rom which it gradually
declined to the rise of the Roman Drama.

Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were the three great tragic poets;
and from the works of these three illustrious writers, and from them
alone, we must draw all our knowledge of the ancient Greek Tragedy.

Comedy, like Tragedy, owes its origin to the union of music, song,
dance, and Pantomime; Tragedy to the dithyrambick, and Comedy to the
phallica; and each of them (emulating Pantomime), began to form
themselves into dramatic imitations; each studied to adopt a measure
suited to their purpose:--Tragedy, the more lofty, chose the tetrameter;
and comedy, which aimed at familiarity, the iambic. But, as the style of
tragedy improved, Nature herself, says Aristotle, directed the writers
to abandon the capering tetrameter, and to embrace that measure which
was most accommodated to the purposes of dialogue; whence the iambic
became the common measure of both Tragedy and Comedy.

Sophocles brought on a third actor, which number was not exceeded in the
Greek tragedies during the same scene. Horace alludes to this, "_nec
quarta loqui persona laboret_," (Let not a fourth person strive to
speak): but it was not observed in comedy. Players of second parts were
obliged to speak so low as not to drown the voice of the chief actor.
Tyrants were always played by subalterns. The women were only dancers
(and Pantomimists). Female parts were performed by eunuchs.

On the Grecian stage, those performers who devoted themselves entirely
to the Art of Miming originally came from Sicily and southern Italy,
though the exact period is difficult to determine with any degree of
certainty.

The figures of tragic or comic actors were known by the long and strait
sleeves which they wore. The servants in comedy, below the dress with
strait sleeves, had a short cassock with half-sleeves. That the
characters might be distinguished (a difficulty in this respect arising
from the size of the theatres) parasites carried a short truncheon; the
rural deities, shepherds, and peasants, the crook; heralds and
ambassadors, the _caduceus_; kings, a long, straight sceptre; heroes, a
club, etc. The tunic of tragic actors descended to the heels, and was
called _palla_. They generally carried a long staff or an erect sceptre.
They who represented old men, leaned upon a long and crooked staff.

The first Greek theatre at Athens (says Fosbroke, in his "Antiquities,")
was a temporary structure of b