Another objection of Dörpfeld’s is that in the existing proscenia there is no trace of any means of communication between the stage and the orchestra.[499] But we have shown that such communication was seldom required at this time, owing to the insignificance of the chorus; and that, when it was wanted, it was supplied by temporary wooden steps. Dörpfeld replies that, if the stage was thirteen feet high, the steps must have been so large as to project a long way into the orchestra, and produce an unsightly appearance. But this result could have been avoided without difficulty. Where the stage was exceptionally lofty, the steps might have been placed in a parallel line to it. At Tralles, where there is a proscenium of the Graeco-Roman type, and nearly ten feet high, such steps are actually found, lying parallel to the stage, and on each side of the door which leads out from the front wall of the stage into the orchestra.[500] A similar arrangement might easily have been adopted, when necessary, in the Hellenistic theatres. In support of his theory Dörpfeld brings forward an argument based on the theatre at Megalopolis (Fig. 11). We have already described the peculiar construction of this theatre, in which the Thersilion took the place of the ordinary stage-buildings. In front of the Thersilion, and twenty-four feet distant from it, is the foundation-wall of a wooden proscenium. This proscenium, however, appears to have been of later date than the original theatre. Dörpfeld supposes that, before its erection, the actors performed their parts immediately in front of the Thersilion, and on the level of the orchestra. He bases his belief on the following grounds. The façade of the Thersilion rested on a flight of five steps, each about thirteen inches high. To one side of the Thersilion was a building, apparently called the Skanotheka, and probably used for storing the scenic decorations. In this building are the remains of a low wall, running in the same straight line as the bottom of the flight of steps, and about the same length as the stage must have been. Dörpfeld supposes that this wall was used, in the original state of the theatre, for working a ‘scaena ductilis’. He supposes that, when dramas were to be performed, a wooden scene-painting was pushed out along this wall immediately in front of the lowest step of the Thersilion, and served as a background. The actors in front of it must have been on the floor of the orchestra.[501] But this arrangement appears to be impossible. If the back-scene had been placed in the position he supposes, immediately in front of the steep flight of steps, the representation of dramas would have been little short of ridiculous. The actor entering from the back-scene would have had to come down these steps to reach the threshold of the door. At first little more than his legs would have been seen, at any rate by the spectators in the upper part of the theatre.