Choreography

The choregia or Choregia ( Greek  χορηγία ), the office of choregos was a special form of liturgy in ancient Athens and was v for about the 500th Occupied. The choir included the furnishing and maintenance of a choir . These choirs appeared in performances of the dramas in Athens.

A choreography was imposed on wealthy citizens by a competent archon . Young nobles in particular liked to take advantage of the opportunity to distinguish themselves in this way and gain political standing. The political significance and dimension of the office became apparent above all from the fact that the Chorege and not the poet received the prize of the poets' competition ( dithyrambenagon ), a tripod . In addition, he was granted the right to erect a memorial for this tripod on the east or south slope of the Acropolis with an inscription in memory of his choreography. The most famous such monument is the Lysikratesmonument .

As it became more and more difficult to find suitable choir rains towards the end of the Peloponnesian War , 406/405 B.C. The costs are divided between two choir rains. 315 BC The office was finally abolished at the instigation of Demetrius by Phaleron and the organizational activities were taken over by a popularly elected Agonothetes . The costs were met from the state budget.

Some well-known Athenian politicians began their political careers with choreography. For example, Pericles was 472 BC. Chr. Chorege for Aeschylus ' The Persians . Also Alcibiades held the office.

literature

• Soi Agelidis : Choral consecration gifts in Greece. Contributiones Bonnenses, Series III, Volume 1. Bernstein-Verlag, Gebr. Remmel, Bonn 2009, ISBN 978-3-939431-07-7
• Arthur Wallace Pickard-Cambridge: The Dramatic Festivals of Athens , 2nd edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford 2003, ISBN 0-19-814258-7
• Bernhard Zimmermann : Choregie. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 2, Metzler, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-476-01472-X , Sp. 1145-1145.