The Gospel of Hellas - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

the origin of drama
The descent to Hades was the decisive experience for the mystic as it was
the turning point in the tests, labors and adventures of Heracles and Odysseus.
The history of the Greek drama is, in truth, a narration of the bringing to
the upperworld the three-headed Cerberus who stood at the portal leading to
the dead and the three Erinyes. It is the story of the taming of the hellhound
and the disenchanting of the Erinyes. It is the representation of the birth of
conscience.
The chariot of the priest Thespis, which came from Eleusis and was driven
to Athens, served as the first known theatrical stage. From this stage (about
534 bc) Thespis revealed certain parts of the sacred Eleusinian spring festival
referring to the passions of the god which the chorus of Dionysus with his
satyrs recited in odes to the public. These odes of the goatskin-clad satyrs
(tragoi) were the first trag-odia.
The actual rise of the Hellenic theatre, however, is inseparably connected
with the victory over the Persians. The date of the sea battle of Salamis (480
bc) ushers in the generations of the three great dramatists. Aeschylus fought
against the Persians at the age of forty-five, while Sophocles, a youth of sixteen,
was present at the victory procession, and Euripides had just been born.
In Edouard Schuré’s The Genesis of Tragedy 136 we find a thorough study
of the origin of drama which often refers to G.F. Creuzer’s Symbolism and
Mythology of the Ancient Peoples, particularly the Greeks: “Aeschylus was the
son of Euphorion, one of the Eupatridae of Athens who lived in the district
of Eleusis. Euphorion was a friend of the Eumolpides and his son was their
disciple. The name of Eumolpides, the family of which for over a thousand
years retained control of the mysteries of Eleusis, comes from a word signifying
healing melody … from childhood Aeschylus had seen going down from
Daphni, along the Sacred Way, a long procession of mystae ... he had taken
part in the Lesser and the Greater Mysteries, in their ceremonies and symbolic
performances. The sacred drama of Demeter and Persephone had made a deep
impression upon him … and so it was Persephone who initiated Aeschylus into
the secrets of the inner world.”
Aeschylus developed the art of the drama from the cults of Eleusis. Since
this event took place at the time of the first written history, it occurred, so
to speak, before the open eyes of the world. “The Areopagus accused him of