CHŎRUS

( χορός ) probably signified originally a company of dancers dancing in a ring. In later times, a choric performance always implies the singing or musical recitation of a poetical composition, accompanied by appropriate dancing and gesticulation, or at least by a measured march. In all the Dorian states, especially among the Spartans, choral performances were cultivated with great a iduity. Various causes contributed to this, as, for example, their universal employment in the worship of Apollo, the fact that they were not confined to the men, but that women also took part in them, and that many of the dances had a gymnastic character given them, and were employed as a mode of training to martial exercises. [ Saltatio . ] Hence Doric lyric poetry became almost exclusively choral, which was not the case with the other great school of Greek lyric poetry, the Aeolian; so that the Doric dialect came to be looked upon as the appropriate dialect for choral compositions, and Doric forms were retained by the A then i ans even in the choral compositions which were interwoven with their dramas. The instrument commonly used in connection with the Doric choral poetry was the cithara. A great impetus was given to choral poetry by its application to the dithyramb. This ancient Bacchanalian performance seems to have been a hymn sung by one or more of an irregular band of revellers, to the music of the flute. Arion, a contemporary of Per i an der, was the first who gave a regular choral form to the dithyramb. This chorus, which ordinarily consisted of fifty men or youths, danced in a ring round the altar of Dionysus. Hence such choruses were termed cyclic ( κύκλιοι χοροί ). With the introduction of a regular choral character, Arion also substituted the cithara for the flute. It was from the dithyramb that the Attic tragedy was developed. For details see Tragoedia . From the time of Sophocles onwards the regular number of the chorus in a tragedy was 15; but it is impo ible to arrive at any definite conclusion with regard to the number of the chorus in the early dramas of Aeschylus. The fact that the number of the dithyrambic chorus was 50, and that the mythological number of the Oceanides and Danaides was the same, tempts one to suppose that the chorus in the Pro me the us and the Supplices consisted of 50. Most writers, however, agree in thinking that such a number was too large to have been employed. The later chorus of 15 was arranged in a quadrangular form ( τετράγωνος ). It entered the theatre by the pa age to the right of the spectators. [ The at rum . ] Its entrance was termed πάροδος ; its leaving the stage in the course of the play μετάστασις ; its re-entrance ἐπιπάροδος ; its exit ἄφοδος . As it entered in three lines, with the spectators on its left, the stage on its right, the middle choreutes of the left row ( τρίτος ἀριστέρου ) was the Coryphaeus or Hegemon, who in early times at least was not unfrequently the choregus himself. Of course the positions first taken up by the choreutae were only retained till they commenced their evolutions. To guide them in these, lines were marked upon the boards with which the orchestra was floored. The flute as well as the cithara was used as an accompaniment to the choric songs. The dance of the tragic chorus was called ἐμμέλεια .—The ordinary number of the chorus in a comedy was 24. Like the tragic chorus it was arranged in a quadrangular form, and entered the orchestra from opposite sides, according as it was supposed to come from the city or from the country. It consisted sometimes half of male and half of female choreutae. The dance of the comic chorus was the κόρδαξ . In the Satyric drama the chorus consisted of Satyrs: its number is quite uncertain. Its dance was called σίκιννις . When a poet intended to bring forward a play, he had to apply for a chorus ( χορὸν αἰτεῖν ) to the archons, to the king archon if the play was to be brought forward at the Lenaea, to the archon eponym us if at the great Dionysia. If the play were thought to deserve it, he received a chorus ( χορὸν λαμβάνειν ), the expenses of which were borne by a choregus. [ Choregus . ] The poet then either trained ( διδάσκειν ) the chorus himself, or entrusted that busine to a profe ed chorus trainer ( χοροδιδάσκαλος ), who usually had an a istant ( ὑποδιδάσκαλος ). For training the chorus in its evolutions there was also an ὀρχηστοδιδάσκαλος .