We have already seen that the performance of plays at Athens was confined to two festivals of Dionysus, and the time when the various dramatic genres began to be presented at each has been stated (see pp. 119 f., above). Since the Lenaea came at the end of January (Gamelion), when navigation was not yet considered entirely safe, few strangers were present; and in consequence this festival became more private and intimate, more like a family gathering of the Athenians by themselves. On the contrary the City Dionysia took place toward the end of March (Elaphebolion), when the allies were accustomed to send their tribute to Athens and the city was crowded with visitors from all parts of the Greek world. As a result this occasion was more cosmopolitan than the other, and every effort was expended to make it as splendid as possible. All this explains an episode in the life of Aristophanes. At the City Dionysia of the year 426 B.C. was produced his Babylonians, in which he represented the Athenian state as a mill where the allies suffered from the tyrannous exactions of Cleon, its manager. Cleon accordingly lodged with the senate an information (εἰσαγγελία) charging lèse majesté, aggravated by being committed in the presence of strangers (παρόντων τῶν ξένων). Therefore, in his next play, the Acharnians, produced at the Lenaea of 425 B.C., Aristophanes prefaced some frank expressions of opinion with the following statement: “And what I shall say will be dreadful but just, for Cleon will not be able now to malign me for defaming the state to alien ears. For we are alone; this is the Lenaea, and the aliens are not yet here, nor the tribute from the federated states, nor our allies; but we are alone now.”[292] Similarly, Demosthenes tried to make Midias’ assault upon him at the City Dionysia of 350 B.C. seem more heinous by pointing out that it was committed “in the presence of many, both strangers and citizens.”[293]

Since we have no exact information as to when the City Dionysia began or ended, we are in doubt as to its duration.[294] But it is probable that it lasted for six days, certainly five. The first day was occupied with the procession, as already described (see pp. 121 f., above). The second day, and possibly the third, was devoted to dithyrambs, the literary type from which tragedy had sprung. There were five choruses of boys and five of men, each of the ten tribes annually standing sponsor for one chorus. We happen to know that the contest of men was added to this festival in 508 B.C. Inasmuch as each chorus consisted of fifty amateur performers, it will be seen that no inconsiderable portion of the free population received every year a musical training which could not but enhance their appreciation of the choral and lyrical parts of the dramas and likewise improve the quality of the material from which the dramatic choruses were chosen.

The last three days of the festival seem to have been given over to the dramatic performances, but just what the arrangements were is not known. In Aristophanes’ Birds, vss. 786 ff., the chorus, praising the use of wings, remarks that “if one of you spectators were so provided and became wearied with the tragic choruses, he might fly away home and dine and then fly back again to us.” From this passage it has been plausibly concluded that the comedies came later in the day than the tragedies. It would seem as if the three tragic playwrights must have produced their plays on as many successive mornings, the comedies following later each day in similar rotation.

It is well known that at the City Dionysia each of three tragic poets brought out four plays in a series, three tragedies and one satyric drama (see pp. 23 f., above). Such a group was termed a didascalia (“teaching”). It was Aeschylus’ frequent practice to have all four plays treat different aspects of the same general theme, the levity of the concluding piece counterbalancing somewhat the seriousness of the three tragedies. In that case the set of four was called a tetralogy; but if the satyric drama dealt with a different topic than the tragedies, the latter were said to form a trilogy. No tetralogy or didascalia is extant and only one trilogy, the Agamemnon, Libation-Bearers, and Eumenides, which Aeschylus brought out in 458 B.C. The satyric drama in this series is not preserved but was entitled Proteus. It may have dealt with the shipwreck of Menelaus, Agamemnon’s brother, on his return from Troy. After Aeschylus the four pieces in a didascalia were usually unrelated in subject.

According to canonical doctrine satyric drama was the intermediate stage in the development of tragedy from the dithyramb and was retained in the festival program as a survival. Within recent years, as this hypothesis has been subjected to searching criticism, its supports have slowly crumbled away. My own opinion is that tragedy and the satyr-play are independent offshoots of the dithyramb (see pp. 1-35, above). In either case, since the dramatic performances were part of a Bacchic festival and since the Bacchic element had long since been discarded by tragedy (see p. 123, above), it is no doubt true that the satyric drama was in the program partly in order to keep up the religious associations, as revealing its connection with Dionysus more plainly than did mature tragedy. Nevertheless the same tendencies which had broken down the exclusively Dionysiac themes in tragedy were at work here also and would not be denied. We have already seen (see pp. 126 f., above) how the writers of satyr-plays arbitrarily superimposed Silenus and a chorus of satyrs upon some non-Dionysiac subject. Both in Euripides’ Cyclops and in Sophocles’ Trackers, the sole extant representatives of the genre, the Bacchic element is restricted to these followers of his, and Dionysus himself figures only as he is apostrophized or mentioned by them. In 438 B.C. Euripides introduced a further innovation by bringing out the Alcestis as the last play in his didascalia. Neither Silenus nor the chorus of satyrs appears in this piece, the theme being entirely non-Dionysiac; but the drunkenness of Heracles and the brutal frankness in the quarrel between Admetus and his father suggest the spirit of the old satyric drama, while the happy ending and the humor remind us of a comedy. These incongruities and the exceptionable circumstances under which the play was produced have occasioned the controversy, which began in antiquity and still continues, as to how the Alcestis is to be classified as a literary type. Is it a tragedy, comedy, satyr-play, tragi-comedy, melodrama, Schauspiel, Tendenz-Schrift, or what?[295] How far Euripides’ innovation in substituting such a play for the usual satyric drama may have met with the approval and emulation of his fellow-playwrights we have no means of knowing; but an extant inscription of a century later shows that the satyr-play had then been degraded still further (Fig. 76). At the City Dionysia of 341, 340, and 339 B.C. the poets were no longer compelled each to conclude his group of pieces in the old way, but a single satyric drama was performed, before the tragedies began at all, as ample recognition of the Dionysiac element which had once been all-pervasive in the festivals.

During the latter part of its history five comic poets competed each year at the City Dionysia, and each presented but a single play; there is some reason for believing that the number was five also at the beginning, but possibly there were then only three competitors. At any rate there were certainly not more than three for a while during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.).[296] When the comedies were restricted to three they were naturally performed one on each of the last three days, after that day’s tragedies and satyr-play, as we have just seen. But what the arrangement was when the larger number was presented is not so obvious. Was a second comedy crowded into the program on two of the days? Or were comedies produced also on the second and third days of the festival, after the dithyrambic choruses? The latter alternative would be my choice, and this would explain why in the inscriptional records the comedies preceded the tragedies, though in the chronological sequence of the last three days they followed them. When Aristophanes brought out his Women in Council he was so unfortunate in the drawing of lots as to be forced to perform his play first in the series of comedies. Therefore he had his chorus say (vss. 1158 ff.):

This close juxtaposition of tragedy and comedy at the same festival must have strengthened a practice which in any case would have been inevitable, viz., that the comic poets should parody lines, scenes, or even whole plots of their tragic confrères. In a community as small as Athens it was impossible that advance knowledge of a tragic plot or even the exact wording of striking lines should not sometimes reach the ears of a comic playwright and be turned to skilful account by him. Even when the secret had been guarded until the very moment of presentation, it must have been feasible for a comedian whose play was to be produced on a subsequent day of the festival to incorporate a few lines or a short scene in his comedy overnight. But this is mere theorizing, for I remember no passage where such “scoops” are mentioned. The parodying of tragedies brought out at previous festivals, however, was exceedingly common. The extant plays preserve some instances of this, and the scholiasts tell us of many others. Parodies of no less than thirty-three of Euripides’ tragedies are preserved in the remains of Aristophanes’ comedies. But the situation is too well known to merit further amplification here, cf. Murray, op. cit., passim.

On the other hand, though tragedy, comedy, and satyric dramas were juxtaposed at the festivals, they were not intermingled. The lines of demarcation were kept distinct. With very rare exceptions, like the Alcestis, the audience always knew what kind of a play it was about to hear, and (what was even more important) the poet always knew what kind of a play he was supposed to write. Of course, this is not the same as saying that all Greek tragedies were alike or that all Greek comedies seemed to be poured from the same mold. Within the type there was room for the greatest diversity, but the types did not overlap or borrow much from one another. This practice was a natural outgrowth of the Greek love for schematizing which displayed itself in the formulation and observance of rigid laws in every branch of art and especially in literature; in the field of drama this tendency was strengthened by the festival arrangements. Contrast with this the modern confusion of all the arts and all the literary genres which, in the sphere of drama, results in plays harder to classify than Polonius’ “tragical-comical-historical-pastorals.” This is one of the things that Voltaire had in mind when he declared that Shakespeare wrote like “a drunken savage.”

The simplicity of the Greek effect is aptly characterized by Mr. Clayton Hamilton:[297] “Although the ancient drama frequently violated the three unities of action, time, and place, it always preserved a fourth unity, which we may call unity of mood.” Possibly regard for this fourth unity caused Euripides to employ the deus ex machina at the conclusion of his Iphigenia among the Taurians. It is well known that this is the play that lends least support to the frequent charge that Euripides used the deus to cut the inextricable tangle of his plots. Here the final, insurmountable difficulty is of the poet’s own choosing. Orestes and his party have at last got their vessel free of the shore, and all the playwright needed to do was to allow them to sail on in safety and thus bring his play to a close. But arbitrarily he causes a contrary wind and sea to drive their ship back to land, making divine intervention indispensable. Of course this device enabled him to overleap the unity of time and bring events far in the future within the limits of his dramatic day, and frequently that was all that Euripides had in mind in having recourse to this artifice (see p. 295, below). But in the present instance I think he had an additional motive, one which has a place in this discussion. The gist of the matter is well expressed by Mr. Prickard:[298] “If the fugitives had simply escaped, snapping their fingers at Thoas, the ending would have been essentially comic: perhaps, after the grave and pathetic scenes which have gone before, we should rather call it burlesque. But the appearance of the deus ex machina, a device not itself to be praised, enables the piece to be finished after all with dignity and elevation of feeling.”

In connection with the foregoing arises another point: when the line between tragedy and comedy was drawn so sharply, we should hardly expect to find the writer of tragedies and the writer of comedies united in one and the same person. As a matter of fact not a single case is known in all Greek drama. “The sock and buskin were not worn by the same poet”;[299] the Greek theater knew no Shakespeare. This very versatility of the Elizabethan poet helps to explain why his tragedies contain much that is humorous and his comedies much that is painful, a characteristic which has been so offensive to his French critics. Very similar is the situation among the actors. At the City Dionysia, beginning with 449 B.C., a prize was awarded to the best actor in the tragedies brought out each year, and about 325 B.C. a contest was established for comic actors. At the Lenaea, prizes were offered for comic and for tragic actors from about 442 B.C. and about 433 B.C., respectively. These arrangements would tend still further to keep each actor within his specialty. No performer in both tragic and comic rôles is indubitably known until Praxiteles, who performed at Delphi in 106 B.C. as a comedian and nine years later as a tragedian. Two other instances occurred a little later. In the second century B.C. Thymoteles seems to have been both a tragic poet and a comic actor. These examples exhaust the list in pre-Christian times.

In the preceding discussion some changes in the festival program have already been mentioned, for the program was not, like Athena, fully grown at birth. For example, the requirement that each tragic poet should present three tragedies and a satyric drama in a group did not go back to the introduction of tragedy by Thespis in 534 B.C. and cannot be established for any poet before Aeschylus. It is likely that this regulation, together with the main outlines of the program as known at a later period, dates from about 501 B.C., when the festival seems to have been reorganized (see p. 319, below). This is the period with which the official records began, when also the κῶμοι, that is, the volunteer performances from which formal comedy was derived, were first added to the festival. In addition to the changes that have already been noticed we may now mention the following: It was not customary for plays to be performed more than once at Athens. It is true that the more successful plays in the city might be repeated at the Rural Dionysia, which were held in the various demes (townships) during the month Posideon (December), and that some of these provincial festivals, notably that at the Piraeus, were almost as splendid as those at Athens itself; yet the fact remains that at Athens the repetition of a play was an exceptional thing. Thus, when Aeschylus died in 456 B.C., honor was shown him by the provision that his plays might be brought out in rivalry with the new productions of living tragedians, and they are said to have won the prize in this way several times.[300] This explains what Aeschylus is represented as saying in Aristophanes’ Frogs (vss. 866 ff.), where he protests against contending with Euripides “here in Hades” on the ground that they will not be on equal terms, “for his poetry,” he says, “died with him [and came down to Hades], so that he will be able to recite it, but mine did not die with me.” There is here not only the obvious meaning that Aeschylus thought his poems had achieved an immortality which Euripides’ never could, but also an allusion to the special privileges bestowed upon them. Again, the Athenians conceived such an admiration for the parabasis of Aristophanes’ Frogs, doubtless on account of the sensible and patriotic advice therein given the citizens to compose their differences, that the play was given a second time by request. As a result of such precedents, in 386 B.C. the repetition of one old tragedy was given a regular place in the program, as a separate feature, however, no longer in rivalry with new works; and in 339 B.C. this arrangement was extended also to old comedies. It must further be remembered that the program was susceptible of considerable modification from year to year. When a single satyr-play was brought out as a substitute for one in each poet’s group (see p. 199, above), naturally each playwright presented three tragedies and nothing more, and this actually happened in 341 B.C. But in the following year each of the three poets produced but two tragedies. The program was therefore flexible enough to meet special needs or emergencies.

It must be understood that the discussion of the festival program up to this point applies as a whole to the City Dionysia alone and only in part to the Lenaea. For example, at the Lenaea there were no dithyrambic contests, and there is no evidence for the presentation of old plays or even of satyric dramas. Our most tangible information is an inscription for the years 419 and 418 B.C. (see p. 184, above). On these occasions there were two poets and each brought out two tragedies.

Possibly the first thing, apart from physical conditions, which would strike the modern theatergoer’s attention after entering an ancient Greek theater would be the fact that he was provided with no playbill. For this lack he received compensation in three ways: The first was the proagon (προαγών; πρό “before” + ἀγών “contest”), i.e., the ceremony before the contest. This was held in the nearby Odeum on the eighth day of the month Elaphebolion (end of March), which was probably the second day before the City Dionysia proper began. In this function the poets, the actors (without their masks and stage costumes), the choregi (see pp. 270 f., below), and the choruses participated. As the herald made announcement each poet and choregus with their actors and chorus presented themselves for public inspection. It was therefore possible for anyone interested, simply by being present on this occasion, to learn what poets were competing, the names of their actors and plays, the order of their appearance, and similar details. Moreover, the mere titles of the plays by themselves would often convey considerable information to the more cultured members of the audience. Thus, names like Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes, Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, and Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis or Iphigenia among the Taurians indicate the locale and general theme of the play on their face, and to the more cultivated spectators titles such as Sophocles’ Oedipus the King or Euripides’ Alcestis would be equally significant. On the other hand, such names as Euripides’ Suppliants or Phoenician Maids would be either mystifying or misleading, especially if the hearer was well enough versed in Greek drama to remember that Aeschylus and Phrynichus, respectively, had applied these titles to plays which actually dealt with entirely different incidents.

The proagon furnished the name and scene for one of Aristophanes’ (or Philonides’) comedies, but unfortunately we have no inkling as to how the theme was treated. In 406 B.C. the news of Euripides’ death came from Macedonia just before this ceremony. Sophocles appeared in garments indicative of mourning and had his chorus leave off their accustomed crowns. The spectators are said to have burst into tears. In Plato’s Symposium (194B) Socrates is represented as referring to the proagon at the Lenaean festival of the year 416 B.C. as follows: “I should be forgetful, O Agathon, of the courage and spirit which you showed when your compositions were about to be exhibited, when you mounted the platform with your actors and faced so large an audience altogether undismayed, if I thought you would on the present occasion [a celebration in honor of his first victory] be disturbed by a small company of friends.”

The second compensation for the absence of a playbill was provided within the plays themselves. First, with reference to the imaginary scene of action. The mythological stories which uniformly supplied the tragic playwrights with their themes were always definitely localized, and the tragic poets seemed to feel the necessity of indicating the place of action. This was commonly done by having an actor refer to “this land of so-and-so,” or even address it or some conspicuous object. At the beginning of Sophocles’ Electra the aged servant says to Orestes, “This is ancient Argos for which you longed” (vs. 4); in the Bacchanals, Dionysus in a typical Euripidean prologue states, “I come to this land of the Thebans” (vs. 1); Apollo begins Euripides’ Alcestis with the words, “O house of Admetus!” (vs. 1); and Eteocles in Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes addresses the spectators, “O citizens of Cadmus” (vs. 1). When the scene is changed within a play each locality is clearly identified. Thus at the beginning of Aeschylus’ Eumenides, Delphi is indicated as the scene in the usual way; a little later Apollo bids Orestes “go to the city of Pallas” (vs. 79), and still later, when the shift is supposed to have taken place, Orestes enters and says, “O Queen Athena, I come at the bidding of Loxias” (vs. 235). Euripides was most punctilious about this matter: he usually identified his scene within the first five lines and always within the first fifty. Aeschylus and Sophocles were not always so particular: in the Antigone, Thebes is not mentioned until vs. 101; and in the Persians, though it early becomes apparent that the action is laid in Persia, Susa is not actually shown to be the place of action before vs. 761. On the other hand, Euripides sometimes plays a little joke upon his audience; for example, the Andromache begins, “O pride of Asia, city of Thebe, whence I came to Priam’s princely halls as Hector’s bride,” as if the scene were laid in Asia Minor; but in vs. 16 we learn that the scene is really placed in Phthia!

In comedy the situation was somewhat different. Except in mythological parodies the stories are independent of tradition and newly invented, and usually are very slightly attached to any definite locality. As a result the plays of Old Comedy are generally thought of, somewhat vaguely, as taking place in Athens, though this fact is seldom expressly stated, and we rarely have any indication as to precisely where in the city the scenic background is supposed to stand. Occasionally we hear of the Pnyx (Acharnians, vs. 20) or Chloe’s temple (Lysistrata, vs. 385). But there is not a word in the Clouds or in the Women at the Thesmophoria to show where in Athens Socrates’ thinking-shop or Agathon’s house is situated. A shift of scene is not uncommon. At the beginning of the Frogs, Dionysus visits his brother Heracles. Since no other location is specified, this scene is probably laid in Athens.[301] At vs. 182 the orchestra represents the subterranean lake, and at vs. 436 the chorus informs Dionysus that he has reached Pluto’s door (see pp. 88-90, above).

By the time of New Comedy, unless we are definitely informed to the contrary, the scene is so uniformly laid in Athens that there was no necessity of saying so. It is true that Athens is mentioned in Plautus’ The Churl, vss. 1 ff.: “Plautus asks for a tiny part of your handsome walls where without the help of builders he may convey Athens,” but it is evident that these words were added by the Roman poet to the original and so are no exception to the Greek practice. That the action did customarily take place in Athens is expressly stated in Plautus’ Menaechmi, vss. 8 ff.: “And this is the practice of comic poets: they declare that every thing has been done at Athens, so that their play may seem more Greek to you.” So thoroughly was this principle ingrained in the playwrights’ consciousness that they were in danger of a lapse when they evaded it. Thus Calydon is the imaginary scene of Plautus’ The Carthaginian (cf. vs. 94); nevertheless at vs. 372 one character says to another, “If you will but have patience, my master will give you your freedom and make you an Attic citizen,” as if they were in Athens! When the poet, as in this instance, deviated from the usual scene of action, he had one of the actors, generally the prologus, warn the audience by saying, “This town is Ephesus” (Plautus’ The Braggart Captain, vs. 88); “Diphilus wished this city to be named Cyrene” (Plautus’ The Fisherman’s Rope, vs. 32), etc. It is only natural that this same period should witness the rise of the convention that the side entrance (parodus) at the spectators’ right led to the harbor or the market place and that at their left into the country, since the scene was regularly placed in Athens and since these were the actual topographical relationships in the Athenian theater (see p. 233, below). So firmly was this convention established that in Plautus’ Amphitruo, Thebes, an inland town, is represented as having a harbor like Florence, Milan, Rome, etc., in Shakespeare, or as Bohemia has a seacoast in The Winter’s Tale.

But the plays not only informed the audience where the scene was laid, but also made known the identity of the dramatic characters. It is obvious that the first character to appear would have to state his own name with more or less directness and then introduce the next character. The latter he might do (a) by announcing bluntly “Here comes so-and-so,” (b) by addressing the newcomer by name, (c) by himself inquiring his name and so eliciting his identity, or (d) by loudly summoning him out of the house or from a distance. All four of these means are actually resorted to. Now the earliest Greek plays have no prologue, but begin with the entrance song of the chorus (the parodus, see p. 192, above). Accordingly, in Aeschylus’ Persians the very first words are intended to reveal the personnel of the chorus:

At the conclusion of their ode, as Atossa enters they address her as follows:

thus removing all possibility of doubt as to the identity of the new arrival. In this connection it ought to be said that introducing an actor did not necessarily involve a proper name; often it was enough to indicate the station, occupation, or relationship of the new character. This rule applies not only to the humbler folk, such as messengers, herdsmen, nurses, heralds, etc.—in fact Sophocles usually ignored the entrance of servants, since their costume showed their position clearly enough—but it sometimes applies also to those of the highest rank, as in this instance to Atossa.

Aeschylus’ earlier play, the Suppliants, resembles the Persians in having no prologue, and so at vs. 12 of the parodus the choreutae disclose their identity by declaring that Danaus is their father. Moreover, since Danaus enters the orchestra simultaneously with the chorus, this statement serves to introduce him also, though he has no chance to speak until vs. 176. When he does speak, however, he makes assurance doubly sure by addressing the chorus as his “children.” Still again, in the fourth-century Rhesus, which also has no prologue, the chorus marches in and summons Hector by name from his quarters (vs. 10).

Thus from the fact that the early plays had no prologues, there grew up the practice of having the chorus (or coryphaeus) introduce not merely the first actor but every new character, as he appeared. For example, when the king of Argos makes his entrance in the Suppliants he engages in conversation with the Danaids, ignoring their father, and in reply to their question declares his name and station (vss. 247 ff.). Originally this technique was doubtless due in part also to the exigencies of the one-actor period (see p. 165, above), and it continued to be the regular practice, even after prologues were en règle, in all the plays of Aeschylus and in the earlier ones of Sophocles and Euripides. In comedy this method of procedure was less common, partly because this was no longer the usual convention in contemporaneous tragedy and partly because comedy closely approximates the manners of everyday life, which do not indorse this kind of introduction. When employed in comedy it was often intended to give a tone of tragic parody. For instance, in Aristophanes’ Acharnians, vss. 1069 f., the approach of a messenger is announced by the chorus as follows: “Lo, here speeds one ‘with bristled crest’ as though to proclaim some message dire,” the tragic tone of which in the original is unmistakable.[302]

Phrynichus’ Phoenician Women was the first play which we know to have had a prologue (476 B.C.). Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes has the earliest extant prologue (467 B.C.). Of course, this change in the economy of the play involved a change also in dramatic technique. Now the entrance of actors preceded that of the chorus. If one actor came alone he had to introduce himself, as Eteocles does in the Seven: “If we succeed, the credit belongs to heaven; but if we fail, Eteocles alone will loudly be assailed throughout the town.” If two actors enter together at the beginning of the play they may by alternately addressing each other by name make their identity clear to the audience, as Cratus and Hephaestus do in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound. Moreover, before his exit Cratus calls Prometheus, whom he has helped to nail to the rocky background, by name (vs. 85). We have seen that when the chorus opened a play they introduced the actors who followed them. It would be natural that when the relative position of actors and chorus was interchanged the technique of introduction should also be reversed; in other words, that one of the actors in the prologue should now introduce the on-coming chorus as the latter had previously introduced the actors. This actually occurs in this play: when the choreutae appear, the bound Prometheus addresses them as “children of Tethys and Oceanus,” vss. 136-40. The same artifice recurs in Aeschylus’ Libation-Bearers, vss. 10-16 (see below). But it is self-evident that this manner of introducing the chorus would seldom be satisfactory. In truth, as the chorus gradually but unmistakably lost its importance, its individuality faded away, and the need of formally introducing or identifying it almost disappeared.

The chorus soon lost the exclusive privilege of introducing actors by addressing them. We have seen that Cratus and Hephaestus exercise this function for one another, and the former does the same for Prometheus. But the poets continued much longer to use the chorus in announcing the approach of a new character. Dr. Graeber (op. cit., p. 26) claims that Euripides was the first to employ an actor for this purpose. In his Alcestis (vss. 24 ff.), Apollo says:

But just twenty years before, in Aeschylus’ Libation-Bearers (vss. 10-17), Orestes announced the approach of the chorus and Electra as follows:

Possibly Graeber did not consider the last instance formulaic enough to count. But however this may be, at last the actors largely took over the function of announcing new characters, as they previously had that of addressing them.

In comedy proper names, and consequently introductions, are less important. The names of tragedy were largely traditional and conveyed a meaning to all educated persons in the audience as soon as they heard them (see pp. 127 f., above); but in comedy a character might almost as well have no name at all as one which had no associations for the spectators. Accordingly, Aristophanes and Plautus left many of their characters nameless. Of course when well-known citizens of Athens, such as Socrates, Euripides, or Lamachus, were ridiculed, they were definitely named at their first appearance. When a significant comic name was employed it was not mentioned until the audience was in a position to appreciate the point of the joke, sometimes not until well along in the play. Thus in Aristophanes’ Birds the names of Pisthetaerus (Plausible) and Euelpides (Hopeful) are first mentioned at vss. 644 f.

I conclude this section with three examples of clever introductions. In Euripides’ Bacchanals (vss. 170 ff.) the blind Tiresias cries:

and Cadmus, coming out, replies:

The announcement of a new character’s coming was usually a pretty artificial device, but it is plausibly employed a little farther on (vss. 210 ff.) in this same play, when Cadmus says:

Again, at the beginning of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus inquires: “To what place have we come, Antigone? Who will receive the wandering Oedipus?” In a blind man these questions are especially natural, and the use of the proper names identifies the actors’ rôles. Soon a stranger approaches, and to him Oedipus repeats his first question (vs. 38). His replies reveal the location and significance of the scenic setting. The directness of the play’s first line finds a parallel in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Act I, scene 2:

The third compensation for the lack of a playbill was afforded by the use of masks (see pp. 221 ff., below). In Old Comedy contemporaneous personages were often introduced, and we are told that their masks were true enough to life for their identity to be recognizable before the actors had uttered a word. According to a late anecdote, at the presentation of Aristophanes’ Clouds, Socrates rose from his place and remained standing during the whole performance so that strangers in attendance might recognize the original of his double on the stage. In the Knights (vss. 230 ff.), Aristophanes explains the absence of a portrait-mask for Cleon on the ground that the mask-makers were too apprehensive of that demagogue’s vengeance to reproduce his features. But the playbill value of masks was seen more fully in the case of more or less conventionalized characters, especially in New Comedy (Figs. 68 f.).[303] Pollux, a writer of the second century A.D., describes twenty-eight such masks for tragedy and forty-four for New Comedy. The hair, of varying amount, color, coiffure, and quality, seems to have been the chief criterion, but dress, complexion, facial features, etc., were also taken into account. The make-up of every stock character was fixed with some definiteness and must have been well known to all intelligent spectators. Thus the first glimpse of approaching actors enabled an ancient audience to identify the red-headed barbarian slave, the pale lovelorn youth, the boastful soldier, the voracious parasite, the scolding wife, the flatterer, the “French” cook, the maiden betrayed or in distress, the stern father, the designing courtesan, etc., much more easily than a playbill of the modern type would have done.

If our modern playgoer in ancient Athens were an American and so accustomed to staid conduct in a theatrical audience, he would be surprised at the turmoil of an Athenian performance. A Frenchman, familiar with the riots which greeted Victor Hugo’s Hernani or Bernstein’s Après Moi, would be better prepared for the situation. But in any case he would soon discover that a prize was to be awarded both in tragedy and in comedy, and that each poet had his friends, partisans, and claque. The comic poets at least made no attempt to conceal the fact that there was a prize and that they were “out” for it. In almost every play Aristophanes’ choruses advance reasons, sometimes serious, sometimes fantastic, for favoring their poet and giving him the victory. A few examples will suffice. In the Women in Council (vss. 1154 ff.) the chorus says:

Birds, vss. 1101 f.: