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8 two spring festivals there became distinguished among the chief solemnities of Greece. When Athens began to take the lead among Grecian states, as she did after the Persian war, while her art and literature, though still only in embryo, were preparing to rise to that eminence which soon afterwards they attained, all that was most solemn in religion, most enthusiastic in national feeling, most beautiful in art, found its expression in the rival dramas which twice in every spring were presented, one after another, in the great theatre of Bacchus to contend for the tragic prize. Foremost among the poets for many years was Æschylus; but there must have been many others who rivalled and sometimes defeated him, and these contributed their share towards the advances which were made in his time by the art. We, to whom a theatre means something so utterly different, can hardly fancy the enthusiasm with which the Athenian citizen, on the great religious day, went into the assembly of his countrymen to see the land's most gifted sons, in grand words decked out with every aid of art and dance and music, rival one another in celebrating the great deeds of gods and kings and heroes, the founders and patrons of the Grecian race. Let us endeavour as far as we may to realise the scene.

At the time of such a festival Athens was crowded. The city always contained a large number of resident foreigners, who lived there for commerce or security, and enjoyed a special legal protection. Then there were a great many passing merchants and sailors, and strangers impelled by one motive or another to visit