Chapter 6 turns to ritual processions or parades (pompai) which formed part of ancient Greek religious festivals. On the evidence of the Great Dionysia of 309/308 BCE organised by Demetrius of Phalerum, Ptolemy II’s ‘Grand Procession’ shortly thereafter, and Herodes Atticus’ Panathenaea of 143 CE, large, self-animated machines, known as automata, became a feature of Hellenistic processions. Automata were effective as processional equipment because they enhanced existing features of religious procession: narrative, synaesthesia, and the call–response relation between worshippers and the deity. Automata in procession attest to the new technological capabilities of the Hellenistic period and are harnessed within new religious and political realities including the development of ruler cult, but their effective deployment was based on existing theological structures. The chapter also looks in detail at the only extant technical text dedicated to the construction of automata: Hero of Alexandria’s On Automata.

With Guy Spielmann’s chapter, the collection shifts to eighteenth-century theatre, the common vision of which has rested until recently on a limited number of neo-Aristotelian ‘regular’ dramas staged at the Comédie-Française and Théâtre-Italien. Spielmann accounts for the huge theatrical activity taking place in fairgrounds and domestic spaces during this period. Acrobatic entertainments at Parisian fairgrounds grew into fully-fledged dramas, violating the privilège granted to the official troupes who pursued, in vain, every legal avenue to stop them. The Académie Royale de Musique’s monopoly was also compromised when fairground entrepreneurs bought the right to stage musical plays, giving rise to the opéra-comique (fanciful shows influenced by commedia dell’arte). A further illustration of the circumvention of monopolies was afforded by amateur théâtre de société, already mentioned in this Introduction. Spielmann presents a vast field, characterized by extreme diversity, although he argues that its allegedly subversive quality was more aesthetic, than political.