And as his tawdry actors drove about,
The sight was new, and charm'd the gaping rout.
A.M. 3440. Ant. J.C. 564.
Thespis lived in the time of Solon.[178] That wise legislator, upon seeing his pieces performed, expressed his dislike, by striking his staff against the ground; apprehending that these poetical fictions and idle stories, from mere theatrical representations, would soon become matters of importance, and have too great a share in all public and private affairs.
A.M. 3464. Ant. J.C. 540.
It is not so easy to invent, as to improve the inventions of others. The alterations Thespis made in tragedy, gave room for Æschylus to make new and more considerable of his own. He was born at Athens, in the first year of the sixtieth Olympiad. He took upon him the profession of arms, at a time when the Athenians reckoned almost as many heroes as citizens. He was at the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Platæa, where he did his duty.
A.M. 3514. Ant. J.C. 490.
But his disposition called him elsewhere, and put him upon entering into another course, where no less glory was to be acquired; and where he was soon without any competitors. As a superior genius, he took upon him to reform, or rather to create tragedy anew; of which he has, in consequence, been always acknowledged the inventor and father. Father Brumoi, in a dissertation which abounds with wit and good sense, explains the manner in which Æschylus conceived the true idea of tragedy from Homer's epic poems. The poet himself used to say, that his works were the remnants of the feasts given by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey.
Tragedy therefore took a new form under him. He gave masks[179] to his actors, adorned them with robes and trains, and [pg lxxx] made them wear buskins. Instead of a cart, he erected a theatre of a moderate elevation, and entirely changed their style; which from being merry and burlesque, as at first, became majestic and serious.
Eschyle dans le chœur jetta les personages: