one or two other poets are mentioned as having carried on choral tragedy
as set on foot by him, and as having introduced improvements into its
still predominating lyrical element. The step which made dramatic action
possible, and with which the Greek drama thus really began, was, as is
distinctly stated by Aristotle, taken by Aeschylus. He added a second
actor; and, by reducing the functions of the chorus, he further
established the dialogue as the principal part of tragedy. Sophocles
afterwards added a third actor, by which change the preponderance of the
dialogue was made complete.

Origin of comedy.

If the origin of Greek comedy is simpler in its nature than that of
Greek tragedy, the beginnings of its progress are involved in more
obscurity. Its association with religious worship was not initial; its
foundations lay in popular mirth, though religious festivals, and those
of the vintage god in particular, must from the first have been the most
obvious occasions for its exhibition. It is said to have been "invented"
by Susarion, a native of Doric Megaris, whose inhabitants were famed for
their coarse humour, which they communicated to their own and other
Dorian colonies in Sicily, to this day the home of vivacious mimic
dialogue. In the rural Bacchic vintage festivals bands of jolly
companions ([Greek: komos], properly a revel continued after supper)
went about in carts or afoot, carrying the phallic emblem, and indulging
in the ribald licence of wanton mirth. From the song sung in these
processions or at the Bacchic feasts, which combined the praise of the
god with gross personal ridicule, and was called _comus_ in a secondary
sense, the Bacchic reveller taking part in it was called a
_comus_-singer or _comoedus_. These phallic processions, which were
afterwards held in most Greek cities, and in Athens seem to have early
included a "topical" speech as well as a choral song, determined the
character of Old Attic comedy, whose most prominent feature was an
absolute licence of personal vilification.

The satyr-drama.

Tragi-comedy.

Thus independent of one another in their origin, Greek tragedy and
comedy never actually coalesced. The "satyr-drama," though in some sense
it partook of the nature of both, was in its origin as in its history
connected with tragedy alone, whose origin it directly recalled.
Pratinas of Philus, a contemporary of Aeschylus in his earlier days, is
said to have restored the tr