[42] Marm. Par. ep. 43 ἀφ’ οὗ Θέσπις ὁ ποιητὴς [ἐφάνη], πρῶτος ὃς ἐδίδαξε [δρ]ᾶ[μα ἐν ἄ]στ[ει, καὶ ἐ]τέθη ὁ [τ]ράγος [ἆθλον], ἔτη.... The date is mutilated, but must have fallen between 542 and 520, the preceding and subsequent epochs. Suidas s.v. Θέσπις (ἐδίδαξε δὲ ἐπὶ τῆς πρώτης καὶ ξʹ ὀλυμπιάδος) doubtless refers to the same contest, which may therefore be assigned to B.C. 536-5. [43] [Capps (The Introduction of Comedy into the City Dionysia) renders it highly probable that choregia was not introduced until about B.C. 502.] [44] Suidas s.v. Χοιρίλος. The same lexicon, s.v. Πρατίνας, says that Pratinas composed fifty plays, of which thirty-two were satyric: but it is unsafe to draw inferences from this as to relative proportion of satyric plays and tragedies in these early days, since the numbers may refer merely to the plays which happened to be preserved in the time of the grammarians. [45] Suidas s.v. Πρατίνας. [46] Arg. Aesch. Persae. [47] Arg. Aesch. Sept. c. Theb. [48] Arg. Aesch. Agam. [49] Args. Eur. Alcest., Med., Hippol. [50] Aelian Var. Hist. ii. 8; Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 67. [51] Athen. Pol. c. 56; C. I. A. ii. 972, 973, 975. [52] Cp. Diog. Laërt. iii. 56. Θρασύλλος δέ φησι καὶ κατὰ τὴν τραγικὴν τετραλογίαν ἐκδοῦναι αὐτὸν (sc. τὸν Πλάτωνα) τοὺς διαλόγους, οἷον ἐκεῖνοι τέτρασι δράμασιν ἠγωνίζοντο, Διονυσίοις, Ληναίοις, Παναθηναίοις, Χύτροις, ὧν τὸ τέταρτον ἦν σατυρικόν· τὰ δὲ τέτταρα δράματα ἐκαλεῖτο τετραλογία. Thrasyllus was a philosopher of the time of Tiberius. The passage οἷον ... τετραλογία is probably an explanatory interpolation by Diogenes himself. The statement that the four plays of a tetralogy were performed at four different festivals is absurd in itself, and abundantly disproved by inscriptions and other evidence (e.g. Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 67). [53] Plut. Pericl. p. 154 E. [54] Plut. l.c.; Id. X orat. 839 D διδασκαλίας ἀστικὰς καθῆκεν ἓξ ... καὶ ἑτέρας δύο Ληναϊκάς; Anthol. Pal. vii. 37 ἡ δ’ ἐνὶ χερσὶν | κούριμος, ἐκ ποίης ἥδε διδασκαλίης; [55] That the word τετραλογία was applied only to a group of four plays connected in subject is proved by the statement of Suidas (s.v. Σοφοκλῆς) that Sophocles abandoned the practice of exhibiting ‘tetralogies’, though we know that he exhibited four plays at a time; and also by the application of the word by Greek writers to the Oresteia of Aeschylus (Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 1155), the Pandionis of Philocles (Schol. Aristoph. Av. 282), the Lycurgeia of Aeschylus (Schol. Aristoph. Thesm. 135), and the Lycurgeia of Polyphradmon (Arg. Aesch. Sept. c. Theb.). All these were groups of plays on a single subject.