In the first place when two characters meet on the stage and talk it is necessary for them either to appear simultaneously at the two entrances (and it is self-evident that this method cannot be employed very often without seeming ridiculous) or for one of them to enter first and fill up a slight interval before the other’s arrival by soliloquizing. Such an entrance monologue occurs at the beginning of Aristophanes’ _Lysistrata_, where the bearer of the title-rôle complains: Now were they summoned to some shrine of Bacchus, Pan, Colias, or Genetyllis, there had been No room to stir, so thick the crowd of timbrels. And now!—there’s not one woman to be seen. Stay, here comes one, my neighbor Calonice. Good morning, friend. [Rogers’ translation] Perhaps I may be pardoned for digressing here a moment in order to discuss what happens when two characters make a simultaneous introit through the same entrance. In most cases it is natural to suppose that they have been together for some little while and that some talk has already been carried on between them. On the contrary in the fifth-century plays the conversation regularly does not begin until after they have entered the stage. Two instances of this have already been noted on pages 259 f., above, Orestes coming all the way from Phocis to Argos before he acquaints his associates with the Delphian oracle or formulates a plan of action with them, and Iris accompanying Madness from Olympus but reserving her instructions until Thebes has been reached. Of course it is easy to see why this convention was employed, but a little thinking enabled the playwrights to secure the same results without violating verisimilitude quite so patently. Only twice in fifth-century drama do characters enter with words which indicate that they have already been engaged in conversation. In Aristophanes’ _Frogs_ (405 B.C.) (vs. 830), Euripides says to Dionysus, as they emerge with Pluto from the latter’s palace: “I would not yield the throne of tragedy to Aeschylus; do not urge me to.” Again in Euripides’ posthumous _Iphigenia at Aulis_ (vss. 303 ff.), Agamemnon’s slave enters in expostulation: “Menelaus, outrageous is your boldness.... You ought not to have unsealed the tablet which I bore.” The former of these quotations clearly implies words off scene, and the latter implies action and presumably words as well. But in New Comedy and the Latin comedies this technique has, not unnaturally, pre-empted the field. Two instances must suffice. In Terence’s version of Menander’s _Andrian Girl_ (vss. 820 f.), Chremes enters complaining: “My friendship for you, Simo, has already been put sufficiently to the test; I have run enough risk. Now make an end of coaxing me.” Again, in Terence’s _Brothers_ (vs. 517), Ctesipho and Syrus enter together, the former saying: “You say my father has gone to the country?” It is