is as effective as if uttered by the god in person, and urges Orestes on to the deadly deed. These are the only words that Pylades utters in the whole tragedy. In another play belonging to the same trilogy, the _Eumenides_, Aeschylus rose to the full possibilities of his histrionic resources—Orestes, the coryphaeus, Apollo, and Athena all participating in the conversation between vss. 746 and 753. Similarly, in Sophocles’ _Oedipus at Colonus_, Antigone, Oedipus, Ismene, and the coryphaeus all speak between vss. 494 and 506, and in Euripides’ _Suppliants_ the herald, the coryphaeus, Adrastus, and Theseus divide four lines among them (vss. 510-13). But after all, such instances are comparatively rare and seldom extend over a very long passage. In contradistinction to tragic practice Aristophanes in the last quarter of the fifth century employed not merely three but occasionally even four comic actors in ensemble scenes. For example, in the _Lysistrata_, vss. 78-246, Calonice, Myrrhina, Lysistrata, and Lampito engage in a running fire of conversation quite in the modern manner. Again, in the _Frogs_, vss. 1411 ff., Dionysus, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Pluto all have speaking parts, although the last two do not address one another. In the same play (vs. 555) Dionysus utters three words while three other participants in the dialogue are present. Under similar circumstances Pseudartabus interposes two verses (100 and 104) in the _Acharnians_, and Triballus parts of five verses (1615, 1628 f., and 1678 f.) in the _Birds_. In these passages the comic coryphaei have no speaking parts. Trialogues are not so rare in Old Comedy as to justify an enumeration of the instances, and they are sometimes embellished by the participation of the coryphaei. Nevertheless, the old tandem arrangement is still the more common one when three characters are present.