Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/317

295 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 295 petulant satyrs seemed quite appropriate. Accordingly, all scenes from free, untamed nature, adventures of a striking character, where stransre monsters or savage tyrants of mythology are overcome by valour or stratagem, belong to this class ; and in such scenes as these the satyrs could express various feelings of terror and delight, disgust and desire, with all the openness and unreserve which belong to their character. All mythical subjects and characters were not therefore suited to the satyric drama. The character best suited to this drama seems to have been the powerful hero Hercules, an eater and drinker and boon com- panion, who, when he is in good humour, allows himself to be amused by the petulant sports of satyrs and other similar elves. § 9. The complete separation of the satyric drama from the other dramatic varieties is attributed by ancient grammarians to Pratinas of Phlius, and therefore a Dorian from Peloponnesus, although he came forward in Athens as a rival of Choerilus and iEschylus about Olymp. 70 (b. c. 500), and probably still earlier. He also wrote lyric poems of the hyporchematic kind,* which are closely connected with the satyric drama; t and he moreover composed tragedies ; but he chiefly excelled in the satyric drama, in the perfecting of which he probably followed native masters: for Phlius was a neighbour of Corinth and Sicyon, which produced the tragedy of Arion and Epigenes, represented by satyrs. He bequeathed his art to his son Aristeas, who, like his father, lived at Athens as a privileged alien, and obtained great fame on the Athenian stage in competition with Sophocles. The satyric pieces of these two Phliasians were considered, together with those of iEschylus, as the best of their kind. We are now come to the point where iEschylus appears on the tragic stage. Tragedy, as he received it, was still an infant, though a vigorous one ; when it passed from his hands it had reached a firm and goodly youth. By adding the second actor, he first gave the dramatic element its due development ; and at the same time he imparted to the whole piece the dignity and elevation of which it was susceptible. We should now proceed immediately to this first great master of the tragic art, if it were not first necessary, for the purpose of forming a correct conception of his tragedy, to obtain a distinct idea of the ex- ternal appearance of this species of dramatic representation, and of the established forms with which every tragic poet must comply. Much may indeed be gathered from the history of the origin of the tragic drama; but this is not sufficient to give a full and lively notion of the manner in which a play of iEschylus was represented on the stage, and of the relation which its several parts bore to each other. f Perhaps the hyporcheme in Athen. XIV. p. G17. occurred in a satyric drama
 * Seech. XII. § 10.