THEBES 



5782 



THEBES 



Lycurgus. The ruins of theaters which are to 

 be seen throughout Greece are all greatly simi- 

 lar to the first theaters of Athens. Some of 

 these were vast structures capable of accom- 

 modating from 10,000 to 40,000 spectators. 



The Roman theaters closely resembled the 

 Greek. The building was in the form of a 



THE THEATER OF DIONYSUS 

 The oldest known theater in the world, capable 

 of seating 20,000 people. 



semicircle, not covered by any roof. While the 

 Greek semicircle was often cut out of the side 

 of a hill with the seats' arranged in tiers up the 

 slope, the Roman theaters were usually built 

 on the level. The part which would now be 

 called the auditorium was called the cavea. 

 The stage was in Greek called the proskcnion, 

 from which the modern word proscenium is de- 

 rived. The back of the stage, generally a blank 

 wall supposed to represent any building before 

 which the action of the drama took place, was 

 called the skene, evidently the origin of the 

 present-day word scenery. The space between 

 the stage and the audience was then as now 

 called the orchestra and was devoted to the 

 musicians by the Greeks but in Roman theaters 

 was occupied exclusively by the senators. 



The immense size of the early theaters made 

 it impossible for the actors to be heard by all 

 the audience. Metal mouthpieces similar in 

 principle to the megaphone were worn. The 

 actors were all males, the parts of women be- 

 ing taken by young men. In more modern thea- 

 ters boys and young men continued to play 

 female parts until 1662; then manager D'Aven- 

 ant, who introduced movable scenery into Lon- 

 don theaters, also brought in the great inno- 

 vation of allowing women to appear en the 

 stage. F.ST.A. 



Consult Moderwell's The Theater of To-day; 

 Moses's The American Dramatist; Cheney's The 

 New Movement in the Theatre. 



THEBES, theebz, a splendid city of ancient 

 Egypt, for centuries the seat of government of 

 the Pharaohs. A few straggling villages now 



occupy the site of the once famous capital, 

 which lay on the banks of the River Nile in 

 Upper Egypt (see map on page 1969). On this 

 site may be seen to-day some of the most im- 

 pressive ruins that have been preserved from 

 antiquity ruins of temples, tombs, obelisks, 

 avenues of sphinxes and colossal statues, ex- 

 tending along the river for nearly seven miles. 

 To the north, on the eastern bank, in the little 

 village of Karnak, are the remains of the cele- 

 brated temple erected in honor of the god Am- 

 mon. The gigantic columns of this edifice, the 

 largest temple ever constructed, are illustrated 

 here. The temple was built by several suc- 

 cessive kings, including Seti I and Rameses II. 

 The village of Luxor, south of Karnak, con- 

 tains the ruins of another impressive temple, 

 built about the year 1500 B.C. by Amenophis 

 III. Three of six colossal statues of Rameses 

 II, carved from single blocks of black granite, 



HALL OF COLUMNS, AT KARNAK 

 The obelisk in the distant center dates from 

 1600 B. c. 



are conspicuous among the ruins of Luxor (see 

 page 1971). At Thebes, too, was set up the 

 colossal statue known as the "Vocal Memnon" 

 (for description and picture see pages 3727 and 

 3728). Of this city one historian has written 



"In spite of all the ravages of time and of the 

 barbarian, Thebes still presents the grandest, the 



