characters; in providing dresses for the chorus and the mute characters; and in supplying such exceptional scenery as the theatre did not possess. A choregus who was anxious for victory, and who was ready to spend money over the production of the play, would easily be put to very considerable expense. The defendant in one of the speeches of Lysias tells us that a tragic chorus cost him thirty minae, a comic chorus sixteen, a chorus of boys fifteen. It follows that a comic chorus was only about half as expensive as a tragic one, and cost about the same as a chorus of boys. On the other hand, a chorus of men at the City Dionysia cost fifty minae. These figures bear out the statement of Demosthenes, that a chorus of men was much more expensive than a tragic chorus. The chorus of men consisted of fifty members; and the payment of so large a number, together with the dresses and crowns which the choregi used to provide them with, would easily account for the expense. A tragic chorus consisted of only fifteen members, and yet it cost about twice as much as a comic chorus, which consisted of twenty-four. But we must remember that the tragic chorus had to perform in several plays, the comic chorus in only one. Also it does not appear to have been customary to spend very much money upon a comedy. In another speech of Lysias, a certain Aristophanes is said to have expended fifty minae over two tragic choruses. He was therefore rather more economical than the person mentioned above, who spent thirty minae over one.[257] It would be very interesting to be able to form some conception of the amount which these sums would represent at the present day. It appears that in the time of Aristophanes the daily wages for common and unskilled labour were three obols.[258] If we take as a modern equivalent the case of the agricultural labourer who gets ten shillings a week, or one shilling and eightpence per day, it follows that three obols in ancient Attica were equivalent to about one shilling and eightpence at the present time. If this calculation is anywhere near the mark, then a choregus who spent thirty minae on a tragic chorus would be spending a sum equivalent to about £500 of our money. The sixteen minae paid for a comic chorus would represent about £266. Comparisons of this kind are very conjectural; but they enable one to form some idea of the immense sums of money which must have been spent at Athens in the course of a single year upon dramatic and choral performances. There were eight dramatic and ten dithyrambic choruses at the City Dionysia. There were seven or eight dramatic choruses at the Lenaea. Besides this there were dithyrambic choruses at the Thargelia, Prometheia, and Hephaesteia; and dithyrambic and pyrrhic choruses at the Panathenaea. The expenses of all these choruses were drawn from a single small state, about the size of an English county, in which wealth was by no means abundant. It is easy