In comedy the influences which tended to prevent the enacting of scenes of violence were partly nullified by the fact that one of the purposes of the comus and other fertility rites had been the expulsion of malign powers by violence, not only of language but also of conduct (see p. 37, above). Of course the comic playwrights rarely had occasion to treat of death or murder. But scenes of physical violence and horseplay, such as the lashes administered to Xanthias and Dionysus (at his own festival!) in Aristophanes’ _Frogs_, vss. 644 ff., are common. That most wonderful of Greek dramatic instruments, the chorus.—GILBERT MURRAY. A really great artist can always transform the limitations of his art into valuable qualities.—OSCAR WILDE. CHAPTER II THE INFLUENCE OF CHORAL ORIGIN[242] Tragedy and satyric drama were derived from the dithyramb; comedy from the comus (see pp. 6, 23 f., 36, and 43 f., above). Now both the dithyramb and the comus were entirely choral. Consequently early tragedy and comedy were also choral. No other fact in the history of Greek drama is better authenticated, both by literary tradition and the extant plays, than this.[243] The dithyrambic chorus consisted of fifty dancers, and this seems to have been the size of the chorus also in early tragedy. So the chorus in Aeschylus’ _Suppliants_ (between 500 and 490 B.C.) was made up of the fifty daughters of Danaus. Whether this was still the regular practice or a reversion, on this occasion, to the earlier number cannot now be determined. At least by 487 B.C. the tragic chorus had been reduced to twelve. It is supposed that this came about as follows: During the fifth century each tragic poet was required to present four plays at a time in the annual competition at the City Dionysia, three tragedies and one satyric drama. This grouping of plays cannot be proven for any poet before Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.) and probably was introduced at a rearrangement of the festival program which took place about 501 B.C. The members of the chorus (the choreutae) must have found it irksome to memorize the words, music, dance steps, and stage business for so many plays. To relieve this burden Aeschylus or a contemporary divided the choreutae at his disposal into four groups of twelve each, assigning one group as a chorus for each of his four plays. Whether the dramatist continued to be provided with forty-eight or fifty choreutae or whether, as the rôle of the chorus lost its bulk and importance, a single group of twelve choreutae appeared in all four pieces is unknown. In the former case, the three groups of choreutae that would normally be idle during any one play could be conveniently employed as a supplementary chorus, mute attendants, etc. But however this may be, twelve was the size of the chorus in the three extant tragedies of Aeschylus which followed the _Suppliants_; and it continued to be such until the middle of the