Theatre and autocracy in Ancient Greece

本课题旨在研究古代戏剧与专制政权的关系。从一开始，剧院对独裁者的吸引力与对民主党人的吸引力一样大，并在古典民主制度消亡后的5000年里一直在专制国家中挣扎。虽然许多研究追溯了古希腊戏剧与民主的联系，但没有人探讨它与特定的暴君、君主或皇帝的联系。这个项目将研究独裁者如何塑造世界上第一个大众传播媒介来巩固他们的权力，以及相互竞争的利益集团如何利用剧院来分享、限制或挑战这种权力。

This project aims to study the relations between theatre and autocratic power in antiquity. Theatre, from the start, appealed just as much to autocrats as to democrats and throve in autocratic states for half a millennium after the extinction of the Classical democracies. While many studies trace ancient Greek theatre’s links to democracy, none explore its links to specific tyrants, monarchs or emperors. This project will examine how autocrats moulded the world’s first mass medium of communication to consolidate their power, and how competing interests used the theatre to share, limit or challenge that power.