Why Didaskalia?

The Language of Production in (and its Many Meanings for) Greek Drama

by Brett M. Rogers

University of Puget Sound

From BPC Editor: Consider the role of "the teacher" (διδάσκαλος) in the NT and the verb "to teach" (διδάσκειν)

Scholars and performers have long been familiar with a curious feature in the language of Greek drama: the technical term for the classical Greek dramatic poet-director was διδάσκαλος. The evidence for this phenomenon is widespread. In Aristophanic comedy, the chorus explicitly calls the poet-director διδάσκαλος. Various forms of epigraphic evidence (e.g., production lists, victor lists, and other choregic monuments) refer to the poet-director as διδάκαλος or indicates that he “produced” (ἐδίδασκε/ἐδίδαξε) a given drama or dramas4 . Similar in diction but later in date, several surviving hypotheses inform us that a given drama ‘“was produced’” (ἐδιδάχθη) or that a poet ‘“produced’” (ἐδίδαξε) or even ‘“reproduced’” (ἀνεδίδαξε) his tragedies or comedies. ...

None of this is curious in itself; rather, the oddity arises when we examine didaskein language from a diachronic perspective, comparing the diction for dramatic production to other occurrences of the verb didaskein and its cognates that either antedate or are contemporaneous with the development of Greek drama. In most surviving archaic and classical Greek texts, didaskein does not mean “to produce” or “to direct,” but “to teach” or “to instruct.”

Read the full article at the Didaskalos website.