§ 2. Earliest Evidence.
There is one point on which there seems to be little difference of opinion, and that is, that the lusty choruses of satyrs that abound on the early red figured vases were largely popularized through the Dionysiac trains. These groups of dancing, springing satyrs along with Dionysos are direct reflexions of the scenes that actually took place, and as these celebrations were the simple beginnings of the tragic drama there is in this class of pictures a remote echo of the theatre. Yet one must not understand that the artists were conscious of following any particular performance[[100]]. These scenes border more on what we should imagine a satyric drama to have been. It was a long way from this comical, kick-about dance of the satyrs around Dionysos and his altar to the time when the actual performance of the theatre, such as is seen on the Andromeda krater, occurs on the vases. Still these were beginnings. Another exceedingly instructive bit of evidence for the development of tragic influences (or rather it is better to speak still of Dionysiac influences) is found on a black figured vase in Bologna[[101]]. The painting represents the epiphany of the god who rides in a ship borne on wheels and drawn by two satyrs before whom march two others leading a steer. The god who sits enthroned upon the ship is being entertained by flute music furnished by two satyrs riding with him. Such sights we have reason to believe were not uncommon in Attica, and it may have been in such a carrus navalis that Thespis travelled the country and established the beginnings of the later drama. These πομπαί and the satyr-trains appear therefore to be a very significant inheritance which the earlier vase painters have left us for the disentangling of the all too bare literary records touching the origin of the tragic drama.