ly introduced into Attica at a very early
period; the _Iliad_, we know, was chanted at the Brauronia, a rural
festival of Bacchus, whose worship had early entered Attica, and was
cherished among its rustic population. Meanwhile the cyclic chorus of
the Dorians had found its way into Attica and Athens, ever since the
Athenians had recognized the authority of the great centre of the
Apolline religion at Delphi. From the second half of the 6th century
onwards the chorus of satyrs formed a leading feature of the great
festival of Dionysus at Athens. It therefore only remained for the
rhapsodic and the cyclic--in other words, for the epic and the
choral--elements to coalesce; and this must have been brought about by a
union of the two accompaniments of religious worship in the festive
rites of Bacchus, and by the domestication of these rites in the ruling
city. This occurred in the time of Peisistratus, perhaps after his
restoration in 554. To Thespis (534), said to have been a contemporary
of the tyrant and a native of an Attic deme (Icaria), the invention of
tragedy is accordingly ascribed. Whether his name be that of an actual
person or not, his claim to be regarded as the inventor of tragedy is
founded on the statement that he introduced an actor ([Greek:
hypokrites], originally, "answerer"), doubtless, at first, generally the
poet himself, who, instead of merely alternating his recitations with
the songs of the chorus, addressed his speech to its leader--the
_coryphaeus_--with whom he thus carried on a species of "dialogue." Or,
in other words, the leader of the chorus (_coryphaeus_), instead of
addressing himself to the chorus, held converse with the actor. The
chorus stood round its leader in front of the Bacchic altar
(_thymel[=e]_); the actor stood with the _coryphaeus_, who had occupied
a more elevated position in order to be visible above his fellows, on a
rude table, or possibly on a cart, though the wagon of Thespis may be a
fiction, due to a confusion between his table and the wagon of Susarion.
In any case, we have here, with the beginnings of dialogue, the
beginning of the stage. It is a significant minor invention ascribed to
Thespis, that he disguised the actor's face first by means of a pigment,
afterwards by a mask. In the dialogue was treated some myth relating to
Bacchus, or to some other deity or hero. Whether or not Thespis actually
wrote tragedies (and there seems no reason to doubt it), Phrynichus and