such scenes takes place in an “imaginary interior.” They are frankly out of doors; in this connection such expressions as “outside the house,” “before the doors,” etc., are frequent. These scenes were enacted in the colonnade of the proscenium and are correctly copied from ancient life. Of course I concede that in real life they would take place indoors as often as out, or even more often; but they were common enough as open-air scenes to justify the playwrights in constantly transcribing them in this fashion. But the significance of the considerations mentioned in the last paragraph must not be overestimated. The difficulty arising from physical conditions in the theater was cumulative. In other words the placing of any particular scene in the open air was generally justifiable by ancient habits of living and not difficult to motivate; but to place _every_ scene in _every_ play out of doors and under these conditions to invent a plausible motive for every entrance taxed the dramatists’ powers to the utmost and sometimes exceeded them.[316] No wonder, then, that occasionally they abandoned all attempts to explain their characters’ movements and coolly allowed them to leave their dwellings and to speak, without apology or excuse, of the most confidential matters in a public place. Many instances of this license, however, seem to have been conditioned by definite rules. For example, if a character leaves his house while engaged in conversation with another, no reason is given for their entrance, i.e., for their not having concluded the conversation where it was begun. Examples of this technique do not occur until about 400 B.C. (see p. 310, below, and the instances there cited). Secondly, no entrance motive is provided when a character is to take part in a dialogue with another who is already on the scene and whose own entrance has been motived. Thus in Euripides’ _Alcestis_, Heracles enters at vs. 476 in order to seek hospitality at Admetus’ palace; at vs. 506 the chorus announces the king’s emergence, which is entirely unmotived. Six other examples of this technique occur in Greek tragedy.