ASIA MINOR. 129 



mode those who are before them. Two large vaulted entrances 

 remain by which the people entered into the area, then ascended by 

 five flights of steps to their appropriated places. There are forty ranges 

 of seats, and at the top of the theatre there is a broad terrace or pro- 

 menade. Counting from the ground, we find the first thirty seats 

 separated from the succeeding seven by a wide walk ; there is a simi- 

 lar interval between them and the last three, and these are terminated 

 by the lofty terrace. 



Between the wall inclosing the theatre and the side of the acropolis 

 against which it is built, there is a vacant space, intended, it appears, 

 to carry off the water that trickles from the rock. Fronting the 

 orchestra are some blocks remaining in their original place ; they 

 may probably be the ruins of the Thymele, where the musicians were 

 placed, and which was built of stone; near them is a broken in- 

 scription, making mention of Cleostratus, the same person already 

 recorded. 



It has been ascertained, that a person sitting at the most remote extremity of some of the 

 ancient theatres was able distinctly to hear the voice of one speaking from the part where 

 the actors stood. Experiments of this kind have been repeatedly made in 1785 at the 

 theatre of Saguntum, which contained 12,000 people; and Marti said (Mountfaucon, A. 

 E. iii. 237.) " that a friend reciting some verses of the Amphytrion of Plautus, on the 

 scena, was distinctly heard by him at the top of the theatre." The distance is about 114 

 feet. The architect Dufourny made in Sicily, in the ancient theatre of Tauromenium, 

 similar observations. In this the distance from the pulpitum to the most elevated ex- 

 tremity of the external circumference is sixty metres, or about 180 feet. He heard in 

 every part of the theatre not only the ordinary voice of a man on the pulpitum, but the 

 slow and gradual tearing of a piece of paper ; and added in his journal a remark, which 

 naturally suggested itself to his mind, that Echea or the sounding vases, mentioned by 

 Vitruvius, as well as masks, could not always have been necessary for the purpose of ex- 

 tending and distributing the voice of the actor. See Mongez. Mem. de l'Institut. 1805. 

 " The commentators on Vitruvius (says Schlegel) are much at variance with respect to 

 the Echea. We may venture without hesitation to assume, that the theatres of the ancients 

 were constructed on excellent acoustical principles." 



It appears that a contrivance, similar to that described by Vitruvius, was adopted in 

 some Christian churches to strengthen the voice of the monks and canons. " Dans le 

 chceur du temple neuf a Strasbourg, le professeur Oberlin a decouvert depareils vases ap- 

 pliques a differens endroits de la voute." They were of Terra-cotta. Millin. D. de. B. 

 A. i. 478. — E. 



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