Soon after Sophocles’ first appearance (468 B.C. or possibly 471 B.C.)[272] he introduced the third actor. First of all this innovation permitted a larger number of characters to be presented. In Aeschylus’ two-actor plays the characters number three in the Suppliants in addition to the chorus and coryphaeus, four in the Persians, six in the Prometheus, and five in Seven against Thebes. In the three-actor plays Aeschylus’ characters range from five to seven, Sophocles’ from five to nine, and Euripides’ from seven to eleven, except that Euripides’ satyr-play, the Cyclops, has but three characters. Secondly, a third actor allowed greater flexibility in handling entrances and exits. An artificial pause, more or less improbably motived, to enable an actor to change his mask and costume before appearing in another rôle would now be less frequently required (see further, [p. 231], below). Thirdly, it allowed three personages to appear side by side in the same scene, whereby in turn a certain aesthetic effect became possible. I refer to the varied emotions which one actor’s statements or conduct sometimes produce in two other characters. An excellent illustration is afforded by the scene with the Corinthian messenger in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, vss. 924 ff. As the awful conviction is brought home to Jocaste that Oedipus is her son as well as her husband, she rushes from the stage to hang herself; but Oedipus, on the contrary, still lacking the fatal clue, becomes elated at the prospect of discovering his parents’ identity. Similarly in the same playwright’s Electra, vss. 660 ff., the false report of Orestes’ death cheers his mother with the assurance that her murder of Agamemnon must now remain unavenged, but plunges Electra into the desperation of despair. Such situations would have been impossible in the two-actor drama. Finally, the introduction of a third actor contributed to the decay of the chorus. We have already noted in the last chapter how the importance of the chorus steadily declined, especially in comedy. But this change was quantitative as well as qualitative. In the prehistrionic period the chorus and its coryphaeus, from the nature of the case, monopolized every line. After Thespis had brought in the first actor the chorus yielded but a small place to its rival. Even in the two-actor period in our earliest extant play, the Suppliants, the chorus sang five hundred and sixty-five verses out of a total of a thousand and seventy-four, and in addition to this the coryphaeus spoke ninety verses. In six of Aeschylus’ seven extant pieces the choral element varies from three-fifths to about one-half of the whole play. The Prometheus, for special reasons, is exceptional, the fraction being only one-sixth. The effect of the third actor is seen in the fact that in Sophocles the proportion varies from one-fourth to one-seventh and in Euripides from one-fourth to one-eighth.
The question naturally arises, Why were the Greek dramatists so slow in increasing the number of actors? This was due partly to a paucity of histrionic talent and partly to difficulty in mastering the dramatic technique of the dialogue.
In the dithyramb and the prehistrionic drama the poet was his own coryphaeus. Accordingly when Thespis introduced the first actor he served in that capacity himself, appointing another as coryphaeus. So did Phrynichus, Aeschylus, and the other dramatists of that period. Since there were then no retired actors and no opportunity to serve an apprenticeship, it is obvious that these early poets had to teach themselves how to act. At this stage it was not possible for anyone except a playwright to become an actor, and actors must have been correspondingly scarce. The situation improved somewhat after Aeschylus introduced the second actor, for though the poets still carried the major rôles it now became possible for men with natural histrionic ability to develop it and gain experience in minor parts. By the time of Sophocles, actors had become so plentiful, relatively speaking, that he could increase the number employed by each poet from two to three and could retire from personal participation in the public presentation of his works. His weak voice is said to have been responsible for this second innovation; but he occasionally appeared in scenes where this weakness was no great hindrance, e.g., as a harp player in Thamyris and as an expert ball player in Nausicaa. By 449 B.C. the profession was so large and its standing so well recognized that a contest of tragic actors was made an annual event in the program of the City Dionysia. This course of development reveals one reason for the long duration of the one- and two-actor stages in Greek drama.
We shall now pass to the second reason. In the prehistrionic period a series of lyric questions and answers between chorus and coryphaeus was the nearest approach to a dialogue that was possible (see [p. 10], above). With the invention of the first actor this interplay of question and answer, still lyrical in form, could be carried on by the actor and the chorus (including the coryphaeus). Such a duet, which came to be known as a commus, continued in use, especially for dirges, as long as the chorus lasted. Side by side with this, however, there quickly developed a non-lyric interchange of spoken lines between actor and coryphaeus. But not until the second actor was added did true dialogue in the modern sense become possible. Yet the poets could not at once make full use of even these simple resources. Our analysis of Aeschylus’ Suppliants ([pp. 163 f.], above) shows that in two instances Danaus stood silent and unaddressed during a conversation between the other actor and the coryphaeus. Moreover, priority of usage constrained the playwrights to give the actor-coryphaeus dialogue precedence over actor-actor dialogue (cf. [pp. 165 f.], above). They seemed unable to weld the two types together with a technique which would employ all three persons at once. In the three-actor period the embarrassment of riches made their helplessness the more striking. “A” might engage in a dialogue with “B” while “C” remained inactive; then with “C” while “B” was silent; and finally “B” and “C” might converse, with “A” remaining passive. Often the transitions are marked or the longer speeches set off by a few more or less perfunctory verses (usually two) spoken by the coryphaeus. The type is not frequently worked out as completely as I have just indicated, but the principle is illustrated on a lesser scale in almost every play. Compare, for example, Euripides’ Helen, vss. 1186-1300, and Andromache, vss. 547-766. Such an arrangement, needless to say, falls far short of a genuine trialogue or tetralogue. Yet we must not be unfair in condemning this practice. The Greek poets were feeling their way and could not immediately attain to every refinement. Even in Shakespeare and the modern drama, despite centuries of continuous experimentation and the numerous examples of superior technique, the tandem arrangement of dialogue is still not uncommon.
A half-step in advance consisted in the silent actor interrupting the dialogue with some electrifying utterance. For example, in Aeschylus’ Libation-Bearers (458 B.C.), Clytemnestra’s appeal to Orestes on the score of her motherhood stays his hand in the very act of murdering her, and he weakly turns to his trusted friend, Pylades, for guidance. The latter’s ringing response,
Wilt thou abjure half Loxias’ behest,
The word of Pytho, and thy sacred troth?
Hold all the world thy foe rather than Heaven
[vss. 900-903, Warr’s translation],
is as effective as if uttered by the god in person, and urges Orestes on to the deadly deed. These are the only words that Pylades utters in the whole tragedy. In another play belonging to the same trilogy, the Eumenides, Aeschylus rose to the full possibilities of his histrionic resources—Orestes, the coryphaeus, Apollo, and Athena all participating in the conversation between vss. 746 and 753. Similarly, in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Oedipus, Ismene, and the coryphaeus all speak between vss. 494 and 506, and in Euripides’ Suppliants the herald, the coryphaeus, Adrastus, and Theseus divide four lines among them (vss. 510-13). But after all, such instances are comparatively rare and seldom extend over a very long passage.