In the distribution of parts the protagonist took the principal character. The parts of Oedipus, Electra, and Antigone, in the plays of the same name by Sophocles, are specially mentioned as having been acted by celebrated protagonists. Orestes in the play of Euripides is also described as the part of the protagonist.[700] Usually, as in the above instances, the chief personage gave the name to the piece. But this was not always the case. In the Oenomaus of Sophocles the part of Oenomaus was played by the tritagonist Aeschines. In the Cresphontes of Euripides the principal character was Merope, and was taken by Theodorus. The part of Cresphontes fell to Aeschines as tritagonist.[701] In the Agamemnon of Aeschylus most likely the protagonist played the part of Clytaemnestra, as this is certainly the most impressive character in the play, though not the one with which the spectators are in sympathy. The protagonist had also to take his share of the subordinate characters when he could be spared. It has already been mentioned that in the Phoenissae of Euripides the protagonist appeared in the part of Antigone as well as in that of Jocasta. At times he took even the smallest characters if the necessities of the play demanded it. Plutarch states that the protagonist, in the part of a messenger or an attendant, often gained more applause than the actor who bore the sceptre and the crown.[702] It was, in fact, the chief advantage of the Greek system that even the subordinate characters were played with as much excellence as the more important ones. The tritagonist took what in modern times would be called the ‘heavy’ parts. It was his special privilege, as Demosthenes remarks, to play the tyrant and the sceptred monarch.[703] Aeschines, in his career as tritagonist, often had to act gloomy tyrants of this kind, such as Creon, Cresphontes, and Oenomaus. Such characters did not require great powers in the actor. There was no pathos to be excited, no play of conflicting emotions to be exhibited. All that was necessary was a powerful voice, and a capacity for declaiming verses. Most likely for the same reason the tritagonist usually spoke the prologues, which also did not require much more in the actor than good powers of elocution. Thus the ghost of Polydorus, which speaks the prologue in the Hecuba of Euripides, was acted by Aeschines as tritagonist.[704] The deuteragonist took the parts which, in point of interest, were intermediate between the leading characters and the heavy parts which fell to the tritagonist. There are not, however, any traditions as to particular characters having been played by the deuteragonist. Attempts have been made in modern times to assign the characters in the extant Greek dramas to the protagonist, deuteragonist, and tritagonist respectively.[705] Such speculations are interesting, in so far as they show that all the existing plays could be perfectly well performed by three actors. Otherwise they are not of very