The main reason for the employment of a stage must have been to make the actors clearly visible to the audience, and to prevent the view of them being impeded by the chorus in the orchestra. A few feet of elevation would be sufficient to produce this result. Dörpfeld, it is true, denies that any such precaution was necessary. He denies that the actors, even without a stage, would have been hidden from view by the chorus.[528] But if we look at the plan of a Greek theatre, it is clear that if the actors were in the orchestra, and the chorus stood in front of them, the chorus must have obstructed the view of a great many of the spectators. In fact we have ancient testimony to that effect. The tragic chorus stood in three rows. We are told that the worst and most ungainly choristers (the ‘laurostatae’, as they were called) were placed in the middle row, because they were not clearly seen by the spectators.[529] But, however the chorus stood, there could only have been _one_ row between these ‘laurostatae’ and the audience. If, then, the actors had been in the orchestra, with _three_ rows of choristers in front of them, the obstruction to the view would obviously have been very much greater. And it is important to remember that the spectators who would have suffered most by this arrangement would have been the occupants of the lowest tiers of seats. Now these seats were reserved as seats of honour, and were confined to high officials and distinguished citizens. Hence, if Dörpfeld’s theory is correct, the distinction which the Athenians bestowed upon their leading citizens cannot have been one of very much value. The benches which they assigned to them must have been the worst seats for view in the whole theatre.[530]