shall see later on, may have been worked by mechanism similar to that of the ekkyklema. Examples of the use of the mechane are fairly common both in the extant dramas and in the records of the grammarians. At the same time there is often a doubt, when a personage makes his appearance on high, whether he was exhibited by means of this device or in some other way. For the present, therefore, we will confine ourselves to those cases where the person is described as moving through the air, and where it seems clear that, if any machinery was employed, it must have been the mechane. The earliest instance is probably that in the Prometheus. Oceanus descends on a ‘winged quadruped’, converses some time with Prometheus, and then rides away again, saying as he goes that his steed yearns to ‘skim with its wings the smooth paths of air’. We are told also that in the Psychostasia, the lost play of Aeschylus, the body of Memnon was carried by Dawn into the sky.[641] Both these instances have been doubted, but merely on general grounds, and without adequate reason. But there are two other supposed examples in Aeschylus which are far more open to question. There is the scene in the Eumenides where Athene arrives from Troas, and where it is thought that she descends from the sky. The language, however, in which she describes her journey is ambiguous and full of difficulty. In three successive lines she appears to say that she has walked, flown, and driven in a chariot.[642] It would be unsafe in a case like this to draw any inference as to the exact manner in which she made her entrance on to the stage. There is also the scene in the Prometheus where the Oceanides enter in a ‘winged car’, halt in front of Prometheus for about a hundred and fifty lines, and then, at his bidding, dismount from their ‘swift-rushing seat’ and descend into the orchestra.[643] Here, too, the mechane has been suggested. But it is scarcely credible that a whole tragic chorus should have been suspended in front of Prometheus during the delivery of a hundred and fifty lines. Even if the machinery had been strong enough to support twelve or fifteen choristers, the spectacle would have been ludicrous.[644] It is much better to suppose that the car was rolled in along the stage, its previous flight being left to the imagination of the spectators. After the time of Aeschylus there are many instances of the use of the mechane. Euripides often employs it to wind up his plays. At the end of the Andromache Thetis comes into view ‘voyaging through the bright air’. At the end of the Electra the Dioscuri arrive by a ‘path impossible to mortals’, and depart later on ‘through the regions of the sky’. Medea’s appearance with her children in the aerial car may be safely regarded as a further example, though there is no mention in this case of any ascent or descent.[645] The device is also introduced in other parts of a play. In the Hercules Furens Iris and Lyssa come down from heaven in a