as that of one-fifth. Hence it appears that the chorus occupies about twice as large a space in the Æschylean as in the Sophoclean drama; and an increased prominence of individual character in the latter is profoundly in accordance with this change. Sophocles' Antigone, Electra, Ajax, Philoctetes, Œdipus, stand out more independently from the choral group than any Æschylean personage, and transfer dramatic interest from the choral ode to the individual dialogue. It is true that in the plays of Sophocles associations of early clan life still live side by side with the growing dominion of individualism; in the Antigone, for example, the conflict between family rites (such as the familia of Rome would have sternly maintained) and the commands of the State—a conflict sure to set in as clan custom gave way to State law—is the mainspring of the dramatic action; and inherited guilt is almost as powerfully depicted in the Œdipus Rex as in the Æschylean trilogy. But in the extant plays of Sophocles we have nothing resembling the abstract personages of the Prometheus Bound, nothing resembling the allegorical spirit of that famous tragedy; on the Sophoclean contrasted with the Æschylean stage character is being reduced from the dimensions of group life and colossal personifications to individuality like that of men and women, but still ideally great.
In the drama of Euripides this double process of individualising character and subordinating the chorus to the dialogue reaches its farthest tragic development, and most clearly reflects the altered conditions of social life at Athens. Aristophanes, in his Frogs, notes this
imperfect index to the impersonal action it contains. To judge this impersonal element fairly we should not only add to the chorus the lines attributed to Κράτος, but should decide how far Io, Okeanus, and even Prometheus himself are personages at all; for in this highly abstract play personality, as might be expected, is deficient.
