Though during his own time Euripides was hardly equal in repute to his two companions, scarcely had his Macedonian grave closed over him than his popularity began to overshadow theirs. Æschylus became a dim antique giant; Sophocles, though always admired, was too definitely Attic and Periclean to retain all his prestige in the Hellenistic world. It was the more cosmopolitan poet who won posthumous applause from one end of the civilized earth to the other. From 400 B.C. to the downfall of the ancient world he was unquestionably better known and admired than any other dramatist. This is shown by the much larger collection of his work which has survived, by the imitation of later playwrights, and by innumerable passages of citation, praise, and comment in writers of every kind. He shared with Homer, Vergil, and Horace the equivocal distinction of becoming a schoolbook even in ancient times. Nine of our nineteen plays were selected for this purpose: _Alcestis_, _Andromache_, _Hecuba_, _Hippolytus_, _Medea_, _Orestes_, _Phœnissæ_, _Rhesus_, and _Troades_. It is not easy to see what principle of selection prompted the educationists of the day: _Andromache_ and _Hippolytus_ do not strike a modern reader as specially “suitable”. Owing to their use in schools they were annotated; these _scholia_ are still extant and are often of great value. In the Byzantine age the number was reduced to three: _Hecuba_, _Orestes_, _Phœnissæ_. Among the numerous lesser tragedians of the fifth century five hold a distinguished place: Neophron of Sicyon, Aristarchus of Tegea, Ion of Chios, Achæus of Eretria, Agathon of Athens.