to have competed frequently with plays of Eubulus.[204] Aphareus, the rhetorician and tragic poet of the fourth century, though he exhibited in eight contests, never brought out a play in his own name.[205] In these and similar cases it is difficult to suggest any other motive than love of ease. As regards the relationship between the poet and the friend who produced his plays for him, there are one or two points which deserve notice. It was the nominal poet who applied to the archon, received the chorus, and undertook the whole responsibility. At the same time the name of the real poet was often quite well known. Of course, if secrecy was an object, this would not be so. When a father wrote plays for his son, or a needy author sold plays to a literary aspirant, the real authorship must have been concealed, at any rate for a time. But in other cases it seems to have been an open secret from the first. Aristophanes, in the Knights, says that many people had been asking him why he gave his plays to Callistratus instead of applying for a chorus in person.[206] In the Wasps, which is generally supposed not to have been brought out by himself, he refers to the author of the play in terms only applicable to himself.[207] Here, then, there was no attempt at concealment. At the same time the nominal author must have been the one officially recognized by the state. It must have been he who received the rewards of victory, and whose name was stated as victor in the public records. It is true that in the records which have been preserved the practice is to give the name of the real author, and to add as a note that the play was actually brought out by such and such a person. But this can hardly have been the original form of the entry. It must be due to the corrections of the grammarians who collected and edited the notices. § 2. _The Choregi._