Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/457

 SUIDAS

ON THE CHANGE ASCRIBED TO SOPHOCLES

IN REGARD TO TRILOGIES.

The passage of Suidas which I have taken as my subject follows his notice of two other modifications which Sophocles had introduced into the form of Attic Tragedy,—the increase in the number of the actors from two to three; and the increase in the number of the Chorus from twelve to fifteen. Then Suidas continues, "And he himself began the practice of play contending against play, and not tetralogy"—against tetralogy The grammatical construction claims a brief comment. I take the accusatives and  as subjects to the infinitive. Compare Arist. Poetics, ch. 7, : "for if it had been necessary that a hundred tragedies should compete, they would have competed under a limit of time for each." The alternative is to take and