As regards the origin of the actor’s costume which we have been describing nothing is known from tradition. But Körte has a very plausible conjecture on the subject.[775] He points out that in the early Attic representations of Bacchic scenes there are no traces of figures resembling those of the old comic actors. The followers of Dionysus consist of Sileni and (later on) of satyrs. On the other hand, in the numerous Bacchic vases found at Corinth there are no satyrs and Sileni; their place is taken by a group of curious beings who resemble the old comic actors in these two respects—the phallus and the exaggerated bulk of the lower part of the body. These figures have no generic name; but their individual names are inserted on one of the vases, and show that they were not human beings, but creatures of the goblin type.[776] Similar figures are also found in vases from the Kabeirion at Thebes, but in this case they appear as burlesque actors taking part in Bacchic festivities.[777] Körte suggests that these goblin followers of Dionysus were the prototype of the actors in the Old Comedy; that it was in the neighbourhood of Corinth that they were first transformed into performers of farce and burlesque; and that this species of comedy, together with the ludicrous garb of the actors, then spread over various other parts of Greece, such as Athens, Thebes, and Magna Graecia. That the old Attic comedy was largely indebted to that of the northern Peloponnese is shown by various traditions; and the debt may very well have consisted in the introduction of these farcical comedians, and their combination with the old Attic choruses. If this theory is correct—and there is much to be said in its favour—it points to a curious antithesis between the early history of tragedy and comedy. The satyrs and the Corinthian goblins were both of them semi-human votaries of Dionysus, and both of them played an important part in the development of the drama. But while the satyrs became the chorus of tragedy, the goblins changed into the actors of the comic stage.