THE REAL ROMAN ARMY vrs. the renactments

[hoplite14gr]

Years ago, at the theater at Philadelphia (now Amman Jordan) we demonstrated this to great effect. A person sitting at the top of the theater could hear a person in the orchestra talking at a normal tone of voice. This effect was probably amplified by the scenae frons and presidium which are no longer there, but it was pretty hit and miss. If the speaker moved four feet, you would lose him, then pick up again after he moved another two. There were great hot spots all over the theater, but no one place where you could always hear everything.

The ancients obviously had only a trial and error knowledge of acoustics and not a scientific knowledge. One suspects that this is why Greek drama had a lot of repitition and chorus, so you could pick up the thread of the narrative the second time around if you happend to be sitting in a dead spot.

I imagine that in the colosseum, as long as you could get the roar and yelps of the animals and the victims, that would be good enough.

Dear Travis
Ancient Greek Theaters like Dodona and Epidavros gave exelent acoustics results during modern theatrical plays and in the 80s some singers peroforemed without electronic gadgets. Ancient tragedy was played by modern actors without electronic aid from 1922 to 1986.
Only after 1987 that someone got a government contract, electronic thingies starte appearing in recent performances.
So much about acoustic hope it is not out of topic.
Kind regards