It may represent at the same moment both the interior and the exterior of a temple, a palace, a camp, a city.

Upon it, vast spectacles are displayed.

There is--we cite only from memory--Prometheus on his mountain; there is Antigone, at the top of a tower, seeking her brother Polynices in the hostile army (_The Phoenicians_); there is Evadne hurling herself from a cliff into the flames where the body of Capaneus is burning (_The Suppliants_ of Euripides); there is a ship sailing into port and landing fifty princesses with their retinues (_The Suppliants_ of AEschylus).
Architecture, poetry, everything assumes a monumental character.

In all antiquity there is nothing more solemn, more majestic.

Its history and its religion are mingled on its stage.