the temple at Delphi, where they have been besetting the guilty Orestes; presently Apollo drives them from his sanctuary into the orchestra (vss. 179 ff.). Often the chorus enters in response to the cries of the tragic heroine,[259] or as the bearer of news,[260] or as the result of hearing a rumor;[261] still more often in reply to a summons.[262] “After going through some years of Dionysia it must have been hard not to smile, when the ‘shrieks’ were raised or the ‘proclamation’ issued.”[263] In Aeschylus’ _Eumenides_, vs. 244, Sophocles’ _Oedipus at Colonus_, vss. 117 ff., and Aristophanes’ _Acharnians_, vss. 280 ff., the chorus comes upon the stage on the track of a transgressor. Occasionally the pretext is extremely trivial, far-fetched, or improbable. In Euripides’ _Ion_, vss. 234 f., Creusa’s handmaidens have obtained their mistress’ permission to view the sights at Delphi. The chorus in Euripides’ _Phoenician Maids_, vss. 202 ff., are on their way from Tyre to Delphi to be consecrated to Apollo’s service as a thank-offering and chance to be caught in Thebes at the time of the country’s invasion. In Euripides’ _Iphigenia at Aulis_, vss. 164 ff. and 187 f., Chalcidian women are constrained by curiosity to cross the strait and blushingly visit the Greek camp. In Euripides’ _Electra_, vss. 168 ff., the choreutae come to invite Electra to participate with them in an Argive festival in honor of Hera, and when the princess replies that she has “nothing to wear,” generously offer to lend her raiment from their store! Nothing more is heard of this motive during the remainder of the play. Finally, the same heroine in Sophocles’ _Electra_ intimates that the women of the chorus have come to soothe her woes (vss. 129 f.). Now when Aegisthus was home Electra was never permitted to leave the palace (cf. vss. 516 ff.). It is only the accident of his absence which allowed her to pass the doors on this occasion. But the choreutae were unaware of his absence (vss. 310 ff.). What reason, then, could they have had to expect that they would be able to meet Electra outside the house and comfort her? Sophocles supplies no answer to this question. Kaibel[264] seems entirely justified in writing: “Ihr Kommen ist durch nichts motivirt als dadurch, dass ein Chor nothwendig ist.”