Let’s go now to Burkert’s theory.   In ancient times, tragoidia or tragedy was explained as a song for the prize of a goat or song at the sacrifice of a goat.  These need not be two separate explanations because it was customary for someone who had won an animal prize in a song-contest to sacrifice that animal.  This can be seen in another song contest that took place in the same Dionysiac festival in which tragedy was performed.  Choruses sang and danced the dithyramb, a song in honor of Dionysus, and the winning poet was awarded a bull, an animal associated with Dionysus.  The poet then sacrificed the bull to the god.  The goat was another animal connected with Dionysus, the god of tragedy, as is evident in this terracotta statuette.

This is a terracotta statuette of the early fourth century BC found at Locri, a Greek colony in southern Italy.   The human figure is probably a maenad, one of the female followers of Dionysus.  She seems to be sitting sidesaddle on the back of a goat or just standing in front of the animal.

In the rural Dionysiac festivals, the he-goats that had passed their prime were sacrificed. Because of the instinctual human respect for life, the sacrifice is viewed as a deed that is both necessary and awful; therefore sacrificers wear masks to conceal identity (just like an executioner in days gone by). The sacrificers also give voice to their guilt in a song of lamentation for the goat.  Thus Burkert accounts for some of the characteristic elements of tragedy: violent bloodshed, guilt, concealed identity (by masks), and song.  These performances could have easily developed into a contest among the competitive Greeks.  As is evident in the stories of Abraham and Isaac and of Iphigeneia, myth suggests that the sacrificial animal is a stand-in for a human being.  At the last minute, God accepts a ram as a substitute for Isaac and Artemis substitutes a deer for Iphigeneia.  Therefore it is not difficult to see how the song of lamentation for a sacrificial goat could have been transformed into a song for a dead hero, whose exploits were well known from heroic myth.  Human sacrifice is not an uncommon theme in extant tragedy and even murders are often described in the metaphorical language of sacrifice.  In fact, sacrifice to lie at the very heart of tragedy.  As we will see later, a sacrificial altar stood in the orchestra of the theater of Dionysus in Athens.

When Aristotle discusses the origins of tragedy in his Poetics, he does not try to explain the connection of tragedy with goats, but merely suggests that tragedy arose from an improvisation involving “those who led off the dithyramb,” or leaders of the dithyrambic chorus. Aristotle must be referring to improvised exchanges between chorus leader and chorus, which developed into dialogue between an actor and a chorus.  The ancient actor was called a hypocrites, ‘an answerer’ (“cf. hypocrite”), probably because he originally answered the chorus. This exchange between one actor and a chorus is probably the form of tragedy that the semi-legendary Thespis was credited with developing in the latter half of the sixth century BC.  Aristotle in fact believed that Thespis had added dialogue to what previously had been a completely choral performance. By the way, Thespis’ name survives in our word ‘thespian’, a somewhat archaic word for ‘actor’.

In the Poetics, Aristotle goes on to say Aeschylus introduced a second actor, and made dialogue between the characters more important than the choral songs.  Sophocles added a third actor.   Aristotle also points out that tragedy only became serious in tone late in its evolution.  What Aristotle means by “late” must be somewhere around the end of the sixth century.  Certainly all of the tragedies we possess are serious in tone  (earliest play, the Persians in 472 BC).

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