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Rh states not unfrequently maintained a troupe of professional singers and dancers, ready to undertake at the shortest notice the performance of the most elaborate Ode. It appears that similar troupes were sometimes attached to the service of an eminent poet, and were sent by him, with an Ode composed for the occasion, to attend public or private celebrations in foreign states. And such was the general musical culture of the average Greek citizen that, in the absence of professionals, it was sometimes possible to organise an amateur chorus willing and competent to undertake their duties. Other occasions there were of far different character, but equally demanding the services of the choric poet. The citizens of some distressed town, decimated by plague or famine, or alarmed by natural phenomena, which they took for portents, would endeavour to appease the offended gods by propitiatory sacrifices and the performance of a solemn Pæan. Or the kinsmen of some youthful warrior, fallen on the field of battle, and borne home a corpse to his weeping bride, would call on the poet of the day to grace the dead man's obsequies with his most pathetic dirge—strains which should, in the language of a Roman poet,

"Bear to starry heights away

That Might, and Mettle bold, and golden Worth,

And grudge dark Death his prey."

It is difficult to classify, according to any strict principle, all these various occasions; but we may perhaps distinguish among them three chief kinds, and group