These entertainments were of two kinds. There were the dramatic contests, in tragedy, comedy, and satyric drama; and there were the lyrical contests, at which dithyrambs were performed.[34] The dithyramb was a hymn in honour of Dionysus, sung to the accompaniment of the flute by a chorus of fifty members. The chorus stood in a circular form round the altar, and was therefore called a ‘cyclic’ chorus. At the City Dionysia there were two of these lyrical contests, one between five choruses of boys, and the other between five choruses of men.[35] The first contest of men took place in B.C. 509-508, in the Archonship of Lysagoras, though the system of choregia was probably not introduced till a few years later.[36] Each chorus was provided by one of the ten Attic tribes. Hence all ten tribes took part in one or other of the two competitions.[37] The contest was essentially a tribal one. The members of each chorus, together with the choregus, were selected exclusively from the tribe which they represented.[38] The victory of the chorus was a victory for the tribe. The prize of victory, the tripod, though given to the choregus, and erected in some public place at his expense, was regarded as equally the property of the tribe.[39] In the records of dithyrambic competitions the name of the victorious tribe was always placed in the most prominent position. The dramatic contests, on the other hand, had no connexion with the tribes. Actors, choruses, and choregi were chosen indiscriminately from the whole population.[40] The performers competed in their own interest solely, and not as representatives of any other body. The records of dramatic victories give merely the names of the choregus, the poet, and the principal actor.[41] It is important to keep this difference between the two kinds of contest clearly in view, since many mistakes have been caused by attributing to the dramatic kind features which belong exclusively to the dithyrambic. § 4. _Tragedy at the City Dionysia._