chestra here is surrounded by a
splendid _theatron_, or spectator place, with seats rising tier above
tier. If we want to realize the primitive Greek orchestra or
dancing-place, we must think these stone seats away. Threshing-floors
are used in Greece to-day as convenient dancing-places. The dance
tends to be circular because it is round some sacred thing, at first a
maypole, or the reaped corn, later the figure of a god or his altar. On
this dancing-place the whole body of worshippers would gather, just as
now-a-days the whole community will assemble on a village green. There
is no division at first between actors and spectators; all are actors,
all are doing the thing done, dancing the dance danced. Thus at
initiation ceremonies the whole tribe assembles, the only spectators are
the uninitiated, the women and children. No one at this early stage
thinks of building a _theatre_, a spectator place. It is in the common
act, the common or collective emotion, that ritual starts. This must
never be forgotten.

[Illustration: Fig. 1. Theatre of Epidaurus Showing Circular Orchestra.]

The most convenient spot for a mere dancing-place is some flat place.
But any one who travels through Greece will notice instantly that all
the Greek theatres that remain at Athens, at Epidaurus, at Delos,
Syracuse, and elsewhere, are built against the side of hills. None of
these are very early; the earliest ancient orchestra we have is at
Athens. It is a simple stone ring, but it is built against the steep
south side of the Acropolis. The oldest festival of Dionysos was, as
will presently be seen, held in quite another spot, in the _agora_, or
market-place. The reason for moving the dance was that the wooden seats
that used to be set up on a sort of "grand stand" in the market-place
fell down, and it was seen how safely and comfortably the spectators
could be seated on the side of a steep hill.

The spectators are a new and different element, the dance is not only
danced, but it is watched from a distance, it is a spectacle; whereas in
old days all or nearly all were worshippers acting, now many, indeed
most, are spectators, watching, feeling, thinking, not doing. It is in
this new attitude of the spectator that we touch on the difference
between ritual and art; the _dromenon_, the thing actually done by
yourself has become a _drama_, a thing also done, but abstracted from
your doing. Let us look for a moment at the psychology of the spectato