between the dithyrambic and dramatic contests, the state employing him in the former and the choregus in the latter. The question of an additional actor has already been discussed (see pp. 172-82, above). A speaker in one of Lysias’ orations[345] claims to have spent, within a period of seven years, thirty minae for a tragic choregia, sixteen minae for one in comedy, fifty minae for a dithyrambic chorus of men, fifteen minae for a chorus of boys, three hundred and sixty minae for six trierarchies, twelve minae as gymnasiarch, etc. Since this man’s ambition led him to do more than his share, these outlays are probably somewhat larger than they need to have been; in fact, he declares that the law would not have required of him one-fourth as much. But in addition to indicating how much some were willing to spend, the figures are valuable also as showing the comparative expense of the different events. Needless to state, a poet’s chance of victory was considerably affected by the wealth and disposition of his choregus. An ambitious and lavish man like Nicias, who is declared by Plutarch[346] never to have been worsted in any of his numerous choregias, could manifestly do much to retrieve a poor play. But woe betide the playwright whose success was largely in the keeping of a sponsor who would spend no more than law and public opinion could wring from him. In 405 and 404 B.C., while Athens was experiencing a financial stringency just before the close of the Peloponnesian War, the number of choregi at the City Dionysia was temporarily doubled, so that two synchoregi might divide between them the burden which normally fell to one man. Finally about 308 B.C. the dearth of rich men caused the abandonment of the choregic system and the annual appointment of an _agonothete_ (ἀγωνοθέτης) or “master of contests,” whose own resources were supplemented by a state subsidy and who assumed entire control and financial responsibility for all the dithyrambic and dramatic contests at the festival.