Et docuit magnumque loqui, nitique cothurno.”—
The custom of contending with trilogies (τριλογίαι), or with three plays at a time, is said to have been also introduced by him. In fact he did so much for tragedy, and so completely built it up to its “towering height,” that he was considered the father of it. The subjects of his dramas were not connected with the worship of Dionysus; but rather with the great cycle of Hellenic legends and some of the myths of the Homeric Epos. Accordingly, he said of himself that his dramas were but scraps and fragments from the great feasts of Homer. In the latter part of his life Aeschylus made use of one of the improvements of Sophocles, namely the τριταγωνιστής, or third actor. This was the finishing stroke to the dramatic element of Attic tragedy, which Sophocles is said to have matured by further improvements in costume and scene-painting. Under him tragedy appears with less of sublimity and sternness than in the hands of Aeschylus, but with more of calm grandeur and quiet dignity and touching incident. The plays of Sophocles are the perfection of the Grecian tragic drama, as a work of art and poetic composition in a thoroughly chastened and classic style. In the hands of Euripides tragedy deteriorated not only in dignity, but also in its moral and religious significance. He introduces his heroes in rags and tatters, and busies them with petty affairs, and makes them speak the language of every-day life. As Sophocles said of him, he represented men not as they ought to be, but as they are, without any ideal greatness or poetic character. His dialogues too were little else than the rhetorical and forensic language of his day cleverly put into verse: full of sophistry and quibbling distinctions. One of the peculiarities of his tragedies was the πρόλογος, an introductory monologue, with which some hero or god opens the play, telling who he is, what is the state of affairs, and what has happened up to the time of his address, so as to put the audience in possession of every fact which it might be necessary for them to know: a very business-like proceeding no doubt, but a poor make-shift for artistical skill. The “Deus ex machina,” also, though not always, in a “nodus, tali vindice dignus,” was frequently employed by Euripides to effect the dénoûment of his pieces. The chorus too no longer discharged its proper and high functions either as a representative of the feelings of unprejudiced observers, or, as one of the actors, and a part of the whole, joining in the development of the piece. Many of his choral odes in fact are but remotely connected in subject with the action of the play. Another novelty of Euripides was the use of the monodies or lyrical songs, in which not the chorus, but the principal persons of the drama, declare their emotions and sufferings. Euripides was also the inventor of tragi-comedy. A specimen of the Euripidean tragi-comedy is still extant in the Alcestis, acted B.C. 438, as the last of four pieces, and therefore as a substitute for a Satyrical drama. Though tragic in its form and some of its scenes, it has a mixture of comic and satyric characters (e.g. Hercules) and concludes happily.—The parts which constitute a Greek tragedy, as to its form, are, the prologue, episode, exode, and choral songs; the last divided into the parode and stasimon. The πρόλογος is all that part of a tragedy which precedes the parodos of the chorus, i.e. the first act. The ἐπεισόδιον is all the part between whole choral odes. The ἔξοδος that part which has no choral ode after it. Of the choral part the πάροδος is the first speech of the whole chorus (not broken up into parts): the stasimon is without anapaests and trochees. These two divisions were sung by all the choreutae, but the “songs on the stage” and the κόμμοι by a part only. The commus, which properly means a wailing for the dead, was generally used to express strong excitement, or lively sympathy with grief and suffering, especially by Aeschylus. It was common to the actors and a portion only of the chorus. Again the πάροδος was so named as being the passage-song of the chorus sung while it was advancing to its proper place in the orchestra, and therefore in anapaestic or marching verse: the στάσιμον, as being chaunted by the chorus when standing still in its proper position.—The materials of Greek tragedy were the national mythology,
“Presenting Thebes, or Pelop’s line,
Or the tale of Troy divine.”
The exceptions to this were the two historical tragedies, the “Capture of Miletus” by Phrynichus, and the “Persians” of Aeschylus; but they belong to an early period of the art. Hence the plot and story of the Grecian tragedy were of necessity known to the spectators, a circumstance which strongly distinguishes the ancient tragedy from the modern.—The functions of the Chorus in Greek Tragedy were very important, as described by Horace (Ar. Poet. 193),
“Actoris partes chorus officiumque virile
Defendat: neu quid medios intercinat actus,
Quod non proposito conducat, et haereat apte,” &c.
It often expresses the reflections of a dispassionate and right-minded spectator, and inculcates the lessons of morality and resignation to the will of heaven, taught by the occurrence of the piece in which it is engaged. With respect to the number of the chorus see [Chorus].—(2) Roman. The tragedy of the Romans was borrowed from the Greek, but the construction of the Roman theatre afforded no appropriate place for the chorus, which was therefore obliged to appear on the stage, instead of in the orchestra. The first tragic poet and actor at Rome was Livius Andronicus, a Greek by birth, who began to exhibit in B.C. 240. In his monodies (or the lyrical parts sung, not by a chorus, but by one person), it was customary to separate the singing from the mimetic dancing, leaving the latter only to the actor, while the singing was performed by a boy placed near the flute-player (ante tibicinem); so that the dialogue only (diverbia) was left to be spoken by the actors. Livius Andronicus was followed by Naevius, Ennius, Pacuvius, and Attius. These five poets belong to the earlier epoch of Roman tragedy, in which little was written but translations and imitations of the Greek, with occasional insertions of original matter. How they imitated the structure of the choral odes is doubtful—perhaps they never attempted it. In the age of Augustus the writing of tragedies, whether original or imitations, seems to have been quite a fashionable occupation. The emperor himself attempted an Ajax, but did not succeed. One of the principal tragedians of this epoch was Asinius Pollio, to whom the line (Virg. Eclog. viii. 10) applies—
“Sola Sophocleo tua carmina digna cothurno.”