“You have to call us both M’lady, that’s right, like Parker, and then try and act casual about the Dionysian sounds of extraordinary lovemaking emanating from my bedroom window, oh god this is great!”
Richie, Bottom
Scholarly it may not be, though perhaps Aristophanic, but this line from the stage show of Bottom is an excellent example of our modern interpretation of the Dionysian. The word itself evokes all manner of images to the modern mind, profligate women, debauchery and drinking, frenzied lovemaking, frenetic and fantastic nightly revels-the lure has proven a strong one indeed and remains a difficulty in the more sober fields of historical and literary analysis. Dionysus is undoubtedly associated with the theatre and with Greek tragedy but how much of this is a distortion brought about by the intervening gulf of time and culture? Could it be that our association of Dionysus with drama be a fanciful yet false one, the result of imaginations working overtime? Could it be that the old Athenian proverb ouden pros ton Dionuson be the case and that Athenian tragedy bore little relation to the multivariate figure of Dionysus who became its patron god?
One major problem in any approach to the matter is the lack of 6th or early 5th century evidence with which we could gain some insight into the origins of the City Dionysia or indeed tragedy and performance art within Athens itself. That it was the tyrant Pisitratus who instituted the City Dionysia is fairly certain and that there was a theatre constructed in the precinct of Dionysius around 500BCE is also reasonably established but asides from images and the extant tragedies that were performed at the festival and a tragically pitiful remnant of Satyr plays, the Cyclops by Euripides being one, there is precious little else that shed light upon the questions of origins, meaning and intention. Nonetheless we should not run the risk of concentrating too hard upon the origins as providing us with a cut and dry answer; yes the question of where tragedy came from is an important one but it is not all in determining that ‘the origins of a phenomenon fully explain its essence’ something as dynamic and as fluid as Attic tragedy may swiftly have flown the nest and even if it could be determined that its origin was in no way connected to Dionysian cult or worship it may not be fatal to the idea of pan pros ton Dionuson. To begin with it is worth addressing some of the arguments in favour of the Dionysian and the dramatic being estranged and some of the most provocative assertions for this point of view come from Scott Scullion’s article ‘nothing to do with Dionysus: tragedy misconceived as ritual.’
The first of these arguments focuses on the apparent lack of prominence of Dionysus in the major plays of the 5th century: Scullion’s figures are as follows.
Aeschylus: Zeus: 174, Apollo: 18, Athena: 4, Dionysus: 1
Sophocles: Zeus: 114, Apollo: 46, Athena: 16, Dionysus: 7
Euripides: Zeus: 163, Apollo: 152, Athena: 72, Dionysus: 20
Aristophanes: Zeus: 505, Apollo: 152, Dionysus: 48, Athena: 15
The figures seem more suited to reading out the cricket scores but nonetheless Scullion’s conclusion is that the statistics point to no prominence for Dionysus in the works of the three major tragedians and the major comedic playwright of the 5th century, indeed Scullion also points out that ‘Dionysiac plays constitute less than 4 per cent of this reasonably large sample, which hardly yields an argument in favour of the Dionysian essence of the tragic drama.’[1] Statistical analysis is a very singular approach to understanding the essence of tragedy, perhaps it could be described as a soulless one but regardless of offended aesthetics the figures still stand, how do we explain them? A possible solution is that if the City Dionysia was indeed a celebration or honouring of Dionysus then it would not be necessary to drop his name into every play that was performed nor is it to fudge the argument entirely to suggest that while Scullion describes ‘Dionysiac plays’ as only those that dealt directly with Dionysus as the subject matter, the Bacchae being a prime example, the others nonetheless featured an essence of the Dionysian. We must also take into account the structure and nature of the Satyr play that followed the tragic performance. Easterling writes that it was the ‘Satyr play that was the most obviously Dionysiac element since the chorus of Satyrs, far more than any chord group, was explicitly and by definition part of the god’s entourage.’[2] A very important idea is that the Satyr play was performed by the same actors as were in the preceding tragic performance and thus the notion that Dionysian was inherent within the tragedy itself via the transformative process of the stage is given some room for manoeuvre . Easterling adds that the Satyr’s ‘state of ecstatic possession is often used as a metaphor for the violent actions and experiences of tragic actors and choruses, even in plays in which Dionysus plays no direct part.’[3] The idea seems to be that tragedy and the Dionysian is more than a game of numbers, though the lack of surviving Satyr plays results in a frustrating silence either way. Scullion’s second argument is that the ‘connection between tragedy and Dionysus is an Athenian phenomenon’[4] and then cities examples of tragic performances or festivals outside of Athens he notes the Soteria at Delphi in honour of Apollo, Zeus Soter and Nike, the Heraia at Argos in honour of Hera, and the Naia at Dodona in honour of Zeus Naios, from these he determines that the Dionysian may well not have been an essential element or essence of tragedy. Here Scullion seems to gloss over a couple of very important details the first being the fact that the dramatic element of these festivals are features of the 3rd and 2nd century BCE; a good deal later than the golden age of tragedy. Scullion at the beginning of his article has cast doubts on the veracity of Aristotle’s poetics given that ‘Aristotle himself has very little to go on for the early period’[5] and so it seems a little self-contradictory to take the nature of festivals held some two-three hundred years later as reflections of the City Dionysia of the 5th century BCE. Furthermore his point about the connection between Dionysus and tragedy being an Athenian eccentricity raises the important issue of social and political context especially in regard to the democracy of Athens. The Dionysian context of the Athenian stage was not just a quirk of theirs in regard to something done differently elsewhere, tragedy was an Athenian invention and eventually an export and it seems to be a gross simplification to suggest that if Argos or Delphi dedicated their tragedies to Apollo or Athena this meant the association of tragedy with Dionysus in Athens was an idiosyncrasy and nothing more. This idea also applies to the third argument that Scullion raises: linking the masks of the Dionysian with masks found in other Greek societies. He draws a parallel between the masks found in the Dionysian cult and those of the Spartan cult of Artemis Orthia in order to throw in confusion the idea that the mask was a singular Dionysian element in the creation of comedy. This seems to be a particularly weak argument on several counts, for a start we have the aforementioned lack of socio-political context; Sparta and Athens were entirely differently constituted societies with different social norms and conventions and it is a highly tricky business to go drawing straight parallels between the two. Secondly the cult of Artemis Orthia as we understand it was the institutionalised beating of young boys who were in the process of stealing cheeses, Xenophon records that this was ‘to demonstrate in this way that brief moment’s pain can bring the joy of enduring fame’[6]; the snarling masks that have been found at the site were there to convey an entirely different meaning than those used on the stage at Athens. Finally it is not a conclusive argument that the appearance of masks in Sparta preclude the Dionysian element of masks in Athens and their role in the development of comedy, if one society chooses to use rocks to stone people to death with it doesn’t mean another society can’t use stones to build houses.[7]
Scullion further argues in relation to the Dionysian spirit and the Satyr plays that this ‘playing of roles seems in fact to be a human universal and hardly requires special explanation’[8], the statement is so general and dismissive that it seems to serve as a good point for moving on, via a response, to some further arguments and ideas other than those of the successfully provocative Scullion. In regard to this playing of roles it is interesting to turn to some of the themes featured in Ober and Strauss’ Drama, Political Rhetoric and the discourse of Athenian Democracy, a work that focuses closely on the relationship between the sphere of the theatre and the sphere of the political world. Though it be well known it is still worth stating that Athens as of 508BCE was a direct democracy, the first we know of, and that this political dynamic was of huge social, cultural and of course diplomatic consequence. As a democracy built on an edifice of a hierarchical society as well as the much darker background of endemic institutionalised slavery, strict sexism and acerbic xenophobia; it was not without its internal contradictions. We run the risk, however, of imposing the modern, liberal mind-set upon a society that existed two and half millennia ago so perhaps questions as to the normative considerations of slavery and sexism, though extremely important topics worthy of study, may not be entirely relevant when we talk of the realised, internal political conflict that was apparent in the political consciousness of the time. Nonetheless one thing that does bear analysis in a direct sense is the idea of class and class conflict, that is to say, under the formal equality of the Athenian ecclesia there was the economic reality of inequality as the relationship between the propertied classes and the artisan classes who relied on labour for a living continued, though mitigated by the political enfranchisement of adult males. Ober and Strauss note that the ‘political sociologist attempts to understand how the forces of conflict and consensus are brought into balance’[9] and any functioning democracy with any form of plurality of opinion must be a balance of both dissent and decision, these are the competing forces within the fluid political state that exists in relation to majority rule. The ‘dissonance between egalitarianism and elitism within political society’[10] gives rise to tension and friction, Ober and Strauss argue that ‘Athenian theatrical performances and texts were closely bound up in the mediation of conflicting social values.’[11] However, how does this relate to Scullion’s statement about acting out roles, how does this relate to Dionysus? To begin with I should like to venture the opinion that this dissonance combined within a single polis, this myriad shifting collection of competing opinions and compulsions found its perfect expression in a god of confusion and multiple identities. Dionysus as the masked stranger whose duel personality erupts violently or joyfully depending on his representation is nonetheless a single divinity and the most fitting representation of a democratic society, which debates, differs but still decides on a course of action as though it were one. Now what of play acting? I return to Ober and Strauss who in turn reference the anthropologist Victor Turner who, in studying the Ndembu tribe in Africa, wrote that the essence of politics is a dramatic process, each of these conflicts is a ‘social drama’, social dramas force individuals to choose between personal preferences and social obligations.[12] Is it that societies which develop nominal political freedom of expression or at least nominally open political competition are more prone to developing play acting or hypothesising events or procedures via the lens of dramatic depiction? Ober and Strauss felt that ‘the Athenians went to the theatre to observe what it felt like to choose between murdering your mother or leaving you father un-avenged; like Orestes.’[13] It is hardly a commonplace political dilemma but nonetheless the idea that with greater decision making potentials, the depiction of dilemma and conflict, internal or external, upon the stage performed a function of leading individual citizens through the processes that had been described in myth. It is all very thought provoking but equally important is the consideration of what the City Dionysia was really about is in its role as a civil-state ceremony, a display of power and wealth, perhaps even of military strength. John Winkler observes ‘the characters as a civil assembly-not a fortuitous gathering of theatre goers-but a quasi-official gathering of citizens.’[14] We know that amongst the ceremonies that were involved in the City Dionysia there was the laying out of the tribute that had been collected from the allies of the Delian league; Goldhill calls this a ‘demonstration before the city and its many international visitors of the power of the polis of Athens.’[15] We also know that libations were poured by the ten strategoi, not priests of Dionysus and that the orphans of the war dead were led out in full panoply as a statement of Athenian self-sacrifice. What on earth has this do with Dionysus? Well, nothing, perhaps it has everything to do with civic pride, patriotism, an unhealthy pallor of jingoism but this is a particularly social and political understanding in which there seems to be little room for the prankster Dionysus. It is therefore with a psychoanalytical approach that I shall round off the essay. The connection between Dionysus and insanity is one of particular interest, ecstatic possession; hysteria and madness are commonly associated with his followers and their practices. This provides us with a perspective with which we can begin to analyse the textual and pictorial evidence a form of bond between ourselves and those who have gone before. Cultures come and go, societies burn brightly but briefly and so quickly fade away, our mode and manner of conduct undergoes countless changes but what remains a constant is our fundamental nature as human beings, elusive and yet enduring, Goldhill states that ’it is unlikely that the criticism of Greek Tragedy can expect wholly to avoid an engagement with psychological and psychoanalytic theory.’[16] This is not to say that our attitudes and our approaches have not changed over time, manipulated by different social influences but that as Marius announces to the people of Rome ego naturam unam et commune omnium existumo.[17] Dodds writes that Dionysian ritual was essentially cathartic[18], providing a release for pent up energies that could otherwise become destructive, singing and dancing were, if not constructive, forms of getting madness out of one’s system so to speak. What seems to be the idea here is that to not be mad at such times that madness is visited upon the mind by Dionysus is itself an act of far greater insanity. Bottling up these energies results in their accumulation; just as Pentheus is torn asunder so too could the mind be wrenched apart if some channel for the emotional energy, inherent in the human psyche were not sought, perhaps the Dionysian mysteries were the recognition that Man was no machine, but a delicate balance of reason and emotion, if he were treated as a machine he would inevitably break. Where this may tie into the social and political role of tragic performances and the City Dionysia was that the democracy itself was at risk of being wrenched apart by its variously competing compulsions and that if there were not some form of release it could tear itself apart. Equally the communitarian aspect of the Dionysian may well have helped to rein in the individual to the interests of the state, again an attempt to address a dangerous contradiction at the heart of a competitive democracy which highlighted individual prowess yet relied upon this being harnessed to the collective. Nietzsche puts it esoterically as “the Dionysian excitement is able to inspire a whole mass of men with this artistic faculty of seeing themselves surrounded by such a host of spirits with whom they know themselves to be essentially one”[19], Seaford puts it more directly that Dionysus ‘imposes the emotional cohesion needed for the creation of the polis’[20]
Dodds believes that what we see in the parados of the Bacchae is ‘hysteria subdued to the service of religion’[21] and so it is in the City Dionysia that we see religion as a tool of the state subduing the hard edge of internal dissent and contradiction, the safety pressure release valve that channelled the destructive energies into more harmless revelry. Instituted by Pisistratus, himself a populist of a tyrant, the City Dionysia’s origins may well have been in its nature as a unifying festival occasion and the best god for the job was quite simply Dionysus. As the art of tragedy developed it was Dionysus’ ‘multiform and elusive nature [that] seems to have lent itself to the development of performance traditions of exceptional sophistication and complexity’[22] so the god became intrinsically intertwined with the City Dionysia and tragic performance.
To summarise briefly we have seen that the Scullion’s approach concentrates itself upon several areas which are much less clear cut than it would first appear and while he makes a brief, statistical case for a diminishment of the importance of the Dionysian festival he does not comment upon some of the more vital social and political aspects of its existence. I have suggested a connection between the nature of the Athenian democracy with its internal contradictions and the nature of Dionysus and his split personality, the idea that social conflict found expression and release via the stage and this too was an aspect of the Dionysian ‘madness’ that released pent up energies from within the individual. I have also attempted to point out that the Athenian association of tragedy with Dionysus is more important than any later association with another deity by another polis since the tragedy was an Athenian creation and one that was brought about by the peculiarity of its political and social make-up, the role played by Dionysus and what he symbolised is therefore an important aspect in the understanding of tragedy and dramatic performance in 5th century Athens.
[1] Scullion, pg 111
[2] Easterling, pg 38
[3] Easterling, pg 48
[4] Scullion, pg 112
[5] Scullion, pg 104
[6] Xenophon, III, 9
[7] Unless they’re the ones being stoned to death of course.
[8] Scullion, pg 117
[9] Ober and Strauss, pg 237
[10] Ober and Strauss, pg 237
[11] Ober and Strauss, pg 238
[12] Ober and Strauss, pg 245
[13] Ober and Strauss, pg 247
[14] Winkler, pg 22
[15] Goldhill, pg 102
[16] Goldhill, pg 343
[17] Sallust, pg 17
[18] Dodds, pg 76
[19] Nietzsche, pg 26
[20] Seaford, pg 285
[21] Dodds, pg 272
[22] Easterling, pg 53
