gave scope for much more action and development of plot; the third performer being capable, like the other two, of appearing in different characters. In one instance, indeed, that of the Œdipus at Colonos, four performers appear to have been indispensable, unless we adopt the conjecture that the actor who took the part of Ismene also appeared in that of Theseus, and had a mute double to take his place in the scene where Ismene appears with Theseus but does not speak. It need hardly be said that the performers were in all cases men; and that the choral odes, among the many purposes which they answered in the construction of a Greek drama, served also to give time for the change of dress which this multiple personation required.[1] (3.) The change which raised the number of the chorus from twelve, to which Æschylos had reduced it, to fifteen,[2] was connected probably with details of their movement during the strophes and an-
- ↑ The extent of this may be seen from the conjectural divisions of the parts of a single play. Thus in the Aias, the chief actor seems to have taken the hero himself and Teucros; the second Odysseus, the messenger, and Menelaos; the third Athena, Tecmessa, and Agamemnon, (Schöll, p. 61.) The motive of this limitation, under a system where the expense of the performance fell chiefly on the private fortune of the Choregos, was probably economical.
- ↑ Suidas, s. v. Sophocles. It is worth mentioning that the dramatist is said to have written a treatise on the subject. It will be noticed that there is for the most part a definite harmony between the age and sex of the chorus and that of the hero and heroine of the play. Thus in Œdipus the King and Œdipus at Colonos it consists of aged men, in Electra and the Maidens of Trachis of women, in the Aias of soldiers, in the Philoctctes of sailors. The Antigone is an exception to the rule.
