The “stage-buildings,” as we have called them for convenience, require a longer discussion. Originally there stood in that place only a tent, called _scēnē_ (σκηνή), which took no part in the theatrical illusion, but was used by the one actor simply as a dressing-room. Soon, no doubt, came the important advance of employing it as “scenery”—the tent of Agamemnon before Troy, for example. Later a wooden booth was erected, and Sophocles’ invention of scene-painting—that is, of concealing this booth with canvas to represent whatever place or building was needed—added enormously to the playwright’s resources. This booth was afterwards built of stone and became more and more elaborate; Roman “stage-buildings” survive which are admirable pieces of dignified architecture. The building of course contained dressing-rooms and property-rooms. There were doors at the narrow ends. The front of the building was pierced by three, later by five, doors. Upon what did these doors open? Was there a stage in the Greek theatre? This problem has aroused more discussion than any other in Greek scholarship save the “Homeric Question”. That all theatres possessed a stage (λογεῖον) in Roman times is certain; the Athenian building—which in its present condition dates from the alterations made by Phædrus in the third century after Christ—shows quite obviously the front wall of a stage about 4½ feet high. But did the dramatists of the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ write for a theatre with a stage or not? There is a good deal of _prima-facie_ evidence for a stage, and a good deal to show that the actors moved to and fro on that segment of the orchestra nearest to the booth. That is, the question lies between acting on top of the proscenium (or decorated wall joining the faces of the _parascenia_ G, G) and acting in front of it. A brief _résumé_[151] of the evidence is all that can be attempted here. It is confined to the consideration of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., to which belongs practically all the extant work. For the period after 300 B.C. the use of a stage seems indisputable. A. ARGUMENTS FOR A STAGE