Antiquities Exhibits

Nearly every Greek and Roman city of note had an open-air theater consisting of the orchestra, the flat dancing floor of the chorus, and the theatron, the actual structure of the theater building. Vase paintings indicate the stage stood about three feet high with a flight of steps in the center. The actors entered from either side and from a central door in the skene, which also housed the ekkyklema, a wheeled platform with sets of scenes. A mechane, or crane, located at the right end of the stage, was used to hoist gods and heroes through the air onto the stage.   Theatrical performances were usually part of a seasonal festival and were accompanied by processions, sacrifices in the theater, parades, and competitions between playwrights. Almost all Greek tragedies were based on heroic myths although the dialogue between actor and chorus sometimes served an instructional purpose and reflected current debate in the public assembly. "Unlike the Greek tragedy, the comic performanc...

Roman antiquities. Ongoing at the Musée Départemental de l'Arles Antique in Arles, France. Exhibited in a 2,800 square-meter / 30,000 square-foot permanent exhibition space, the vast collection of the Archeological museum of Arles comprises, along with scale models and reconstructions, artifacts dating from Prehistory to the late Roman Empire, including vases, mosaics, sarcophagi, sculptures, and a series of remarkable marble bu sts including a head thought to be a middle-aged Julius Caesar dredged from the nearby Rhone River. bronze sculpture of a captive Gaul, last quater of the 1st century BCE dredged from the Rhone River. photographed by Carole Raddato in 2014 and provided by Wikimedia Commons with a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license. Head of a middle-aged Roman thought to be possibly Gaius Julius Caesar  photographed by Mary Harrsch in 2013.