Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/109

 BOOK IL LITERARY HISTORY OF THE GREEK DRAMA. CHAPTEH I. THE GREEK TRAGEDIANS. SECTION" I. CHCERILUS, PHRYNICHUS, AND PRATINAS. Use begets Use. Guesses at Tkuth. AS soon as Tragedy had once established itself in Greece, it made very rapid advances to perfection. According to the received dates, the first exhibition of Thespis preceded by ten years only the birth of ^Eschylus, who in his younger days con- tended with the three immediate successors of the Icarian. Chce- EILUS began to represent plays in the 64th 01. 523 B.c.^, and in 499 B. c. contended for the prize with Pratinas and ^schylus. It is stated that he contended with Sophocles also, but the dif- ference in their ages renders this exceedingly improbable, and the mistake may easily have arisen from the way in which Suidas mentions the book on the chorus which Sophocles wrote against him and Thespis ^ It would seem that Tragedy had not altogether departed from its original form in his time, and that the chorus ^ XotptXos, 'Adrjvaios, rpaytKos, ^d' oXv/XTTLcidi Kadels els dyQuas Kal ediSa^e fih dpdfiara TrevTrjKOvra Kal p. iulKrjae 5^ ty'. Suidas. ^ See Nake's Chcerilus, p. 7. Suidas : 1,0(poKJs iypape yov KaTokoydo-qv irepi rod xopoO Trpos Qeainv Kal XoiplXou o^ywvi'gbp.evos.