The Old Comedy was a creation of the wildest fancy, utterly unfettered by any limitations of fact or probability. The scene of the action in the plays shifts about from one place to another in the most irregular fashion. All considerations of time and space are disregarded. But it may be taken for certain that on the actual stage no attempt was made to represent these changes of scene in a realistic manner. The scenery was no doubt of the simplest and most unpretending character, corresponding to the economical manner in which comedies were put upon the stage. In all the extant plays of Aristophanes a single background would have been sufficient. For instance, in the Frogs the action takes place partly before the house of Hercules, partly in Hades before the house of Pluto. The background probably represented the houses standing side by side, or a single house may have done duty for that of Hercules and that of Pluto in turn. The opening scene of the Acharnians takes place in the Pnyx; the rest of the play is carried on before the houses of Dicaeopolis, Euripides, and Lamachus. Most likely the three houses stood in a row, the Pnyx being sufficiently represented by a few benches upon the stage. The fact that the house of Dicaeopolis was supposed to be sometimes in the town, and sometimes in the country, would be of very little moment in a performance like the Old Comedy, where the realities of existence were totally disregarded. In the Lysistrata the action is rapidly transferred from the front of a house to the front of the Acropolis. In the Thesmophoriazusae it takes place partly before a house, partly before the temple of Demeter. It is not necessary, in either of these plays, to suppose any change in the scenery. The house and the Acropolis in the one case, and the house and temple in the other, would be depicted as standing side by side. In the Knights the background throughout the play consisted of the house of Demos; and the Pnyx, as in the Acharnians, was represented by a few benches. As far then as the Old Comedy is concerned it is probable that changes of scenery in the course of a play were seldom or never resorted to. In the New Comedy, to judge from the adaptations of Plautus and Terence, they appear to have been equally infrequent.