Abstract

There is evidently no skene in the early plays of Aeschylus and the locale changes easily. But in the Oresteia a skene fixes the locale, though only for what happens on the stage. In Ag. it represents an outer wall. In Choe. it is not at first in the arena of action and so not in the path of vision, but it represents the wall by 584 when Electra enters the house, or at least by 653 when Orestes shouts to a doorkeeper. In Eum. 1–234 the skene represents an inner wall; the stage is an interior; and when Apollo enters from the far side at 179, he seems to be coming from the adyton. The orchestra is still a locale unbounded as it was before. The tomb of Agamemnon in Choe. 1–651 is thought an indefinite distance from the house, not merely a lion's leap away. A temple of Athene becomes the Pnyx at Eum. 566 and then the hill of Ares at 685.