The above mentioned three performers, had their distinct lines of duty, as we to-day have upon the stage, actors for each kind of character, but the distinction was carried to great height on the ancient stage, for the first actor always came on the stage from the right entrance, the second from the left, and the third from the centre. The stage of the Athenian theatre was very wide but not deep, and the scenery was very simple; sometimes the house of the chief character was represented, sometimes the tent of a hero, but oftenest the entrance of a palace, before which the entire action of some dramas could take place. They were always exterior views, and no scenes of the interior parts of a dwelling were ever used. The whole active life of the Greek was passed in the open air, so that it seemed more natural to him to represent his characters as living similarly. The female characters were often personated by boys. There were many expedients to make the following of the action of the play easier to the spectators, in such a vast space; programmes they had not, opera glasses did not exist, so certain formulae took the place of both; when standing on the stage of the Athenian theatre, and facing the audience, the harbor and city of Athens were on the left hand, and Attica on the right; a person entering from the right hand, was therefore presumed to be a stranger who had come over land; and from the left as coming from the city. The stage also possessed some mechanical effects, such as chariots descending from the skies, birds or even immense beetles soaring aloft carrying persons with them, forms arising from the deep, thunder, lightning, etc. The chorus was an immense help to the audience in following the events of the piece, and we must now describe this characteristic part of Greek tragedy. The dramatic chorus probably appeared first as Satyrs, the natural attendants of the jolly god Dionysius, in the plays of Thespis, and were then numerous and ill disciplined. Æchylus lessened the part of the chorus in his tragedies, and they no longer sang an unceasing duet with the Protagonist, for the addition of a second actor, made dialogues possible without their assistance. The number of _Choryeutes_ (chorus players) in Æchylus’s tragedies was twelve; Sophocles, and Euripides had usually fifteen. In the tragedy of the “Eumenides” there was a special chorus of fifty members; these were apparelled as the hideous furies of that name, all in black, with angry countenances, snakes twining in their hair, and blood dripping from their eyes; and suddenly these frightful apparitions appeared on the stage: the effect was terrible, women shrieked, and fell in convulsions, and several children died of fright. This event proves that the stage effects were rather realistic in those days. The chorus was felt as an inconvenience by Euripides, who yet could not break the shackles of custom sufficiently to do away with it.