And yet we have Alexis of the Middle Comedy writing for the stage thirty years after the first exhibitions of Philippides and Philemon. Alexis then, whose works were the standard and example of the Middle Comedy, was for thirty years contemporary with Philippides, Philemon, Menander, and Diphilus, writers of the New Comedy.

"Neither are the terms middle and new always very carefully applied. Aristotle recognises only two species of Comedy, the old and the new. Nicostratus, the contemporary of Eubulus and Araros, and accounted by some the son of Aristophanes, (which determines his age,) is reckoned by Harpocratio among the writers of the New Comedy. It is to be noted, however, that although the poets of the Middle Comedy are often called of the new, yet the poets of the New Comedy, properly so termed, could never be called poets of the Middle Comedy. We must, therefore, suppose that Alexis, although a great number of his dramas were written long after the New Comedy had arrived at its perfection, nevertheless continued to compose upon the model of the Middle Comedy."

Hence it may be seen how difficult it is to define any precise limits between these two divisions of Comedy, although ancient critics pretty generally admit a distinction between them. The law respecting the introduction upon the stage of any character by name, first gave rise to the Middle Comedy, and may be regarded as an interval of vacillation between the interdiction of the old and the establishment of a new comic form.

Kuster's translation of this law is, neminem expresso nomine lædi. In this sense the law is understood, and this seems the opinion generally received by critics of its date and meaning. Such an import, however, of the law, is by no means warranted by the extant remains of the Middle and New Comedy. That law, in the sense of Kuster, either never existed at all, or had fallen into disuse in the time of Anaxandrides, who ridicules Plato by name perhaps ten or twelve years after the supposed date of this law. (Olymp. 97. B. C. 392.) Alexis, at least, paid no attention to it, (if it existed through the times of the Middle Comedy,) when he satirized by name the same philosopher in four different dramas; nor did Anaxilas regard it, who in three Comedies names Plato. But in the time of the Middle Comedy, at whose rise democratia in oligarchiam mutata divites imperare cœperunt, the philosophers were ridiculed, and the chief men of the state protected:"-the opinion of Jonsius. The former, therefore, were attacked by name, but the poets, after the date of that law, abstained from public men. And yet Anaxandrides mentions Polyenctus by name; Antiphanes names Demosthenes; and Timocles, in a Comedy written towards the end of the reign of Alexander, ridi

cules by name five of the leading demagogues at once, in a passage which breathes the very spirit of the Old Comedy. The reader who opens Athenæus will see abundant evidence that the poets of the Middle and New Comedy laid themselves under little restraint in this respect.

This law, then, when limited to its proper sense, is by no means inconsistent with a great degree of Comic liberty, or with those animadversions upon eminent names with which we find the Comic Poets actually to abound. Comedy, therefore, although its form was changed, enjoyed the privilege of animadverting still upon public events and public men: and we find Isocrates in the midst of this period complaining of the license of Comedy.

Neither is the date of this law so clear to us. The testimony quoted by Petitus ascribes the proposition to one Antimachus. But another scholiast ascribes it to one Syracusius, B. C. 415. But as no such law could have existed so early, we must suppose the proposition of Syracusius, for that time at least, to have failed, and the poets to have chastised him for the attempt, although unsuccessful. If the account of Platonius is to have any weight, the enactment happened during the government of the Thirty: for that is the only period within these times, to which those descriptions could be applied-democratia in oligarchiam mutata, &c.—which would bring the date within the 94th Olympiad, B. C. 404.

ARAROS,

THE son of Aristophanes, was a writer of the Middle Comedy, and exhibited at the same period as his father. He seems to have been but an indifferent poet.

ANAXANDRIDES,

Or the Middle Comedy, flourished about Olymp. 101. According to Suidas, he laid the foundation for a vicious stage by the introduction of subjects revolting to decency. Athenæus relates of him, that those Comedies which did not gain the victory, he consigned over as waste paper to the perfumers, who had their shops in the forum, daining to withdraw and retouch them, as was usual with the other poets.

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ALEXIS,

Or the Middle Comedy, flourished about Olymp. 106. Suidas says he was the uncle of Menander, and composed 245 Comedies. The sportive sallies of Alexis obtained for him, with Athenæus, the title of "the graceful," and upwards of 120 of his Comedies are commemorated in that storehouse of lost literature. Alexis was still living in the time of Antigonus and Demetrius, Olymp. 118.

MENANDER,

A WRITER of the New Comedy, was born Olymp. 109, 3. He was the nephew of Alexis, who instructed him. His father, Diopithes, was commander of the Athenian forces on the Hellespont. He died Olymp. 122, 1. Menander exhibited his first Comedy Olymp. 114, being at that time in his 21st year. According to Suidas he wrote 108 Comedies, which are all, except one, enumerated by Meursius in Bibliotheca Attica.

THEATRE.

THE Theatre at Athens was at first a temporary building in the Forum, constructed of wooden planks.

This having given way during the representation of a play of Pratinus or of Eschylus, a more substantial one, built of stone, was erected at the south-east corner of the Acropolis. This Theatre was quite open above, and the plays were always represented in open day, and beneath the canopy of heaven. When overtaken by a storm or a shower, the representation of a piece suffered a temporary suspension, the spectators seeking shelter beneath the porticoes of the neighboring edifices. The Theatres of the ancients were, in comparison with the small scale of ours, of a colossal magnitude, partly for the sake of containing the whole of the people, with the concourse of strangers who flocked to the festivals; and partly to correspond with the majesty of the dramas represented in them, which required to be seen at a respectful distance.

It appears that the Theatre was filled four times a day, and was capable of containing thirty thousand spectators. According to Pollux, it was termed indifferently Dionysiacum Theatrum, and Lenaicum. The seats of the spectators consisted of steps, which rose backwards round the semicircle of the orchestra. The judges appointed by the Archon to decide upon the merits of the respective authors, usually occupied the first seat. The spectators testified their disapprobation by beating the seats with their heels. Women do not appear to have been excluded from witnessing the dramatic representations,-an opinion confirmed by the well-known story of the Eumenides of Eschylus.

That portion of the Theatre appropriated to the performances was divided into, 1. Scena, the whole stage; 2. Logion, in Latin pulpitum, that part where the actors stood; 3. Orchestra, a semicircular space before the Logion, and a little lower than it, on which was the Thymele, or Altar of Bacchus. 4. Hyposcenium or Conistra, the floor of which was on a level with the area of the Theatre, a space decorated with columns and statues. The usual place for the persons who spoke was in the middle of the Logion, behind which middle part the scene went inwards in a quadrangular form, with less depth, how

ever, than breadth. The space here comprehended was called Proscenium.

The place beneath the stage, which served perhaps, in some respects, the purposes of a modern Green-room, was termed Hyposcenium, and that above it Episcenium. The wings of the scenes were called Paracenia, corresponding perhaps to our Opera term slips.

The decoration was contrived in such a manner that the principal object in front covered the back ground, and the prospects of distance were given at the two sides; the very reverse of the mode adopted by us. The former was so arranged as to admit of being withdrawn, by opening in the middle, and disappearing at both sides; the latter were composed of triangles, which turned on an axis fastened underneath, and in this manner a change of scene was effected.

In the back wall of the scene there was a large main entrance, and two side entrances. It has been maintained, that from them it might be discovered whether an actor played a principal or under part; as in the first case he came in at the main entrance, and in the second at the side doors. But this should be understood with the distinction that it must have been regulated according to the nature of the piece. As the hindmost decoration was generally a palace, in which the principal characters of royal descent resided, they naturally came through the great door, while the servants resided in the wings. There were two other entrances; the one at the end of the Logion, from whence the inhabitants of the town came; the other underneath in the orchestra, which was the side for those who had to come from a distance. They ascended a staircase of the Logion, opposite to the orchestra, which could be applied to all sorts of purposes, according to circumstances. The entrance, therefore, with respect to the lateral decorations, declared the place from whence the players were supposed to come; and it might naturally happen that the principal characters were in a situation to avail themselves with propriety of the two last mentioned entrances. The situation of these entrances serves to explain many passages in the ancient dramas, where the persons standing in the middle see some one advancing long before he approaches them. Before the principal doorway was an altar, consecrated to Apollo or Bacchus, or perhaps to both.

The particular scenes and machinery employed on the Greek stage were numerous and complicated. Beneath the seats of the spectators a stair or ladder was somewhere constructed, which was called Charonic, and through which the shadows of the dead, without being perceived by the audience, ascended into the orchestra, and then, by the stair before mentioned, made their appearance on the stage. The rolling platform for their sea-gods, and a machine of, a semicircular