Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/327

305 LITERATURE OP ANCIENT GREECE. 305 simplicity and clearness which, in the good ages of antiquity, were always held to be the most essential qualities. ./Eschylus adopted this third actor in the three connected plays, the Agamemnon, Choephorae, and Eumenides ; which he seems to have brought out at Athens at the end of his career. His other tragedies, which were performed earlier, are all so constructed that they could be represented by two actors.* All the plays of Sophocles and Euripides are adapted for three actors only, excepting one, the CEdipus in Colonus, which could not be acted without the introduction of a fourth. The rich and intricate composition of this noble drama would have been impossible without this innovation. f But even Sophocles himself does not appear to have dared to introduce it on the stage. It is known that the CEdipus in Colonus was not acted till after his death, when it w r as brought out by Sophocles the younger. § 8. But the ancients laid more stress upon the precise number and the mutual relations of these three actors than might be inferred from what has been said. They distinguished them by the technical names of Protagonistes, Deuteragonistes, and Tritagonistes. These names are used with different meanings. Sometimes the actors themselves are designated by their parts ; as, for example, when Cleandrus is called the protagonist ofiEschylus, anJ. Myniscus his deuteragonist; or when Demosthenes, in his contest with /Eschines, says, that to represent such a stern and cruel tyrant as Creon in the Antigone, is the peculiar glory and privilege of the tritagonist; iEschines himself having served under more distinguished actors as tritagonist. Sometimes the persons entering the stage are distinguished by these three names : as when Pollux the grammarian says, that the protagonist should always enter from the middle door ; that the dwelling of the deuteragonist should be on the right hand, and that of the third person of the drama on the left. According to a passage in a modern Platonic philosopher,;}: important to the history of the ancient drama, the poet does not create the protagonist, deuteragonist, or tritagonist ; he only gives to each of these actors his appropriate part. This, and other expressions of the ancients have involved the subject in many perplexing difficulties, which it would detain us too long to examine in detail. Our purpose will be best accomplished by giving such a summary explanation as will enable these distinctions to be understood. the parts of Prometheus, Ileprurstus, and Ciatos; but these might have been so arranged, so as not to require a third actor. f Unless we assume that the part of Theseus in this play was partly acted by the person who represented Antigone, and partly by the person who represented Ismene. It is, however, far more difficult for two actors to represent one part in the same tone and spirit, than for one actor to represent several parts with the appro- priate modifications. + Plotiu. Ennead. ii. L. ii. p. 26S. Basil, p. 484. Creuzer. Compare the note of Creuzer, vol. iii. p. 153, ed. Oxon, X
 * The prologue of the Prometheus appears, indeed, to require three actors for