All the difficulties which this platform was invented to explain will disappear, if we assume that the stage of the fifth century was considerably lower than that of later times. It was only in the earlier period of the drama that a close communication between actors and chorus was required. In the subsequent epoch the existence of a lofty stage presents no difficulty. And the assumption of a low stage for the period of Aeschylus and his immediate successors is on general grounds the most natural one. We are told that originally, when the drama was still a lyrical performance, the coryphaeus used to mount upon a small table, in the intervals between the odes, in order to converse with the rest of the chorus. Later on, an actor was substituted for the coryphaeus. Later still, in the course of the fifth century, a second and a third actor were introduced. Now it is absurd to suppose that, while the coryphaeus was replaced in this tentative way by a gradually increasing number of actors, the old table on which he performed should have been suddenly converted into a complete Vitruvian stage, twelve feet high, and fifty feet long. It is much more natural to imagine that the development of the stage was also a slow and experimental process, and that in the fifth century its size was intermediate between the low table of the sixth century and the tall proscenium of later times. The few traces of archaeological evidence which we possess concerning the early stage are distinctly in favour of this view. It is also supported by the well-known description in Horace. Horace, in his account of the development of Greek tragedy, tells us that Aeschylus ‘erected a stage on beams of moderate size’.[458] Horace’s information, as we know, was derived from Greek sources. Hence it appears that the ordinary Greek tradition favoured the belief that the early stage was a low one, and that it contrasted in this respect with the stage of later times. § 13. _Dörpfeld’s Theory of the Greek Stage._