in a ring round the altar of Dionysus. Hence such choruses were termed _cyclic_ (κύκλιοι χοροί). With the introduction of a regular choral character, Arion also substituted the cithara for the flute. It was from the dithyramb that the Attic tragedy was developed. For details see TRAGOEDIA. From the time of Sophocles onwards the regular number of the chorus in a tragedy was 15; but it is impossible to arrive at any definite conclusion with regard to the number of the chorus in the early dramas of Aeschylus. The fact that the number of the dithyrambic chorus was 50, and that the mythological number of the Oceanides and Danaides was the same, tempts one to suppose that the chorus in the Prometheus and the Supplices consisted of 50. Most writers, however, agree in thinking that such a number was too large to have been employed. The later chorus of 15 was arranged in a quadrangular form (τετράγωνος). It entered the theatre by the passage to the right of the spectators. [THEATRUM.] Its entrance was termed πάροδος; its leaving the stage in the course of the play μετάστασις; its re-entrance ἐπιπάροδος; its exit ἄφοδος. As it entered in three lines, with the spectators on its left, the stage on its right, the middle choreutes of the left row (τρίτος ἀριστέρου) was the Coryphaeus or Hegemon, who in early times at least was not unfrequently the choregus himself. Of course the positions first taken up by the choreutae were only retained till they commenced their evolutions. To guide them in these, lines were marked upon the boards with which the orchestra was floored. The flute as well as the cithara was used as an accompaniment to the choric songs. The dance of the tragic chorus was called ἐμμέλεια.--The ordinary number of the chorus in a comedy was 24. Like the tragic chorus it was arranged in a quadrangular form, and entered the orchestra from opposite sides, according as it was supposed to come from the city or from the country. It consisted sometimes half of male and half of female choreutae. The dance of the comic chorus was the κόρδαξ. In the Satyric drama the chorus consisted of Satyrs: its number is quite uncertain. Its dance was called σίκιννις. When a poet intended to bring forward a play, he had to apply for a chorus (χορὸν αἰτεῖν) to the archons, to the king archon if the play was to be brought forward at the Lenaea, to the archon eponymus if at the great Dionysia. If the play were thought to deserve it, he received a chorus (χορὸν λαμβάνειν), the expenses of which were borne by a choregus. [CHOREGUS.] The poet then either trained (διδάσκειν) the chorus himself, or entrusted that business to a professed chorus trainer (χοροδιδάσκαλος), who usually had an assistant (ὑποδιδάσκαλος). For training the chorus in its evolutions there was also an ὀρχηστοδιδάσκαλος.