Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/265

 GREEK PLAYS IN GENERAL. 243 the order and manner in which the choreutae made their entry. The chorus was supposed to be a loch us of soldiers in battle-array^. In the dithyrambic or cyclic chorus of fifty, this military arrange- ment was not practicable; but when the original choral elements had become more deeply inrooted in the worship of Bacchus, and the three principal Apollonian dances were transferred to the wor- ship of that god 2, the dramatic choruses became like them quadran- gular, and were arranged in military rank and file^. The number of the tragic chorus for the whole Trilogy appears to have been fifty; the comic chorus consisted of twenty-four. The chorus of the Tetralogy was broken into four sub-choruses, two of fifteen, one of twelve, and a satyric chorus of eight, as appears from the distribu- tion in the remaining Trilogy^. When tlie chorus of fifteen entered in ranks three abreast, it was said to be divided Kara ^uyd : when it was distributed into three files of five, it was said to be Kara <TTOLxov(i. The same military origin explains the fact that the anap^stic metre was generally, if not always, adopted for the opening choral song; for this metre was also used in the Greek marching songs ^. The muster of the chorus round the Thymele, shows that the chorus was Bacchic as well as military ; the mixture of lyric and flute music points to the same union of two worships^; and in the strophic and antistrophic form of most of the choral odes, we discern the traces of the choral improvements of Stesichorus. Again, with regard to the actor, when we remember that he was but the successor of the Exarchus, who in the improvements of Thespis spoke a 77/36X0709 before the chorus came on the stage, and held a prjauq, or dialogue, with them after they had simg their choral song"^, we shall see why there was always a soliloquy or a dialogue, in the first pieces of the more perfect Tragedies, before the chorus came on^. The actor's connexion with the rhapsode is also a reason for the narrative character of the speeches and dialogues, and for the general absence of the abrupt and vehement conversa- tions which are so common in our own plays. 1 Miiller, Eumeniden, § 12. ^ Above, p. 28. 3 Muller, Eumeniden, § 5. -* Id. ibid. § i foil. 5 Id. ibid. § 16. ^ Id. ibid. § 18. ^ See above, p. 60, and p. 10 1. 8 The SujypUces and Perscu of ^schylus, which are the only two plays that begin with an anaptestic march, were not the first plays of the Trilogies to which they belonged. J 6— 2