The enthusiasm of the Athenians for the drama was unbounded. Nowhere was the theatre more crowded. In the words of one of the old historians, they ‘spent the public revenues on their festivals, were more familiar with the stage than with the camp, and paid more regard to verse-makers than to generals’.[1076] The speeches of Demosthenes are full of complaints in the same strain. The eagerness with which dramatic victories were coveted, and the elaborate monuments erected to commemorate them, have already been referred to in a previous chapter. It was not, however, till the middle of the fourth century that the devotion to this and similar amusements grew to such a height as to become a positive vice, and to sap the military energies of the people. The Athenians of the fifth century showed that enthusiasm for art and music and the drama was not inconsistent with energy of character. As a matter of fact the very greatest period of the Attic drama is also the period of the political supremacy of Athens. As far as intelligence and discrimination are concerned, the Athenian audiences were probably superior to any audience of the same size which has ever been brought together. Their keen and rapid intellect was a subject of frequent praise among the ancients, and was ascribed to the exhilarating influence of the Attic climate.[1077] They were especially distinguished for the refinement of their taste in matters of art and literature, and for the soberness of judgement with which they rejected any sort of florid exuberance. That they were keenly alive to the attractions of beauty of form and chastened simplicity of style is proved by the fact that Sophocles was by far the most successful of their tragic poets. Though Euripides became more popular among the later Greeks, Sophocles in his own life-time obtained far more victories than any other tragic writer.[1078] At the same time it is easy to form an exaggerated idea of the refinement of an Attic audience. They were drawn from all classes of the people, and a large proportion were ignorant and uncultured. Plato speaks in the most disparaging terms of them, and charges them with having corrupted the dramatic poets, and brought them down to their own level.[1079] His evidence is perhaps rather prejudiced. But Aristotle, who had much greater faith in popular judgement, is not very complimentary. He divides the theatrical audience into two classes, the refined and cultured class on the one hand, and the mass of rough and ignorant artisans on the other. One of his objections to the profession of an actor or musician is that he must accommodate himself to the level of the ignorant part of his audience.[1080] He mentions examples in the Poetics of the low level of popular taste, from which it appears that the average spectator in ancient times was, like his modern counterpart, fond of ‘happy terminations’. He cared little for the artistic requirements of the composition; his desire was to see