heroes in a dark and gloomy apartment, artificially lighted up, would have
appeared still more ridiculous to them. An action which so gloriously
attested their affinity with heaven, could fitly be exhibited only beneath
the free heaven, and, as it were, under the very eyes of the gods, for
whom, according to Seneca, the sight of a brave man struggling with
adversity is a suitable spectacle. With respect to the supposed
inconvenience, which, according to the assertion of many modern critics,
hence accrued, compelling the poets always to lay the scene of their
pieces out of doors, and consequently often forcing them to violate
probability, it was very little felt by Tragedy and the Older Comedy. The
Greeks, like many southern nations of the present day, lived much more in
the open air than we do, and transacted many things in public places which
with us usually take place within doors. Besides, the theatre did not
represent the street, but a front area belonging to the house, where the
altar stood on which sacrifices were offered to the household gods. Here,
therefore, the women, notwithstanding the retired life they led among the
Greeks, even those who were unmarried, might appear without any
impropriety. Neither was it impossible for them, if necessary, to give a
view of the interior of the house; and this was effected, as we shall
presently see; by means of the _Encyclema_.

But the principal ground of this practice was that publicity which,
according to the republican notion of the Greeks, was essential to all
grave and important transactions. This was signified by the presence of
the chorus, whose presence during many secret transactions has been judged
of according to rules of propriety inapplicable to the country, and so
most undeservedly censured.

The theatres of the ancients were, in comparison with the small scale of
ours, of colossal magnitude, partly for the sake of containing the whole