We have now discovered why the dialogue technique of tragedy was more restricted than that of comedy, but there still remains a further question. Why was the number of actors in tragedy usually or always restricted to three, while four actors were not uncommon in comedy? So long as the poets did their own acting, there was no occasion for the state to interfere in the selection of actors. And this situation would naturally continue for some time after the plays were presented largely or wholly by actors alone—the poets would still have the matter in their charge. In fact there is no reason to suppose that the state interposed its authority before the establishment of the contest for tragic actors at the City Dionysia in 449 B.C. This supposition affords the best explanation for certain ancient notices. For example, Aeschylus is said to have used Cleander as his first actor and afterward to have associated Mynniscus with him, and Sophocles to have employed Tlepolemus continuously. Whatever truth or error may lie back of these statements they imply that in the first half of the fifth century the choice of actors rested solely with the poets. The same implication is inherent in the fact that the second and third actors were introduced by Aeschylus and Sophocles respectively. The poets must have made these additions upon their own initiative. For the state could not have shown partiality by providing Sophocles, for example, with more actors than were furnished the other dramatists in the same contest; and if they were all alike given an increased number, there would be no reason for crediting any one of them with the innovation. The state must have assumed supervision of the histrionic features of the dramatic contests at the same time that it established a prize for actors, viz., in 449 B.C. And since the tragedies of this period were presented by three actors, this number became crystallized, and so was never thereafter, so far as the state was concerned, exceeded in tragedy. Tragedies were added to the Lenaean program and a prize for tragic actors established for that festival simultaneously, about 433 B.C. Naturally the conventional number of tragic actors would be transferred from the older contest to the newer. In comedy, however, the development and tradition were entirely different (see [pp. 52 f.], above). Primitive comedies in Attica were performed by a double chorus of choreutae, who constituted an undifferentiated crowd and assumed no individual rôles, but sang (or spoke) singly, antiphonally, or in unison. Shortly before 450 B.C. regular actors were introduced in contradistinction to the choreutae; and Cratinus, imitating contemporaneous tragedy, set their number at three. Yet the choreutae did not for a long time entirely give up their old license and self-assertiveness. Consequently, it is not surprising that the number of performers did not remain at the tragic norm. The fact that a contest of comic actors was not established at the Lenaea until about 442 B.C. (at the City Dionysia not until about 325 B.C.) allowed a slight interval for this reaction to assert itself before usage became legalized. Such, then, are the reasons for the number of actors being less restricted in comedy than in tragedy.

For about a century, beginning with 449 B.C., the state annually engaged three tragic protagonists to be assigned by lot to the three poets who were about to compete with plays. Each protagonist seems to have hired his own subordinate actors (deuteragonist and tritagonist) and with their assistance presented all the plays (at the City Dionysia three tragedies and one satyric drama) which his poet had composed for the occasion. The victorious actor in each year’s contest was automatically entitled to appear the following year. The other two protagonists were perhaps selected by means of a preliminary contest, such as is mentioned for comic actors on the last day of the Anthesteria. These regulations applied, mutatis mutandis, also to the contest of comic actors and to the tragic and comic contests at the Lenaea. Thus at the Lenaea of 418 B.C. Callippides acted in the two tragedies of Callistratus, and Lysicrates in the other dramatist’s two plays. And it should be noted that, whereas Callippides won the prize for acting, Callistratus was defeated in the competition of tragedies. This must have been a point of considerable difficulty, for an actor’s chances must have been greatly hampered by his being required to present a poor series of plays; and a poet, likewise, must have suffered by reason of an inferior presentation of his dramas. But sometime in the fourth century, when the playwrights were no longer required to write satyr-plays (see [p. 199], below), a more equitable system was introduced. Each of the protagonists in turn now acted one of the three tragedies of each poet, the histrionic talent at the disposal of each dramatist being thus made exactly the same. For example, at the City Dionysia of 341 B.C. ([Fig. 76]) Astydamas was the victorious playwright; his Achilles was played by Thettalus, his Athamas by Neoptolemus, and his Antigone by Athenodorus. The same actors likewise presented the three tragedies of Evaretus and those of the third dramatist. On this occasion Neoptolemus won; a year later, under similar conditions, he was defeated by Thettalus.

We have seen how slow was the rise of actors into a profession distinct from the poets. At a later time, however, they were strongly organized into guilds under the name of “Dionysiac artists” (οἱ ἀμφὶ τὸν Διόνυσον τεχνῖται). Their strongest “union” (κοινόν or σύνοδος) was centered at Athens and it was also the earliest (fourth century B.C.). Others were situated at Thebes, Argos, Teos, Ptolemais, Cyprus, and in all parts of the Greek-speaking world. Now already in the fifth century traveling troupes had presented at the country festivals plays which had won popular acclaim in Athens. For economic reasons it was to the advantage both of the players who had to divide their emoluments and of the communities which hired them to make these traveling companies as small as possible and consequently to restrict their repertoire to plays capable of being performed by a minimum of actors. With the organization of guilds the presentation of dramas “in the provinces” or even at important festivals would be taken over by them; and the same economic causes as before would operate to restrict the number of players in a company. There is reason to believe that a normal troupe in the time of the technitae consisted of three actors.[282] Inscriptions for the Soteric festival at Delphi for the years 272-269 B.C. inclusive contain the names of ten companies of tragic actors and twelve of comic actors. These performers belonged to the Athenian guild and in every case there are three names to a company. There is no reason to doubt that this number was customary also in the wandering troupes of the pre-technitae period. Some maintain that already in the fifth century a fourth actor was called a parachoregema, as being an extra burden upon the choregus (cf. [p. 182], above). But Professor Rees has made it seem very probable that the term took its rise in the time of the technitae. For in later usage choregein (χορηγεῖν) in most cases no longer meant “to defray the expense of the chorus,” “to act as choregus,” but simply “to furnish” without any reference to the choregic system at all. Parachoregema, therefore, would signify “that which is furnished in supplement,” “an extra.” In other words, if the officials of a city contracted with the union for one or more troupes for a dramatic festival they would be provided with three-actor companies; but if they desired to witness some four-actor play or to avoid the infelicities arising from the splitting or ill-assorted doubling of rôles (see [pp. 191 f.], below) they might at extra expense secure a parachoregema in the form of a fourth actor and so gratify their wishes. According to either interpretation, therefore, the term may refer, inter alia, to a fourth actor, but there is a wide difference as to the theory of the circumstances and situation which produced this meaning.

Since our extant plays belong exclusively to the fifth and fourth centuries, the size of the troupes furnished by the guilds could have exerted no influence upon them. But it is quite possible that the dramatists of later times deliberately adapted their technique to the needs of subsequent presentation by such companies. For example, the number of characters who can have a speaking part in a dialogue naturally cannot exceed the number of actors at the poet’s disposal. Whatever may have been the situation previously, in the technitae period this would be three. Therefore if the technitae did not give rise to, they at least fixed the so-called aesthetic law that if a fourth character is present at a conversation between three others he must keep silent. This rule is expressed by Horace[283] in the words: “Let no fourth character strive to speak,” and it is often mentioned by writers of the Alexandrian and Roman periods. The scholiasts belong to this time and their comments frequently reveal an attempt to foist the aesthetic law upon the fifth-century dramas. The difficulty which the fifth-century writers encountered in mastering even the three-part dialogue (see [p. 170]) lends to such an attempt a misleading facility. In tragedy the normal restriction of actors to three makes the task especially easy, but even here the law is only superficially observed. For the coryphaeus often participates so freely in a conversation between actors (see [pp. 164 f.] and [169 f.], above) that only by courtesy can it be called a three-part dialogue. In Seneca’s Roman tragedies, on the contrary, the coryphaeus never speaks if more than one actor is present.[284] Now Professor Rees would trace the aesthetic law back to fifth-century times, but Dr. Kaffenberger (op. cit., pp. 22 f.) rightly demurs. He points out that in Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, vss. 1099-1555, Oedipus, Antigone, and Ismene are continuously present but that Ismene says never a word. What is the cause of this silence? During vss. 1099-1210 and vss. 1500-1555 Theseus is also present and during vss. 1249-1446 Polynices is present. In these scenes, therefore, it is possible to explain Ismene’s silence on the basis of the aesthetic law. But during vss. 1447-99 Oedipus and his two daughters are left alone, and Ismene still remains silent. Consequently the aesthetic explanation breaks down at this point and we must stand by our earlier conclusion (see [pp. 181 f.], above) that throughout these scenes Ismene is impersonated by a mute. Moreover, since Oedipus forbids his daughters sharing his final moments with him, why does the poet not let him take leave of them on the stage instead of resorting to a messenger’s narrative (cf. vss. 1611 ff.)? The answer is obvious. In such a situation Ismene simply must have spoken and this a mute could not have done for her. Moreover, there is no aesthetic reason why the law should not be as binding in comedy as in tragedy. Nevertheless, fifth-century comedies indisputably violated it and possibly fourth-century comedies did also (see [pp. 171-73], above). Therefore, if tragedy was more scrupulous it must have been because its actors were less numerous. But in truth it was not until the period of the technitae and their three-actor troupes that a hard-and-fast rule was established. Notwithstanding, the grammarians as a result of their closet study of Attic drama seized upon the observance of the law in fifth-century tragedy and usually in New Comedy, which was greatly influenced by Euripides, as a justification for tracing the practice back to an earlier origin. Except in one scene Seneca always observed the law.[285] But when Plautus and Terence attempted to transplant New Comedy to Italian soil, they encountered a difficulty. It was the use of masks which enabled the Greek playwrights to shift their actors from one rôle to another with lightning speed. But masks are said not to have been employed on the Roman stage until the next century. Therefore, even if the Greek comedies had been translated without modification it would have been quite impossible to present them at Rome with only three or four (maskless) actors. Accordingly, Plautus and Terence seem to have employed five or six performers and occasionally even more, and then proceeded to make further use of them so as to gratify the Roman desire for spectacular effects. By combining Greek plays into one Latin version (by “contaminating” them, to use the technical term) and by altering them freely they produced many scenes in which four or five persons participate in the same dialogue.

The fact that women’s parts in Elizabethan drama were played by boys has been used to explain the fondness of Elizabethan heroines for masquerading in masculine attire. Now the Greek theater, likewise, knew no actresses—all parts, regardless of sex, were presented by men. Can any effect of this practice be traced in the extant plays? In the first place Greek drama also was not unacquainted with the spectacle of masculine performers impersonating women who were disguised as men; cf. the rôle of Mnesilochus in Aristophanes’ Women at the Thesmophoria, and the chorus and several characters in the same author’s Women in Council. But in the Greek theater this occurrence was too rare to be significant. Secondly, it has frequently been observed that the heroines of Greek tragedy are as a rule lacking in feminine tenderness and diffidence and are prone to such masculine traits as boldness, initiative, and self-reliance. On the other hand the women who have speaking parts in comedy are usually either impaired in reputation or disagreeable in character—courtesans, ravished maidens, shrews, scolds, jealous wives, intriguing mothers-in-law, etc.[286] Now these facts are doubtless the resultant of many factors. For example, tragedy has little direct use for the modest violet type of woman, and the sharp demarcation between dramatic genres (see [p. 201], below) tended to prevent their indirect employment in scenes meant merely to relieve the tragic intensity of the main plot. Likewise, social conditions must have had a great deal to do with the exclusion of women of unblemished reputation and attractive years from the comic stage (see [pp. 277-79], below). Nevertheless when all is said I consider it quite possible that the representation of women by men actors was partially responsible for such a choice and for the delineation of female rôles. At least male performers must have found such types of women much easier to impersonate. Finally, if children were represented only in pantomime and their words spoken by a grown actor from behind the scenes (see [pp. 179 f.], above) we can understand why girls never have a speaking part and one reason why the words put in boys’ mouths are often too old for them. A competent critic has declared: “Euripides’ children do not sing what is appropriate to children in the circumstances supposed but what the poet felt for the children and for the situations. In particular the song of the boy over the dead body of his mother in the Alcestis is one of his grossest errors in delineation.”[287] This situation, also, is capable of several explanations, but who will deny that the practice of having children’s parts declaimed by adults belongs among them?

In France the court compelled actors to furnish amusement and the church damned them for complying. In Rome the actors were slaves or freedmen and belonged to the dregs of society. Only in Greece did no stigma rest upon the histrionic profession. As we have seen ([pp. 131 f.], above) the actors were active participants in a religious service and during the festival performances their persons were quasi-sacrosanct. As such, they were entitled to and received the highest respect, and their occupation was considered an honorable one. Consequently, they were often the confidants and associates of royalty and wielded no mean influence in the politics of their native lands. In particular as they traveled from court to court they often acted as intermediaries in diplomatic negotiations. Thus Aeschines, an ex-actor, was almost as influential in the Athenian faction which favored the Macedonians as was Demosthenes in that which opposed them. And though the latter in his speeches indulged in frequent sneers at Aeschines’ theatrical career, this was not on account of his profession per se but because Demosthenes claimed he had been a failure at it. Aeschines and Aristodemus, another actor, twice went as ambassadors from Athens to Philip, king of Macedonia, with whom the latter was persona gratissima. Thettalus was an especial favorite of Alexander the Great, who sent him as an emissary to arrange his marriage with a Carian satrap’s daughter. When Thettalus was defeated by Athenodorus at Tyre in 332 B.C. Alexander said that he would rather have lost a part of his kingdom than to have seen Thettalus defeated. These men were contemporaries of Aristotle, who declared in his Rhetoric that in his day actors counted for more in the dramatic contests than the poets.[288] The huge fees that they received are often mentioned. In view of all this it is not surprising that they arrogated to themselves many liberties. Aristotle states that Theodorus always insisted upon being the first actor to appear in a play, doubtless on a principle analagous to that which Mr. William Archer[289] mentions: “Where it is desired to give to one character a special prominence and predominance, it ought, if possible, to be the first figure on which the eye of the audience falls.... The solitary entrance of Richard III throws his figure into a relief which could by no other means have been attained.” This anecdote may mean merely that Theodorus assumed the rôle of the first character, however insignificant, in order to appear first upon the scene. But some have thought that he actually had the plays modified so that the character which he was to enact might appear first. Even upon the first hypothesis, however, slight alterations might sometimes have been necessary. For example, if he wished to impersonate Antigone in such a play as Euripides’ Phoenician Maids and if no passage were provided like vss. 88-102 to enable the actor to shift from Jocaste, who opens the tragedy, to Antigone (see [pp. 177 f.], above), then perhaps the simplest solution would have been to interpolate a few such lines for this purpose. But however this may have been in Theodorus’ case there can be little doubt that the actors did sometimes take such liberties with their dramatic vehicles. To correct this abuse Lycurgus, who was finance minister of Athens in the last third of the fourth century B.C. and “completed” the theater (see [p. 69], above), is said to have had state copies of old plays provided from which the actors were not allowed to deviate; and Lycon was fined ten talents, which Alexander paid, for having interpolated one line in a comedy.

Naturally most actors were peculiarly adapted to certain types of characters. Thus Nicostratus was most successful as a messenger, Theodorus in female rôles, etc. The interesting significance of the parts borne by Apollogenes, an actor of the third century, has only recently been recognized. At Argos he impersonated Heracles and Alexander, at Delphi, Heracles and Antaeus, at Dodona, Achilles, etc., in addition to winning a victory in boxing at Alexandria. Evidently this actor was a pugilist for whom rôles and plays were carefully chosen which would display his physique and strength to the best advantage. Now these special predilections and accomplishments of the actors, as well as their physical qualities, must often have run afoul of the constant doubling and the occasional splitting of rôles as required by the restricted number of players. Professor Rees makes good use of such points in arguing against the three-actor limitation in fifth-century tragedy.[290] But in such matters custom is all-important; we cannot be sure to what extent the Greeks were offended by infelicities of this nature. In my opinion such considerations are not strong enough to break down the arguments drawn from dramatic technique (see [pp. 173-82], above).

I ought not to conclude this chapter without a few words concerning the manner in which act divisions arose from the alternation of choral odes and histrionic passages in ancient drama. The earliest tragedies, such as Aeschylus’ Suppliants and Persians, began with the entrance song of the chorus, which is called the parodus. In later plays it was customary for one or more actors to appear before the choral parodus in a so-called prologue. The first instance of this which is known to us occurred in Phrynichus’ Phoenician Women (476 B.C.). After the parodus came an alternation of histrionic scenes (episodes) and choral odes (stasima), concluding with a histrionic exodus. These are nontechnical definitions and do not cover every variation from type, but they will suffice for present purposes. Thus Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound falls into the following divisions: prologue, vss. 1-127; parodus, vss. 128-92; first episode, vss. 193-396; first stasimon, vss. 397-435; second episode, vss. 436-525; second stasimon, vss. 526-60; third episode, vss. 561-886; third stasimon, vss. 887-906; exodus, vss. 907-1093. Though the number of stasima (and of episodes) was more usually three, as in this case, there was originally no hard-and-fast rule on the subject. In several plays there were four stasima and four episodes, and in Sophocles’ Antigone five of each. Therefore in a normal tragedy like the Prometheus the number of histrionic divisions would be five—prologue, three episodes, and exodus. In the early plays which had no prologue the histrionic divisions fell to four—three episodes and an exodus. In several of the later plays, on the other hand, they rose to six, and in the Antigone to seven. As the lack of connection between chorus and plot increased and the size and importance of choral odes diminished (see [pp. 126 f.], [136-49], and [168], above) there was the more excuse for ignoring the choral elements and for concentrating attention upon the histrionic divisions. The development of comedy led to similar results. The composition of an Old Comedy has already been discussed (see [pp. 40 f.], above). So long as the agon and the parabasis persisted, the structural differences between tragedy and comedy were unmistakable; but with the disappearance of these features early in the fourth century (see [pp. 42 f.], above) the assimilation of the two genres rapidly proceeded. Moreover, as the activity of the comic chorus was confined to entr’actes and as their entertainment became so foreign to the plot as no longer to be written in the manuscripts but merely to be indicated by ΧΟΡΟΥ (see [pp. 147 f.]), this tendency to ignore the choral element in favor of the histrionic became pronounced. Now the number of histrionic divisions in Old Comedy and in New Comedy was limited to five even less frequently than in tragedy. And in either literary genre there was no more reason for such a restriction, whether on historical or technical grounds, than there would be in modern drama. In every period such a detail depends, or ought to be left to depend, entirely upon the requirements of the story chosen for dramatic presentation. Nevertheless, since the histrionic divisions in tragedy were more usually five and since comedy fell more and more under the domination of tragedy, the rigid principle was at last set up for both tragedy and comedy that each play should contain five acts, no more, no less; cf. Horace’s pronunciamento: “Let a play neither fall short of nor extend beyond a fifth act.”

It should be observed, however, that our English word “act” conveys a misleading impression in this connection. The Greek word was simply “part” (μέρος) and denoted merely a division of the play as determined by choral divertissement, whether written or interpolated. These “parts,” therefore, depended upon the more or less accidental and haphazard activity of the chorus and often two or three of them would be required to make up an act in the modern sense. In other words the modern notion of an act as an integral part of the story, marking a definite stage in the unfolding of the plot, was for the most part yet to be developed, especially in comedy.