The Mēchanē in Prometheus Bound: Recognizing the Role of Technology on Stage

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The Mēchanē in Prometheus Bound: Recognizing the Role of Technology on Stage

By William Gerhardinger

 

Prometheus Bound, henceforth PB, poses an insoluble scholarly puzzle. In addition to its authorship and date—and, in fact, intertwined with them—matters of its stagecraft have given rise to a heated scholarly debate. Most prominent among these is the question of how Oceanus’ seemingly aerial mode of transportation (284-87, 394-96) was achieved.2Alan Sommerstein suggests the effect was achieved by using a flying-machine—namely the mēchanē, a sort of crane which lifted actors.3 On the other hand, Oliver Taplin argues against the use of the mēchanē, claiming that such an elaborate spectacle would add nothing to the dramatic meaning of the play, serving only to distract from the story and add to its production cost.4 Conducting a thought experiment about how the mēchanē might have been perceived by the Athenian audience, I argue that it was not mere spectacle but in conversation with the meaning of the play as a visible piece of specifically Promethean technology that was thus well-suited to act as a visual interlocutor between the divine and the mortal realms, and as a way to suggest freedom in a bound play.

 

This approach hinges on the conviction that visual elements are integral to the content of Greek drama, and thus if the mēchanē was used, it bore relation to the meaning of the play. To understand the reception of the mēchanē on stage, I will first discuss the uncertain evidence for its use in the context of drama before exploring the presence of similar technology known to the audience from the real world, and what meaning this carries. In searching for contemporary discussions of such technology, I return to the Prometheus story, contrasting the depiction of Prometheus in PB as a giver of many technologies (and thus enabling progress) with the non-technological tale of human decline in Hesiod’s accounts. Because, as Taplin asserts, “the visual in Aeschylus is integrally bound up with the content and indivisible from it, so that if one is weak then so is the other,” this thought-experiment connects the visual to the drama solving the problem of the Oceanus scene seeming disconnected and ineffectual along the way.5

 

I agree with Sommerstein’s dating of PB to between Aeschylus’ Suppliants in 463 BCE, which PB references, and Cratinus’ Prometheus Unbound, a parody of PB, in 429.6 PB was perhaps the earliest use of the mēchanē, though its status as such remains heavily debated.7 Because no direct evidence describes how PB was first staged, let alone how contemporary audiences interpreted the staging, any consideration of the potential reception of the mēchanē is influenced by later plays and commenters, which discuss or allude to the device in contexts that may not be applicable to PB. The comedies of Aristophanes, written several years after PB, contain the earliest direct references to the mēchanē in drama. For example, in Peace, first produced at the Dionysia in 421, a character flying to heaven on a dung-beetle tells the “stage mechanic” to take care in maneuvering the mēchanē (Peace 173-179).8 As Alan Hughes points out, this reference is colored by the comedic genre.9 Audiences of comedic drama may well have harbored different staging expectations and thus receptions than PB’s audience, and besides, this audience was later than PB’s. This reference does establish, though, that the audience was aware of the human operating the mēchanē—the “stage mechanic.” Hughes acknowledges that much modern interpretation of how contemporary audiences understood the mēchanē is also influenced by commenters like Plato and Aristotle who, writing long after the original productions, criticized the effect as a cheap illusion. Furthermore, Hughes emphasizes that it appears fifth-century Athenian audiences adapted their reception of illusions such as the mēchanē depending on the play, factoring in genre and, as I will discuss later, cues from the plot itself.10 All dramatic evidence of the perception of the mēchanē external to PB thus reveals little about how the first audience might have perceived its use. Since PB was among the first plays to employ the mēchanē, a conventional perception—if there ever was one—would have not yet been established. To glean how the audience of PB would have perceived the mēchanēI turn then to an exploration of how such technology was generally viewed at the time.

 

An audience new to perceiving a mēchanē would have been influenced by its appearance and similarity to other known technologies. Thomas G. Chondros et al. have attempted to conceptualize a device using fifth-century technology that fits the admittedly scant descriptions of the look and operation of the mēchanē, as well as the equally meager archeological evidence: the result is a long wooden beam, around ten meters, which moves up and down and swivels left and right on a central post (figure 1). On one end of the beam hangs a rope and some sort of basket or harness to carry actors, on the other end is a weight which counterbalances the load. Fixed to the point of rotation are tread wheels that operators would use to tilt the beam up and down, elevating the actor(s). While this reconstruction is merely a best guess, the device likely not only looked and moved like a crane or hoisting device but was also, Chondros et al. argue, based on such existing technology.11 The physical look of the mēchanē gives us a foundation to understand what it signified to contemporary audiences and how they emotionally viewed it. Cranes and hoisting mechanisms, which archaeology suggests appeared in Greece around 530, would have been associated with building programs, technology, and sciences of engineering.12 It is worth noting that the monumental building program of Pericles, which would have employed cranes and hoisting mechanisms, occurred in the 440s and 430s, within the probable dates of PB.13 Under this program, Athenians proudly rebuilt their city following the Greco-Persian Wars using technology similar to the mēchanē. Thus the mēchanē, as a visual piece of technology on stage, would be associated positively with Athenian progress and building programs by its first audience.

 

The fifth-century Athenian view of technology was not only influenced by physical appearance and operation, but also mythical conceptions of where technology came from. In searching for evidence of a myth in contemporaneous circulation with PB that sheds light on how Athenians might have viewed the mēchanē, an obvious answer arises: PBitself.  In contrast with the Prometheus myth as presented in Hesiod’s accounts, PB places more emphasis on technology, characterizing it not only in relationship to the gods but also as the driving force of mortal progress. In Works and Days, Hesiod uses the story of Prometheus to explain why “the gods keep the means of life concealed” and hence mortals need to labor over the land in order to live—in essence, such toil is Zeus’ punishment upon mortal men in response to Prometheus’ theft of fire (Works and Days, 42-105). A similar account is given in the Theogony: to complement the Prometheus narrative and reinforce a decline into toil, Hesiod describes how humans “at the time of Cronus” lived in a golden age alongside the gods and were free from the woes of old age and toil, but as successive ages passed and Zeus overthrew Cronus, the human condition worsened (with the exception of the “men-heroes”) to the present iron age marked by “toil and distress” (Works and Days 109-201).14 Thus, in Hesiod, Prometheus is associated with giving humans a divine device, namely fire, but this does not allow them to progress and is rather an aspect of a larger story of human degeneration. PB, in contrast, describes Prometheus’ fiery gift to mortals as a “great resource and their teacher of every skill” (109-111).15 Prometheus claims he was the one, by his gift of fire, who led mortals to the understanding of the sciences of astronomy, mathematics, and medicine as well as the development of engineering, including “brick” and “wooden construction” technologies, and modes of transportation like sailing ships and chariots, that brought mortals out of their “infantile” understandings (442-468). As Mark Griffith argues, PB uses fire as a symbol for technology, craft, and the driving force behind human progress from “primitive ignorance, savagery, and chaos to relative affluence and sophistication”—a conception of cultural development which, Griffith claims, is affiliated with fifth-century rationalism and the sophists, who argued that humans over time learn the secrets which gods know.16 PB characterizes technology as divine but developed by mortals and something that drives human progress, which it claims, contrary to Hesiod’s accounts, is at its zenith in the fifth century. The mēchanē could have acted as a perfect visual example of such technology.

 

The mēchanē could have easily embodied the view of technology that PB paints because of its association with human progress and visual bridging between the mortal and the divine. As seen in the relationship between hoisting mechanisms—which around the time PB was produced were visibly in use around Athens aiding the development of building projects—and the mēchanē analyzed earlier, the audience would have perceived the device as a piece of technology which has especially helped humanity progress. As both a “wooden construction” and a mode of transport like the chariot and ship—developments Prometheus specifically claims as owing to his gift—it is a tangible, visible example of Prometheus’ gift on stage (451, 465-469). Furthermore, the mēchanē, like Prometheus’ gifts, collapses the distance between gods and mortals. Aristophanes’ Peace showed that the audience understood that the mēchanē was controlled by mortals. This is in accordance with its similarity to cranes outside of the theater. At the same time, the mēchanē was connected, literally, to the divine: if used in PB, it would have transported the god Oceanus (284-87, 393-96). Of course, the text describes the potential mēchanē not as a piece of technology but a “swift-winged bird” (286), but this does not mean the audience did not perceive it on multiple levels—both as a divine griffin and as a contraption clearly resembling a crane. Without knowing for certain how much the audience suspended disbelief, I consider the visual reception of the mēchanē as straightforwardly as possible: what looked like a crane was to some degree viewed as such by the audience. Consequently, the mēchanē could have been in dialogue with the meaning of the play, and analyzing it as such helps resolve what have been perceived by some scholars as plot peculiarities and “faults” surrounding Oceanus’ role.

 

In PB, Oceanus arrives while Prometheus is complaining to the chorus of Oceanus’ daughters about his present suffering under Zeus’ bonds. Prometheus admits that he committed his crime knowingly but did not expect the punishment to be so severe, before suddenly shifting topic to ask the chorus to come nearer and hear of his “future fortunes” (266-273). Oceanus offers to help Prometheus escape his woes (284-297). Their dialogue reveals that Oceanus, a Titan like Prometheus, has made amends with Zeus, the “new autocrat in the gods’ realm” (310). While Oceanus suggests Prometheus would be wise to accept Zeus’ rule, Prometheus is offended that Oceanus is a “friend of Zeus” who “helped establish his autocracy” (304-305) and asks that he leave because he is not helping the situation (387-392). The essential disagreement between Oceanus and Prometheus is not over how Prometheus should escape, but if Zeus should be accepted as the new ruler. The political language used suggests PB is an allegory for how citizens should react to unjust rulers with absolute power. Under this framework, Oceanus is an ally of the autocrat, an arm of his rule trying to win over Prometheus.

 

Scholars like Griffith point out that the whole scene with Oceanus appears unnecessary because Oceanus leaves “with nothing accomplished, nothing changed.”17 Additionally, Taplin notes that another issue with Oceanus’ inclusion in PB is the lack of in-text connection between the scenes before and after his entry and exit: it is unusual for a new entry to occur mid-act. Using the allegorical interpretation of Oceanus in light of the technological meaning of the mēchanē, this entrance and exit is more cohesive with the meaning of the play and resolves some of the scholarly criticism.18 Analyzing the potential visual reception of Oceanus’ scene shows that the entry’s issues may not be problematic if Oceanus, an autocratic symbol, is propped up by the technology of the mēchanē. If the mēchanē were perceived as an example of the technology which Prometheus gave mortals—being a wooden mode of transport with divine connections and mortal use—and Oceanus used it to enter the stage, then his purpose in the play is enhanced by the meaning of the visual element of the mēchanē. Considering how this might have been staged, Prometheus, shackled and unable to move, is strikingly juxtaposed with Oceanus, who swings in the air on the mēchanē. Furthermore, as an example of Prometheus’ technological gift, the mēchanē would create an irony where Prometheus is taunted by and dramatically denied the freedom embodied by his own device. This effect is supported by the dialogue following Oceanus’ exit, dispelling the perception that the spectacle of Oceanus’ transportation is unacknowledged by the surrounding scenes. After Oceanus departs, which would call the audience’s attention to his mode of transportation (393-396), Prometheus elaborates on the technology and knowledge he has bequeathed to humanity, lamenting that while he has given “such contrivances” to mortals, he himself remains “wretched” and has “no device by which [he] can escape from [his] present sufferings” (469-471). Moreover, the denial of help from technology visually portrayed by Oceanus’ scene (if he is using the mēchanē)aligns well with Prometheus’ declaration of the source of true salvation for himself—and, in the allegorical sense, for those who suffer under autocracy. For while the chorus claims Prometheus ought not to aid just the mortals while “neglecting” himself, the suggestion being that he, or someone else, could free him using his technology (507-510), Prometheus, the god of craft, declares that his freedom will not come from some device or physical aid, and that “craft is far weaker than Necessity” (514). If it involved the mēchanē, Oceanus’ scene is not meaningless because it presents a visual dramatization of Prometheus’ refusal to accept help from technology. Prometheus fears such technology could be aligned with the autocrat, just as Oceanus (and his mēchanē) were, and ultimately would not be capable of overthrowing Zeus. Through reconsidering the way the audience of PB might have understood the mēchanē, Oceanus’ potential arrival and exit on one connects the spectacle with the meaning of the play.

 

Reconsidering how spectacle relates to the meaning of a play requires an attentiveness to the form of the spectacle and a contextually advised speculation on what meanings the first audience would have attached to that. While much of this consideration of the perception of the mēchanē has indeed been speculative, it demonstrates the fertility of questioning assumed conventions, especially in a field (or play) where so little is certain. The use of spectacles such as Oceanus’ mēchanē is sometimes used to answer other questions surrounding PB, including its authorship and date. One of Taplin’s central reasons to doubt whether PB was written by Aeschylus is that the playwright would not have used “inessential visual ‘happenings’’’ or “spectacle for its own sake without any dramatic meaning.”19 I have shown that the spectacle of the mēchanē could have engaged with the play’s message, countering this line of reasoning concerning, at least, Oceanus’ entrance and exit. Taplin also forwards the assumption that the mēchanē presupposes the use of the skênê—the structure on the back of the stage—and thus PB must date to after the Oresteia in 458.20 Another result of this reconsideration is the possibility that the mēchanē need not have been hidden behind the skênê to stage PB, because there was utility in seeing it. The conviction that the mechanism of this spectacle needed to be hidden away, or added no meaning to the play, is limiting, and casting aside our presentist mindsets allows us to speculate more productively.21

 

William Gerhardinger (he/him) is a senior at Kenyon College majoring in history with minors in classics and art history. He focuses on the cultural history of technology.

 

Endnotes

  1. Thomas G. Chondros et al., “‘Deus-Ex-Machina’ Reconstruction in the Athens Theater of Dionysus,” (Mechanism and Machine Theory 67, 2013), Fig. 8(a).
  2. Aeschylus, Aeschylus I: Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Suppliants, Prometheus Bound, translated by Alan H. Sommerstein, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). Unless otherwise noted, all in-text citations refer to Prometheus Bound, henceforth PB, and the accompanying translations are by Alan H. Sommerstein.
  3. Alan H. Sommerstein, “Prometheus Bound,” introduction in Aeschylus I: Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Suppliants, Prometheus Bound, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 438.
  4. Oliver Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus, 39-40, 466.
  5. As Taplin asserts: “I maintain […] that the visual in Aeschylus is integrally bound up with the content and indivisible from it, so that if one is weak then so is the other.” Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus, 40.
  6. Sommerstein, “Prometheus Bound,” 433-434. All dates are BCE.
  7. Chondros et al., “‘Deus-Ex-Machina’ Reconstruction in the Athens Theater of Dionysus,” 172; Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus, 261.
  8. Aristophanes, Aristophanes II: Clouds, Wasps, Peace, Translated by Jeffrey Henderson, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).
  9. Alan Hughes, Performing Greek Comedy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 77.
  10. Ibid., 77-78.
  11. Chondros et al., “‘Deus-Ex-Machina’ Reconstruction in the Athens Theater of Dionysus,” 172-191.
  12. Ibid., 172-174.
  13. Plutarch, Lives III: Pericles and Fabius Maximus, Nicias and Crassus, Translated by Bernadotte Perrin, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1916). Pericles, XII. It is worth noting that Plutarch associated this building program with the figurative heights of Athens and ancient Greek civilization.
  14. Hesiod, Hesiod I: Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia, Translated by Glenn W. Most, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).
  15. A very similar description is given in PB 252-254.
  16. Griffith, “Commentary,” 166-167.
  17. Ibid., 139.
  18. Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus, 249-250.
  19. Taplin, The Stagecraft of Aeschylus, 40, 466.
  20. Ibid., 446.
  21. For historicizing the modern preference to deny the agency of mechanisms see Jessica Riskin, The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument over What Makes Living Things Tick, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2016).

Bibliography

Aeschylus. Aeschylus I: Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Suppliants, Prometheus Bound. Translated by Alan H. Sommerstein. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.

Aristophanes. Aristophanes II: Clouds, Wasps, Peace. Translated by Jeffrey Henderson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Hesiod. Hesiod I: Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia. Translated by Glenn W. Most. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.

Plutarch. Lives III: Pericles and Fabius Maximus, Nicias and Crassus. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1916.

Chondros, Thomas G. et al. “‘Deus-Ex-Machina’ Reconstruction in the Athens theater of Dionysus.” Mechanism and Machine Theory 67, 2013, pgs. 172-191.

Griffith, Mark. “Commentary.” In Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

—. The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.

Hughes, Alan. Performing Greek Comedy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Sommerstein, Alan H. Aeschylean Tragedy. Second Edition. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 2010.

—. “Prometheus Bound.” Introduction in Aeschylus I: Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Suppliants, Prometheus Bound. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.

Taplin, Oliver. The Stagecraft of Aeschylus: the Dramatic Use of Exits and Entrances in Greek Tragedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Oceanus