Moreover, Pollux (second century A.D.) states that in the Greek theater “the σκηνή belongs to the actors and the orchestra to the chorus.”[163] Everyone used to think (and some still do) that σκηνή here signified “stage” and that Vitruvius’ reference to _scaenici_ and _thymelici_ was to be interpreted in a similar fashion. Accordingly, it was supposed that Greek actors performed (and had always performed) upon a ten- or twelve-foot Vitruvian stage and the dramatic chorus in the orchestra below. Confirmation was found for this theory in Pollux’ further mention of ladders rising from the orchestra to the σκηνή.[164] The use of both orchestra and stage is mentioned a few times also in scholia (ancient commentaries) upon the Greek plays. The possibility of other interpretations of these passages will be considered later (see pp. 97 ff., below). For the present this should be said: We are interested in the Greek theater mainly because of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, all of whom lived in the fifth century B.C., and Pollux and Vitruvius, who flourished many centuries later, nowhere assert that they are attempting to describe the theater of this earlier period. Nevertheless, this initial assumption used tacitly to be taken for granted, and these Procrustean conditions were arbitrarily imposed upon the extant Greek dramas by all editors and commentators alike. As a matter of fact, such a difference of level between orchestra and stage, chorus and actors, with no convenient connection between the two, presented an insuperable obstacle to the (imaginary) “staging” of the fifth-century plays. Various expedients were proposed to evade the difficulty. One of the most popular was that of G. Hermann, who in 1833 suggested that the Greek orchestra was covered with a wooden platform to within a few feet of the stage level and that thus a more intimate connection between the two was established, and Wieseler (1847) proposed to identify this platform with the thymele. Nonsensical as this suggestion appears to everyone without exception now, it enjoyed a tremendous vogue for some time. In the eighties the news began to seep through to Western Europe and this country that Dörpfeld had evolved a new theory, to the effect that actors and chorus had performed in the orchestra on the same level until Roman times.[165] Again, Mr. A. E. Haigh (1889) maintained that a low stage was employed uninterruptedly until the fourth century B.C., when a high Vitruvian stage was introduced. Dr. Bethe (1896) contends that at first actors and chorus performed in the orchestra but that about 427 B.C. a low stage was introduced, which in the fourth century was raised to the Vitruvian level. On the other hand, Dr. Puchstein (1901), who stated in his Preface that he ignored the literary evidence, argued for a Vitruvian stage already in the fifth century. And now Professor Fiechter (1914) has given his adherence to Bethe’s hypothesis that a low stage at the end