The history of the comic chorus is very similar. If we look at the extant plays of Aristophanes, we find that in the first nine, which were all produced in the fifth century, the chorus is an important and conspicuous element. But in the tenth, the Ecclesiazusae, which was brought out in 392, there is a great change. The parabasis has disappeared, and the functions of the chorus are mainly confined to the singing of three or four odes, of no great length. In the Plutus, produced in 388, the decline of the chorus is still more marked. It has only about forty lines assigned to it in the course of the dialogue; and in the pauses between the dialogue it sang interludes unconnected with the plot.[852] During the rest of the century the comic chorus seems to have still lingered on in a position similar to that which it holds in the Plutus. The grammarians who say that it was abolished entirely by the Middle Comedy apparently exaggerate the state of affairs.[853] There was still a comic chorus in the time of Aristotle.[854] Even in the New Comedy the earlier poets, such as Menander and Philemon, appear to have retained it in some of their plays, though merely for the purpose of providing interludes.[855] After the fourth century there are few traces of its presence. It is true that it was regularly used in the comedies at the Delphic Soteria during the third century.[856] It is mentioned in the accounts of the Hieropoioi at Delos in 279 B.C.[857] It is found also in one comedy of Plautus, the Rudens. But in Terence there are no signs of it. This fact, combined with the statement of the grammarians that the New Comedy had no chorus, makes it certain that after the third century it had practically disappeared.[858] § 2. _Size of the Chorus._