corresponding to the scene-building is indicated on the vases. [Illustration: FIG. 72.—Horizontal Sections of Proscenium Columns at Megalopolis and Eretria (1), Epidaurus (2), Delos (3), and Oropus (4). See p. 236, n. 1] [Illustration: FIG. 73.—A Fourth-Century Vase in Munich Representing the Vengeance of Medea. See p. 236, n. 3] Now it will be noted that these theatrical arrangements made no provision for an interior scene. The dramatic action was necessarily laid in the open air, usually before a palace, private house, or temple. Though occasional plays, like Mr. Louis Parker’s _Pomander Walk_, show that the thing can still be managed, in general modern dramatists would be paralyzed by such a requirement. Nor is it correct to state that the classical poets “seldom had occasion to show an interior scene.” The truth is precisely the opposite: having no way in which to show an interior they were constrained to rest content with alfresco scenes. Yet the situation was not so desperate as it would seem. Corneille pointed out that Greek kings could meet and speak in public without a breach of etiquette.[315] At the French court, and consequently on the French stage, such conduct would have been intolerable. In the second place the mildness of a southern climate justified some practices which might appear strange to more northern peoples. Many things which we would consider must be kept strictly within doors would sometimes take place in the street. Semi-privacy was afforded by porches and porticoes, that is, theatrically speaking, by the colonnade of the proscenium. Our nearest parallel would be sun parlors or screened porches and even these fall short. Doubtless this difference in weather conditions has something to do with the fact that modern playwrights of the classic school, who, though freed from the material restrictions of the ancients, have yet slavishly imitated them in so much else, have not followed them in this partiality for outdoor scenes. Allowance must also be made for the fact that in comedy the characters uniformly belonged to the lower strata of society. Accordingly we need feel little surprise that in Aristophanes’ _Clouds_ (vss. 1 ff.) Strepsiades and his son are disclosed sleeping before their home in the open air, though we have no reason to believe that they are either actual or prospective victims of tuberculosis. In Euripides’ _Orestes_ (vss. 1 ff.) the matricide, wasted by illness, lies on his couch before the palace in Argos under his sister’s care. In Plautus’ _The Churl_ (vss. 448 ff.), Phronesium reclines on a bed before the house, pretending that she has given birth to a child. In Plautus’ _The Haunted House_ (vss. 248 ff.), Philematium asks her maid for a mirror, jewel box, etc., and a scene of prinking ensues in the open air. Scenes of outdoor feasting and carousing are too numerous to deserve individual mention. I cannot accept the contention that the action of