Nevertheless, when all is said, the erection of a scene-building still left the ancient dramatists far behind the moderns in the easy and plausible motivation of their characters’ movements, and no further advance (from this point of view) was subsequently made in the theatrical arrangements. All the dramatic personages still had to come to the same (usually a public) place; they could not dodge in at one door and out at another at their creator’s caprice, but whether entering or leaving had to walk a considerable distance in plain view of the spectators. Consequently the silent actor is found after 465 B.C. as well as before. Thus in Euripides’ _Suppliants_ one or more characters are being neglected at almost every point. But in my opinion this phenomenon is no longer due primarily to the inadequacy of the theatrical arrangements but to other considerations. For example, the limited number of actors often resulted in prolonged or awkward silence on the part of a character who was being impersonated by a mute (see pp. 174-82, above). Again, in the _Alcestis_, after Heracles has brought the queen back from her grave, she utters never a word. Euripides himself explains this on the ground that she may not speak until her consecration to the gods of the lower world be undone and the third day come (vss. 1144 ff.). This is a clever pretext but not the real reason. Nor do I think, as some do, that in this instance the limitation of actors is responsible, since only two actors speak in this scene and the play belongs to the three-actor period. Alcestis’ silence springs rather from the impossibility of placing in her mouth a message worthy of her experiences, one which “telling what it is to die had surely added praise to praise.” Still again the silence frequently arises from inability to master the technique of the trialogue (see pp. 169 f.) or from the nature of the plot. In any trial scene it is almost inevitable that both the judge and the accused should remain inactive for considerable intervals. Thus in Aeschylus’ _Eumenides_ the silence of Athena (vss. 585-673 and 711-33) and of Orestes (vss. 244-63, 307-435, 490-585, and 614-743) is scarcely more noteworthy than that of the Duke and Antonio in Act IV of _The Merchant of Venice_. When his case was about to be decided, Orestes terminated a silence of one hundred and thirty lines by the thrilling ejaculation, “O Phoebus Apollo, what shall the judgment be!” (vs. 744)—another example of the dexterity with which the Greek poets could transmute base metal into pure gold.