The fifteen choristers usually entered through the _parodos_, marching like soldiers.[195] Drawn up in ranks upon the orchestra, they followed the action with their backs to the audience but faced about when they sang. Their work fell into two parts, the odes sung between the episodes, and participation in the episodes. The entrance-song was called the _parodos_ or “entrance,” and was written in anapæstic rhythm, suitable for marching. If so, it was chanted in recitative; lyrics were sung. Songs between episodes were called _stasima_. This means “stationary songs,” not because the singers stood still but because they had taken up their station in the orchestra. As they left at the end they sang an _exodos_ or “exit” in anapæsts. Besides these, there were occasional _hyporchemes_ (ὑπορχήματα, “dances”), short, lively songs expressing sudden joy. All lyrics were rendered by both song and dance. Singing was generally executed by all the choreutæ, but some passages were divided between them. The most frequent division was into two semi-choruses (ἡμιχόρια), but now and then individuals sang a few words. Incidental iambic lines were spoken by one person, and the short anapæstic system which at the end of the lyric often announces the approach of an actor was no doubt assigned to the _coryphæus_, or chorus-leader alone. Dancing was also an essential feature, but both Greeks and Romans meant more by dancing than do we, or than we did before the rise of “Salome” performances. It was in fact a mimetic display, giving by the rhythmic manipulation of all the limbs an imitation of the emotions expressed, or the events described, by the song. The whole company, moreover, went through certain evolutions over the surface of the orchestra. When they sang the _strophe_[196] they moved in one direction, back again for the _antistrophe_,[196] and perhaps stood still when there was an _epode_.[196] But nothing is known as to details here. The centre of all the dancing was the coryphæus (κορυφαῖος, “top man”), the leader of the chorus; when two semi-choruses acted separately each had its leader. As was natural, choric dancing flourished mightily in the early days, and went down with lyrical performance in general. Thus Phrynichus congratulated himself on having devised “as many figures of the dance as are the billows on the sea under a dread night of storm”. Æschylus too was a brilliant ballet-master. But Plato, the comic playwright, at the end of the same century grumbles[197] amusingly:— There was something to watch when the dancing was good, But now there’s no acting to mention— Just a paralysed row of inflexible singers, Who howl as they stand at attention.