In a technical sense “prologue” came to denote the histrionic passage before the entrance song of the chorus (the parodus) (see p. 192, above). Such prologues are not found in Aeschylus’ _Suppliants_ and _Persians_, which begin with the choral parodus. The earliest prologue of which we have knowledge occurred in Phrynichus’ lost play, the _Phoenician Women_ (476 B.C.), in which a eunuch opens the action by spreading places in the orchestra for the counselors of the Persian empire and at the same time announcing the defeat of Xerxes in Greece. On the other hand, according to a late authority, prologues were the invention of Thespis.[364] In my opinion this contradiction is to be explained as a confusion between the technical and non-technical uses of the term. There is every reason for believing that prologues in the technical sense just mentioned did not go back to the time of Thespis. But the fully developed prologue was naturally employed as a vehicle for the exposition, and the task of acquainting his audience with data preliminary to the action and necessary for comprehending the plot of course confronted Thespis no less than later playwrights. Now it is evident that he could accomplish this in any one of three ways: (1) He could utilize the choral parodus for this purpose, as Aeschylus partially did in his _Agamemnon_. Though this play has a prologue, the parodus is employed to rehearse the story of Iphigenia’s sacrifice and other pertinent events. Somewhat similar is the parodus of Aeschylus’ _Persians_, which in the absence of a regular prologue opens the play. Accordingly, the ancient argument to this play remarks: “A chorus of elders ‘speaks the prologue’” (προλογίζει), using the word in a popular sense. (2) The drama might begin with a dialogue or duet between the chorus and an actor, somewhat in the manner of the pseudo-Euripidean _Rhesus_. It is perhaps unlikely that this technique was employed as early as Thespis. (3) The exposition might be intrusted to the character who speaks first after the choral parodus. Since the drama was then in the one-actor stage, such a “prologue” would necessarily be monologic. Some justification for this nomenclature may be found in the ancient argument to Sophocles’ _Oedipus at Colonus_, where it is stated that Oedipus προλογίζει. Since Antigone and a stranger take part in this prologue as well as Oedipus, the verb must here mean that Oedipus “makes the first speech.” Now whatever may be true about Thespis having employed (1) or (2), he certainly must have employed the third type of exposition, and a “prologue” of this non-technical sort he can truthfully be said to have invented.