No doubt for one of the great dramatic writers such a position was regarded as a disgrace. When Aristophanes was third it is spoken of as a distinct rebuff.[160] But to obtain the second place was always creditable. It is mentioned as a proof of the greatness of Sophocles that he ‘obtained twenty victories and was often second’. When he was defeated for the first place by Philocles, the disgrace consisted, not in his being second, but in his being beaten by such an inferior poet.[161] At the same time to be second was never regarded as a ‘victory’. The title of victor was reserved for the first poet. This is proved by the passage about Sophocles just quoted, and also by the fact that in the list of victors at the City Dionysia only the names of the first poets in the tragic and comic contests are enumerated.[162] It is clearly owing to an error that the second poet is sometimes spoken of as a victor.[163] § 11. _Contests between actors._ In addition to the rewards just mentioned, prizes for acting were instituted in later times. At first the principal competitors in the dramatic contests were the choregus and the poet. Upon their efforts the success of a play mainly depended. It was to them that the rewards of victory were assigned, and it was their names which were recorded in the public monuments. But as time went on the profession of the actor gradually increased in importance. Eventually the success of a play came to depend principally upon the actors. The competition was extended to them. A prize was offered for the most successful actor as well as for the most successful poet. The name of the victorious actors began to be recorded in the official lists. As regards the date of these innovations the following facts may be gathered from existing monuments. At the City Dionysia contests between tragic actors were established for the first time about the year 446 B.C.[164] Contests between comic actors at this festival are not mentioned in the inscriptional records of performances during the fifth and fourth centuries.[165] In the second century they seem to have become a regular institution, but nothing certain can be ascertained concerning the intervening period.[166] At the Lenaea, contests between tragic actors can be traced back as far as 420 B.C.,[167] and contests between comic actors as far as about 289 with certainty,[168] and considerably earlier with fair probability.[169]