Next, the dramatic value of the chorus steadily went down. In our earliest tragedy, the Æschylean _Supplices_, the chorus of Danaids is absolutely vital; they are the chief, almost the sole, interest. In other works of the same poet their importance is certainly less, but still very great; everywhere they are deeply interested in the fate of the chief persons—Xerxes, Eteocles, Prometheus, Agamemnon, Orestes; the chorus of the _Eumenides_ is even more closely attached to the plot. In Sophocles a certain change is to be felt. The connexion between chorus and plot is of much the same quality as in the five plays just mentioned, but the emotional tie and (still more) the tie of self-interest are weaker. The chorus of Greek seamen in _Philoctetes_ are (in the abstract) as deeply concerned in the issue as the Oceanids in _Prometheus_, but most readers would probably agree that they show it less; we can “think away” the chorus more easily from the _Philoctetes_. In all the other six Sophoclean dramas the interest of the chorus in the action is about the same as in the _Philoctetes_—strong but scarcely vital. Euripides’ work shows more variety. _Alcestis_, _Heracleidæ_, _Hecuba_, _Ion_, _Troades_, _Iphigenia in Tauris_, _Helen_, and _Rhesus_ all possess choruses which are _prima-facie_ Sophoclean in this regard, though their language tends to show less personal concern. In other dramas, _Medea_, _Hippolytus_, _Andromache_, _Electra_, _Phœnissæ_, _Orestes_, _Iphigenia at Aulis_, the chorus is simply a company of spectators. Thirdly, in two plays, _Supplices_ and _Bacchæ_, the importance of the chorus is thoroughly Æschylean. In Euripides, then, there is found on the whole a weakening in the dramatic value of the chorus: in some instances the singers are little more than random visitors. In the fourth century Aristotle protests against this: “the chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be an integral part of the whole, and share in the action, in the manner not of Euripides but of Sophocles”.[193] A precisely similar change operated in the length of the ode. The lyrics of Æschylus’ _Supplices_ form more than half the work, those of _Orestes_ only one-ninth. Even at the end of Æschylus’ career we find in the _Agamemnon_ odes magnificent, elaborate, and lengthy. Sophocles composed shorter songs which were still closely germane to the plot. But in Euripides there frequently occur lyrics whose connexion with the plot is slight, sometimes difficult to make out. Agathon carried this still further: his odes are mere interludes, quite outside the plot.[194]