Echeia

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Echeia ( ancient Greek ἠχεῖα , singular echeion , derived " echo ") were, according to Vitruvius, bronze sound vessels that were built into ancient theaters in order to amplify singing and instrumental music and to improve acoustically. Depending on the size of the theater, they could be accommodated in one or up to three rows of seats. The probably bell-shaped vessels had sound slits open to the auditorium, the koilon .

Since such vessels were expensive, according to Vitruvius they were replaced by clay vessels in smaller towns. In his opinion, they only play a role in stone theaters, since pure wood constructions are not necessary due to the natural resonance properties of the material. In Vitruvius's time, echeia was extremely rare in Roman theaters , only in a few cities in Italy and especially in Greece were there any references to resonance vessels . The discovery of 13 bronze vessels in the theater of Aizanoi in Asia Minor, which dates back to the 1st century BC, is outstanding . Founded as a Greek theater in the 2nd century AD and converted into a Roman theater in the 2nd century AD. The reverberation that the echeia allegedly produced was likely to have been beneficial for the music, but impaired the intelligibility of the spoken word. The material value of the vessels is shown by the fact that Lucius Mummius was born after the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC. He had the echeia of the theater there brought to Rome as booty to donate it to the temple of Luna on the Aventine .

Vitruvius explains to which tones the vessels are to be matched exactly. Vitruvius adopted the tone scale on which he was based from the Greek music theorist Aristoxenos (around 360 - around 300 BC), who divided two octaves into eight fixed and ten variable tones. The variable tones were selected for three different modes . The mode envisaged by Vitruvius for small theaters results in the need to amplify seven pitches. For this purpose, thirteen resonance vessels should be placed at equal intervals, two vessels each for six tones and in the middle a vessel for the seventh tone. In large theaters, the tones of the other two modes should also be amplified by two more rows with a corresponding number of resonance vessels.

Acoustic experiments with replicas of the vessels described by Vitruvius brought no measurable differences or sound improvements.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Vitruvius 1, 1, 9 and 5, 5, 1–9.
  2. ^ Francis Brenders: Vitruvius, Book 5, Chapter 5: On sounding vases in theaters. vitruvius.be
  3. ^ Robert G. Arns, Bret E. Crawford: Resonant Cavities in the History of Architectural Acoustics. In: Technology and Culture Vol. 36, No. 1, January 1995, pp. 104-135, here p. 106
  4. ↑ Patrizio Barbieri: The acoustics of Italian opera houses and auditoriums (approx. 1450–1900). In: Recercare, Vol. 10, 1998, pp. 263-328, here pp. 301f