Foremost among the persons who had seats in the front rows were the priests and religious officers connected with the different divinities. That they should be distinguished in this manner was only in keeping with the essentially religious character of the ancient Greek drama. An inscription referring to the theatre at the Peiraeeus, and belonging to the third or fourth century B.C., mentions the priests specially by name as the most conspicuous members of the class who had the ‘proedria’.[1021] The inscriptions upon the seats in the theatre at Athens, which represent for the most part the arrangement that existed during the reign of Hadrian, place the matter in a very clear light. They enable us to determine the occupants of sixty out of sixty-seven seats in the front row; and it is found that of these sixty persons no less than fifty were priests, or ministers connected with religion. Similarly, in the rows immediately behind the front row, a large number of places were set apart for the different priests and priestesses.[1022] Such was the arrangement in the time of Hadrian, and there can be little doubt that it was much the same in its general character during the period of the Athenian democracy. Among state officials the nine archons and the ten generals had distinguished places in the theatre. In Hadrian’s time the archons occupied seats in the front row, and it is probable that this position was assigned to them from the earliest period.[1023] The generals were in some prominent part of the theatre, but the exact place is not known. The snob in Theophrastus was always anxious to sit as near to them as possible.[1024] Ambassadors from foreign states, as was previously pointed out, were generally provided with front seats, on the motion of some member of the Council. Demosthenes is taunted by Aeschines for the excessive politeness which he showed to Philip’s ambassadors on an occasion of this kind. The lessee of the theatre at the Peiraeeus, as appears from an inscription still extant, was ordered to provide the ambassadors from Colophon with reserved places at the Dionysia. The Spartan ambassadors were sitting in ‘a most distinguished part of the theatre’ when they considerately gave up a place to an old man for whom no one else would make room.[1025] The judges of the various contests sat together in a body, and would naturally be provided with one of the best places in the theatre.[1026] The orphan sons of men who had fallen in battle received from the state, in addition to other honours, the distinction of ‘proedria’. The same privilege was frequently conferred by decree upon great public benefactors, and was generally made hereditary in the family, descending by succession to the eldest male representative. An honour of this kind was bestowed upon Demosthenes.[1027]