The Cruise of the Branwen

ATHENS But by far the most interesting site in this approach which is so rich in ruins is the Theatre of Dionysus, in which the tragedies of £schylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were first brought out before an Athenian audience. The front row of the semicircle of seats is still almost filled with the marble chairs in which the priests of Dionysus sat, and in the centre is the one more highly carved for the high priest himself, with satyrs and a bunch of grapes upon its front, Arimaspes and the griffins beneath, and a most delicate and beautiful group of the kneeling Eros holding two gamecocks on the triangle of its side-arms. Of this latter Mr. Bosanquet was kind enough to secure reproductions in plaster for one of our party, and one of them is on my study walls to-day. Much of the detail we see now in this theatre was no doubt the result of the re– storation of Herodes Atticus, but the general structure of the original building which echoed to the syllables of £schylus remains unchanged. It is perfectly possible to hear a man speaking on the space that now represents the ancient stage if you stand at the top of the highest row of seats, and when the back scenes of the original theatre were added the voice must have been even more resonant. But I can hardly imagine the place ever held thirty thousand people. So many seem hardly possible in that pathetic ruin, the Graeco-Roman Theatre in Arles, and I am told that the Theatre of Syracuse is larger than either of these. In any case, after a visit to this Theatre of Dionysus on the slopes of the Acro- 135