The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia: The Chorus, The City and The Stage (review)

The Athenian Institution of Khoregia: The Chorus, the City and the Stage. Peter Wilson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; pp. 435. $85.00

For anyone well versed in the terminology and the debates over the civic implications of ancient Greek drama, Peter Wilson's book will prove a thought-provoking, possibly revolutionary, examination of one area that has received relatively little critical attention, namely the khoregia, or institution of selecting among wealthy men who competed to fund a dramatic or dithyrambic chorus. Wilson analyzes the khoregia as one of the most interesting aspects of the "civic system of leitourgiai" (duties) (26), which called upon the wealthiest citizens of Athens to spend their own money for the good of the city (and for their own recognition). For the general theatre scholar, Wilson's arguments can prove difficult to follow, in part due to the enormous number of sources cited and his almost encyclopedic knowledge of the subject, which sometimes obscures the points he is trying to make. He presents, nonetheless, a fascinating area of study.

Many scholars, since the time of Plato and before, have focused on the importance and the power of choral performance for the Greeks; few have studied in detail the process through which choruses were funded. Wilson correctly argues that previous discussions of the khoregia and other aspects of Greek theatre have separated issues of economics and politics from issues of more conventional theatre history. His goal is to build on Paul Veyne's work on ancient economies to discuss this particular institution as a "social representation and symbolic practice" (7).

The first half of the book offers a detailed account of the khoregia "as a functioning institution" (11), calling upon a vast array of evidence to get a picture of how the khoregos was appointed, what his duties were, how much money he may have spent, how he chose the members of the chorus, how these were trained, etc. All of these issues and more are examined in the relation to the different festivals in and around Athens at which choral competitions were included. Other scholars who do discuss the khoregia generally focus only on the City Dionysia, Athens's major festival, so Wilson's analysis of other choral competitions makes his work quite valuable. His dense, complicated argument, moreover, serves to set up a fascinating discussion of the social, political, and economic implications of this system.

In the second half of the book, Wilson looks at how this system affected "the very bases of social interaction between Athenian citizens, rich and poor" (107). An important concept that he highlights is the "dramatic" nature of the khoregia, in which the khoregos represents himself before the city in a particular light, whether or not he actually takes part in the onstage activities of the chorus. Here Wilson builds on the work of Victor Turner, examining in anthropological terms the theatricality of Athenian life, from its courts to the public Assembly to the behind-the-scenes aspects of the major festivals.

The khoregia, Wilson argues, is particularly important because of the tension in democratic Athens between the polis and the wealthy members of the elite class, who often used their obligations (like the khoregia) to demonstrate how much they did for the city. Wilson reads these duties as part of "a range of forms that 'noble giving' took in classical Athens, each with their own distinctive political colours" (123), thus making use of Louis Gernet's analysis of gift giving in Athenian society. And he notes the "role that leitourgiai played in the creation of popular support for individual members of the elite in their competition for influence and in helping to justify the demos' entrustment of political leadership to them as a class" (124).

Wilson also makes some excellent points in his examination of the "symbolic weight" (145) attached to the khoregia as competition. As he puts it...