Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World / / ed. by Eric Csapo, Hans Rupprecht Goette, J. Richard Green, Brigitte Le Guen, Elodie Paillard, Jelle Stoop, Peter Wilson.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus DeG Package 2022 Part 1
• MitwirkendeR: Athanassaki, Lucia,; Bowie, Ewen,; Cowan, Robert,; Csapo, Eric,; Garelli, Marie-Hélène,; Green, J. Richard,; Le Guen, Brigitte,; Lisle, Christopher de,; Paillard, Elodie,; Perris, Simon,; Rupprecht Goette, Hans,; Skotheim, Mali,; Touyz, Paul,; Wilson, Peter,
• HerausgeberIn: Csapo, Eric,; Goette, Hans Rupprecht,; Green, J. Richard,; Le Guen, Brigitte ,; Paillard, Elodie ,; Stoop, Jelle,; Wilson, Peter,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (X, 280 p.)

Why did ancient autocrats patronise theatre? How could ancient theatre – rightly supposed to be an artform that developed and flourished under democracy – serve their needs? Plato claimed that poets of tragic drama "drag states into tyranny and democracy". The word order is very deliberate: he goes on to say that tragic poets are honoured "especially by the tyrants, and secondly by the democracies" (Republic 568c). For more than forty years scholars have explored the political, ideological, structural and economic links between democracy and theatre in ancient Greece. By contrast, the links between autocracy and theatre are virtually ignored, despite the fact that for the first 200 years of theatre's existence more than a third of all theatre-states were autocratic. For the next 600 years, theatre flourished almost exclusively under autocratic regimes. The volume brings together experts in ancient theatre to undertake the first systematic study of the patterns of use made of the theatre by tyrants, regents, kings and emperors. Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World is the first comprehensive study of the historical circumstances and means by which autocrats turned a medium of mass communication into an instrument of mass control.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Preface -- Contents -- List of Abbreviations -- Theatre and Autocracy: A Paradox for Theatre History -- Part I: Theatre and Greek Autocrats -- 1 Greek Theatre and Autocracy in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries -- 2 Artists of Dionysus and Ptolemaic Rulers in Egypt and Cyprus -- 3 The Autocratic Theatre of Hieron II -- 4 Autocratic Rulers and Hellenistic Satyrplay -- Part II: Theatre and Roman Autocrats -- 5 Greek Theatre in Roman Italy: From Elite to Autocratic Performances -- 6 Drama and Power in Rome from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius (First-Second Centuries AD) -- 7 Augustan Policy Towards the Greek Dramatic Festivals -- 8 Theatres and Autocracy in the Roman Period: An Example in Microcosm -- 9 The Portraits of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Menander in Roman Contexts: Evidence of the Reception of the Theatre Classics in Late Republican and Imperial Rome -- 10 Theatre and Autocracy in the Greek World of the High Roman Empire -- Part III: Representations of Autocrats and Oligarchs in Drama -- 11 Charms of Autocracy, Charms of Democracy: Euripides’ Athenian Leaders in the Light of Civic Iconography -- 12 Oligarchs in Greek Tragedy -- 13 Fault on Both Sides: Constructive Destruction in Varius’ Thyestes -- Bibliography -- General Index -- Index locorum -- List of Contributors