ALCESTIS, first represented 438 B.C. MEDEA, ” 431 ” HIPPOL’YTUS, ” 428 ” HECUBA, ” 423 ” HERACLI’DÆ, ” 421 ” THE SUPPLIANTS. ION. THE RAGING HERCULES. ANDROMACHE. THE TROJAN WOMEN, 415 B.C.: pathetic by reason of the plaints of the captive women. ELECTRA, first represented 413 B.C. HELEN, ” 412 ” IPHIGENI’A AT TAURIS. ORESTES, 408 B.C.: demoralizing in its portraiture of crime. THE PHŒNICIAN WOMEN. THE FEMALE BACCHANALIANS: produced at the Macedonian court. IPHIGENIA AT AULIS: not acted till after the author’s death. CYCLOPS: a satyric drama (chorus of satyrs). =Lost Tragedies.=—Dramatic literature has sustained an irreparable loss, not only in the missing plays of the three great masters, but also in those numberless works of their contemporaries and occasionally successful competitors now buried in oblivion. From the allusions of two or three Greek authors, a few meagre particulars may be gleaned, now of one, now of another—but they only serve to make us more painfully conscious of our loss. =Greek Comedy.=—Comedy was older than tragedy in Greece. Thirty years before the time of Thespis, Susa’rion of Meg’ara, in his burlesque exhibitions, improved somewhat on the extempore jests and village-songs of the Bacchic revellers, and hence has been called the inventor of comedy. Susarion was no great lover of the fair sex, if we may judge by an ungallant sentiment of his which has been preserved: “Woman is a curse, but we cannot conduct our household affairs without this curse; therefore to marry is an evil, and not to marry is an evil.” Perhaps he had taken to wife a Xantippe. The poet Epicharmus, also of Megara, but the Sicilian city of that name, first committed his effusions to writing; he was the author of thirty-five comedies, some of them on subjects not mythological. The development of comedy, however, was interrupted. The Tragic Muse enforced her claims at the expense of her elder sister, and the latter was for a season neglected. But the flourishing era of republican Athens, when the poet was free to lash whom he chose, saw comedy restored to the favor of the satire-loving people. It may be said to have been perfected by Aristophanes. He not only ridiculed the follies and vices of the day, laid bare family secrets on the stage, and edified his audiences by caricaturing the rich and great with masks and costumes which reproduced their peculiarities, but fearlessly assailed the government. When all others shrunk from playing so dangerous a rôle, he himself performed the part of the insolent demagogue Cleon (originally a leather-dresser), whom he mercilessly “cut into sandal-strips” in his “Knights.”