UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS IN CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY Vol. 7, No. 5, pp. 197-207, 4 figures in text Issued July 3, 1923 PROBLEMS OF THE PROSKENION BY JAMES T. ALLEN I The Hellenistic proskenia of the theaters at Athens and the Piraeus had ordinary Doric columns (fig. 1a). At Megalopolis and Eretria (III) the columns were round with lateral cleatlike projections (fig. 1b). At Epidauros there were attached semi-columns of the Ionic order (fig. 1c); at Priene, Oropos, Delos, Assos, Pleuron, half-columns set against rectangular pillars (fig. 1, d, e). Fig. 1. a. Athens. b. Megalopolis. c. Epidauros. d. Assos. e. Delos. These noticeable differences in style Puchstein (Die griechische Bühne (1901), p. 17) seized upon in his attempt to disprove Dörpfeld's chronology of the Athenian theater. He argued that ordinary columns in proskenia antedated posts with attached columns, while round columns with lateral moldings were an intermediate form, and that therefore the stone proskenion at Athens was erected in the fourth century B. C., not at the close of the Hellenistic period as Dörpfeld had concluded. Instead of being one of the latest proskenia, it was one of the earliest. |