Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/17

large enough to contain the whole free population (all of whom made a point of attending), and a great concourse of visitors besides. The representations were, primarily, not a mere public entertainment, but part of a great national religious function, the worship of Bacchus. Hence they were confined to the few days of his festival in the month of March, and were under the control of the state, by which also their expenses were defrayed. A poet who wished his plays^[1] to be performed had to submit them to a board presided over by the Archon^[2] of the year. Here he found himself, at the outset, in competition with rival poets, since only a limited number of plays could be represented at each year's festival. To each of the poets whose work was approved for representation the Archon "assigned a chorus," an expression which covered the provision of all requisites for staging his plays. The chorus was composed of fifteen professional singers and dancers. The cost of the instruction of these by skilled teachers, of their salaries and dresses, of their maintenance during the period of their training and performance, the expense of the musicians and supernumeraries, were defrayed, not directly from the state treasury, but, according to the peculiar system of taxation by which the Athenians exploited their millionaires, by one of the wealthy men on whom such burdens devolved in rotation, and who was called the Choregus. The actors, who were not more than three in number,^[3] and who therefore had