The theatrical comus, then, must have been something as follows: first a choral parodus, next a semi-histrionic agon, then a parabasis, and finally a recessional which ultimately developed into an exodus. A late notice,[100] if correctly emended, informs us that at one time comedies contained no more than three hundred verses. I am of the opinion that this is the type of performance alluded to and that comedy did not, in essence, greatly depart therefrom until actors, as distinct from the chorus, were added. How did this addition come to be made? It is impossible that the comic playwrights, with the actors of tragedy ever before them, should never have thought of taking this step. Nevertheless, the main impulse seems to have come from another direction. We have seen (p. 36, above) that in the non-theatrical comus the phallus was borne on a pole in the ritual procession with which the comus was originally associated; it was not worn. Neither is it worn by the comus choreutae as represented on Attic vase paintings (Figs. 12-16). But in Old Comedy it is clear that at least some of the characters wore the phallic emblem. That this was in fact the general practice appears from the language in which Aristophanes boasts of the modesty of his _Clouds_: And observe how pure her morals: who, to notice first her dress, Enters not with filthy symbols on her modest garments hung, Jeering bald-heads, dancing ballets, for the laughter of the young.[101] And Dr. Körte (_op. cit._, pp. 66 ff.) has collected ten passages in other plays of our poet which indicate that Aristophanes was not always so puritanical as he claims to be here. These conclusions are confirmed also by numerous representations, of Attic workmanship, which are plausibly thought to depict actors in Old and Middle Comedy (Figs. 17-19).[102] By the time of New Comedy, on the contrary, the phallus was apparently no longer worn, and the characters were garbed in the dress of everyday life. Now the Dorian mime or farce was widely cultivated in the Peloponnesus and Magna Graecia. The performers were individualized actors, not welded into a chorus. They wore the phallus, had their bodies stuffed out grotesquely both in front and behind by means of copious padding, and in general bear a very close resemblance to the comic actors at Athens (Figs. 20 and 21).[103] Their performances were loosely connected, burlesque scenes, abounding in stock characters and enlivened by obscenity and ribald jests. Most authorities agree that the burlesque episodes (5) of Old Comedy are derived from this source. According to Aristotle,[104] the Megarians claimed that comedy originated with them about 600 B.C. when a democracy with its resultant freedom of speech was established among them. It was even asserted that Susarion, the reputed founder of Attic comedy (see p. 38, above), came from Megara, but this claim is apparently unwarranted.[105] The fact remains, however, that