It remains to consider more in detail the three classes of ‘parachoregemata’[708]. The mute personages appeared most frequently in the shape of attendants, body-guards, crowds of people, and so on. The Oedipus Rex opens with a number of suppliants kneeling at the altar before the palace of the king. In the Choephori Orestes and Pylades are accompanied by attendants. The judgement scene in the Eumenides requires twelve performers to play the parts of the members of the Areopagus. In the Agamemnon, when the king and Cassandra arrive in the chariot, servants stand ready to spread carpets beneath their feet.[709] Probably in many other instances great personages were accompanied by attendants, although there is no special reference to them in the play. Not infrequently more prominent characters appeared upon the stage as mute figures. Pylades says nothing throughout the Electra of Sophocles and the Electra of Euripides. In the latter play one of the Dioscuri must also have been a dumb figure, since two actors were already upon the stage when the Dioscuri make their appearance. The person of Force in the Prometheus Vinctus is another example. A very frequent occasion for the employment of mute characters was in pathetic scenes between parents and their children. The children appear as silent figures, but give occasion for touching speeches by their parents. There is an example in the Ajax of Sophocles, where Ajax addresses his son Eurysaces. But the instances in Euripides are much more frequent. There is the celebrated scene in the Medea, where Medea half relents at the sight of her children. There is the address of Megara to her children in the Hercules Furens. Other examples are to be found in the introduction of Manto, the daughter of Teiresias, in the Phoenissae, and of Polymestor’s children in the Hecuba.[710] Mute figures were also very useful in occasionally personating one of the regular characters of the play, when the actor of the character was temporarily required for another purpose. It has already been pointed out that in the middle of the Oedipus Coloneus the part of Ismene is played by a dumb personage, to enable the previous actor of the part to appear in another character. In the final scene of Orestes, most of the prominent characters are brought upon the stage together, after the fashion of a modern drama. But only three of them can speak: Helen, Hermione, Electra, and Pylades are all mute figures. The silence of Pylades is especially unnatural. In cases of this kind an attempt is made to produce effects which were hardly compatible with the limited resources of Greek tragedy.