ABSTRACT
The search for origins and the construction of genealogies was high on the agenda of science and the humanities in the nineteenth century. The climax and most influential model, after Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859), was his study The Descent of Man (1871). In the field of Classics, in particular, the question of the origin of theatre – which at that time meant European theatre or, more precisely, ancient Greek theatre – featured most prominently. Philologists and archaeologists alike pursued it thoroughly and with great enthusiasm. In 1839, the Greek Archaeological Society began excavations at the Dionysus Theatre in Athens, and there was enormous anticipation and excitement about the results. Not only the scientific community but also the public at large, the educated middle classes, waited impatiently for any study dealing with the origins of ancient Greek theatre, and greedily devoured every new publication on the subject.
