===[TASK]=== Wooden Theatron for the Spartans (and Thebans)

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

A stone theater was not built in either Sparta or Thebes until Hellenistic times. Prior to that, both cities had wooden theaters. The current stone theater/sanctuary model can be used as an Atlas object. For base game, half of the Spartan Theatron's cost could be in Wood. 

@Obskiuras, would you like to create a concept?

[Thalatta]

3 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

A stone theater was not built in either Sparta or Thebes until Hellenistic times. Prior to that, both cities had wooden theaters. The current stone theater/sanctuary model can be used as an Atlas object. For base game, half of the Spartan Theatron's cost could be in Wood. 

@Obskiuras, would you like to create a concept?

Indeed. I was mentioning something similar with the Theban shipyards. And I've discussed with @Emacz how much less monumental the Spartans were compared to the Athenians. Having different models could also be useful for any mod that wants to include building upgrades (civ allowing), which I've also proposed for Towers. These things would make civs more unique, and make gameplay more interesting.

[Genava55]

An example from Athens to work with

Edited August 28 by Genava55

[Obskiuras]

13 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

A stone theater was not built in either Sparta or Thebes until Hellenistic times. Prior to that, both cities had wooden theaters. The current stone theater/sanctuary model can be used as an Atlas object. For base game, half of the Spartan Theatron's cost could be in Wood. 

@Obskiuras, would you like to create a concept?

I´ll do my best!

[nifa]

From assasins creed. Should we go for something similar, especially with the stage? Is it historically accurate?

[Thalatta]

@nifa, AC's picture resembles the 2nd that @Genava55 posted, but I'd guess the 1st one he posted is a bit more accurate, being more elongated. Nothing remains from wooden theatres, but one can see the layout of the earliest stone ones, an example being the one at Thorikos, the world's oldest known theatre, from around 500 BC (https://theatreofancientgreece.blogspot.com/2014/08/ancient-theatre-of-thorikos.html):

The Euonymon Theatre in Trachones would be another example (for more details, and mention of others: https://www.theatrum.de/382.html).

Additionally, the Oxford Classical Dictionary states, regarding the early Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, that "late 19th-cent. excavations suggested a circular orchestra; many now prefer to think of a rectilinear orchestra" (thus hard to say something about its exact shape, considering others just state "possibly in Pi-shaped arrangement around the orchestra"), "the stage and most probably the stage building were wooden at this period; some think that there was no stage building till shortly before the Oresteia in 458 BC", while before "the stage was about a metre high with a flight of steps in the centre communicating with the orchestra". It was rebuilt in stone in 350 BC (although in many cases there are intermediate stages, like the first rows only being made of stone, but this would be too much for the game, for now).

[nifa]

31 minutes ago, Thalatta said:

@nifa, AC's picture resembles the 2nd that @Genava55 posted, but I'd guess the 1st one he posted is a bit more accurate, being more elongated. Nothing remains from wooden theatres, but one can see the layout of the earliest stone ones, an example being the one at Thorikos, the world's oldest known theatre, from around 500 BC (https://theatreofancientgreece.blogspot.com/2014/08/ancient-theatre-of-thorikos.html):

The Euonymon Theatre in Trachones would be another example (for more details, and mention of others: https://www.theatrum.de/382.html).

Additionally, the Oxford Classical Dictionary states, regarding the early Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, that "late 19th-cent. excavations suggested a circular orchestra; many now prefer to think of a rectilinear orchestra" (thus hard to say something about its exact shape, considering others just state "possibly in Pi-shaped arrangement around the orchestra"), "the stage and most probably the stage building were wooden at this period; some think that there was no stage building till shortly before the Oresteia in 458 BC", while before "the stage was about a metre high with a flight of steps in the centre communicating with the orchestra". It was rebuilt in stone in 350 BC (although in many cases there are intermediate stages, like the first rows only being made of stone, but this would be too much for the game, for now).

I think our model should have roughly the same footprint as the existing stone theater model, which means that the shape from the second image from @Genava55 fits much better for our needs. And the Skene would be made of wood and fabric then.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

10 hours ago, nifa said:

From assasins creed. Should we go for something similar, especially with the stage? Is it historically accurate?

I can't see this unless I edit the link. Here's what I see then, which is actually a pretty good rendition.
 

[nifa]

I found a different reference for a stage, which I prefer. It has a stone building in it, but the whole structure still looks "rustic" enough I think. Still a wip, so UVs, props and all that small stuff are incomplete. If I'm on the wrong track it's good to know early though, so what do you think?

 

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Maybe make the Skene 20% larger, not to proportion it to the rest, but to proportion it to units. I'd sat the player color awning could be a little taller.  Imagine sitting in the cheap seats and not being able to see the orchestra or the stage.

Othwrherwise, I'm really loving this. 

[Thalatta]

11 hours ago, nifa said:

I found a different reference for a stage, which I prefer.

Can you share?

 

More from the Oxford Classical Dictionary (previously I mentioned that "the stage was about a metre high with a flight of steps in the centre communicating with the orchestra"): "The stage was entered from either side (and some plays exploit the contrast), and from a central door in the stage building, representing palace, temple (and sometimes pavilion, tomb, or cave) in tragedy; for comedy, three doors are certain for the 4th cent., and were probably available in the 5th. The central door also housed the ekkykléma, a wheeled platform perhaps measuring c.2.5 1.5 m., and in any case large enough to display set-pieces of events that had taken place inside, like Ajax's torture and slaughtering of the animals in his tent in Sophocles's play Ajax. Towards the right (western) end of the stage area a crane (méchané, machina) could be manipulated from behind the stage building to bring gods or heroes through the air onto the stage, or to have them fly up from it, like Bellerophon on Pegasos in a scene of Euripides which Aristophanes parodies in Peace. The roof of the stage building was also accessible: it was used for the watchman on the roof in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, but in later tragedy mostly for the appearance of gods. The contrast between the hidden interior of the stage building and the daylight outside, between the gods on high and the actors on stage, and between these and the chorus, half-way to the audience and virtually within its territory, are all physical facts which the playwrights exploited. It is possible that the stage building had wings already in the later 5th cent. but the evidence is uncertain. In the 4th cent. the most important development was the so-called Lycurgan theatre with its stone stage building faced with semi-columns."

 

The most clarifying picture I could find:

 

Then:

-You can leave the episkenion (second skene level), it was present by the late 5th c. BC, but maybe modified to have space for a hatch and stairs.

-You could add a small 1 m high stage with central stairs leading to the circular orchestra. Your three skene doors look too similar to panels.

-Your stone semi-columns seem from the post-350 BC Lycurgan phase. By then, the seating would have been of stone also. I'd stick with wood.

-You could leave the central door open to show the wheeled plataform. Maybe another door could be (partially) open, revealing clothes and masks.

-That crane doesn't seem accurate (no counterweight), but there are plenty of options around, which would improve the rear skene looks.

-I'm not really sure how the "interior" was used, seems a bit too hidden for me, maybe it's just that the stage has some shadow from the skene.

EDIT: maybe the first row of seats could be made of stone, that was one of the first stone additions, and it was maybe present by the time there were three acting levels, after all "some think that there was no stage building till shortly before the Oresteia in 458 BC", at least using the Theatre of Dionysus at Athens as reference.

Edited yesterday at 11:42 by Thalatta

[nifa]

4 hours ago, Thalatta said:

Can you share?

It's a drawing that I saw in book, but I just rediscovered it here on page 123: https://publications.dainst.org/journals/aa/article/download/1936/5967

[Thalatta]

2 hours ago, nifa said:

It's a drawing that I saw in book, but I just rediscovered it here on page 123: https://publications.dainst.org/journals/aa/article/download/1936/5967

That's nice, but it applies just to a couple of later Hellenistic theatres. After reading it I see that because of that chronological mix up I misinterpreted the parts of your theatre. In any case, I think what you've done could be useful if a later Spartan theatre is wanted (as I'll explain).

Following chronological order: early theatre development is what I've already mentioned. My latest picture would be a nice point to represent developed wooden theatres. After that, "the logeion (stage) was raised higher and higher over time" (https://spac.or.jp/en/facilities/mmtheatron/text/01_greek_roman), resulting in the proskenion. Meaning, you weren't missing a stage, because you are showing a later theatre with the stage already raised, and what I called your episkenion is actually the skene. So, for an earlier wooden theatre, stick with my latest picture, and other comments, although there were many variations of them through Greece, obviously.

Here a video showing (in general) this evolution, and concentrating more on the workings of this later phase:

 

Athens' theatre became more monumental, and this is what's represented in the game. It seems Sparta, according to your link, followed another path, since they conclude: "the movable stage of Greek theatres was discovered in Messene and Sparta only; however, it might be too early to argue that the movable stage was a regional Peloponnesian phenomenon", and could be Roman inspired: "Recently, Spawforth advocated the Augustan dating of the Sparta theatre and explained the movable stage in connection with Roman theatrical devices". This means that the theatre you made would be the one Sparta had in Roman times.

Because of that, I guess the present Sparta theatre will just be removed, which is good because it has another problem: it doesn't have a skene, but a temple, because someone found a theatre in Sparta looking like that, not realising that this was a Roman theatre built to see the bloody rituals at the temple of Arthemis Orthia (https://pausanias-footsteps.nl/regios/laconia/sparta/?lang=en), meaning that when one also builds the Spartan Wonder, the temple of Arthemis Orthia is actually appearing twice.

Edited 19 hours ago by Thalatta
Edit: sometimes I call the theatres in your link Hellenistic, sometimes Roman, because it's not really known, what matters is that they came later.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

And then after the wooden one is done, maybe remove the tiled rooftop from the skene of the 'stone' theater?

 

 

Make it a flat roof (with a small lip around the edge) with a trap door on top and a crane? So, keep the U shape of the skene, but remove the angled tiled roof. 

We can keep the tiled actor to give to the Seleucids and Ptolemies or something, while Athenians get the new flat-roofed+crane version.

[nifa]

@Thalatta Thanks for your research and explanation!

9 hours ago, Thalatta said:

The most clarifying picture I could find:

I'll go with this one then. That was actually what I started with, but the reference doesn't help much. It's basically just two cuboids put on each other and filled up with props. It will look too empty for the 0-A.D.-style. I would need some ideas of how I could give it a more interesting shape, or add fences, windows, doors, awnings, curtains, canvas, columns etc...

It's also much smaller than the corresponding stone skene in the later theaters. If we want it to be upgradeable it should have the same footprint, which means I have a lot of space to fill up.

If you got ideas, let me know  I'll try to be creative (which is not my strong point :D) and then it hopefully won't be too far from historical accuracy.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

1 hour ago, nifa said:

If you got ideas, let me know  I'll try to be creative (which is not my strong point :D) and then it hopefully won't be too far from historical accuracy.

I think the railing here gives some nice detail:

 

And then you can do some UV mapping creativity to make the walls look not-plain.  Perhaps along the backside there can be hanging shields. 

[Thalatta]

7 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

And then after the wooden one is done, maybe remove the tiled rooftop from the skene of the 'stone' theater?

Probably the whole theatre needs to be removed because it's inspired in its Roman phase. But many reconstructions of the Hellenistic phase show a tiled rooftop, maybe because it was too high by then, and after all the theologeion (stage for the gods) is just some "raised platform or upper level where gods and divine beings could appear and speak", not necessarily the roof of the skene. It could also be that they found tiles and reconstructed it like that, but maybe not the whole roof was tiled. One has to be careful with these reconstructions anyway.

 

53 minutes ago, nifa said:

I would need some ideas of how I could give it a more interesting shape, or add fences, windows, doors, awnings, curtains, canvas, columns etc...

It's also much smaller than the corresponding stone skene in the later theaters. If we want it to be upgradeable it should have the same footprint, which means I have a lot of space to fill up.

If you got ideas, let me know  I'll try to be creative (which is not my strong point :D) and then it hopefully won't be too far from historical accuracy.

That buildings must be the same size as their upgrades is something that I think needs to be reconsidered at some point.

The aesthetics you have used seemed fine to me, it's just to change the configuration of things, and then keep fine tuning. Regarding the theatre of Dionysus, I mentioned that the Oxford Dictionary states that "vases with scenes from Attic comedy from the late 5th and early 4th cents. suggest that by this time the stage was about a metre high with a flight of steps in the centre communicating with the orchestra", yet I never see this on reconstructions. With that in mind, there are the most complete and graphical sites I've come across: https://ancienttheatrescom.wpcomstaging.com and https://www.whitman.edu/theatre/theatretour/dionysos/Dionysus Evolution/html files/Home.htm. I'll be taking images and quotes from them and from The History of the Greek and Roman Theater, by M. Bieber, if I don't state the source.

 

Starting with Athens, for an early theatre, the trapezoidal seat plan might be too early, as shown in https://www.whitman.edu/theatre/theatretour/dionysos/Dionysus Evolution/html files/Dionysus.Early.Classical.htm, where one can choose the different phases (again, just reconstructions):

 

While this model I found around would be from a bit later (notice the crane resting behind):

 

But regarding the bench configuration, "Dinsmoor and Caputo believe that it was polygonal", so an alternative is this:

Bieber states that "Dinsmoor has given this form to the auditorium of the time of Nicias" (a peace treaty from 421 BC, somewhat early for the time frame of the game). "The spectators sat on wooden benches which, of course, had to be straight, but could be arranged as a polygon. The seats of honor (proedria) were of stone". Also, the skene "was transformed in time from a temporary building, a tent or log cabin, to a permanent stone building, beginning in the period of the peace of Nicias". The following reconstructions are for the 5th century BC (not much can be seen, it's just to have an idea to see how much they vary, and don't want to keep searching sources):

Some of those are shown with better quality here:

Where there's some debate if the skenotheke (long storehouse behind the skene) was made of wood or stone.

This vase fragment shows how the skene would have looked like:

So for the early stage, somewhere in the middle of what I've just shown could be considered.

For a later stage, the Hellenistic phase should be used:

And who knows where the theologeion is now. Bieber states about them that they "may have been occasionally a high platform built of wood", or "over a side building".

 

Regarding Thebes (the Theatre of Phthiotidai Thebes refers to another city-state) there's the theatre at the The Sanctuary of the Kabeiroi, which is 8 km from the city (https://www.mthv.gr/en/beyond-the-museum/tour-in-boeotia/the-sanctuary-of-the-kaviroi), and was built between the 3rd and 1st c. BC (Hellenistic), and had no skene, but an altar in the middle of the orchestra, and it was more religious in nature (https://www.gtp.gr/TDirectoryDetails.asp?ID=14695). In the city itself, Pausanias in his Description of Greece states that "near the Proetidian gate is built a theater, and quite close to the theater is a temple of Dionysus surnamed Deliverer". Luckily I found The Topography of Thebes from the Bronze Age to Modern Times, by S. Symeonoglou, which states that "the only theater of Thebes was, in fact, 600 m north of the gates", but remains are hard to find because stone buildings were "stripped for reuse during the Early Christian and medieval periods", "the theater, which must have been quite large, has so completely disappeared that we can identify no more than its approximate location", "judging from the size of this space, the theater was quite large", "regarding the date of the original construction, the literary record provides no clue. It is likely that it was built at the same time as the temple of Dionysos Lysios, that is, in the Classical period. I can only speculate that the construction of a very large theater with stone seating would not have been possible before 446 B.C., though this does not exclude the possibility that there was an earlier theater built of less permanent material". Then he explains that the reason Pausanias "refers to it as "near" must be that, standing before the Proitides Gates, the theater was the largest, most important, and most easily visible monument in Greater Thebes". Also he mentions that (stone) theatre seats were found when excavating later monuments (supposedly built using them). All this would indicate an evolution similar to Athens, but now I wonder if for them it's necessary to have a wooden version (would be focusing too much on this, while ignoring other things).

Regarding Sparta, the theatre "held mostly non-scenic contests and games in honor of Leonidas and other heroes. It had a Hellenistic high stage introduced at a late date and that only in the form of a wooden rolling stage which was stored in a skenotheke, a shed in the parodos, and wheeled out over tracks on play days. This happened probably not before the first century B.C.", so in the Late Hellenistic or Roman period, as I mentioned in my previous post, making it too late for inclusion. Still, Herodotus in his Histories states "it was the time of the Gymnopaidiai; and as Demaratos was a spectator of them", indicating that in 500 BC there was some kind of theatre. Untersuchungen an Griechischen Theatern by H. Bulle states that "ist schon aus der Überlieferung zu entnehmen, daß das Theater ursprünglich nur für nichtszenische Feste bestimmt war, die Gymnopädien, das Ballspiel der Knaben, die Pompe der Hyakinthien u. ä.", confirming a tradition of not having plays, but martial festivals. If wanted (and given that it would be the only choice), a simple wooden theatre could be considered, although it's impossible to guess how it would have looked like. Given that it's Sparta, and how it was used, I would make it at simple as possible, no stage of any kind, and maybe decorated with some weaponry.

Anyway, given that the original point was to discuss a wooden Spartan theatre...

 

 

[nifa]

7 hours ago, Thalatta said:

https://www.whitman.edu/theatre/theatretour/dionysos/Dionysus Evolution/html files/Home.htm

Thanks again! This one is a nice source. 

7 hours ago, Thalatta said:

That buildings must be the same size as their upgrades is something that I think needs to be reconsidered at some point.

It's always gameplay vs historical accuracy/realism vs visuals. People will be frustrated if they can't upgrade because they build their theater too close to another building.

From what I learned, all hellenic theaters in the game are somehow not a good historical representation? So maybe now is the point to reconsider the footprint. I'd vote to go for a much larger one, as on ancient city plans the theaters are often one of the buildings taking the most space.

[Thalatta]

1 hour ago, nifa said:

It's always gameplay vs historical accuracy/realism vs visuals. People will be frustrated if they can't upgrade because they build their theater too close to another building.

Sure, but bad rules have led to bad consequences. That's why palisades and walls are useless: people just cram buildings, and then say that's how tactics are, as if it were the only way to do things (and as if the present way is not resulting in nonsense). As I've said, you could make ranged infantry fly, and have coherent tactics and balanced gameplay, but that's not what's stated as the vision for this game, and the people that stagnate the game because otherwise would get frustrated that their memorised build orders won't work anymore should know better.

 

1 hour ago, nifa said:

From what I learned, all hellenic theaters in the game are somehow not a good historical representation? So maybe now is the point to reconsider the footprint. I'd vote to go for a much larger one, as on ancient city plans the theaters are often one of the buildings taking the most space.

I've only really played with the Spartans and the Athenians, because my intention is to review each civ and point out interesting historical stuff that could be added, and inaccurate stuff that should be changed (and I like to properly source every sentence, so it takes time going through many books). I've only done this with the Spartans for now, where I've mentioned that a stone theatre was a very late addition (Roman according to some, although it has Greek aesthetics), and it's not something "characteristic" of this civ anyway, maybe except for an early one for military festivals, as mentioned. The Athenian is certainly Roman.