earlier period than has generally been supposed; and that the feeling adverse to change in the traditional methods of the exhibition is likely to have been so far more influential.
The form in which Aeschylus produced his tragedies—at least during the later part of his career—was that of the trilogy, or group of three. To these was appended a fourth play, a satyr-drama, so called because in it the Chorus consisted of satyrs attendant on Dionysus; the object being to preserve a memory of that mingled seriousness and mirth which had been at the heart of the early Dionysiac festivals. Tragedy represented one side of the old Dionysiac mood, Comedy the other; but the satyr-drama—historically true to its purpose in that it was much nearer to Tragedy than to Comedy—represented both; and was therefore described by the rhetorician Demetrius[1] (περὶ ἑρμηνείας) as παίζουσα τραγῳδία, "Tragedy with mirth in it". The tragic trilogy, with the satyr-drama added, made up the tetralogy. It is not known that Aeschylus himself, or any of the dramatists, used the word τριλογία or τετραλογία. The earliest date to which the word τριλογία can be traced back is about 200 B.C.; this is obtained from the scholium on Ar. Ran. 1124, which shows that τριλογία was used, in reference to tragedies, by Apollonius Rhodius and Aristarchus. It has been inferred from the same scholium that Aristotle used the word τετραλογία in his διδασκαλίαι: but the
- ↑ Demetrius, De Elocut. § 169.
