Only one fact is known about POLYIDUS “the sophist,” but that is sufficiently impressive. Aristotle twice[88] takes the Recognition-scene in his _Iphigenia_ as an example, and in the second instance actually compares the work of Polyidus with one of Euripides’ most wonderful successes—the Recognition-scene in the _Iphigenia in Tauris_. It appears that as Orestes was led away to slaughter he exclaimed: “Ah! So I was fated, like my sister, to be sacrificed.” This catches the attention of Iphigenia and saves his life. Polyidus here undoubtedly executed a brilliant _coup de théâtre_. During the fourth century many tragedians wrote not for public performance but for readers. Of these ἀναγνωστικοί[89] the most celebrated was CHÆREMON, of whom sufficient fragments and notices survive to give a distinct literary portrait. Comic poets ridiculed his preciosity: he called water “river’s body,” ivy “the year’s child,” and loved word-play: πρὶν γὰρ φρονεῖν εὖ καταφρονεῖν ἐπίστασαι.[90] But though a sophisticated attention to style led him into such frigid mannerisms, he can express ideas with a brief Euripidean cogency: perhaps nothing outside the work of the great masters was more often quoted in antiquity than his dictum “Human life is luck, not discretion”—τύχη τὰ θνητῶν πράγματ’, οὐκ εὐβουλία. The only technical peculiarity attributed to him is the play _Centaur_, if play it was. Athenæus calls it a “drama in many metres,”[91] while Aristotle[92] uses the word “rhapsody,” implying epic quality. It may be that the epic or narrative manner was used side by side with the dramatic in the manner of Bunyan. Here is another proof that by the time of Euripides tragedy had really attained its full development. Attempts at new departures in technique are all abortive after his day.