Note 12 — Chapter I · DRAMATIC CONTESTS AT ATHENS

Gilbert (Die Festzeiten der attischen Dionysien, 1872) and more recently Dörpfeld (Das griechische Theater, p. 9) have attempted to show that the Lenaea was only a part of the Anthesteria, and that the Anthesteria was only the Athenian counterpart of the Rural Dionysia. Gilbert was refuted by Schömann, Alterth. ii. 579-99. Wachsmuth, Abhandl. der Sächs. Gesell. der Wissensch. xviii. p. 33 ff., and Körte, Rhein. Mus., 1897, p. 168 ff., show that an inscription C. I. A. ii. 834 b proves that there must have been a considerable interval between the Lenaea and Anthesteria. It is an account of the sums expended by the ἐπιστάται Ἐλευσινόθεν in B.C. 329-328. In col. ii. 46 we read ἐπιστάταις ἐπιλήναια εἰς Διονύσια θῦσαι ΔΔ; in ii. 68, twenty-two lines later, εἰς Χοὰς δημοσίοις ἱερεῖον κτλ. (The adjective ἐπιλήναιος is also found in the papyrus of Ath. Pol. c. 57, and the inscription confirms the reading ἐπιληναίων, which editors alter to ἐπὶ Ληναίῳ). [The whole subject of the Dionysiac festivals has been investigated afresh by Nilsson (Studia de Dionysiis Atticis, 1900), who proves at length the separateness of the four festivals.]