,380 you have a boy falling in love with a girl 887 00:53:25,380 --> 00:53:27,460 and there's going to be some obstacle. 888 00:53:27,460 --> 00:53:32,420 In this case, the obstacle is Knemon, the father of the girl, 889 00:53:32,420 --> 00:53:35,740 who is this terrible misanthrope, OK, 890 00:53:35,740 --> 00:53:38,700 he just does not want to speak to anyone ever at all. 891 00:53:38,700 --> 00:53:45,460 And what sense of the key elements of New Comedy 892 00:53:45,460 --> 00:53:50,740 do you think resonate with the comedy that we understand today? 893 00:53:50,740 --> 00:53:54,700 If we think about The Grouch and this misanthropic figure 894 00:53:54,700 --> 00:53:56,860 who's right at the centre of it, 895 00:53:56,860 --> 00:54:00,780 then, you might think about more relatively recent playwrights, 896 00:54:00,780 --> 00:54:04,180 so you might think about Moliere and his Misanthrope. 897 00:54:04,180 --> 00:54:07,180 Here's a production that was done in Liverpool's Playhouse 898 00:54:07,180 --> 00:54:11,380 and here you see Alceste, the misanthrope in the play. 899 00:54:11,380 --> 00:54:17,860 He, like Knemon in Menander, is resisting the rules of society. 900 00:54:17,860 --> 00:54:20,580 And the same thing you can see being explored 901 00:54:20,580 --> 00:54:23,460 in Shakespeare's Timon Of Athens, 902 00:54:23,460 --> 00:54:28,980 you have a central character who's really grumpy with society. 903 00:54:28,980 --> 00:54:33,180 Here he is in this dinner party with his apparent friends, 904 00:54:33,180 --> 00:54:36,900 who turn out just to be using him for his wealth. 905 00:54:36,900 --> 00:54:40,540 You know, while these aren't directly drawn from Menander, 906 00:54:40,540 --> 00:54:47,260 they take that original idea as a way of really shaping the entire play. 907 00:54:54,180 --> 00:54:58,700 The Grouch is a work entirely unlike that of early Aristophanes. 908 00:54:58,700 --> 00:55:00,220 Its world is the home, 909 00:55:00,220 --> 00:55:03,980 domestic bliss and equal amounts of domestic strife, 910 00:55:03,980 --> 00:55:08,340 but absolutely nothing to do with the wider world and, particularly, with politics. 911 00:55:08,340 --> 00:55:11,500 It's the ancient equivalent of One Foot In The Grave, 912 00:55:11,500 --> 00:55:15,460 Men Behaving Badly or comedies like Frasier and Friends. 913 00:55:15,460 --> 00:55:18,780 It's kitchen-sink drama and, in reality, 914 00:55:18,780 --> 00:55:21,940 that was really the only horizon Athenians had left. 915 00:55:23,300 --> 00:55:28,420 This New Comedy symbolises the end of an era, the decline of Athens, 916 00:55:28,420 --> 00:55:32,700 but it is also a truly revolutionary moment in drama. 917 00:55:34,540 --> 00:55:37,660 Menander, or Menandros, made a very big impact - 918 00:55:37,660 --> 00:55:44,700 comedy changed into a new type of comedy - a comedy of families, 919 00:55:44,700 --> 00:55:49,540 a comedy of errors, a comedy of manners, a comedy of mistakes 920 00:55:49,540 --> 00:55:54,380 and of identity much more like the comedy that comes down 921 00:55:54,380 --> 00:55:57,580 through the Roman comedians, through Plautus and Terence, 922 00:55:57,580 --> 00:56:01,900 to Shakespeare and Moliere and Oscar Wilde. 923 00:56:01,900 --> 00:56:04,900 And if you look at Ben Jonson's poem 924 00:56:04,900 --> 00:56:07,740 facing the portrait of Shakespeare in the First Folio, 925 00:56:07,740 --> 00:56:13,420 he actually alludes to Shakespeare as the Menander of his day. 926 00:56:13,420 --> 00:56:18,380 So while tragedy remained fundamentally, I would say, 927 00:56:18,380 --> 00:56:22,580 the same kind of thing, all the way from 500 928 00:56:22,580 --> 00:56:24,540 down as far as we can trace it, 929 00:56:24,540 --> 00:56:27,140 comedy did fundamentally change its nature 930 00:56:27,140 --> 00:56:34,460 from the absurdly fantastical and wonderful carnival comedies 931 00:56:34,460 --> 00:56:37,300 of Aristophanes and his contemporaries 932 00:56:37,300 --> 00:56:39,780 down to what we think of as comedy. 933 00:56:47,580 --> 00:56:49,740 Theatre began the century as a place 934 00:56:49,740 --> 00:56:51,900 of biting and pointed political commentary 935 00:56:51,900 --> 00:56:54,540 and more than that, as the obvious choice 936 00:56:54,540 --> 00:56:57,540 as a rallying point for democratic revolution. 937 00:56:57,540 --> 00:56:59,500 And yet, as the years passed, 938 00:56:59,500 --> 00:57:04,180 whereas Athens suffered in a constantly changing and unsettled world, 939 00:57:04,180 --> 00:57:06,100 theatre went from strength to strength 940 00:57:06,100 --> 00:57:08,140 spreading across the Hellenistic Empire. 941 00:57:10,980 --> 00:57:14,820 It had also become more like theatre as we know it today - 942 00:57:14,820 --> 00:57:18,020 professional and exportable with powerful actors, 943 00:57:18,020 --> 00:57:21,300 touring companies and a rich and varied repertoire. 944 00:57:22,660 --> 00:57:24,860 Theatre had become a symbol of Greekness 945 00:57:24,860 --> 00:57:26,580 and a tool of power and influence, 946 00:57:26,580 --> 00:57:30,180 coveted by kings and commoners alike. 947 00:57:30,180 --> 00:57:35,180 It had outgrown its birthplace and spread not just through Greece, 948 00:57:35,180 --> 00:57:40,660 but to Italy, Egypt, Libya and as far east as Afghanistan. 949 00:57:40,660 --> 00:57:45,780 It's an amazing story, but for Athens, it is also a story of loss - 950 00:57:45,780 --> 00:57:52,140 theatre's success is a direct reflection of Athens' loss of power, influence and uniqueness 951 00:57:52,140 --> 00:57:55,060 during the course of the 4th century. 952 00:57:55,060 --> 00:57:57,180 Athens was no longer THE city, 953 00:57:57,180 --> 00:58:01,500 it was just A city in a much bigger world. 954 00:58:01,500 --> 00:58:03,260 And there was another city to the west 955 00:58:03,260 --> 00:58:06,340 whose inhabitants would change the story of theatre 956 00:58:06,340 --> 00:58:10,460 and indeed of the entire Mediterranean - Rome. 957 00:58:16,260 --> 00:58:19,380 Join The Open University as we explore the connections 958 00:58:19,380 --> 00:58:24,740 between Greek theatre and modern-day democracy. Go to... 959 00:58:24,740 --> 00:58:28,460 ..and follow the links to The Open University's free learning website. 960 00:58:55,420 --> 00:58:58,500 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd