Into the various questions which have been raised respecting the origin and constitution of the chorus it is not my intention to enter. It undoubtedly appears, however, to have arisen amid the festivities of the vintage, when, after the grapes were brought home and pressed and the principal labours of the season concluded,^[964] the rustics delivered themselves up to wild joy and merriment, chanting hymns and performing dances in honour of Dionysos, the protecting god of the vine. At first the number of the persons engaged in these dances could not have been fixed, since it is probable that all the vintagers, both male and female, joined in the sports, as they had previously joined in the labour. And this free and unformal character the Dithyrambic or Dionysiac chorus must have preserved, as long as it remained a mere village pastime. But when afterwards, advancing from one step to another, it assumed something of an artificial form and several chorusses arose which contended with each other for a prize, the performers must have undergone some kind of training,^[965] both in singing and dancing, and then the number of the individuals constituting the chorus was possibly fixed. There appears to be some reason for thinking, that these exhibitions were more ancient than the congregation of the Athenians in one city, and that originally every tribe had its own chorus,^[966] since we find that afterwards, when all the inhabitants of Attica came to regard themselves as one people, the Choreutæ were chosen from every tribe five.

By what gradations, however, the village chorus was transformed into the Dithyrambic, the Dithyrambic into the Satyric, and the Satyric again into the Tragic, it now appears impossible to ascertain; but it seems to be quite clear,^[967] that in many ancient tragedies the number of the chorus was fifty,^[968] as, for example, in the “Judgment of the Arms,” by Æschylus, in which silver-footed Thetis appeared upon the stage accompanied by a train of fifty Nereids.^[969] Again, according to certain ancient authors,^[970] in the Eumenides of Æschylus, the chorus of Furies at first amounted to fifty, which, rushing tumultuously, with frightful gestures and horrid masks,^[971] into the orchestra, struck so great a terror into the people, particularly the women^[972] and children, that their number was afterwards reduced by law. I am aware that several distinguished scholars think very differently on this subject; some maintaining, that the chorus of Furies always consisted of fifteen, while others reduce their number to three. But, though both these opinions have been supported with much learning and ingenuity, it seems difficult to admit either the one or the other. In the first place, since every thing connected with the stage was in a state of perpetual fluctuation, since the masks and costume were repeatedly altered, since the number of the actors was augmented, since almost every arrangement of the theatre, and every characteristic of the poetry, underwent numerous modifications; the chorus, also, it is probable, submitted to the same alterations or reforms till it settled in that tetragonal figure^[973] and determinate number which it afterwards preserved, as long as the legitimate drama existed in Greece.

In one point of view the history of the chorus is extremely remarkable. At first, and for some time, it constituted in itself the whole of the spectacle exhibited at the Dionysiac festivals, where its songs and dances, accompanied by such rude music as the times afforded, satisfied the demands of the popular taste, and were consequently supposed to be everything that the god required. By degrees, as experience suggested improvements either in the music, in the manner of dancing, or in the materials and composition of the odes, the movements, singing, and appearance of the Chorus, assumed a more artificial form, which was necessarily carried forward many steps in the career of amelioration by the institution of rival bodies of Choreutæ, who, from the natural principle of emulation, endeavoured to excel each other. Next, a detached member of its own body, mounted on a table, enacted the part of a stranger or messenger come to announce something which it imported the servants of Dionysos to know. This table was doubtless placed directly in front of the altar of Bacchos, on the steps of which the leader of the chorus was probably mounted in after ages, to hold communication with the stranger; and, as this altar ripened through many gradations into the Thymele, so the aforesaid table rose through innumerable changes into the Logeion. It may be remarked, moreover, that the slope of a hill,^[974] when any such existed near the village, would naturally be chosen on such occasions to afford the peasants an opportunity of standing behind each other on ascending levels, and thus, without inconvenience, beholding the show; and where such natural aid did not present itself, they probably threw up embankments of turf in the semicircular form, which experience proved to be most convenient, and, out of this rude contrivance, grew those vast and magnificent structures, which afterwards constituted one of the noblest ornaments of Greece.

The single actor, detached in the manner we have said from the Chorus, speedily acquired greater importance, and the aid of poetry was called in to frame and adorn his recitals; and as, during the songs and dances of the Chorus, he necessarily remained idle, the idea soon suggested itself that a second actor^[975] would be an improvement, upon which dialogue and the regular drama sprang into existence.

Among the principal duties of the Chorus was the performance of certain dances, simple enough at the outset, but, in process of time, refined and rendered so intricate by art, that it required no little learning and ability to execute all their varied movements with dignity and grace. Somewhat to assist the eye and memory, the whole pattern, as it were, of the dance seems to have been chalked out on the floor of the orchestra;^[976] while the greatest possible pains were taken in drilling the Choreutæ to open, file off, and wheel through their labyrinthine evolutions, without confusion. The manner in which these persons usually entered the orchestra, that is to say, ranged in a square body, three in front and five deep, or five in front and three deep, has suggested to some the notion that they represented a military Lochos;^[977] but besides that this is inconsistent with their Dionysiac origin, they did not always preserve this arrangement, but, on some occasions, came rushing in confusedly, while on others they traversed the Parodos in Indian file.

The musicians,^[978] in the Greek theatre, took their station upon and about the steps of the Thymele, which answers as nearly as possible to the position of the orchestra in our own theatres. Here, also, stood the Rhabduchi,^[979] or vergers of the theatre, whose business it was to see that order was preserved among the spectators.

With respect to the dances^[980] performed by the Chorus, they were so numerous, long, and intricate, that it would be here impossible to enumerate and describe the whole. They appear to have conceived the idea of representing almost every passion and action in human life by that combination of movements and gestures which the term pantomime, borrowed from their own language, expresses much better than our word dancing.^[981] A taste, in some respects similar, still prevails among the Orientals, whose Ghawazi and Bayadères, though relying rather upon routine and impulse than on the resources of art, perform at festivals and marriages, and before the ladies of the harem, little love-pieces and pastoral scenes, which evidently belong to the class of mimetic dances described by ancient authors.

In tragedy, such as it existed in the polished ages of Greece, the movements were slow and solemn, and, no doubt, full of dignity. The spirit of comedy required brisk and lively, and frequently tolerated, audaciously wanton dances; while the Chorus of the Satyric Drama would appear to have been rude and clownish rather than indecent, indulging in grotesque movements, ludicrous and extravagant gestures, and that rustic and farcical style of mimicry which may be supposed to have prevailed among the rough peasantry of Hellas.

In classing the various dances, it will, perhaps, be sufficient if we divide them into lively and serious,^[982] joining with the latter all such as attempted to embody a symbol or an allegory.

In certain dramas of Phrynichos the Chorus represented a company of wrestlers,^[983] who contrived by the quick, flexible, and varied movements of the dance, to imitate all the accidents of the palæstra. Sometimes they personated a party of scouts in the active look-out for the enemy, each with his right hand curved above the brow: this was one form of the Scops.^[984] On other occasions the dancer mimicked the habits of the Scops, or mocking-owl, twirling about the head, and appearing to be absorbed in an ecstasy of imitation, until taken by the fowler. The performance of a piece like this, by a numerous Chorus, sometimes breaking off into a brisk gallopade, sometimes maintaining the same position, jigging, pirouetting, and ducking the crest, must, no doubt, have appeared infinitely comic; and yet it could have been nothing in comparison with the Morphasmos,^[985] in which, not the characteristic peculiarities of a single owl, but those of the whole animal creation were “taken off.” Thus we may suppose that the Hegemon of the Chorus started as a baboon, his next-door neighbour as a hog, a third as a lion, a fourth as an ass, and so on, each man accommodating his voice to the character he had, pro tempore, assumed, and gibbering, grunting, roaring, braying, as he leaped, or gamboled, or bounded, or scampered about the orchestra. Anon the frisky foresters were transformed into slaves, who would seem to have been introduced to the audience pounding something, perhaps onions and garlick, in a mortar.

The Oclasma,^[986] a dance borrowed from the Persians, reminds one strongly of the performances of the negroes in the interior of Africa, the whole Chorus alternately crouching upon its heels, and springing aloft, like the frogs of Aristophanes about the fens of Acheron. Not, perhaps, un-akin to this, were those three frenzied dances, alluded to rather than described by the ancients,—that is to say, the Thermaustris,^[987] which seems to have consisted of a series of violent bounds, like the performances of the Hurons and Iroquois;^[988] the Mongas, which, from the name, probably represented the friskings and caracollings of a jackass; and the Kernophoros,^[989] or dance of the first-fruits, wherein the Chorus appeared upon the stage, some bearing censers, others fruit-baskets, evidently in a character resembling that of Bacchanals.

To this species of dance belonged, also, the Hecaterides, in which the performer interpreted his desires or passion by furious gestures of the hands. The Eclactisma was a female dance,^[990] requiring the exertion of great force and agility, its characteristics consisting in flinging the heels backwards above the level of the shoulders. Corresponding, in some measure, to the Eclactisma, was the Skistas,^[991] in which the dancer bounded aloft, crossing his legs several times while in the air. There was a dance, evidently of a very extraordinary description, which they performed to an air called Thyrocopicon,^[992] or “knocking at doors,” possibly representing the frolics of such wild youths as anticipated the scape-graces of our own day. The Mothon was a loose dance, common among sailors; the Baukismos, Bactriasmos, Apokinos, Aposeisis, and Sobas,^[993] were laughable, but lewd dances,^[994] resembling the Bolero and Fandango of the Spaniards.^[995]

The Heducomos was a dance expressive of the outbreaks of joy, and the Knismos,^[996] represented the pinching, struggling, and quarrels of lovers. The Deimalea was a Laconian dance performed by Satyrs and Seileni, skipping and jumping about in a circle.^[997] Another Spartan dance^[998] was the Bryallika, of a ludicrous and licentious character, performed by women in grotesque masks, whence a courtezan at Sparta was denominated, Bryallika. The name of Hypogypones,^[999] was bestowed on certain performers who imitated old men, flourishing their sticks about the stage, as we are informed they did in the play of Simermnos.^[1000] Akin in spirit to these were the Gypones,^[1001] who made their appearance in transparent Tarentine robes, and mounted on stilts probably in the form of goats’ feet, to give them a resemblance to the Ægipanes, worshipped as gods of the woods. A peculiar dance in honour of Artemis took its rise in the village of Carya in Laconia, where its invention was attributed to Castor and Polydeukes. No description of it, so far as I know, has come down to us; but the maidens by whom it was performed probably bore, and steadied with one hand, a basket of flowers on their heads, thus forming the model of those architectural figures, still from them called Caryatides.^[1002] The representation of this performance was, doubtless, a favourite subject among Spartan artists or such as were employed by the Spartans, as may perhaps be fairly inferred from the circumstance, that the device on the ring, which, in return for a comb, was presented by Clearchus to Ctesias to be shown to his friends at Lacedæmon, was a dance of Caryatides.^[1003]

Amid the laxity of morals which prevailed in the later ages of Greece, the Pyrrhic,^[1004] once supposed to be peculiar to warriors, degenerated into a dance of Bacchanals, with thyrsi instead of spears, or carrying torches in one hand, while with the other they sportively cast light reeds at one another. The story told in this mimetic performance referred to remote antiquity, and was both curiously and elaborately intricate, comprehending all the adventures of Bacchos and his merry crew during the Indian expedition, and assuming towards the conclusion a tragical form, developing the sad story of Pentheus.^[1005]

Among the dances of a grave character are enumerated the Gingra performed like the Podismos to slow and solemn music, the Lion and the Tetracomos,^[1006] a warlike measure performed in honour of Heracles and supposed in its origin to have had some connexion with the Tetracomoi of Attica, that is, the Peiræeus, Phaleron, Oxypeteones, and Thymotadæ.^[1007] We read, moreover, of dances in which the performers represented certain historic or mythological personages, such as Rhodope, Phædra, or Parthenope.^[1008]

The Anthema,^[1009] or Flower-dance, appears to have been chiefly performed in private parties by women, who acted certain characters and chanted, as they moved, the following verses:

The Athenians, however, seem to have imagined that there was nothing in nature which might not be imitated in the dance, by the turns and mazes of which they accordingly sought to represent the movements of the stars.^[1010] A similar fancy, if Lucian may be credited, possessed the Indian Yoghis, who every morning and evening before their doors saluted the sun, at his rising and setting, with a dance resembling his own,^[1011] which, as that luminary no otherwise dances than by turning on its axis, must have been a performance resembling that of the whirling derwishes, whose broad symbolical petticoats are meant, I presume, to represent the disk of the sun. But the dance most difficult of comprehension is that upon which they bestowed the name of κόσμου εκπύρωσις,^[1012] or the “Conflagration of the World.” Of the figure and character of this performance antiquity, I believe, has left us no account, though it probably represented, by a train of allegorical personages and movements, the principal events which, according to the Stoics, are to precede the delivering up of the Universe to fire.^[1013] Scaliger,^[1014] who does not attempt to explain this strange exhibition, observes, however, pertinently, that it was a dance in which Nero might have figured, his burning of Rome deserving in some sort to be regarded as a rehearsal of this piece.

There existed among the Spartans^[1015] an elegant dance denominated Hormos, or the Necklace, performed by a chorus of youths and virgins who moved through the requisite evolutions in a row. The line was headed by a young man who executed his part in the firm and vigorous steps proper to his age, and which he would afterwards be expected to preserve in the field of battle. A maiden immediately followed, but, instead of imitating his masculine manner, confined herself to the modest graceful paces and gestures of her sex, and this alternation and interweaving, as it were, of force and beauty, suggesting the idea of a necklace composed of many coloured gems, gave rise to the appellation.

The dance of the Crane,^[1016] among the Athenians, in some respects resembled the above. It was, according to tradition, first invented by Theseus, who landing at Delos on his return from Crete, offered sacrifice to Apollo and dedicated the statue of Aphrodite which he had received from Ariadne, after which he joined the young men and women whom he had delivered, in performing a joyous dance^[1017] about the altar of Horns erected by Apollo, from the spoils of his sister’s bow. The Choreutæ, engaged in executing the Geranos, or Crane, formed themselves into one long line with a leader in van and rear, and then, guided by the design on the floor of the orchestra, described by their movements the various mazes and involutions of the Cretan labyrinth, until, having traversed all its intricate passages, they emerged at once, like their great countryman and his companions, into light and safety. Other dances there were, which, however curious they may have been, cannot now be described from the scanty materials left us: such were the dance of Heralds, or Messengers, the dance of the Lily,^[1018] the Chitonea, the Pinakides, the dance of the Graces,^[1019] and that of the Hours, in which the performers floated about with a circle of light drapery held over the head by both hands.^[1020]

If from the dances we now pass to the Choreutæ,^[1021] by whom they were performed, we shall find that they generally made their appearance in the orchestra with golden crowns upon their heads, and habited in gorgeous raiment, frequently interwoven or embroidered with gold.^[1022] The Chorus, however, like the actors, must have constantly varied its costume, to suit the exigencies of the drama; sometimes to perform the part of senators, sometimes of Nereids, sometimes of female suppliants, sometimes of urn-bearers, sometimes of clouds, or wasps, or birds. When in the tragedy of Æschylus they were required to personate the Furies, their exterior was the most frightful that can well be imagined,—their long but scanty robes consisting, as has been conjectured, of black lamb-skins, slit up below and exposing their tawny withered limbs to sight, while their blood-stained eyes, livid tongue hanging out, and hair like a mass of knotted serpents, easily accredited the belief of their being infernal existences. Thus habited, with fingers terminating in black claws,^[1023] and grasping a burning torch, they burst upon the view of the spectators, like so many hideous phantoms conjured up by an imagination diseased with terror.

The costume of the actors,^[1024] which some modern writers suppose to have been extremely monotonous,^[1025] was in reality, however, as rich, varied, and characteristic as the masks of which we shall presently have to speak. Gods, heroes, kings, chiefs, soothsayers, heralds, rustics, the hetairæ, and their mothers; gay youths, flatterers, libertines, procurers, cooks, satyrs, slaves, &c., had each and all their appropriate dresses and ornaments, modified, no doubt, from time to time by the change in public taste, and the fancy of the poets. The divinities had almost to be wholly framed by the Dionysiac artificers. Conceived to be of superhuman stature, it was necessary that the actors who represented them should, in the first place, be lifted up on Cothurni,^[1026] or half-boots, the soles of which were many inches high,^[1027] their limbs and bodies were enlarged by padding, their arms lengthened by gloves, while their countenances, which might be ignoble or even ugly, were concealed by masks of exquisite ideal beauty, rising above the stately forehead in a mass of curls, which at once corresponded with the nobleness of their features and augmented their colossal height: add to all this robes of purple, or scarlet, or azure, or saffron, or cloth of gold, floating about the person in graceful folds, and training along the floor, and we have some faint idea of the celestial personages who with gemmed sceptres and glittering crowns made their appearance on the Grecian stage.

The queens and heroes,^[1028] who were constantly beheld grouped in converse, or in action, with these sublime dwellers of Olympos, were clad in a costume scarcely less majestic; the former, for example, in times of prosperity, issued forth from their palaces in white garments, with loose sleeves reaching to the elbow, and closed on the upper part of the arm by a succession of jewelled agraffes,^[1029] their tresses confined in front by a golden sphendone, or fillet, crusted with gems, while their robes terminated below in long sweeping trains of purple.^[1030] But when their houses were visited by misfortune, the milk-white pelisse was exchanged for one quince-coloured or blue, while the purple train was converted into black. The costume of the kings,^[1031] likewise varied by circumstances, consisted usually of an ample robe of purple, or scarlet, or dark green, descending to the feet, a rich cloak of cloth of gold, or of some delicate colour, adorned with gold embroidery, and a lofty mitre on the head.^[1032] When any of these characters, as Tydeus or Meleager, was engaged in hunting or war, he wore the scarlet or purple mantle called Ephaptis,^[1033] which in action was wrapped about the left arm. Athenæus, in describing the horsemen of Antiochos, observes, that these Ephaptides^[1034] were embroidered with gold and adorned with the figures of animals. Bacchanals and soothsayers, like Teiresias, generally appeared upon the stage in an extraordinary garment, denominated Agrenon,^[1035] formed of a reticular fabric of wool of various colours. Dionysos himself,^[1036] in whose honour the theatre with all its shows was created, descended from Olympos in a saffron-coloured robe compressed below the bosom by a broad flowered belt, and bearing a thyrsus in his hand.^[1037] This girdle, in the case of other gods, or heroes, was sometimes replaced by one of gold.^[1038] Persons overtaken by calamity, especially exiles, wore garments dirty-white, or sad-coloured, or black, or quince-coloured, or bluish. The costume of Philoctetes, Telephos, Œneus, Phœnix, Bellerophontes, was ragged. The Seileni appeared in a shaggy Chiton, and the other personages of the Satyric drama in the skins of fawns, or goats, or sheep, or pards, and, sometimes, in the Theraion or Dionysiac garment, and a flowered cloak and a scarlet Himation. Old men were distinguished by the Exomis,^[1039] a white Chiton of mean appearance, having no seam or arm-hole on the left side—young men by the Campulè,^[1040] a scarlet or deep purple Himation,—the parasites by bearing the Stlengis and flask (as country people by the Lagobalon) and by black or sad-coloured robes, except in the play of the Sicyonians, where a person of this class, being about to be married, sported a white garment,—the cook by an Himation double and unfulled,—priestesses by white robes,—comic old women by such as were quince-coloured or dusky, like a cloudy morning sky in autumn,—the mothers of the hetairæ wore a purple fillet about the head,—the dresses of young women were white and delicate,—of heiresses the same with fringes. Pornoboski wore garments of various colours, with flowered cloaks, and carried a straight wand, called ἀρéσκος.^[1041] There were, likewise, female characters which wore the Parapechu and the Symmetria, a chiton reaching to the feet, with a border of marine purple.

We now come to the masks,^[1042] a subject upon which much has been written, though very little has been explained. The primary difficulty connected with them is, to determine whether they were so constructed as to resemble a speaking-trumpet,^[1043] which, by narrowing the stream, and compressing, as it were, the particles of the voice, cast it forth condensed and corroborated upon the theatre,^[1044] which it was thus enabled to penetrate and fill, even to its utmost extremities. My own opinion, after bestowing much attention upon the subject, is, that the mask was in reality so constructed as to communicate additional force and intensity to the voice; but whether by roofing or encircling the artificial mouth by metallic plates, or thin laminæ of the stone called Chalcophonos,^[1045] it is now scarcely possible to determine. Be this, however, as it may, there existed in some theatres other contrivances for conveying and augmenting the volume of the actor’s voice; these were the Echeia,^[1046] vases generally of metal, finely toned, and arranged according to the musical scale, in a succession of domed cells,^[1047] running in diverging lines up the hollow face of the theatre. They rested with one edge upon a smooth and polished pavement, the mouth outward, and the external edge reposing on the summit of a small, blunt obelisk,^[1048] while a low opening in each cell enabled the resonances, or echoes, thus created, to issue forth, and fill the air with sound,^[1049] which, however the fact may be accounted for, produced no isolated reverberations, no confusion.

The materials wherewith the masks were constructed varied, no doubt, considerably in different ages;^[1050] but that they were ever manufactured of bronze or copper is scarcely credible, if we reflect upon the weight of so voluminous an apparatus, covering the entire head and neck, composed of either of those metals. Such metallic specimens as have come down to us are to be regarded simply as model-masks, or as works of art, designed by the statuary as ornaments. The intention, at first, of this disguise being to give additional boldness and self-confidence to the actor, by concealing from his neighbours the shamefacedness which a raw performer would sometimes naturally feel while strutting about in imperial robes, and pouring forth the sesquipedalia verba of Pelias and Telephos, they were contented to cover the face with a piece of linen, having openings for the eyes and a breathing-place.^[1051] To this appears to have succeeded a mask manufactured from the flexible bark of certain trees,^[1052] shaped, of course, and coloured to resemble the human countenance. The next step was to employ wood, some kinds of which, while possessing the advantage of extreme lightness, might be wrought with all the delicacy and fineness of a statue, while, better than any other material, it would receive that smooth and polished enamel by which were represented the texture^[1053] and complexion of the skin. Specimens of masks of this kind have been found among nations in a very rude state; among the inhabitants, for example, of Nootka Sound, whose dress, we are told,^[1054] “is accompanied by a mask representing the head of some animal: it is made of wood, with the eyes, teeth, &c., and is a work of considerable ingenuity. Of these masks they have a great variety, which are applicable to certain circumstances and occasions. Those, for example, which represent the head of the otter or any other marine animals, are used only when they go to hunt them. In their war expeditions, but at no other time, they cover the whole of their dress with large bear-skins.”

But while the above improvements were going on in the national theatre,^[1055] the rustic drama continued to preserve its original simplicity, the actors to prevent their being recognised, shading their brows with thick projecting crowns of leaves, and daubing their faces^[1056] with lees of wine. Thus disguised they chanted their songs upon the public roads, sitting in a waggon,^[1057] whence the proverb, “he speaks as from the waggon,” i. e. he is shamelessly abusive, which was in fact the case with the comic poets.

The masks were divided into three kinds, the Tragic, the Comic, and the Satyric. Those belonging to Tragedy were again subdivided into numerous classes, representing every marked variety of character, and every stage of human life from childhood to extreme old age. In the highly varied range of countenances thus brought into play, the mask-maker enjoyed abundant opportunities of exhibiting his skill. The hair, of course, was real and adjusted on the mask like a wig,^[1058] differently fashioned and coloured according to the age, habits, and complexion of the wearer. In some cases it was gathered together and piled up on the forehead,^[1059] in a triangular figure,^[1060] adding many inches to the actor’s stature; at other times it was combed smoothly downwards, from the crown, twisted round a fillet and disposed like a wreath about the head as we sometimes find it in the figures of Asclepios and the philosopher Archytas. Some characters were represented wholly bald, with a garland of vine-leaves or ivy wreathed about the brow,^[1061] others were simply bald in front, while a third class exhibited a bushy fell of hair, something like a lion’s mane. Young ladies displayed a profusion of pendant curls, kept in order by the fillet or sphendone, or gathered up in nets, or twisted about the head in braided tresses. In representing certain characters the eye-sockets were left open, so that the actor’s eyes could be seen moving and flashing within;^[1062] but on other occasions, when the part of a squinter was to be acted by a performer who did not squint or vice versa, as in the case of Roscius Gallus, the mask-maker must have represented the eyes by glass or some other transparent substance, through which the actor could see his way. This was necessarily the case in the part of the poet Thamyris,^[1063] who, like our own Chatterton, had eyes of different colours, one blue, the other black, which, as Aristotle informs us, was common among the horses of Greece.

The time of acting, as is well-known, was during the Dionysiac and Lenæan festivals, in the spring and autumn.^[1064] The theatres being national establishments, in the proper sense of the word, were therefore open, free of expense, to all the citizens, who were not called together as with us by playbills,^[1065] but for the most part knew nothing of what they were going to see till they were seated in the theatre, and the herald^[1066] commanded the chorus of such and such a poet to advance. Previously to the commencement of the performance the theatre was purified by the sacrifice of a young hog, the blood of which was sprinkled on the earth.^[1067]