Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/477

 (3) Another explanation is that proposed by Mr A. T. S. Goodrick (Journ. of Philology, vol. xiv., pp. 137 f., 1885). Sophocles, he thinks, began his career with tetralogies, following the example of Aeschylus. But, some years later, we find each of the ten Attic tribes furnishing a choregus, and so we must conclude that at that period no fewer than ten tragic poets were wont to compete on the same occasion. Sophocles then introduced the rule that each poet should exhibit at the festival only one play of the tetralogy which he had composed for it. After the festival, the other three plays were published along with the play which had been acted, and thus became known to the public; probably, too, they were acted in other theatres at less important festivals. (1) The first objection to this hypothesis concerns the assumption that as many as ten tragic poets ever competed at the same Dionysia. That Mr Goodrick means ten tragic poets, and not five tragic and five comic, is shown by his speaking of ten tetralogies (p. 138); for Comedies were always produced singly. In the fifth century the number of tragic poets at the Great Dionysia was regularly three only; the old belief that it was five had no better ground than the supposition that, when the Didascaliae name the three competing poets in order, these are the winners of a first, second, and third prize, and that the whole number of competitors must have been larger. But there was only one prize. As to the supposed ten choregi, a choregus from each