efinements
of by-play must, from the nature of the case, have been impossible on
the Attic stage; the gesticulation must have been broad and massive; the
movement slow, and the grouping hard, in tragedy; and the weighty
sameness of the recitation must have had an effect even more solemn and
less varied than the half-chant which still lingers on the modern stage.
Not more than three actors, as has been seen, appeared in any Attic
tragedy. The actors were provided by the poet; perhaps the performer of
the first parts (_protagonist_) was paid by the state. It was again a
result of the religious origin of Attic dramatic performances and of the
public importance attached to them, that the actor's profession was held
in high esteem. These artists were as a matter of course free Athenian
citizens, often the dramatists themselves, and at times were employed in
other branches of the public service. In later days, when tragedy had
migrated to Alexandria, and when theatrical entertainments had spread
over all the Hellenic world, the art of acting seems to have reached an
unprecedented height, and to have taken an extraordinary hold of the
public mind. Synods, or companies, of Dionysian artists abounded, who
were in possession of various privileges, and in one instance at least
(at Pergamum) of rich endowments. The most important of these was the
Ionic company, established first in Teos, and afterwards in Lebedos,
near Colophon, which is said to have lasted longer than many a famous
state. We likewise hear of strolling companies performing _in partibus_.
Thus it came to pass that the vitality of some of the masterpieces of
the Greek drama is without a parallel in theatrical history; while Greek
actors were undoubtedly among the principal and most effective agents of
the spread of literary culture through a great part of the known world.

Writers on the theory of the drama.

The theory and technical system of the drama exercised the critical
powers both of dramatists, such as Sophocles, and of the greatest among
Greek philosophers. If Plato touched the subject incidentally, Aristotle
has in his _Poetics_ (after 334) included an exposition of it, which,
mutilated as it is, has formed the basis of all later systematic
inquiries. The specialities of Greek tragic dramaturgy refer above all
to the chorus; its general laws are those of the regular drama of all
times. The theories of Aristotle and other earlier writers were
elaborated