“Deus-Ex-Machina” reconstruction in the Athens theater of Dionysus

Abstract

The intervention of a divinity in the action of a drama to resolve a conflict and, often, to bring the action to a conclusion was accomplished with ancient stagecraft, in which an actor playing the deity would be physically lowered by an elaborate piece of equipment into the stage area. This “god from the machine” was literally a Deus-Ex-Machina. Detailed information on stage scenery and machinery in the ancient theater are given by Vitruvius (1st Century BC) and Pollux (3rd Century AD). From the numerous references to such machines in extant tragedies or comedies and vase paintings, information about its design and operation is available, and efforts to reconstruct such mechanisms have been reported in the literature. Based on archeological evidence from the theater of Dionysus Eleuthereus in the western slope of the hill of the Acropolis, and previous reconstruction efforts, a new reconstruction attempt of the mechanism is presented. Analytical and numerical methods were incorporated to analyze the most conceivable loading situations of the different structural elements of the mechanism, as well as kinematics and dynamics, along with theater reconstruction.