Note 391 — Chapter III · THE THEATRE

Harpocrat. (s.v. παρασκήνια) quotes Theophrastus for the definition of paraskenia as places on one side of the stage, used for storage purposes. The παρασκήνια τά τε ἐπάνω καὶ τὰ ὑποκάτω mentioned along with the σκηναί in the Delian inscription of 274 B.C. (Bull. Corr. Hell. 1894, pp. 162 ff.) were doubtless side-wings. Demosthenes (Meid. § 17) accuses Meidias of ‘nailing up the paraskenia’, and so preventing his dithyrambic chorus from making its appearance. Probably he nailed up the doors out of the side-wings into the parodoi. The word is also explained by the commentators as = (1) the entrances to the orchestra (Didymus quoted by Harpocrat. l.c.), or (2) the entrances to the stage (Phot. and Etym. Mag. s.v.; Bekk. Anecd. p. 292; Ulpian on Dem. Meid. § 17), or (3) the doors on each side of the main door in the back-scene (Suidas s.v. σκηνή). But these explanations are probably false inferences from the passage in Demosthenes, or from some other source. Cp. Müller, Unters. zu den Bühnenalt., pp. 57-62, for the history of the word παρασκήνια.