the future of Peleus, Andromache, and Molossus, and of the latter’s posterity. When these two pieces of technique were combined in the same play, the prologue, the body of the tragedy, and the epilogue sometimes corresponded roughly to the successive dramas of a whole trilogy. This appears most clearly in the case of Euripides’ _Electra_ and Aeschylus’ Orestean trilogy. The opening monologue of the former (vss. 1-53) passes in rapid review the Greek expedition against Troy, the murder of Agamemnon, and the present fate of his children. With the exception of the last item, which is brought out in the second play of the _Oresteia_, these are the matters contained in the prologue, which naturally is comparatively short, and in the action of Aeschylus’ _Agamemnon_. The body of the _Electra_ corresponds to the second tragedy in the trilogy, the _Libation-Bearers_. At the _Electra’s_ conclusion (vs. 1238) Castor as _deus ex machina_ forecasts among other things the acquittal of Orestes at Athens, which is the theme of Aeschylus’ _Eumenides_. Whatever other explanations, therefore, may be advanced for Euripides’ prologues and epilogues (see pp. 294 f. and 299 f., below) this consideration must also be allowed a certain weight, viz., that they permitted him to bring events of the most diverse nature within the scope of his piece without violating the unities of time and place. A fourth device looking to the same ends consisted in setting conversations at times and places which would naturally be different. Even such a master of dramatic technique as Sophocles represented Orestes as communicating to his fellow-conspirators the result of his inquiry at Delphi only after they had reached Argos (_Electra_, vss. 32 ff.), and as waiting to formulate a definite plan of action until they were in the most unfavorable place in all the world for such a purpose—before Clytemnestra’s palace (vss. 15 ff.). The latter incongruity does not occur in Euripides’ version of the same story because the scene of his _Electra_ is laid, not in the city of Argos, but before Electra’s hut in the country. The device under consideration was conveniently supplemented by the convention that if two or more characters enter the stage together no conversation is thought of as passing between them until they have come within the hearing of the audience (see p. 310, below). It will be seen that the passage just cited from Sophocles’ _Electra_ conforms to this rule. Another instance occurs in Euripides’ _Madness of Heracles_, vss. 822 ff. Iris appears above Heracles’ palace with Madness, whom she orders to incite the hero to the murder of his children. Madness protests but is overborne and forced to perform her bidding. Though Iris and Madness must have come a considerable distance together, all discourse between them is apparently postponed until they reach their destination. Furthermore, these instructions would naturally have been given to Madness elsewhere and somewhat earlier.