Mechanical Apparatuses
In his Poetics, Aristotle discusses spectacle is one of the six components of
tragedy, occupying the category of the mode of imitation. Spectacle includes all
aspects of the tragedy that contribute to its sensory effects: costumes, scenery,
the gestures of the actors, the sound of the music, and the resonance of the actors'
voices. Aristotle ranks spectacle last in importance among the other components
of tragedy, remarking that a tragedy does not need to be performed to have its
impact on the audience, as it can be read as a text. The following apparatuses
would have been used in Greek drama to create the type of spectacle that Aristotle
found so useless, yet the Athenians so enjoyed.
Mechane
The mechane (literally ‘machine’) was a crane used in fifth century
drama for hoisting characters in the air, most often to represent flight. It is
thought to have been used as early as Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound.
It also was likely to have been used in Helen, the Medea, and
the Birds. In the Clouds, Socrates is suspended in the air by
the mechane to represent his close communion with the upper air and his superiority
to earth-bound mortals. The Latin term deus ex machina (‘god from the machine’)
is sometimes used for this device, because it was used in tragedy to introduce
gods from the air, although probably not before the fourth century BC.
Little is known about exactly how the device was constructed, though many scholars
have had their fun attempting to recreate this machine.
Ekkyklema
Other than the mechane, we can be sure of only one other mechanical device used
in the fifth-century theater. This was a small wagon stage, or wheeled platform
called the ekkyklema, literally meaning “something which can be rolled out.”
The ekkyklema could be pushed into sight through the skene doors to display many
different things, usually scenes of death so as actual death scenes do not have
to be reenacted. In Agamemnon, the bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra
are revealed using the ekkyklema. This is also the contraption on which Euripides
is brought out in the Acharnians.
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