The emotions that are enhanced by representation before a crowd are typically such as are best felt by the crowd together, such as are communal.[2] Greek drama began, according to tradition, in the rites celebrated by the whole village to honor Dionysus, the god of fertility and enthusiasm. In the shouting, singing chorus there were at first no actors in the modern sense; but that was because in a broader sense all were actors. There was rude, impromptu mimic action. There was probably a good deal of improvised verse by individuals, and probably a good deal of recurring refrain by the whole crowd. Out of this communal impersonation of the story of Dionysus grew very naturally individual impersonations of the god and of his more prominent mythical attendants, the crowd responding with impromptu variations of the familiar refrain. Every crowd produces a leader. The leader of the Greek chorus became an actor in the modern sense of taking, a fixed part. In time other fixed parts were assigned to individuals, till the mimic action had a definite dialogue; but the chorus persisted as representative of the whole community. Then, as always, came the individual genius to discern the capacity of what had grown up among the people, to reveal and enlarge that capacity, and to fix a great form of art. The shaping of drama by Æschylus and its development by Sophocles and by Euripides expressed, indeed, individual genius; but no less they expressed the ideals of the Greek race and remained answerable to the original popular impulse. The Greek audience during the great period of drama felt not only that the chorus chanting in the orchestra was its representative, but that it was itself as a body assisting at a communal celebration. Always the enacting of legend or history known to every spectator by heart, the drama was always judged sternly not only by its poetic beauty, but by its faithfulness to communal beliefs and feelings. Its success was measured by the feeling of the community. So the great open-air Greek theater was made for the community. It superseded the unfurnished hillside as the community passed more and more from participants to spectators; but it remained, to a degree rarely realized in modern times, communal. For Greek tragedy, even at its height, never lost its reminiscences of ritual. Every representation being an act of religion, the theater crowd, united by a common rite, was the more sensitive to common sympathies. That the theater is for the crowd, not for the individual, has been realized by playwrights of every age; but the first great age of drama opened this peculiar opportunity of dramaturgy widest because its crowd was unified. The communal sense of tradition was focused by religion. (2). _Diction_