agic chorus to the satyrs; i.e. he first
produced dramas in which, though they were the same in form and theme as
the tragedies, the choric dances were different and entirely carried on
by satyrs. The tragic poets, while never writing comedies, henceforth
also composed satyr-dramas; but neither tragedies nor satyr-dramas were
ever written by the comic poets, and it was in conjunction with
tragedies only that the satyr-dramas were performed. The theory of the
Platonic Socrates, that the same man ought to be the best tragic and the
best comic poet, was among the Greeks never exemplified in practice. The
so-called "hilaro-tragedy" or "tragi-comedy" of later writers, perhaps
in some of its features in a measure anticipated by Euripides,[55] in
form nowise differed from tragedy; it merely contained a comic element
in its characters, and invariably had a happy ending. It is an
instructive fact that the serious and sentimental element in the comedy
of Menander and his contemporaries did far more to destroy the
essential difference between the two great branches of the Greek
dramatic art.

_Periods of Greek Tragedy._--The history of Greek--which to all intents
and purposes remained Attic--tragedy divides itself into three periods.

I. _The Period before Aeschylus_ (535-499).--From this we have but a few
names of authors and plays--those of the former being (besides Thespis)
Choerilus, Phrynichus and Pratinas, all of whom lived to contend with
Aeschylus for the tragic prize. To each of them certain innovations are
ascribed--for instance the introduction of female characters to
Phrynichus. He is best remembered by the overpowering effect said to
have been created by his _Capture of Miletus_, in which the chorus
consisted of the wives of the Phoenician sailors in the service of the
Great King.

II. _The Classical Period of Attic Tragedy_--that of Aeschylus,
Sophocles and Euripides, and their contemporaries (499-405). To this
belong all the really important phases in the progress of Greek tragedy,
which severally connect themselves with the names of its three great
masters. They may be regarded as the representatives of successive
generations of Attic history and life, though of course in these, as in
the progress of their art itself, there is an unbroken continuity.

Aeschylus.

Aeschylus (525-456) had not only fought both at Marathon and at Salamis
against those Persians whose rout he celebrated with patriotic
price,[56