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ANCIENT ART AND RITUAL

JANE ELLEN HARRISON

«Geoffrey Cumberlege»

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO

«First published in 1913, and reprinted in 1918 (revised), 1919,

1927, 1935 and 1948»

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

{Transcriber's Note:

This e-text contains a number of unusual characters which are

represented as follows:

{-a} a-macron

{-e} e-macron

{)e} e-caron

{-i} i-macron

oe ligatures have been unpacked.}

PREFATORY NOTE

It may be well at the outset to say clearly what is the aim of the

present volume. The title is _Ancient Art and Ritual_, but the reader

will find in it no general summary or even outline of the facts of

either ancient art or ancient ritual. These facts are easily accessible

in handbooks. The point of my title and the real gist of my argument lie

perhaps in the word "_and_"--that is, in the intimate connection which I

have tried to show exists between ritual and art. This connection has, I

believe, an important bearing on questions vital to-day, as, for

example, the question of the place of art in our modern civilization,

its relation to and its difference from religion and morality; in a

word, on the whole enquiry as to what the nature of art is and how it

can help or hinder spiritual life.

* * * * *

I have taken Greek drama as a typical instance, because in it we have

the clear historical case of a great art, which arose out of a very

primitive and almost world-wide ritual. The rise of the Indian drama, or

the mediaeval and from it the modern stage, would have told us the same

tale and served the like purpose. But Greece is nearer to us to-day than

either India or the Middle Ages.

* * * * *

Greece and the Greek drama remind me that I should like to offer my

thanks to Professor Gilbert Murray, for help and criticism which has far

outrun the limits of editorial duty.

J.E.H.

_Newnham College,

Cambridge, June 1913._

* * * * *

NOTE TO THE FIFTH IMPRESSION

The original text has been reprinted without change except for the

correction of misprints. A few additions (enclosed in square brackets)

have been made to the Bibliography.

1947

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I ART AND RITUAL 9

II PRIMITIVE RITUAL: PANTOMIMIC DANCES 29

III PERIODIC CEREMONIES: THE SPRING FESTIVAL 49

IV THE PRIMITIVE SPRING DANCE OR DITHYRAMB,

IN GREECE 75

V THE TRANSITION FROM RITUAL TO ART: THE

_DROMENON_ AND THE DRAMA 119

VI GREEK SCULPTURE: THE PANATHENAIC FRIEZE

AND THE APOLLO BELVEDERE 170

VII RITUAL, ART AND LIFE 204

BIBLIOGRAPHY 253

INDEX 255

ANCIENT ART AND RITUAL

CHAPTER I

ART AND RITUAL

The title of this book may strike the reader as strange and even

dissonant. What have art and ritual to do together? The ritualist is, to

the modern mind, a man concerned perhaps unduly with fixed forms and

ceremonies, with carrying out the rigidly prescribed ordinances of a

church or sect. The artist, on the other hand, we think of as free in

thought and untrammelled by convention in practice; his tendency is

towards licence. Art and ritual, it is quite true, have diverged to-day;

but the title of this book is chosen advisedly. Its object is to show

that these two divergent developments have a common root, and that

neither can be understood without the other. It is at the outset one

and the same impulse that sends a man to church and to the theatre.

* * * * *

Such a statement may sound to-day paradoxical, even irreverent. But to

the Greek of the sixth, fifth, and even fourth century B.C., it would

have been a simple truism. We shall see this best by following an

Athenian to his theatre, on the day of the great Spring Festival of

Dionysos.

Passing through the entrance-gate to the theatre on the south side of

the Acropolis, our Athenian citizen will find himself at once on holy

ground. He is within a _temenos_ or precinct, a place "cut off" from the

common land and dedicated to a god. He will pass to the left (Fig. 2, p.

144) two temples standing near to each other, one of earlier, the other

of later date, for a temple, once built, was so sacred that it would

only be reluctantly destroyed. As he enters the actual theatre he will

pay nothing for his seat; his attendance is an act of worship, and from

the social point of view obligatory; the entrance fee is therefore paid

for him by the State.

The theatre is open to all Athenian citizens, but the ordinary man will

not venture to seat himself in the front row. In the front row, and

that only, the seats have backs, and the central seat of this row is an

armchair; the whole of the front row is permanently reserved, not for

individual rich men who can afford to hire "boxes," but for certain

State officials, and these officials are all priests. On each seat the

name of the owner is inscribed; the central seat is "of the priest of

Dionysos Eleuthereus," the god of the precinct. Near him is the seat "of

the priest of Apollo the Laurel-Bearer," and again "of the priest of

Asklepios," and "of the priest of Olympian Zeus," and so on round the

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