Antiquities Exhibits

The Scythian archers, called taxotai, were a hypothesized police force of 6th-, 5th- and early 4th-century BCE Athens that is recorded in some Greek artworks and literature. The force is said to have consisted of 300 armed Scythians (a nomadic people living in the Eurasian Steppe) who were public slaves in Athens. They acted for a group of eleven elected Athenian magistrates who were responsible for arrests and executions and for some aspects of public order in the city including the Assembly and the Council. Their number is said to have swelled to 1,200 at some point, so they may have also been involved in wartime conflicts as well. Scholars agree that a Scythian police force of some sort existed in Athens in the 5th century BCE and possibly as early as the 6th century BCE, although no one knows when it was first established or how long it lasted. Swiss archaeologist Balbina Bäbler points to 4th century BCE grave steles including the stele of Getes as well as buried Scythian arrowhead...

The comedic plays of Titus Maccius Plautus are said to be mostly adapted from the works of established Greek playwrights like Menander, referred to as Greek New Comedy. The resulting plays, thought to be around 130 works, were written between 205 and 184 BCE. Only 20 have survived to modern times.   Unlike the Old Comedy of such playwrights as Aristophances with its critical commentary on politics and societal values, New Comedy has been described as "devoid of a serious political, social or intellectual content" and "could be performed in any number of social and political settings without risk of giving offense." Instead, there is much more of a focus on the home and the family unit—something that the Romans, including Plautus, could easily understand and adopt for themselves later in history. However, Plautus did not ignore the Roman Republic's expansion of power and influence that was taking place during this time.  A. F. West observed that Plautus inserted ...

A Phlyax play, also known as a hilarotragedy, was a burlesque dramatic form that developed in the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia (southern Italy) in the 4th century BCE. Its name derives from the Phlyakes, “Gossip Players,” in Doric Greek. From the surviving titles of the plays they appear to have been a form of mythological burlesque, which mixed figures from the Greek pantheon with the stock characters and situations of Attic New Comedy. The absence of any surviving script has led to conjecture that they were largely improvised.  Although only a few script fragments have been found, fortunately, such plays were a popular subject of vase paintings from the region. The vases first appeared at the end of the 5th century BCE, but most are 4th century BCE. They depict grotesque characters, the masks of comedy, and the props of comic performance such as ladders, baskets, and open windows. These vase paintings indicate that they were performed on a raised wooden stage with an upper gal...

Aristophanes, known as "The Father of Comedy" and "the Prince of Ancient Comedy was a comic playwright of ancient Athens and a poet of what has been called Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete.  Born in 446 BC, his works, with their pungent political satire and abundance of sexual and scatological innuendo, effectively define the genre today. Aristophanes lampooned the most important personalities and institutions of his day, as can be seen, for example, in his buffoonish portrayal of Socrates in The Clouds, and in his racy anti-war farce Lysistrata.  His plays consistently espouse opposition to radical new influences in Athenian society. He caricatured leading figures in the arts (notably Euripides, whose influence on his own work however he once grudgingly acknowledged), in politics (especially the populist Cleon), and in philosophy/religion (where Socrates was the most obvious target). Such caricatures seem to imply that Aristophanes ...

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...