It will now be seen why I have no chapter on the “Influence of the Poet.” He can hardly be considered a part of his own environment. But there were also other reasons for the omission. Partly it was because every chapter shows the mastermind of the dramatist adapting himself to the situation therein outlined, and partly because an adequate treatment of this topic would involve a presentation of the poets’ ideas and teaching—a subject which is amply discussed in other treatises and which would swell this volume beyond the limits at my disposal. I am aware that to some the result will seem to give the uninitiated a lopsided view of the Greek drama. For example, a reviewer of Signor Francesco Guglielmino’s _Arte e Artifizio nel Dramma Greco_ (Catania, 1912) maintains that “for the reader who is not technically a scholar” such a study of dramatic technique presents “a subtly distorted picture.”[9] To this criticism my reply would be that the standard handbooks are guilty of much the same error in largely ignoring the phase of the subject which is here presented. But however that may be, for the language and style or for the political, moral, ethical, and religious ideas of ancient playwrights, I must recommend such invaluable works as Haigh’s _Tragic Drama of the Greeks_ (1896), Decharme’s _Euripides and the Spirit of His Dramas_, Croiset’s _Aristophanes and the Political Parties at Athens_, Legrand’s _The New Greek Comedy_ (the last three translated by Loeb, 1906, 1909, and 1917), Sheppard’s _Greek Tragedy_ (1911), Murray’s _Euripides and His Age_ (1913), etc. I must add, however, that to a certain extent these books treat also of the matters discussed in this volume and have freely been consulted. In this connection I wish to comment upon another objection. Several of my articles which are incorporated in the present volume antedate Guglielmino’s work, and my whole book was blocked out and large parts of it were written before his _Arte e Artifizio_ came to my attention. Nevertheless my plan of treatment bears some points of resemblance to his. In particular, he employs the chauvinistic passages in Greek tragedy to show the poets striving for “immediate effects,” i.e., deliberately exciting the patriotic sentiments of their audiences. It will be observed that I go a step farther and maintain that the winning of the prize was the ultimate object, to which the other motive was contributory (see pp. 213 ff., below). I believe that the tag at the end of Euripides’ _Iphigenia among the Taurians_, _Orestes_, and _Phoenician Maids_ and the parallels from Greek comedy confirm my interpretation. But the reviewer just cited declares it