chariot; then Iris re-ascends, while Lyssa goes on into the palace. In the Bellerophon the hero rode up to heaven on the winged steed Pegasus; and in the Andromeda Perseus flew down through the air to the foot of the cliff where the heroine was chained.[646] The mechane is also parodied in many places by Aristophanes. In the Clouds, Socrates is seen hanging in a basket in mid-air, and studying astronomy. Iris, in the Birds, comes floating down from the sky in such an irregular and eccentric fashion that Peisthetaerus has the greatest difficulty in bringing her to a standstill. In a fragment of the Daedalus the actor who is going to ascend entreats the man in charge of the machinery to give him warning, before he begins to haul up the rope, by exclaiming ‘hail, light of the sun’. The ascent of Trygaeus upon a beetle in the Peace was intended as a parody upon the Bellerophon of Euripides. The speech of Trygaeus, in the course of his aerial journey, consists of a ludicrous mixture of phrases from the Bellerophon, shouts to the beetle to keep his head straight, and terrified appeals to the stage-manager to look after the security of the pulley.[647] In addition to the mechane there was also another appliance in use upon the Greek stage for the purpose of exhibiting gods in a supernatural manner. It was called the theologeion, and represented the gods as stationary in heaven, and not as moving through the air. It consisted, apparently, of a narrow platform in the upper part of the back-scene.[648] Probably it was similar in construction to the ekkyklema, and was usually invisible, but was pushed forward through an opening at the back when required. It has been suggested that the theologeion was in reality nothing more than the palace roof. But this theory is hardly a plausible one. When the gods were to be exhibited in celestial splendour in the sky, it would have been undignified and incongruous to place them on the roof of a human habitation. Also the position of the theologeion is expressly described as being high up above the stage.[649] As regards its usage, the only recorded instance is that in the Psychostasia of Aeschylus. Zeus was there represented as sitting in heaven, holding scales in his hands, in which were placed the destinies of Achilles and Memnon respectively. On each side of him stood Thetis and Dawn, supplicating for the lives of their sons. The scene was in imitation of that in the Iliad, where Zeus weighs the fates of Achilles and Hector.[650] It is probable that the theologeion was also used in the Peace, in the scene where Trygaeus ascends to heaven, and converses with Hermes in front of the palace of Zeus.[651]