His whole person would hardly have become visible until he reached the lowest step. For a tragic actor to make his entrance in this way would have been far from dignified. Also, in plays like the Hippolytus and the Alcestis, when a sick woman on a couch had to be carried out, it would have been extremely awkward to have to carry her down a flight of steps as steep as those at Megalopolis. The ekkyklema would, of course, have been quite impossible to work. Again, it seems certain that the supposed ‘scaena ductilis’ would itself be quite unworkable. Is it likely that a huge painted board, more than a hundred feet long and more than twenty-five feet high, was pulled out in front of the Thersilion to serve as a back-scene? The ‘scaena ductilis’ (cf. Serv. ad Verg. Georg. iii. 24), which Dörpfeld thinks was such as has been described, was not a contrivance of this sort, but was a small affair, a variety of the ‘scaena versilis’ or periaktos; it was drawn _apart_, to disclose a new scene behind, and was not drawn across the stage. Moreover, the construction of ancient theatres, even of those with side-wings, shows that there was no room and no opportunity for the hauling to and fro of huge boards such as Dörpfeld imagines. It is true that much remains obscure in regard to the theatre at Megalopolis; but this solution at least is out of the question.[502] Although, therefore, the Skanotheka at Megalopolis may very likely have been used for the storage of scenery, it is clear that this scenery, when used, cannot have been put up in the place which Dörpfeld suggests. Another argument against the ordinary theory is based by Dörpfeld on the remains of the theatre at Delos (Fig. 12). We have shown that at Delos the proscenium was continued, though in a different form, round the sides and back of the stage-buildings.[503] Dörpfeld argues that it cannot have been a stage, as it would be absurd to erect a stage all round the stage-buildings.[504] If this is so, we might reply that it cannot have been a background either, since it would be equally absurd to construct a background in the same position. But as a matter of fact there is nothing in the arrangement at Delos which conflicts in any way with the ordinary opinion about the Greek stage. The erection at the sides and the back of the stage-buildings, though of the same height as the erection in front, was different in structure, and formed an open portico. The erection in front was like the usual Hellenistic proscenium, and must have been designed for the same purpose. If the proscenium in other theatres was intended for a stage, it must have been intended for a stage at Delos.