One remarkable exception to the general practice demands notice. In the Life of Aeschylus it is said that the Athenians felt such an admiration for him, that they passed a decree after his death that any one who offered to exhibit his plays should receive a chorus from the archon. This does not mean that his plays were to be performed as a mere isolated exhibition, apart from the regular contests, but that any person might be allowed to compete at the ordinary tragic contests with plays of Aeschylus instead of new plays of his own. If any one offered to do so, the archon was bound to give him a chorus. He would then take his place as one of the three competing poets; but while his rivals exhibited new and original tragedies, he would confine himself to reproducing tragedies of Aeschylus. Probably the men who undertook these revivals were in most cases celebrated actors. In this way the plays of Aeschylus were often brought into competition with the plays of later writers, and appear to have been generally successful. Philostratus refers to the custom.[288] He says that the Athenians invited Aeschylus after his death to the festivals of Dionysus, and that his plays were acted over again, and were victorious a second time. This passage makes it quite clear that the tragedies of Aeschylus were exhibited in the ordinary contests, and not as a separate performance by themselves. There is a reference in the beginning of the Acharnians to a competition of this kind. Dicaeopolis had come to the theatre to see the tragic contests.[289] He was expecting that the performance would commence with plays of Aeschylus; but to his disgust the frigid Theognis was the first to be called upon.[290] Here then is a picture of a contest in which the tragic poet Theognis was opposed by a competitor who exhibited, not plays of his own, but plays of Aeschylus. It is to the practice of reproducing his plays after his death that Aeschylus alludes in the Frogs, when he remarks that his poetry has not died with him, like that of Euripides.[291] Quintilian refers to the same custom, though his language is not quite accurate. He says that the tragedies of Aeschylus were sublime, but rough and unfinished; and therefore the Athenians permitted subsequent poets to polish and revise them, and exhibit them at the competitions in their amended form; and in this way many of them won the prize.[292] This story, however, of the revision of the plays of Aeschylus by subsequent poets (as distinct from their corruption by actors) is not otherwise supported.[293]