Whether the fifth-century theater was provided with a drop curtain has often been discussed. I am inclined to think there is no conclusive evidence for the constant and regular use of one. The considerations upon which the argument mainly rests are a priori. That is to say, in several Greek plays the actors must arrange themselves and be in position before the action begins. This is the situation in Euripides’ _Orestes_ and Aristophanes’ _Clouds_ (see p. 238, above). Did Orestes take to his sick bed in full view of the assembled audience? But he is said (cf. vs. 39) already to have been there for five days! And though the action of the _Clouds_ begins just before dawn, Strepsiades and his son are supposed to have lain before the house all night. In such matters we must not permit our own prepossessions to mislead us. In mediaeval drama though a character was in view of the audience he could be thought of as, in effect, behind the scenes until his part began. Similarly in oriental theaters today performers are treated as if they could put on the mask of invisibility. The only standing concession which I can make to modern feeling consists in granting that the proscenium columns partially screened the actors from the audience while they were taking their places. In my opinion the nearest approach to the use of a curtain occurs in Sophocles’ _Ajax_ and is quite exceptional. That hero committed suicide on the stage, and his body was found in a woodland glen (νάπος, vs. 892) near the seashore. I suppose that one of the side doors in the front of the scene-building[318] was left open to represent the entrance to the glen, and that around and behind it were set panels painted to suggest the woodland coast and the glen (see pp. 235 f., above). Into this opening Ajax collapsed as he fell upon his sword. At vs. 915, Tecmessa “conceals him wholly with this enfolding robe.” Possibly this means that the cloth was fastened about the corpse and across the doorway, thus enabling a mute or a lay figure to be substituted for the corpse and releasing this actor to appear as Teucer in the remainder of the play (see p. 174, above). Whatever the means employed, it is certain that a substitution was effected.