Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/235

 GEEEK PLAYS IN GENERAL. 217 and Cleidemides^; and that the latter poet sometimes composed his plays with a special reference to the qualities of the actors who had to perform in them 2, just as modern composers will some- times write an opera for a particular singer. The control which the protagonist exercised over his coadjutors is shown in many ways. If the inferior actors had finer voices than their chief, they were sometimes obliged to do themselves imperfect justice in order that he might shine the more^. And though the protagonist had some- times to appear in a humble character by the side of his crowned and sceptred hireling, the tritagonist^, the great actor Theodoras always took care to sustain any part, even that which belonged to the tritagonist, if this involved the first entry on the stage, in order to make sure of the first impression on the audience^. That the poet would undertake to teach a protagonist how to act his play seems very improbable, and the phrase BcBacrKecv hpajjua must refer only to the general superintendance, which the poet, in conjunction with the choragus, exercised during the rehearsals of the play. When the day appointed for the trial came on, all parties united their efforts^, and endeavoured to gain the prize by a combination of the best-taught actors with the most sumptuously dressed and most diligently exercised chorus'^. That the exertions of the choragus and the actors were often as' influential w4th the judges as the beauty of the poem cannot be doubted^, when we have so many instances of the ill-success of the best dramatists. The ^ Bernhardy, Grundrlss, p. 642. ^ Vit. Sophocl. p. X. : koI jrpbs ras (pvaeis avTwv {tCov viroKpLTdv) ypd^ai to. dpafiara. 3 Cic. div. in Ccecil. 15, 48: ''ut in actoribus Graecis fieri videmus, saspe ilium qui est secundarum vel tertiarum partium, quum possit aliquoties clarius dicere quam ipse primarum, multum submittere ut ille princeps quam maxime excellat." ^ Plut. Prcecept. Polit. p. 816 F : cLtovou p.ev yap earLv rbv /xh ev rpaycpdiq, irpior- ayuvLarrju Qeodwpov t} UuiXov ovra pLLadwrQ no ra rpia {rpiTa ?) XeyofTi TroXXct/cts eirecrdai rj TrpoadcaXeyeadai. raTreivuis au eKeTuos ^XV "^^ dLcidrjfxa Kal to (TKrjTTTpov. ^ Aristot. Polit. IV. (vil.) 17, p. 1336: iVws 70^ ov KaKu>$ ^Xeye to tolovtov GeoSojpos 6 TTJs Tpay({}bias VTroKpiTrjs' ovdeui yap TrwTrore TraprJKev iavTov Trpoeiadyeiv ovd^ Twv evTeXQv viroKpLTuiv, cbs olK€iov/j.eucjv tCjv deaTOJu rats irpuTaii aKoais. ^ The contending choragi were called dvTLxoprjyot (Demosth, Mid. p. 595, Bekker), the rival dramatists avTidLdda-KaXot (Aristoph. Vesp. 14 10), and their performers dvTLTexvoL (Alciphron, ill. 48), a name which is also given to Euripides as the rival of yEschylus in the dramatic contest between them in the Ranee, 815. ^ For the harmony and equality of voice required in the chorus see Aristotle, Polit. Ill, 113, § -21 : ovbk dr) xopoSiSacr/caXos tov fiet^ov Kal KdXXcou toO iravTos x^P<^^ tpdeyy bp.evov idaei (rvyxopeveiv. ^ It is expressly stated by Aristotle, Ehet. in. i, § 4. Cf. Terence, Phormlo, Prolog, vv. 9, 10.