Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/340

 318 HISTORY OF GREECE. best productions of these successful competitors, if not intrinsi- cally finer, could hardly have been inferior in merit to theirs. 1 The tragic drama belonged essentially to the festivaJs in honol of the god Dionysus ; being originally a chorus sung in hia honor, to which were successively superadded, first, an Iambic monologue ; next, a dialogue with two actors ; lastly, a regular plot with three actors, and the chorus itself interwoven into the scene. Its subjects were from the beginning, and always con- tinued to be, persons either divine or heroic, above the level of historical life, and borrowed from what was called the mythical past : the Persae of JEschylus forms a splendid exception ; but the two analogous dramas of his contemporary, Phrynichus, the Phccnissae and the capture of Miletus, were not successful enough to invite subsequent tragedians to meddle with contem- porary events. To three serious dramas, or a trilogy, at first connected together by sequence of subject more or less loose, but afterwards unconnected and on distinct subjects, through an innovation introduced by Sophokles, if not before, the tragic poet added a fourth or satyrical drama ; the characters of which were satyrs, the companions of the god Dionysus, and other heroic or mythical persons exhibited in farce. He thus made up a total of four dramas, or a tetralogy, which he got up and brought forward to contend for the prize at the festival. The expense of training the chorus and actors was chiefly furnished by the choregi, wealthy citizens, of whom one was named for each of the ten tribes, and whose honor and vanity were greatly inter- ested in obtaining the prize. At first, these exhibitions took place on a temporary stage, with nothing but wooden supports and scaffolding ; but shortly after the year 500 B.C., on an occa- sion when the poets JEschylus and Pratinas were contending for the prize, this stage gave way during the ceremony, and lamentable mischief was the result. After that misfortune, a permanent theatre of stone was provided. To what extent the 1 The CEdipus Tyrannus of Sophokles was surpassed by the rival com position of Philokles. The Medea of Euripides stood only third /or the prize ; Euphorion, son of jEschylus, being first, Sophokles second. Yet these two tragedies a:- 3 the masterpieces now remaining of Sophokles an Euripides.